Eventide (Plainsong #2)(77)

AT THE TABLE ONE OF THE OLD MEN BEGAN TO TELL A story about a lawyer living across the state line in Gilbert Nebraska who had recently disappeared. He owed the bank two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on bad loans, and two weeks ago he went home for lunch and took a single bite out of a meatloaf sandwich his wife had set on his plate, then stood up and walked out the door with his wife in tow and disappeared, leaving the house unlocked and the rest of the sandwich uneaten. The coffeepot was still plugged in and the chair was pushed back from the table, as if they’d decided to leave all at once and couldn’t wait a minute longer. The whole town was surprised. Except the bankers, perhaps. Nobody in Gilbert Nebraska had seen or heard from either one of them since.

I bet they disappeared in Denver, one of the old men said.

Maybe. But they looked for them in Denver. They looked all over. They looked in Omaha.

They probably escaped down south somewhere then. He’s probably one of these front-door people-greeters at Wal-Mart someplace. Was he a old man?

Pretty old.

A old lawyer would do that. That’d be just right for a old lawyer. They should look for him down south in Wal-Mart.



THE OLD MEN WENT ON TALKING AND A HALF HOUR LATER DJ stood up and walked back through the tables to the rest room at the rear of the tavern, past the pool tables and the crowded booths. He went into one of the stalls and read the graffiti and used the toilet. Afterward he was washing his hands at the sink when the man from the bar came in. He was glassy-eyed and weaving. What you doing in here, you little shit?

Washing my hands.

Can’t you read that sign on the door? This is for men, not little kids. Get the f*ck out of here.

DJ looked at him and went back out and sat down behind his grandfather. His face was hot and red. He looked for the blonde woman. She was out in the room waiting on a table, standing with her back to him, her blonde hair bright against her black blouse. He opened his papers and did a page of homework. His face was burning and he kept thinking what he should have said or done in the rest room.

When he looked up fifteen minutes later he saw the man was bothering the barmaid again. Without considering what he might do, he stood up from his chair and walked to where they stood at the bar. The man had her by the wrist and was talking in a low mean voice.

Don’t, DJ said. You’re going to hurt her.

What? the man said. Why you little son of a bitch. He slapped DJ across the eyes and nose, knocking him into a table behind him, scattering glasses and ashtrays across the floor.

Well, what in the hell, one of the men at the table said. Hoyt, what you think you’re doing?

The boy straightened himself and ran at him with his head down, but again the man slapped him away and he fell against an empty chair and crashed over with it.

Here, the bartender yelled. Raines, goddamn it, quit that.

The boy’s grandfather came hurrying over and grabbed Hoyt by the shirt. I know how to deal with pups like you, he said.

I’m going to knock the shit out of you, Hoyt Raines said. Let go of me.

They commenced to fight. Hoyt slapped at the old man’s white head and they whirled around and suddenly from behind them the blonde barmaid reached in and grabbed a fistful of Hoyt’s hair. Hoyt’s head jerked backward and his eyes rolled up in their sockets, and he swung about with the old man still hanging on to him and grabbed the woman by the throat and hurled her against the bar. Her blouse tore open, uncovering her breasts in the skimpy pink brassiere, and she let go and clutched at her blouse. Then the boy grabbed a bottle from the bar and smashed Hoyt Raines across the face with it. The bottle broke on his temple and tore his ear and he fell sideways, his knees buckling, and he righted himself and bent forward, bleeding from the side of the face onto the barroom floor. The boy waited to see what else he would do. He held the jagged bottle as if he’d stab him with it if he tried anything.

But the bartender had rushed out from behind the bar, and now he and two other men dragged Hoyt by the arms out the front door onto the sidewalk. When he turned and tried to push past them to come back inside, they shoved him violently away and he fell across the hood of one of the parked cars at the curb and lay sprawled. His face was cut and he was bleeding from the ear, the blood streamed down his neck. He rose gasping, weaving. He began to curse them.

Get the hell out of here, the bartender said. You’re not coming back in here. Go on. He shoved Hoyt.

Fuck you, Hoyt said. He stood glaring at them, wobbly on his feet. Fuck every last one of you.

The bartender shoved him again and he stumbled backward off the sidewalk and sat down in the gutter. He looked all around, then rose and staggered southward down the middle of Main Street in the midst of Saturday night traffic. The cars veered around him, honking and blaring, the people inside the cars, high-school kids, shouting at him, whistling, jeering, and he cursed them too, cursed them all, gesturing at each car obscenely as it went by. He staggered on. Then he turned off into a side street and stumbled into the back alley. Halfway into the alley he stopped and leaned against the brick wall at the rear of one of the stores. A patrol car drove by out in the street. He squatted down behind a trash barrel. Blood was dripping from his ear, and the side of his face felt raw and numb. He waited, panting, squatted in the dark. He managed to light a cigarette and he cupped it in his hand. Then he stood and pissed against the brick wall of the store and stepped away in the shadows, headed out toward the street. When he saw no patrol car he turned toward Detroit.