by Marc Hess
Max looked around and tried to figure out how they had come to be so far away from the crowd. The lights of the casita over the beer and cabrito grew brighter as the sun faded from the sky. The band, up against the racetrack, had started up, and the crowd tightened in front of their little stage. The dancing was under way.
“I’m off to the midway, Max. I’m doing an exposé on how the parents of Fredericksburg are going to put their children on rides that were put together by transient druggies and paroled pedophiles.”
Max stopped. “Are they really?”
In that weird Brady way of scrunching up his face, he gave his answer with the inflection of a question. “That’s what I’m going to find out?”
Max turned back to the party crowd, where the first people he came upon were gathered around his sister and Jeanie … What last name was she using now? They were pouring homemade margaritas out of a thermos, which was making them quite popular at the moment.
Droopy-eyed and limbered with margarita, Jeanie stepped into him. “Heard you were back, Mr. Road Trip.” She slid her arms around his neck, careful not to spill her drink. It was an uncomfortably sensuous embrace for Max, especially with his sister so close at hand. Jeanie’s tequila breath was so strong that he got a rush like he’d just thrown back a shot himself. Her knee was pressing its way up the inside of his thigh, toward his crotch. He turned a cheek to the kiss she was fixing to plant on his lips.
Instead of kissing him, though, she whispered in a slurred, seductive tone, “My brother wanted me to find out how long you were going to be in town for.”
“And just how were you going to get that information?” he responded in a conversational voice. “You going to take me into your bedroom and interrogate me?”
Gerdie heard that part and stepped forward. “Get away from her, Max.” She actually pushed against him. “This is your cousin you’re coming on to. And”—her eyes widened as she suddenly recalled—“you’re a married man!”
“Am I?” He untangled himself from Jeanie.
“Are you?” Gerdie had been swilling margaritas and wasn’t in a condition to figure things out too quickly. “Oh, Max, did you screw up another one? Is that why you came back?”
Oh, the rumors that would start if he said nothing … He just teased his sister with a sarcastic grin and turned away to leave her guessing.
The thicket of partiers had fallen into shadows and silhouettes. Max elbowed his way through them in search of his clique. It was darker now, and fewer people stepped up to greet him than when he had arrived. The next familiar face he stumbled past was Thea in her little black dress and cowboy boots.
Thea spoke first. “You lose your dance partner, mister?”
“Yeah. I did.” He cocked his head toward the dance floor. “You want to give it a go?”
Thea took a long last drink from her beer, and they dropped their bottles simultaneously into a nearby trash barrel. Max took that as a yes.
He snatched her hand and stepped into the swirls and eddies of dancing couples scuffing about to a rocked-up, rehashed old Merle Haggard song. Round and round, guys with eyes hid under the brims of cowboy hats pushed willing girls backwards in the quick-quick, slow-slow pace of a Texas two-step.
The warm night breeze, the dizzy turns of the dance, the buzz of all those afternoon beers, and the feel of a woman pressed up against him—this was the bed of roses that Max had come home to find. Thea was prancing surely under his lead, but her eyes ran around the dance floor as if she had accepted his dance on a bet. To win a second go-round—and Max wanted that—he backed away from those luscious boobs of hers and allowed some air between them. Now they could see each other’s eyes and flow together in that quick-quick, slow-slow, all smiles and fun.
They danced to a second song, then a third, and maybe a fourth before they headed off the floor with sweat rolling down their backs.
“You made a mess out of me, Mr. Max Ritzi.” Thea latched onto Max’s arm as they wove their way to the sidelines. “Don’t look at me. I am a mess.” She fanned herself with her hand.
“Ah, but what a lovely mess you are,” Max cracked back to her.
“Is my face all red? I feel flushed.”
“You look happy to me.”
Crossing under a string of sixty-watt bulbs at the far end of the casita, Max caught a glimpse of the bobbling black hat of his pal Heinie Ortner. He pulled Thea off in that direction.
“Let me get you a beer.”
