Desperation Road(20)

He bought her another beer and she said don’t you want to ask me the same questions but he didn’t. He hadn’t even bothered to look at her ring finger though she made it a point to drink with that hand and to play with her necklace with that hand.

The band kept on and Russell asked if they played here often.

“Don’t know. I don’t come here much,” she said.

You look like you own that bar stool, he thought to say. But he was hiding things so he let her lie. Russell then turned and watched the four rugged rockers, unable to decide if their better days were behind or ahead.

“They’re not bad,” Caroline said. “For this place.”

“Nope,” he answered, turning back. He waved for two more. He promised himself that he’d drink more slowly though he realized that it was a flimsy promise.

“Let’s make a deal,” she said. “I go to the bathroom and you keep my seat. You go and I keep yours. That’s also the other’s chance to make a run for it. No questions asked.”

“That’s a damn good deal,” he said.

“Fine. Me first.”

She left her cigarettes on the bar and took her tiny purse in her hand and went to the ladies’ room. Russell kept one hand on his drink and the other palm down on top of her bar stool. He wondered what kind of woman would make a deal like that. How often she played and how often she came back to find the man gone. She didn’t look like the kind of woman any man would run from. Not in the Armadillo. As he waited he watched the band and watched the bartenders and begged himself not to say or do anything stupid.





13


YOU SURE HEATHER IS IN THERE?” WALT ASKED. THEY SAT IN THE parked truck in the shadows of the parking lot on the other side of the railroad tracks. A clear view of the lighted door of the Armadillo. They had been sitting for an hour, first with the windows down but then the mosquitoes floated in and out and Larry had cranked the truck and rolled up the windows and turned on the air conditioner. The clock on the dash read half past midnight.

“That’s what Jimmy said when he called.”

“Want me to go in and look?”

“Nah. I don’t want them to know we’re here. Want her and him to have a good damn time. Think the world is roses.”

“Did he say if it’s the same guy?”

“Same one. Little blond shit she’s been running down to New Orleans with.”

Only a few people had left while they had been parked. They had both been in the Armadillo enough to know that it didn’t begin to break up until after one when the band stopped playing. Walt held a beer between his legs and he slapped his hand on his knee to the rhythm of the muffled drumbeat coming from the bar. Two more minutes passed. Larry sat motionless with his eyes fixed on the bar door with the stare of a dead man.


The band slowed it down with a George Jones and the bodies piled onto the dance floor anxious to be against one another. As the song drained on hands fell lower and mouths opened and those left behind sat alone at their tables with dejected, anguished looks on their faces as they stared at the swaying crowd that seemed to grow together and form some drunken and sweaty mass. Midway through the song Caroline moved her hand onto Russell’s leg and she rubbed her fingers back and forth across the soft, worn denim. Rubbing in a way that let him know she was his. And it had been a long time but his instinct was not dead and he waved to the barebellied bartender for the tab and he was paid up before Caroline had the notion to move her hand away. He got off the bar stool and took her hand and she stood and moved her shoulders to the music. You want to drive or you want me to he asked and she pointed to him. Then they stepped around the deserted tables and out into the warm night.


“I’ll be damned,” Walt said and he leaned toward the windshield. Russell and Caroline stood on the sidewalk holding hands.

“Sit tight,” Larry said.

“Are you serious?”

“Sit tight.”

“Son of a bitch. Our boy moves fast.”

“Right now he does.”

“First goddamn night home.”

“He must be used to getting his ass kicked. Don’t look like it bothered him much.”

“Don’t look like it,” Walt said and he slumped back against his seat. “Gonna have to hit him harder.”

“We will. But not right now,” Larry said. “I got my mind on the other one about to come out.” He rolled down the windows again. The music stopped inside the bar. Russell and Caroline both looked up and down the street and then Russell pointed. Minutes passed and the music never started back and Walt said that must be it and Larry said it’s about damn time.





14


THE BLOND MAN HADN’T LIKED BEING THERE AND WAS ANXIOUS TO leave and as soon as the music stopped and the guitars were unplugged he said goodbye to Heather without ceremony and made his way for the door. He couldn’t understand what was wrong with the Gulf Coast or with New Orleans or with Hattiesburg or with any of the million other places that a man and a married woman could meet and do what they wanted to do. But Heather had said don’t be a coward. Let’s keep it local tonight and let me show the girls what I got. This town was too small and he didn’t like it and he had wondered all night why the hell he had agreed to it.