Fay: A Novel

by Larry Brown

  Past the houses there were some buildings she could see in the distance and they were narrow in front, all of them two stories, and cars were parked all around them. Red Carpet Inn, she read on one. Seaside Resorts, said another. She guessed they must be the motels Reena had been talking about. There were stripes across the road now and in the middle a concrete island where people stood. Fay saw some woman in a swimsuit with a group of children around her stop at a pole and push something on it with her hand and the light turned red and the traffic stopped and the woman came on across the road with her kids. The cars and trucks sat waiting and then the light turned green and they rushed on. And up there on the other side of the road there was a small store with beer signs in the windows.

  There was a bench on up the sidewalk a short distance and she sat down once she got to it, leaning back against the painted boards and still watching the people across the road on their towels and under their umbrellas. There was a breeze blowing there and she wondered what her hair looked like. She ran her fingers through it a few times and then got her brush out of the purse and brushed it as well as she could and then tied it up in a ponytail and leaned back again. She sure wanted a shower. A motel would have one. But she was almost certain she didn’t have enough money for a motel.

  The traffic never seemed to lessen any. She was scared of hitchhiking after the things Sam had told her when he first met her, but there hadn’t been any choice the other night. Leaving had been the only thing she could think of, and right now she couldn’t think of anything else she could have done.

  The store had a wide glass window and it advertised roast beef, tuna fish, hamburgers. Marlboro signs were on the window, Old Milwaukee, Schlitz, Budweiser. She went in and a little bell rang over her head. An old woman was watching television behind the counter. Fay nodded to her and went back to the coolers and looked in through the glass where the cold beer sat. She saw a six-pack of Bud in bottles and reached in and got it. There were chips on a rack nearby and she got a bag of them. Didn’t want to spend too much money, not until she could make some more.

  Up front in another glass case sat sandwiches already made and wrapped in clear plastic. She stood there trying to decide. Finally she took out a cold ham and cheese and reached for a couple of packs of mayonnaise there and carried her things over to the counter and set them down and opened her purse without looking at the woman too much.

  “And I need a pack of Salem Lights, too,” she said.

  The old woman didn’t move, just kind of sat there and watched her.

  “Young lady,” she said, “are you eighteen?”

  Fay looked up.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Are you eighteen?”

  “No ma’am,” she said. “I’m not but seventeen.”

  She went back to digging for the money in her purse. It was buried somewhere down in there. She pushed aside lipstick and combs and packs of chewing gum and the swimsuit and finally found it, wadded in a loose roll. She pulled it out, dreading hearing how much it was going to cost. But she felt better now. She could have a few more cold beers now and have something to eat and something to smoke and maybe Reena might even be back by the time she walked up to the trailer park.

  The woman wasn’t ringing up her stuff, never even had moved off her stool. She turned back to her soap opera or whatever it was she was watching and said, “You’ll have to put that beer back, then.”

  “Ma’am?” Fay said.

  “I can sell you the sandwich and the chips,” she said. “But I can’t sell alcohol or tobacco to a minor.”

  “Why?” Fay said.

  “Because it’s against the law!” the old woman said. “Now go put my cold beer back in that cooler before it gets hot. Go on.”

  Fay felt her cheeks flush hot.

  “They’s some up and down this beach don’t care if you ain’t but thirteen but I ain’t one of em,” the woman said. “You ain’t old enough to be drinking anyway.”

  It was the tone of the woman’s voice that drove her out the door. Just before it shut behind her she heard the old woman call out for her to put the sandwich back where it had been but she didn’t turn around. She just kept walking until she was back down by the bench. She looked back at the store and could see the woman watching her through the window. Nobody had ever told her you couldn’t buy beer if you weren’t eighteen. And what did that have to do with it anyway? Sam never had said anything about how old she was. Amy never had either. It’s the law, she’d said. What law? The old woman had seemed to enjoy being mean to her and she didn’t understand that. She didn’t even know her and what could she have against her?

  She didn’t know what to do now. If she went to another store they might tell her the same thing. Or three stores might. She didn’t think she had the energy to walk all up and down the beach trying to find a store that would sell her beer and cigarettes.

  She counted the cigarettes she had left. Eight. They’d be gone by dark for sure. And she didn’t know what she’d do then.

  She lit another one of the cigarettes and sat there smoking it slowly, trying to make it last. Seven left. She’d need to stop again and rest if she headed back to Reena’s right now, and she’d want one again then. Then there wouldn’t be but six. If Reena had gone to work she probably wouldn’t be in until late. Maybe real late.

  She saw now that she never should have gotten off in Biloxi, never should have gone home with Sam. Out across the road the people were wading in the water and drinking their beer. She could see them lifting their cans and she could see the coolers next to them. They were rich people, rich enough to lie on the beach all day and not have to work. She decided to go back across the road and walk around some. She couldn’t just sit here.

