How to Save a Life(44)

Patty left me alone and I recounted my tips. I did a few mental calculations and stuffed twenty bucks into my wallet and put the remaining seven in the pocket of my jeans. Seven dollars, plus another fifteen I’d stashed earlier wasn’t worth a drive out to Del’s. But if Patty—along with a bunch of Lee’s * friends—was coming over for dinner tonight, I’d need the mental reinforcements of Del’s friendship to get me through it.

I headed out through the kitchen, offering a goodbye to the guys.

“Goodnight, boys.”

“Night, beautiful,” called Hector at the grill.

“Take care, JoJo,” said Jeremiah from the dishwasher.

I took their cheerful smiles and tucked them in my pocket next to the seven dollars.

Outside, the thick humidity of a Louisiana July smothered my face like a hot towel. I trudged to my car, noting Patty’s Avalon parked in the next slot. An Avalon was an old lady car if ever there was one, but I’d gladly take it over my shitty Ford Malibu. I’d bought it three years ago. Ugly purple, with no air conditioning and pushing 150K in mileage. It was the only ride I could afford.

You’d think after being through so much together, I’d have a certain fondness for the old junker. But it had served as my home on more than one occasion. Sitting in its shabby interior rehashed too many fear-stricken nights: trying to get comfortable to sleep in the cramped backseat, or watching shadows move around outside, peering in, knocking on the glass and trying the locked doors.

I swore I shivered every time I sat behind the wheel.

I headed out on 20 West towards Choudrant, coasting on an almost empty stretch of highway for twenty minutes. Nothing on either side but tall trees, vibrant in the summer heat. Green heat, I called it. Summers here turned Louisiana into a rainforest. I’d started a poem about it when I first got here, a year ago. But then the sweet guy I’d been dating and with whom I’d just agreed to move in with, turned out to be a sociopathic, gasoline-breathing monster. Suddenly a poem about plant life seemed pretty f*cking stupid.

I’d written poems throughout my short tenure as a homeless person, but the first time Lee Stevenson hit me I stopped. Like a valve shut off or dammed up with grime. I hadn’t written one since.

I turned into a shabby strip mall with a gas station and minimart. Rising high over the little pit stop, a tired red neon flashed The Rio over and over, its light dim in the late sunshine of the day.

Balding tires spitting gravel, I pulled my shitty little car into the almost empty lot behind the Rio. The bar wasn’t too much cooler than outside, but the neon lights were brilliant and bright: rainbows and more rainbows, and the salacious little ditty of a cartoon figure kneeling in front of a standing cartoon figure; the kneeling figure’s head blinking off and on suggestively. I loved it. The color and the light, and the safe feeling I got when I was here.

A few regulars hunched over their drinks at the bar. They’d watched my arrival with a combination of suspicion and fear. It seemed pretty late in the history of mankind for these guys to still have to worry about anyone discovering them here. I always wondered why Dellison Jones (aka Del del’Rio) would choose to open shop along an empty stretch of lonely highway instead of in a bustling metropolis.

“It’s an oasis, honey,” Del said. “Not every gay man got the time or money to be hauling ass to New Orleans any time he wants some company.”

I thought that was pretty damn brave. The Rio was my oasis, now. A safe place.

I found Del behind the bar in full regalia. Platinum bouffant wig and huge gold hoops dangling from her ears. Her sparkling jumpsuit was pure 70’s disco, her makeup over-the-top and flawless. She could’ve given RuPaul a run for her money had she set down roots anywhere but this dead-end stretch of nothing.

Del was polishing glasses and lip-syncing Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” in between chatting with customers. She let out an enthusiastic cry when she saw me pull a stool up to the bar.

“Well, look at you!” she crowed, her teeth brilliant white against dusky skin. “Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes? How you been, sugar?” She started to lean over the bar, arms outstretched for a hug, but stopped short when she saw the bloody rent on my lip. “Oh, I know exactly how you been.” Her smile vanished and her eyes flared anger. “Asshole been tweaking again?”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “He got a hold of some shit from a new dealer and trying to make his own on the side. It’s been nothing but laughs this past week.”

It felt weird—in a good way—to be honest with Del. To talk so openly about Lee and in a normal tone of voice. Being with Del was like taking off a heavy, suffocating suit of armor. Her other customers had nothing to fear from me. I came in peace, looking for the same thing they did: sanctuary.

Del examined her manicure. “I don’t suppose you here on your way out of town for good, then?”

I tilted my head, giving her a dry look. “Do I look stupid to you? Desperate, weak, and sad, sure, but—”

“Oh, hush your face. You ain’t none of those.”

“That’s debatable. Anyway, I’m just here to make a deposit into my Bank of Del savings account.”

“Naturally,” Del said with a wry smile at the twenty-two dollars I slid across the bar. She made a clucking sound with her tongue behind her teeth and shook her head.