Claudia sipped her now-pink milk. She watched it go through the straw. Then she blew bubbles. June took a drink. Trucks looked down at his hands.
Out of nowhere, Trucks said, “I fought a guy named Jack Rose once. But he went by Holly. Everyone called him Holly Houdini because you couldn’t hit the guy. Like he was there one second, you’d step in to throw a short punch, and he’d weave under it or bob out and come off the center line and smack you in the head. In. Out. It was magic, really. It was.” Trucks looked at his tea, still sitting behind the bar. Steam rose in curls off its rim.
“What happened to him?” June asked.
“He went to train in Detroit. Won titles in three weight classes. He’s probably considered a legend by now. I only fought him that once.”
“Did you win?” Claudia asked.
Trucks laughed. “Not a chance, Pepper Flake. Not a fucking chance.”
June laughed.
“The swears,” Claudia said.
Trucks nodded. Then he said, “I surprised him with a huge left. It was the eighth round, and I could tell he was loading up on his right and hoping to take me out with it. He had all his weight on his back foot and his shoulder slightly dipped. It’s the kinda stuff you learn to watch for. Anyway, I feinted to my left, and sure enough he threw a hard overhand right. I weaved under and popped him with a power left hook to the temple. I couldn’t have thrown it any harder. It was the most devastating punch I ever threw. Holly stumbled back, but the ropes caught him. Held him up like that with his arms stretched out. It was like catching a ghost. The crowd was stunned. Hell, even I was stunned, and it took me a second to snap out of it. I saw that blood waving down his cheek. That bright red kinda brought me back to life, you know, like a bull. It put a real charge in me. He staggered off the ropes, and I went after him throwing crazy combinations that missed, one after the other. Damn, he was elusive. And I was exhausted as hell by then and didn’t catch him again after that. Not even once. Not even barely. I’m not sure too many boxers ever did touch him.”
“That’s a wild story,” June said. She pinched the stem of her glass.
“That damn ghost,” Trucks said. He shook his aching head.
Claudia had been fixed on him the whole time. Trying to take in his story. Make sense of it. She looked forward and sipped on her straw.
“Sorry about that,” the bartender said. He’d come back over from the end of the bar. “Here’s your tea, just the right temperature. Would you like anything else?”
“That’ll do,” Trucks said.
“For the ladies?”
“That’ll do,” Claudia said.
Trucks worked the kinks out of his left hand. Then he grabbed lemon after lemon, squeezing the juice into his tea. Some of the seeds came with it. No big deal. The bartender probably hated how he was ruining this first-class South African tea. Trucks didn’t care. A trainer had told him lemons were good for cleaning the liver. He trusted that. Trucks took a long sip of tea, now sour. The bartender walked off.
“How about we eat these cherries?” June said. She handed one to Claudia and took one for herself. “None for you, big guy,” June said to Trucks. “Must be ladies’ night.”
“Sure looks like it,” Trucks said.
June pinched the stem and held up her cherry to Claudia. “To new friends,” she said.
“To new friends,” Claudia said.
They bumped the little red buds against one another and ate the cherries. Then they set the dark stems on the plate.
“Well, no shit,” Trucks said, really to himself.
“What’s that?” June said.
“Just thinking out loud.”
“The swears,” Claudia said.
“Sorry,” Trucks said.
“At least your bruiseity brains are working,” Claudia said.
Trucks tapped his head.
June asked for the bill and paid with cash. Trucks gulped the rest of his tea. Then he grabbed the Hallowell sack and stood.
“Now, how about those hot showers?” June said, closing her pocketbook.
“I get to go first!” Claudia said.
“And you?” June asked Trucks.
“That’s such a nice offer with the showers, but we really don’t wanna trouble you. And you gave us a ride and bought our drinks. It’s plenty, really.”
“It’s no trouble. I’d welcome it.”
Claudia tugged on Trucks’s coat.
“All right. Let’s have her take one first, then we’ll see,” he said.