“Sure.” Thea smiled but pulled away. “But let’s say hi to Carel first.”
They had nearly stumbled into Carel, who was sitting at a picnic table with his back to them. The seats alongside him were occupied by guys in cowboy hats, each with a stack of red plastic beer cups piled up in front of him. Heinie, with his black hat, crawled into a space directly across from Carel.
“I’ll be over here by the bar.” Max bowed out as Thea slipped away toward the popular table. Carel twisted in his seat to greet her.
Then Heinie’s voice boomed across the table, loud enough for Max to hear. “So, Carel. Miss Beverly said she seen you down at the bank this afternoon. Ya get any of that letter of intent money? Ya know, for that little deal we got?”
Carel leaned across the table, causing Heinie to ease back a little bit. Not that he was intentionally eavesdropping, but Max could hear the ominous tone in Carel’s voice. “You want to know what happened to me at that bank, buddy? I’ll tell you what those scumbags …”
Carel’s wife, sitting to his left, arched in to mute him. Max couldn’t hear what she said, but Carel’s response was meant for all: “They’re not from here. They don’t give a shit about us.” He was shouting now. “Those grubby shysters shut me down. When it’s all said and done”—he pointed across the table—“Heinie had the right idea! Those sons of bitches.”
Carel’s wife was tugging on his sleeve.
“Oh sure, they think they can buy us all!” Carel came out of his seat like he was ready to fight. “Well, I say come and take it.”
A cagey little grin crept across Max’s face, a passive salute to Carel’s demise.
Thea turned and walked away from what was taking the shape of a volatile situation.
“Come and take it!” Carel punched at the air—his wife trying to calm him, others egging him on. “Those auslanders have not seen the last of Carel Geische!”
Thea shook her head as she returned to Max. “I hate to see him like this.”
“That is the only way I remember him,” Max replied as they turned to collect their drinks. “Back when we were kids running together, that blustering of his got me out of trouble on more than one occasion.”
“You?” Thea bade him continue.
“Yeah. My cousin. He even took a serious whupping for me one time.” Max chuckled at the memory as they turned to keep an eye on the Carel show.
Carel was on the stump now. “They’re stealing our town right out from under us. I tell you, Heinie, they’re going to get it all.” He had an audience beyond his table cheering him on. “Our streets are going to be nothing but a string of strip malls. Gonna look like Kerrville. Just a bunch of ugly old chain stores owned by bankers in Houston.”
As Max and Thea drifted away, they could hear the whistles and cheers from anonymous voices out of the dark, goading Carel. The row of big hats at the picnic table dipped up and down. You tell ’em, Carel.
Thea turned her attention back to Max: “A whupping? Huh.”
“Yeah. We were kids. Typical Texas kids. This one time, we got caught.” Max was thinking he should stop there, but Thea’s eyes pried for more, spoiling for him to take it further.
“It was back at his uncle Victor’s place. Messing with the man’s worthless, old, worn-out rodeo horses. Mari was in on it too. Back then she was always running with me and Carel.”
“And …?” Thea lay her hand on his chest, light as a butterfly.
“We were trying to hide in the barn. Both my old man and tha
t drunken uncle of Carel’s coming after us—one with a mesquite switch, the other taking off his belt.” Max glanced back over at his cousin, still full of spit and vinegar. “Yeah. We’d been had.”
“So. What happened to you?”
“Me? I was hiding up by the door, sure to be the first one caught. But no. When they come in, Carel just jumped out of the loft. They grabbed hold of him, dragged him outside, bent him over the old picnic table out by that cooker, and whaled on his ass for us all to hear.”
“That’s terrible.” Thea pulled her hand away.
“That’s Carel.”
Their attention returned to the table, where it sounded like Carel was making a campaign promise. “I’m not taking it. You shouldn’t take it either. We’re a lot more Texan than that, aren’t we?” He had the mob all riled up, whooping and shouting. “They are not going to buy up the history of Gillespie County and sell it off to a mob of sissy-ass tourists!”