  She could feel the men looking at her before she was a hundred feet away from the public bathrooms. She’d stuffed her clothes into the purse and she’d put on the sunglasses and she walked slowly, looking around. The swimsuit was nothing like the one Alesandra had worn that day but Fay knew she filled it out, felt now that maybe even it was a little bit too small for her, now that she’d gained some weight. She got over into the middle of the beach so that she could look everything over. She remembered what Sam had said one night when they were lying in bed, her head propped on his arm and her face resting against his chest, when she’d asked him why he was so crazy about her: There’s nothing like a pretty woman like you. The way you smell, the way your hair smells. Just touching you. Any man would give a lot for that. She didn’t know if that was true. Maybe it was only true for Sam.

  “Hey honey, ain’t you hot?”

  She stopped to see who’d spoken so. A tall skinny guy with legs white as the belly of a dead perch and wearing a dipshit hat was up under an umbrella with a can of beer on his stomach. His ribs stuck out. His chest was hairless, sunken, like maybe he’d been bad sick.

  “Not too bad,” she said, and started walking again.

  “Why hey, you can get up under here and cool off with me if you want to,” he said. “I got a whole cooler full of beer right here. Nectar of the gods by God,” he said, and patted it like a good dog. She didn’t look back.

  “Well screw you, then,” she heard him mutter. She stopped. He was looking fearfully at her. She walked back to him.

  “Screw me? Is that what you said? How about screw you, you skinny son of a bitch?” She started kicking sand at his face and he sputtered and spilled his beer. Asshole. He didn’t look old enough to buy beer either. Probably lived here and knew where to go get it with no questions asked. She went on.

  It wasn’t nearly as hot now. The sun was still lowering in the sky and out across the water a pale blue had come up. All that water. How small Sardis seemed now. Sam in his boat would be a tiny dot out there. She wished she was still with him. She couldn’t stop thinking about him and wondering what he was feeling. He never had come right out and said that he loved her, but she’d known it in the way he looked at her, the things he did for her, the w
ay he’d kissed her, like each kiss was a great thrill for him. And then she told herself that she had to go on now, stop thinking about all that because it wasn’t like that anymore and she wasn’t there anymore. She was here now. And maybe would be for a long time.

  She kept walking in between the rows of people, some on their stomachs with their eyes closed, past groups of girls who lay like they were dead, legs sprawled open in the sand. Little children on rubber rafts were splashing in the shallow water while mothers watched nearby. She’d be doing that one day if everything worked out.

  The beach looked endless. As far as she could see there were people and umbrellas and running children, short chairs that sat directly in the sand, and up in the sky two kites floated and swayed. She stopped and stood looking up at them for a moment, trying to see the strings that held them or who on the ground was holding them.

  “Wouldn’t think there’d be enough wind, would you?” a voice said to her. She turned her head.

  “What?” she said.

  “I guess there’s more wind up there than there is down here,” a smiling young guy said. She smiled back.

  “I guess so,” she said. “Sure ain’t much down here, is it?”

  “You hot?”

  “A little.”

  “Well,” he said, and shifted his chair to the left a bit. “I got plenty of shade under here if you want to get out of that sun for a while. Got a towel right here you can sit on if you want to.”

  She studied him. He had a good tan and he was heavyset, thick through the arms and legs and chest. His hair was coal black and she could see that his eyes were brown. Nothing bad was going to happen to her right here in daylight on a public beach. There were too many people around. And he looked okay anyway.

  “Come on and sit down,” he said, so she did, not too close, right on the edge of the towel but up under the umbrella, in the shade. She put her purse down on the towel and almost reached for a cigarette, but then stopped. She had to make them last a while longer.

  “I’ve got another chair in my van,” he said.

  “Oh, no, this is fine. Thanks.”

  “My name’s Chris,” he said, and stuck out his hand. “Chris Dodd.”

  She took his hand and shook it. His fingers were warm and she could feel the strength in them. He squeezed her hand gently.

  “My name’s Fay Jones.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Fay. You live around here?”

  “No, I’m just … I’m kind of on vacation,” she said. “I was just out for a walk.”

  “Got a lot of stuff in that purse, looks like.”

  She looked at it. Some of her clothes were bulging out of the top. She pushed down on them.

  “Just some clothes. I just changed.” She felt her face getting red.

  “That’s what I figured,” he said. He turned the beer up and must have seen her watching him.

  “You want a cold one?”

  “A what?”

  “You want a cold beer?”

  She hesitated. She didn’t want to seem too eager. But he was offering.

  “I might drink one if you got plenty,” she said. “I don’t want to drink your last one or nothin.”

  “Aw shit, I got a bunch. Reach over in there and get me one too while you’re in there if you don’t mind.”

  She got up on her knees and turned around and opened the lid on his cooler. It looked like he had about a whole case in there. She reached in and it was so cold in there it hurt her fingers.

  “Boy,” she said.

  “Cold, ain’t it?”

  “It sure is.”

  “I put some rock salt on top of it this morning. That’ll make it almost freeze but not quite.”

  She got two beers out and handed him one and closed the lid and turned back around. There was a small radio set on a towel beside the cooler and it was playing country songs at a low level. She opened the beer and took a sip and it was so cold it made her teeth ache for a moment.

