Valentine(78)

Hey Evelyn, one of the regulars says after those hungry, bewildered men have been seated at a booth as far away from the bar as possible, here’s a good one for you. Why wasn’t Baby Jesus born in West Texas? Because they couldn’t find three wise men or a virgin.

*

Tonight, the lights from several new drill sites keep the stars at bay, but Karla darlin’ stands in the desert and looks upward, watches the harvest moon rise behind the cooling towers at the petroleum plant. She keeps her face turned up to the stars—her mother says there used to be more of them—because there is not much else to look at, because looking at the sky might mean the difference between living and dying. There’s sleet and ice in the winter and tornados in the spring, fires at the plant. But the sky won’t show you a gas leak or a chemical spill in the water table, or how to steer clear of a young man just a couple of weeks out of jail and looking to make somebody pay.

After the men had finished with him, one last kick to the kidneys just because they could, they said Dale Strickland sat on the gravel for a while and then staggered to his truck and drove away. And Karla thought she had dodged a bullet. People think it’s all snakes and scorpions out there in the oil patch, but hell, those are the most harmless things in the county. At least the rattlesnakes let you know they’re coming, most of the time.

Why didn’t she smile at him? Maybe because Diane still doesn’t sleep through the night and Karla is bone-tired. Maybe because she is seventeen years old and already a mother, for now and forever. Or maybe she just didn’t fucking feel like smiling. And what was Karla doing out there in an empty field, all by herself in the middle of the night, when she knows that’s no place for a girl? She was looking at the stars and smoking a joint, killing a little time on her way home after nine hours of smiling so hard she thought her teeth might shatter.

*

What’s the difference between a bucket of shit and Odessa?

The bucket.

*

He was lit up like a Christmas tree, the sheriff says when he comes in during happy hour to ask us a few questions. Whoever ran over him took the time to hit him twice, once with the front bumper, once with the back. Took his wallet, too. Do y’all have any idea what might have happened?

Evelyn looks up from the booth where she’s making the schedule for next week. Maybe he got out of his truck to take a leak and was stumbling around out there in the dark, trying to find his way back—she shrugs—and the other driver didn’t see him until it was too late. Maybe he picked up a hitchhiker and there was an argument over pitching in for gas. Maybe he was pushed. Maybe he finally met someone who was meaner than him, or had more to lose. She shrugs again. Guess it’s just one of those things.

Well, he suffered, the sheriff tells us. He wandered around in the oil patch all night and most of the next day. When we found him, he was covered head to toe in red mud and chiggers. Scorpions got at his ankles, and he has a bump on his head as big as a baseball, and two broken arms. The doctor says it’s a miracle he’s alive.

That’s just terrible. Evelyn takes the sheriff’s arm and leads him to a booth. I wouldn’t wish that on almost anybody.

Y’all had some trouble with him over here recently? The sheriff looks over at us. We all shake our heads. We think about the red mud on Karla’s bumpers and the new dent in her driver’s side door, the bounce in her step. And we are grateful that she has the day off.

Just the usual shenanigans. Evelyn hands him a menu. Probably wasn’t the first time somebody ran him over, probably won’t be the last. Hard to think of that one as a child of God—she laughs—or any of us for that matter.

Well, he doesn’t remember anything, the sheriff says. That’s how hard they hit him.

Maybe that’s for the best, Evelyn says. A blessing in disguise.

When the sheriff leaves, she goes into her office and shuts the door. After closing time, she sits down with us and drinks enough Manhattans to decide she’ll sleep on the cot in her office. Gals, she tells us, I am getting too old for this shit. When we put on our jackets and get ready to leave, she stands in the doorway and watches us walk to our cars.

*

What’s the first thing a girl from Odessa does when she wakes up in the morning?

Finds her shoes and walks home.

*

Nights, we watch Karla sort her money into piles—one for school, one for baby Diane, one for her mother. When her diploma from the alternative high school comes in the mail, we celebrate by letting her have a glass of wine after closing. When she turns eighteen in November, Karla tells us, she and Diane are heading to San Antonio. Maybe she’ll take a class or two at one of the colleges there.

They have more than one? we ask. How come?

Except for the chandelier hanging above the booth and a thin light shining from under Evelyn’s office door, the place is dark. We have finished the side work and counted out our banks, and now we sit together in the big booth. What do you want to be when you grow up? we ask Karla. Nurse? Teacher? Librarian? Philosopher? Ha, ha! She says she wants to do something beautiful and true, something that will blow the lid off the world. Aha, we think, a dreamer.

I’ve got this, she tells us. I can do this.

And why not, we think. She’s a smart girl.

Here’s a little bit of money, we say on her last day of work. Three hundred dollars, and a grocery bag filled with clothes our babies outgrew years ago. Here’s a hug and a kiss, and a little pistol for your purse. Carry it with you always. You might never need it—you probably won’t—but if you do, shoot to kill.