Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel

by Butler, Nickolas

  I ran a hand through my hair. Finished my glass of beer and ordered another pitcher. “I don’t know, Lee. I don’t have any idea.”

  “Well, somehow I got this notion that stealin’ those eggs is the key.”

  The pitcher came and the barkeep moved away again, tallied our damage. I refilled our beers, and, I have to say, something in me softened for a moment, just adding beer to Lee’s glass, doing something familiar and kind for him. Because it was true, we had passed many hours, days even, doing just the thing we were now doing: drinking and talking. And yet.

  “So you’ll do it, then? Steal that jar of eggs with me?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Will you, sir? Will you please just steal that jar of eggs with me?” He was being playful now, and I may have even smiled, wondering what his grand plan was exactly, leaving the bar encumbered by a giant glass jar full of pickled eggs.

  “Nope, I ain’t quite there yet.”

  “But you’re at least considering the heist, right?”

  “Possibly. Possibly I am a little intrigued. And, possibly I think you’re, ah, totally full of shit.”

  “Because you’re an accomplice now. You have no choice in the matter, except to report me to the proper channels.” I could see he was getting drunk now, guzzling that cheap pale beer. “The proper authorities, so to speak.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “I’m drunk—I don’t know. Maybe I don’t know what I’m saying. Yes, I’m serious. Those eggs are taunting us, right now. Look at them. Also, I’m desperate. All right? I don’t see how else you and I can get right without some sort of juvenile act of, you know, mutual solidarity. And sitting here beside you, gazing over at those disgusting fucking pickled eggs, I suddenly had the notion that, you know, maybe we could just steal the fuckers.”

  “You’re a complete moron.”

  “So, how many eggs you suppose are in there?” He began pointing at the jar with his index finger, his eyes squinty with mock concentration, his brow almost comically furrowed.

  “Look—no!” I snapped, slapping his finger, suddenly angry again. “This is fucking infantile.” I stopped, lowered my voice a little. “You, you fucked up my marriage! You fucked up my family. And now we’re sitting here counting eggs? Sitting here counting fucking eggs, talking about stealing some goddamn jar of pickled eggs, as if somehow that’s how you’re going to make everything okay again? Like that’s gonna make everything go away?”

  Lee looked at me now, directly in the eyes, and I could see they were misty, that he had nothing more to say, that he was indeed sorry. That there was nothing left to do.

  “Christ,” I said. “So this is the real world.” I clenched my fist, wanted so desperately just to pound him.

  “I’m sorry,” Lee said. “I really am. I thought I’d found my wife in Chloe, and well, things just didn’t work out. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I hope that you can find it, you know, find it in yourself, to trust me again. And honestly, I guess I’d understand if you never did. But you’re my best friend in the whole world, all right? And I love you. I just don’t know what the hell else to say.”

  Then Lee stood up from his bar stool, drank an entire glass of beer, and moved toward the back of the bar where the bathrooms were.

  I sat there, examining the wood pattern of the ancient mahogany bar and then outside to Main Street, where the streetlights cast a pleasant glow on the slick, wet asphalt. I sighed. Because there was nothing left to do, and sometimes that is what forgiveness is anyway—a deep sigh. I loved my father very much, but was never as strong as he was, and I couldn’t imagine my life without Leland or Ronny, for that matter, or even Kip or Eddy or the Girouxs. I wanted Lee back inside our house, wanted him to come over for bonfires and dinners, wanted to hear about his life and travels and the music he was making. So what was I supposed to do? Go through life harnessed to some yoke of anger? And what would that do to my marriage, to Beth, to the kids?

  I sighed again, heard his weight compress the black cushion top of his bar stool, heard him pour himself another drink. Out on Main Street, a wet dog trotted by, its tail between his legs, head held down low.

  “So, how are we going to get that jar out of here?” Lee said. “Undetected-like.” He surveyed the bar for witnesses, of which there were perhaps a dozen. It was a slow night.

  “Look,” I said, “I don’t know how to say this to you.”