  “That’s cold,” she said.

  “Yep.”

  On his left ankle there was a tattoo of leaves and tiny flowers, red, blue, yellow, that encircled it. She pointed to it.

  “Where’d you get that?” she said.

  He looked where she was pointing.

  “That? Oh I got that up in Philadelphia when I was in the marines. Me and a couple of my buddies got drunk one night in Chinatown and decided to go to the tattoo parlor. They both got devil dogs tattooed on their shoulders and I got this. They thought I was a wimp.”

  “It’s nice,” she said. “I like it.”

  “Thanks. I like it too. They say you get sick of a tattoo if you get it put on somewhere you have to look at it all the time, like your forearm. That’s why I had it put there.”

  She sipped at her beer and reached for her purse, pulled it closer. She pushed the clothes aside and dug down in there until she found her pack and the lighter.

  “They put them on with a needle?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t it hurt?”

  “It hurts like the devil. But you got to sit there and be still or he’ll mess it up.”

  She lit the cigarette and left the pack and the lighter on the towel. Then she picked them up and held them out to him.

  “You want one?”

  He waved his hand at her.

  “I finally quit two years ago, but thanks anyway. I smoke a cigar once in a while. Don’t figure that hurts me too bad. I sure get to wanting a cigarette when I’m drinking beer, though. How long you been smoking?”

  She pulled her feet up and made a little circle with her legs and set the beer in between them.

  “Aw, off and on, couple of years, I guess. I smoke more now than I used to.”

  “That’s what happens.”

  It was always hard for her to talk to somebody she didn’t know, somebody she didn’t know anything about. He seemed friendly and nice enough, but she couldn’t think of what to say to him. So for a while she just sat there and drank the beer and smoked her cigarette and looked at the people on the beach.

  “Where you from?” he said.

  “Up north of here. Up around Batesville and Oxford.”

  “Say you on vacation?”

  She looked away.

  “Kind of. I’m just kind of visiting down here for a while. Trying to make up my mind if I want to stay.”

  “Where else you thinking about going?”

  She turned back to him.

  “What’s that?”

  He was leaned back in his chair with his legs stretched out in front of him, holding the cold beer on his belly.

  “I say where else you thinking about going if you don’t stay here?”

  “Well,” she said, “I don’t rightly know right now. I just thought I’d come down here and stay awhile and see if I liked it. It ain’t what I thought it would be.”

  He sat up in the chair and tucked his feet back and held the beer with both hands between his knees.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I just thought it would be different from this. I didn’t think it’d be this many people down here. And all this traffic.”

  He sipped at his beer and looked out over the crowd.

  “Weekends are busy here,” he said with a nod. “This place is geared for tourists. Did you see all the shell shops and stuff?”

  “Naw,” she said.

  “They got a little of everything down here. T-shirt shops, souvenir shops, tattoo parlors, strip clubs, restaurants. You name it.”

  She sipped her beer and pulled on the cigarette.

  “You reckon it’s hard to find a job down here?” she said.

  He reached for a pair of sunglasses and put them on and leaned back in his chair again. She could feel him watching her.

  “What kind of job you looking for?”

  “I don’t know. I ain’t real choicey. I talked to this one girl but I don’t know if I want to do what she does.”<
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  “What’s that?”

  Fay looked up at him.

  “She’s a dancer.”

  “What kind of a dancer? Not ballet down here I bet.”

  “She’s a stripper,” Fay said.

  He looked down and seemed to turn that over in his mind for a few moments.

  “Well,” he said finally, “I guess there’s a lot of girls who think they have to do that. I guess the money’s easy to make.”

  “She said it was.”

  “Some of these clubs down here are rough, you know.”

  “How rough?”

  “Pretty damn rough. I doubt they treat the girls very well. I was in a few in the Philippines. And up in Washington, D.C. Years ago when I was in the service. I don’t know you well enough to give you any advice but if I did I’d advise you to stay the hell out of those places.”

  She didn’t say anything for a while. And didn’t really know why she’d told him all that.

  “You like to swim?” he said.

  “Some.”

  “Hell,” he said, watching some children playing at the edge of the beach. “You could clean rooms in a hotel before you’d have to go and do that.”

  She just nodded. A little boy in front of her was slowly filling a pail with sand, then dumping it out, then filling it again.

  “How old are you if you don’t mind me asking?” Chris said.

  She smiled at him and lifted her beer.

  “How old do I look to you?”

  He studied her critically, stroking at his chin with two fingers.

  “Oh, I’d say about … nineteen or twenty.”

  “I’m seventeen,” she said.

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “I’m big for my age,” she said.

  “I guess you are. Are you out of high school yet?”

  “I never did finish. I never did have a chance to finish.”

  He fell silent again. She put her cigarette out in the sand and drank the rest of the beer, then eased the can down between her legs.

  “I tried to buy some beer and some cigarettes and a sandwich a while ago but they wouldn’t sell me the beer and the cigarettes. I didn’t know you had to be eighteen. Nobody ever told me that.”