Claudia ran over and hugged June. June’s cheeks turned red from either the surprise of the hug or some kind of deep affection.
“Come on, then, curly girly,” June said, and took Claudia’s hand.
The three of them walked out of the lounge. Trucks felt the swift ache in his temple. After a few strides into the lobby he looked back at the bartender wiping down the bar top where they’d been. Trucks saw the dark cherry stems on the small plate. He thought about the last time he’d had a drink. He thought about protecting his girl. He thought about the ghost of Holly Jack Rose and wondered what the hell cherries had to do with anything.
THE REAL GOOD
Claudia sang in the bath. She didn’t want a shower once she saw the jacuzzi tub with the pressure jets.
“Don’t forget to wash your personals, Pepper Flake,” Trucks said through the door. Then he realized she couldn’t hear him without her hearing aids. He listened to her singing for a moment before walking away.
“She’s wonderful, you know,” June said, when he came into the room.
“Sometimes I really don’t know how she turned out like this, but I thank my lucky punches. I really do.”
June sat on a love seat in the middle of the room. It faced the king-size bed. Trucks walked over to the window and pulled the curtain aside. Saw harsh parking lot lights. The darkened interstate in the distance. No noise. That expensive, super-thick glass that keeps it all out. So dense. Like it could stop bullets.
“I know you said you don’t drink anymore, but can I get you something from the fridge? I helped myself to a beer. I craved that cocktail after the long drive, but I’m really more of a beer girl.”
Trucks looked from the window to June. She held a green bottle of imported beer. She took a drink. He fixated on how her lips wrapped around the spout. How long had it been? Jesus, how long?
“Thanks, but we have some waters still.” Trucks pointed to their sack of supplies. He’d hung it on a desk chair. Their coats were draped over the backrest. Their boots near the door. Always ready.
“You can help yourself, if you want,” June said. “That’s all I’m saying.”
Trucks watched the blinking taillights of cars on the distant interstate. Like red stars moving at hyper speeds across an asphalt universe.
“You can come over here and hang out,” June said. “I’d like to hear more about your trip.”
Trucks rubbed the curtain between his fingers. Then he let go, walked over, and sat on the end of the bed. He faced June sitting on the love seat.
“Tell me about you,” Trucks said. “About your life in Sioux Falls. You’ve heard enough about us. I don’t really wanna think about our life right now.”
June looked up at the ceiling as if there was so much weight to his question. Then she leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees. She held the beer with both hands and spun the bottle. Then she looked up at Trucks.
“You really want to know,” she said.
“Sure,” he said.
“I didn’t mean it as a question. I can see it in your face.”
Trucks reached up and touched around his bad eye. Felt the rough, dried blood. The seams.
June took a hand off the bottle. She reached out to Trucks. He reached back, reflexive, and took hold of her hand. They held hands for a moment. Hers so soft and warm. His cold and rough. He traced the veins on the top of her hand with his thumb. Then he let go.
“Whoa,” June said, sounding
breathless. Her eyes were big and bright.
Trucks nodded. Then he stood and walked over to the bathroom door. He listened in on his girl. His body pulsed. He opened and closed his left hand, made a fist, ran his knuckles along the soft grain of the door. Trucks could hear Claudia spinning in the jacuzzi, slapping the surface of the water. Trucks wished she had friends to play with. He listened to her song and the splashing and felt the pulse in his throat. The jacuzzi engines churning. Making that low, hard hum press against everything.
He walked back to the main room. June was sitting cross-legged on the love seat. She’d put the beer on the end table and had her hands in her lap. She scratched at an invisible blemish on her dark pants. Then she looked at him.
“Do you want to sit here?” she asked.
“Okay,” he said.
He walked over and sat next to her. There was a warm static between them. Claudia’s song echoed through the hotel room.
