Girl in Snow(31)

Russ





Though it has been six years now, the particulars of Broomsville still remind Russ of Lee Whitley. The cigar shop on Main Street where they bought Fat Boys to smoke on the porch. The park, where they took Cameron on weekends, Cynthia pushing the stroller while Russ and Lee lugged a cooler of beer and hamburger meat. They spent time with Cynthia, of course, but more often it was just the two of them—even when their shifts didn’t overlap, Russ and Lee often joined one another on duty. A tagalong, unpaid backup reinforcement. Both thankful for the easy company.

Nowhere holds more memories than the cliff, but Dixie’s Tavern takes a close second place. The sticky tables. The broken jukebox in the corner, hills of ash in browning glass trays. The stink of the place, like old fermentation—things left to decay.



Tonight, Russ slides onto a stool at the edge of the bar. He folds his coat and gloves in a ball in his lap.

What can I get you? Tommy asks.

Tommy has worked at Dixie’s Tavern for nineteen years—Russ used to come with his friends in high school. Tommy, just a few years out of high school himself then, would serve them mixed drinks he later told Russ were half water. Russ and his friends would stay out until two, three o’clock in the morning, exhilarated. They’d drive home late, mildly intoxicated, their heads hanging out the window like lazy dogs—whooping to the gas stations and the oil rigs, whooping to the wide pastures and the mountains, remote and distant in the night.

I’ll take a double whiskey, Russ says.

Ivan lingers by the pool table, alone. On the corner is a bottle of decaffeinated green tea, its label advertising peace and serenity. Tommy charges Ivan two dollars a game, and Ivan brings his own chalked pool cue. He spends hours this way, maneuvering polished wood across the fake green lawn of a table.

You gonna play your brother-in-law? Tommy asks.

Not tonight, Russ says. He downs his drink and places the glass on the table for a refill.

You want another? Tommy asks. The neon sign behind Tommy’s head reads “BEER” in capital letters. Russ should have a beer instead, but the idea of all that liquid sloshing around in his stomach just makes him angry, so he orders another double.

The third drink tastes like less than the second, and the fourth just tastes like the inside of Russ’s mouth, chemical and numb.



The first September they were married, Russ came home to foreign smells in the kitchen. Ines danced in socks to Lupillo Rivera playing on the computer in the corner of the room. Something was frying on the stove, and something else was boiling. Ines had hung red, white, and green streamers in the hallway.

Mexican Independence Day, she said. We are celebrating this year. Guadalajara has the biggest celebration in the country, did you know?

Okay, Russ said. He retreated to the living room, where he watched a rerun of Law & Order until she finished cooking.

Ines had set the table with colorful paper napkins. A ceramic dish steamed in the middle. Birria de borrego, she told him. That’s spiced lamb, and queso fundido on the right. When Russ took a bite, it burned the top of his mouth. Everything was too spicy.

Good? she asked.

Yeah, he said.

Back home they’d have fireworks, she told him.

Cool, Russ said, and he eyed the NASCAR race on the TV in the living room, whose volume was turned all the way up.

Ines carefully watched his plate, which had gone mostly untouched. She rubbed a spot on her neck and looked up at the ceiling, the expression on her face like a cracked windshield. For the rest of the meal, she didn’t look him in the eye. She smacked Russ’s hand away when he tried to help with dishes. When Ines had finished cleaning, she came to Russ in the den.

Ines switched off the television and stood in front of it. Fire in her eyes. Russ had never seen Ines angry—he was almost afraid. She came at him quickly, and he did not put his arms up in defense because he wasn’t sure if she would kiss him or hit him.

The latter: she slapped him across the face. A sting. Russ’s cheek burned where her palm had struck.

After that night, Ines never cooked Mexican food for him again. Russ would come home late from work to the smells of rice and spiced meat, but Ines always hid the evidence, ingredients for a grilled-cheese sandwich laid out on the counter beside an empty plate. Punishment. Russ thinks about this night often—if he had handled it correctly, asked questions, shown even one morsel of honest interest, how different their marriage could have looked. Instead, Ines cradles these things to her chest—recipes, stories, songs, memories—unwilling to share with Russ. Stupid American man.

Ines’s anger is there, in the white bread on the counter. Russ wonders where this anger goes when he is not around. He wonders what else she conquers.



A few weeks before Ivan got out of prison, Ines looked up from the breakfast table. A rare Saturday morning off duty—eggs and bacon. Ines read a novel while Russ skimmed the newspaper.

He gets out soon, she said to Russ.

Who?

Ivan. He gets out in two weeks.

Oh, Russ said, though he had been dreading the date for months. Ines watched him, expectant.

I’ll make sure the right people know, Russ said.

Ines smiled and picked up the book again.

Ivan had overstayed his visa a year and a half by the time he’d gotten to prison. Now, it was three and a half. Russ wasn’t clear on the procedure for checking papers—for deportation after prison—but he knew Immigration and Customs Enforcement was strict about narcotics. Russ’s father had been close with an officer who made the move from patrol to agency with ICE, and Russ had spoken with this man briefly at department barbecues. Anyway, everyone loved Russ’s father. That Monday, Russ found the right office, knocked on the right door.