His wife managed to pull him back down to his seat. Someone brought him a fresh beer. With Carel back in his seat, they could hear the band once again.
“Carel was a big help to me when I was getting my business started here,” Thea told Max. “I found him to be a generous guy. As a kid, when I dropped out of 4-H …” She trailed off. “You know how all the others start to shun you?”
“Yeah.” Max nodded. “I know whatcha mean.”
“Well, Carel didn’t do that. He stayed friends with me.”
“Yeah. He can be like that, too.”
There was more that happened in that barn than Max was willing to tell. He didn’t say how Mari had crept up to the door where he hid when Carel was taking the licking for the three of them, how they grabbed onto one another while listening to Carel’s wails and cries. They were scared together, just teens, and Mari kissed him—wet and deep. It was the first taste of raw lust Max had ever known, and it stood him up with a fear and fervor that hadn’t been resolved to this day.
The phone in Thea’s pocket buzzed. The friends she’d come with were fixing to leave, so they parted with a neighborly hug and some quick words. “I’m going to be tied down at the store all weekend. I’m hoping it’s going to be really busy in town. With those sissy-ass tourists and all.”
“I’m going to be at my parents’ house. Hope it won’t be busy there.” He didn’t feel right asking her out. Officially he was still married. “I’m not going to be doing any shopping.”
“The Cody Dodger Band is at the fair Saturday night.” She started to turn away. “Save me a dance, okay?”
He watched her walk off to find her friends.
“Nice juicy ass, there.” Buddy Nuweinkraus had come creeping up behind him. “You ever wonder what she’s got going on under that dress? I mean, she’s got that panty store and all.”
Max looked at the melted cheeks of his old pal. Buddy smelled like a distillery on a pot farm. “Yeah. I’ve been wondering about that all night.”
“Come on. We’re hanging out down by the starting gates. Rickie’s got the hooch.”
• • •
Rickie always had the hooch—a clear moonshine passed around in a mason jar. To the cheers of his drinking buddies, he twisted off the lid and tossed it over his shoulder so they would be committed to finishing off the home-stilled poison before they called it a night—a bonding ritual since high school. But this was some twenty years on. Max figured it was amusing for schoolkids but a pretty sick habit for grown-ups with schoolchildren of their own at home. Yet when the jar was passed to him, he took a swig.
“To savage nights of shame and puke.” Buddy held the jar overhead.
“Cowards would avoid this, but we are …,” shouted Rickie, suddenly forgetting his words.
“We are made of the sterner stuff!” someone else said, completing the inane toast.
In a fog of his own, Max saw the ghosts of his old pals, the best of his friends, clinging hard to their traditions. Out there at the fairgrounds, under the tracers of an August meteor shower, the tribe was chanting, “They are weak but we are strong! They are weak but we are strong!” when a pair of Gillespie County sheriff’s cruisers pulled up and one uniformed officer stepped out of each car.
“Wie gehts, Lester. You finally get off work?” Heinie sassed at them.
“Or them sheep down in the show barn been complainin’ we’re keepin’ them up?” another man cracked.
“Hey,” Buddy chimed in. “We got some cold beer here for you.”
“Geht nich, boys. I’m still on duty.” Deputy Lester Metzger took it in with a professional humor. “But if any of you boys get behind the wheel of your vehicle, we’ll be waiting for you with a breathalyzer.”
While Lester chatted amicably with his former classmates, Max noticed that his partner took up a position behind them. They were here on business.
Lester had graduated high school with them—he’d been with the football squad as team manager. Back then he was a squirrelly guy who brought towels to the real players. Although still smaller in size than any of them, he towered over them with authority as he asked the group, “Have any of you fine, upstanding citizens seen Miss Willow Geische out here tonight?”
“Little Willow? Carel’s kid?”
Lester rolled his cop-like glance toward Max, who was suddenly figuring out that this was about him. In that moment he pulled himself into a state of complete sobriety.
“Naw. She wasn’t out here,” Buddy answered.