“My husband left me this year,” June said. She really looked Trucks in the eye when she spoke. He wasn’t used to that. “He worked for Hammer-On. He started out selling guitars in one of their shops, then worked for their custom division. He sold strings, modified scratch plates, unique pickups, fancy volume knobs and saddles and selector switches, and I listened to him go on about that job for too many hours. Anyway, he made his way up to corporate. He climbed like all those other suited robots. We started drifting when he took the desk job. He stayed out later and later with his bosses and ‘the boys.’ He’d come home with scratches on his neck, smelling of Tanqueray and so many random perfumes you’d think he’d stopped every half-mile home to take a shot and mess around with some other woman. He wouldn’t even look at me, like I wasn’t something to desire or want or remotely care about. And he even said one day after an intense argument that he didn’t respect what I did, working as an art teacher, and that it wasn’t really a profession and didn’t bring in equal money. That we weren’t equal. He didn’t see any value in what I did and what I cared about. Well, no kidding my salary wasn’t going to equal his or even come close. But I get so much joy out of helping those kids finger paint and learn how to dip and dry brushes and help them tie and untie their smocks. Every day we’d spread out their little canvases and fill the vast white spaces with splashes of color and life, all those tiny hands moving so fast and learning so much so quickly. The lights of their small spirits have always made my day and urged me forward, through even the hardest moments.”
June paused. Claudia was singing. Only calm came from the window. Like there was no other sound.
“I’m totally barren,” June said.
She put a hand to her mouth.
Trucks didn’t move.
June cried hard.
Trucks didn’t know what to do. He grabbed her wrist and held on.
June shook as she cried.
“And…and even though I told him there were other options, other avenues…he…he still left me pretty soon after that,” she said.
Trucks kept holding.
June turned into him. She thrust herself into his arms and cried into his shoulder.
“There,” Trucks said. “Hey. Hey.”
He tried to imagine the last time a woman had confided in him.
June breathed heavy into his shoulder.
“I know I shouldn’t even be telling you this, a near stranger, but there it is,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It means something that you told me.”
June pulled back and looked in his eyes.
“You’re a genuine man,” she said. “You don’t know the kind of sweet you are.”
June sat back in the love seat and wiped her eyes. She grabbed the beer from the end table and took a drink. Then she said, “So just to be clear, the nice car, the huge house on Jack Rose Court, the expensive things—they’re not my lifestyle. They’re not me. They’re a part of who I tried to be to fit with who he’d become. Shit,” June said, and laughed, “his parents even had this gaudy pewter statue of a polo horse shipped to the house. It’s huge! And it’s been sitting in the backyard all year. The neighbors started complaining to each other and talking behind my back about how I needed to get rid of it because it’s such an eyesore to the neighborhood and might bring down their property values. But it’s his silly eyesore of a horse, not mine, and if they want to get rid of it so badly then they can call him up and have him do something about it, or they can pay to have the damn thing hauled out of there. Like I care.”
June gripped the bottle like she was trying to shatter it.
Trucks let her breathe. He let the frustration flow out of her.
Then he calmly said, “Or you could take a torch and melt it down. Turn it into a stream of lava. A hot-orange moat around the house. That’d really piss them off.”
June spit out a little beer and wiped it from her chin. “And keep them out. I like the thought of that.”
They looked at each other. They were at ease. It made him turn inside.
Claudia stopped singing. Trucks stood and walked toward the bathroom. June tipped the green bottle back for the last sip of beer. Midway through her swig, Trucks was back. He got on a knee, kissed his thumb, and ran it over her eyebrow. Then he traced his fingertip along her temple, down her cheek, and brushed his fingernails along her neck.
“I’m really sorry about everything,” he whispered. “About being barren and that dickhead husband. I’ve seen the way you light up my little girl’s world. I’m thankful for it. And you’re right, there are other avenues. And you’ll seek them and have them. This shit never should have happened to you, any of it. And all I can offer is the bond of knowing what it’s like to be left, and you never deserved that. I know you know what you are. You know your worth. I can see it. You’re not broken by this. You won’t ever be. I’ve got so many breaks inside me, I wouldn’t ever want you to see them.” Trucks looked at the floor. “I wouldn’t want anyone to see.” Trucks looked up at June. “Some things are unmendable. But you. You’ve got all this buried potential left. It’s deep down in there, and you’ll keep reaching. You’ll find it. And you’ll see all that good inside you. The real good.”
