Winter Counts(59)
Not good, for sure. I knew what it was like when the bar closed. That’s when all the shit went down. And she sounded pretty loaded.
“Where’s Velma? You coming home?”
“She’s in the bathroom. Just want to tell you I miss you, that all right?”
“Hey, I miss—”
“And also, can you come pick us up? I’ve had a few drinks, not feeling so good; don’t want to drive when I’m—”
“Stay right there. I’m leaving now.”
I GOT TO THE DEPOT as quickly as I could. Marie and Velma were sitting outside, smoking cigarettes. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw Marie light up.
“Can I get one of those?” I said.
“Virgil!” Marie jumped up, stumbling a little, and gave me a hug, holding her smoke out in the air. Then she gave me a deep kiss. I tasted beer and tobacco, which made me want some of both.
“Thanks for coming. You’re a great guy—”
“Don’t I get a hug? What the fuck!” Velma put her hands up like a boxer.
“Hey Velma,” I said, and she came over and squeezed my shoulders.
“You guys,” Velma said, “look what I snagged when no one was watching.” She opened her purse with a little flourish and revealed a bottle of J?germeister.
Just looking at it gave me a headache. “I think you all had enough. Hop in before we get in trouble.”
They piled in the back seat, and I drove off before anyone noticed Velma’s larceny. They were laughing and talking, and I saw Velma furtively open the J?germeister, take a drink, and hand it to Marie.
“You know I can see you, right? Just keep it down if there’s a cop.”
“Cop!” Velma yelled. “Shit, I fucked half of them limp-dick assholes! Bring ’em on!”
This provoked a round of riotous laughter, and I resigned myself to a rowdy drive. I dropped Velma off at her little shack, along with the remains of the J?germeister. Marie gave her a kiss on the cheek and then joined me in the front. She fumbled with her seat belt, and I could see she was really smashed now.
“I wanna tell you something,” she said, her voice jagged and potholed.
“Yeah?”
“You changed, you know? In a good way, I mean. I was tellin’ Velma that tonight. I don’t know if it’s Nathan’s stuff or what, but you’re different. Now.”
Changed? I didn’t think I had, but maybe you can’t see your own transformations, and that might be a good thing. I wanted to ask her more, but I stopped, afraid to hear it. It was too late in the night for any drunken revelations. Best just to get her home.
“You see anyone at the bar?” I asked.
“Yeah! Your friend Tommy. He was there. I bought him a few, then he played pool with Velma. They were, uh, kind of hitting it off.”
Tommy and Velma? Well, stranger things had happened at the Depot.
“Then Lack showed up, with that woman. Brandi. Talked with her for a little bit, asked her about her kid. What was that girl’s name? Can’t remember.”
“I think it was—”
“What do you think about a kid? Child, I mean. You know, having a baby? Maybe it’s time. How the fuck are all these women having kids? I mean, what’s wrong with me?”
This was unexpected. We’d never talked about kids before, and I wasn’t sure it was the right time to discuss the subject, with Marie being four sheets to the wind. But she deserved something from me, some response.
“Is this something you thought about?” I asked. “Something you want?”
No answer.
“Marie?”
I looked over and saw that she was sound asleep. I kept driving, the road unfurling before me like a dark tunnel, leading somewhere I couldn’t imagine.
22
What I’d been waiting for—dreading—finally happened. Nathan came home from school and told me he’d talked to the heroin dealers. They’d agreed to sell him some black tar.
“What’d they say?” I asked.
“Well, I recognized one of the guys from before. He was like, come hang out with us at the house. I guess they got some place outside of town. So I was like, you got any eagle? He said, sure do.”
“Eagle?”
“Kids are calling it black eagle or just eagle.”
“Okay. You set up a time?”
“Sort of. He said I could go out there Friday, after school.”
Friday. Just a few days away.
I CALLED THE LAWYER and told him the situation. Charley said he’d contact the feds immediately and that I should sit tight until I heard from them. Sitting was out of the question, so I went to the casino restaurant. It was early, before the dinner rush, so there weren’t any customers yet. I spotted Tommy by the dish machine and signaled to him. He took off his apron and came over to my table.
“Homeboy! What you up to?”
“Nothing. You on dishes tonight?”
“Little prep work, little dishwashing. You want some pejuta sapa?”
Black medicine, wakalyapi. He came back with two steaming cups of coffee.
“So listen to this,” he said, “I was chillin’ with some dudes the other night, Waylon and Chepa; you know Chepa White Plume? He’s a smart dude, reads all the books, told me about some new history textbook, first one ever written by an Indian—I know, right?—and he’s tellin’ me about something they had in the old days. Check this out, you hearing me?”