“We’re not her crowd. We’re a bunch of whisky-drinkin’ old farts,” Heinie quipped, getting a laugh from the gang.
“You might find her back in town with them wine drinkers,” Rickie called out from the back of the crowd.
“Drinkin’ white wine and listening to jazz music.” All the hooch drinkers seemed to think that was funny.
Lester smiled at their inebriated wisecracks, but it was an official-looking smile. “Well, her father asked us to check. Seems that she didn’t make it home tonight.”
“Lucky gal,” someone catcalled, begetting another round of laughter as well as a follow-up gibe: “We’d be so lucky.”
Max kept quiet, suspicious about the presence of the county sheriff’s office and uncomfortable with his friends’ comments about Willow.
“If any of you gentlemen happen to see her, would you please let me know? Just so we can tell Mr. Geische that we did our job.”
“Which Mr. Geische? Carel or the sheriff?” That was another one they found funny.
“Both.” Lester’s terse answer put an end to the laughter.
While the other officer, the one Max didn’t know, started up a conversation with Heinie, Rickie, and Buddy, Lester stepped over to Max. “I need a word with you, Max.”
“Sure.” He saw then that drawing the others off was some kind of cop trick to save Max the embarrassment of being singled out.
“Over by my car.” Lester waited until his partner joined them back at the cruiser before he told Max, “The sheriff wants to talk with you.”
“Yeah? Why don’t I just come around and visit him during office hours?”
“That’s just not his way, Max.” Lester looked at him in a way that let Max know that this was going to happen. “The last anyone saw of Miss Geische, you were procuring alcohol for her out at Luckenbach.”
“That’s bullshit, Lester. You can’t just—”
“Procuring alcohol for a minor is a still a crime in Gillespie County.” Lester’s words stopped Max’s back talk. “And the sheriff said he needs to clear up some questions he has about an old restraining order with your name on it.”
“That fucking restraining order has expired—”
“You can come along as my guest or I can arrest you, Max.”
“This is Carel, isn’t it, Lester? That sniveling …” Max could feel the blood surging up his neck. “I can’t believe this shit!”
Lester slowly pulled a card out of his breast pocket and began to read from it. “You have the right to remain sil
ent …”
“Damn it, Lester …”
Lester’s partner stepped quietly up to Max, almost touching but not quite. He placed his hand on the set of handcuffs kept in a small leather case attached to his belt.
“You can stop reading that shit, Lester.” Max stepped to the cruiser and opened the back door himself.
• • •
At the Law Enforcement Center, Max was told once again that he was not yet under arrest. He was asked to wait until the sheriff arrived, and told, “He’s usually here first thing in the morning.”
Max spent what was left of the night in an uncomfortable plastic chair in the office break room, fuming that Carel had the gall and the wherewithal to pull this off. He was sticky in the shirt he’d been wearing for so long, uncomfortable trying to rest his head on the table, and fading in and out of sleep until roused by the night jailer, who put his hand on Max’s shoulder and said, “Come on, now. Sheriff’s here.”
When Max crossed through the sterile foyer of the Law Enforcement Building, he saw his mother, dressed for church, sitting on a wooden bench and chatting amicably with her brother-in-law, Sheriff Otto Geische. They were talking about the old 4-H. Before he became sheriff, Otto had been a stock-show judge when Evelyn was active in 4-H, and now the two of them were going on about this one and that one and how proud they were of those youngsters out there today at the fair with their sheep and goats.
“While everything else up here is changing so fast …,” Otto was saying as Max approached them, unshaven and tired.
“Oh, my dear,” Evelyn said as the sheriff turned his head to see his first appointment of the day.
“Come on, Otto. Leave my mother out of this.” Then, directly to his mother: “I’m not under arrest, Mama. We’re just clearing up some misunderstandings.”
“Yes, son, we need to talk.” Otto’s reply carried a sheriff-like tone of official courtesy. Then, turning back to his sister-in-law with a smile: “This will only take a couple of minutes, Evelyn. I won’t make you late for church.”