Claudia called out again from the bathroom. He could hear her splashing.
“That’s what I’ve got left,” he said. “That’s all my good right there, waiting for me in the other room.”
PERSPECTIVE
Nighttime over Kadoka. Population: 690. All quiet.
The strips of interstate were clear.
The Archibald Suites parking lot was lit in a casted white from hovering streetlamps.
Up three floors.
June turned off the light. She clicked on a small lamp that gave a negligible glow. She stared out the window into the winter night. Unbuttoned her blouse. Took off her itchy bra. She slid her tight pants down. Kept her panties on. Put on wool socks. June looked at her reflection in the window. Pushed her breasts together. Let them drop. She grabbed her hips and squeezed. Dug her nails in before putting on a big nightshirt. She laid down on the too-big bed. Took the far edge of it. Away from the window.
Across the room.
The door slightly ajar. The bathroom steamed up. Claudia had already pulled her pajamas from the radiator and put them on. Trucks took strands of her hair and gently dried them on a towel. Then tugged on the pink cuffs of her pajamas, still snug around her ankles. Wiggled her toes between his fingers. Stuck out his tongue. Trucks put the toilet cover down and sat Claudia on the seat. Brushed her hair with his fingers. Cleaned her ears with complimentary swabs from a small dish. Used his wipes to sanitize her hearing aids, then gently hooked one to each ear. Tested the volume. Lightly pressed her cheeks. Held her by the shoulders. Face to face. And told her what had to be done.
THE PRETENSE OF SLEEP
They’d all lain down together. June on the side of the bed near the door, Trucks on the side near the window, Claudia in the middle. And it was nice like that for a while. A kind of peace to
the beats of their near bodies at rest.
Hours had passed. June was out from the drinks. Trucks put on his workman’s coat. He got down on his knees and helped Claudia into her coat and the oversized gloves as quietly as possible. The zipping and snapping could wait. Their sack of supplies was out in the hallway. The hotel room door cracked open.
“It’s time,” Trucks whispered.
Claudia was crying.
Trucks moved to get up. Claudia grabbed his arm.
“Why?” she said.
Trucks put a finger to his lips. He gave her a stern look. They were at the end of the bed.
“But why?” she whispered.
June rolled in her sleep. She spoke gibberish. Trucks put his hand over Claudia’s mouth. They stayed like that for a while. A streak of moonlight coming through the window.
June let out a long breath, clearly lost in a dream.
Trucks took his hand from Claudia’s mouth. They looked in each other’s eyes. He wiped Claudia’s tears with his thumbs. She pushed his hands away. Trucks felt sick. But he’d be sick no matter what they did, and this is what he’d chosen. He knew no other way.
Trucks put a finger to his lips again. He stood and nodded toward the door. Claudia looked away. Trucks put a hand on her shoulder. Then Claudia reached out and squeezed June’s foot. He allowed her this.
Seconds went by. Seconds like minutes to a man always going.
Soon Claudia relented. She had to. She let go and walked with Trucks out into the harsh yellow light of the hallway. Trucks gently closed the door. He pulled a note from his pocket, like a lead weight in his hand, and slipped it under the door. With his back turned, Claudia ran down the long hall, tearing across the burgundy carpet. Its navy diamond pattern flashing between footfalls. She slammed through the exit door. Ran down the stairwell.
Something about her ferocious running made Trucks feel a spark of pride. He followed fast, the Hallowell sack swinging from his wrist.
He caught her in the parking lot and turned her around. Dropped the sack. Pulled her into his body. They embraced under the lights of the parking lot. Their gray breaths rolling out in the cold.
You've Got Something Coming Page 4