  “I won’t be deterred,” he said, pointing at the jar of eggs.

  “I’m serious. I’ve got something to tell you, and I just need to get it out and I don’t want you fucking interrupting me with this goddamn pickled egg talk.” I took a breath. “I’m so goddamned angry at you that I could kill you. I really could. You understand? I’ve never doubted Beth until last year. Always trusted her. Always felt in love. And now what? Huh? She’s all I got, man. The kids, they’re all I got. And it just feels like—” I paused.

  “Like I took it from you.”

  “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

  He held up his hands.

  “Yes. Like you fucking took it from me.”

  We sipped again at our beers.

  “And, look, I almost understand it. It was years ago,” I continued. “We weren’t married. But do you understand? I’m not rich, Lee. I’m not famous. She is all that I have. My family is all that I have. And if I could, I’d beat you until there wasn’t anything left.”

  I drank my beer until it leaked out of the corners of my mouth, wiped it away with my forearm. “Goddamn it,” I said, slapping the bar with my palm hard enough to make our glasses jump, hard enough to still the whole barroom, the other patrons glancing up from their booths and their billiards games.

  “I’m so sorry, Hank. I really am.”

  I shook my head.

  “I apologize. I’m so sorry. I’m just so sorry, man. It’s all I can say.”

  “Fine, you’re sorry. Great. So, look—here’s a start, be the big famous fucking rich guy and order us another round. How ’bout that?”

  I walked away, to the jukebox, punched in some Credence and a few Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young tunes. Returned to the bar to find my glass full, Lee gorging on a bag of potato chips and offering me some. I took the bag, shook some into my mouth, and chewed, looking at everything in the bar but Lee.

  “Those chips were like crumb dust,” I said.

  “I know. It’s like someone stepped on the bag or something.”

  “Still,” I said, “better than nothing.”

  “No one’s gonna miss them goddamn eggs, I’m tellin’ you,” he said to me quietly. “When was the last time you actually even saw someone buy one? Probably the same eggs that been in there since Dad was a kid coming in here. Those eggs could be twenty, thirty years old. They deserve to be stolen. They want to be stolen. That’s what I’m telling you. And I won’t be deterred.” He spoke conspiratorially, took a sip of his beer. “No, sir.”

  I could not keep well enough alone. “How many times did it happen?” I asked.

  Lee stopped his drinking and stared at me, the foam of his beer clinging to five days’ worth of stubble. He ran his thin, veiny fingers over his face, adjusted his baseball cap, and looked at me without blinking. I stared right back.

  “Once.”

  “Once?”

  “Once.” He held up his index finger, then quickly put it away. Shrugged his shoulders apologetically, a gesture that I didn’t care for too much.

  “Once?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Can I trust you?”

  “Yes.” He nodded.

  “Did you want it to happen more than that?”

  He shook his head. “Look—no. It was just a mistake.”

  He’s lying. Sonuvabitch is lying. “Yeah? I don’t believe you. See, that’s what I’m talking about. Even if I do forgive you, how the hell am I supposed to trust you again? You’re a fucking liar.”

  “Okay. Yes, all right? Yes, I wanted it to
happen more. I was lonely. Fuck, I was stuck out at that farmhouse in the middle of nowhere with three Mexicans and an old lady, and I was pretty well convinced I was a failure. Of course I wanted to sleep with someone.”

  “Could it have been anyone?”

  He seemed to consider my question. I watched his face, drank my beer.

  “Yes. Yeah, I suppose so.”

  “Do you think Beth wanted more?”

  “No, man! Look, she loves you. Everybody knows that. She’s always loved you.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “No. Well. Shit.” He rapped his knuckles on the bar. “A little. Yes. Not anymore. But back then—a little. Of course I did. How could I help it? Yes.”

  I looked away from Lee, back toward the jar.

  “Revelations,” I said. “Sobering revelations coming left and right.”

  I held two fingers in the air toward the heavily perspiring barkeep, Joyce, who by and by came down the rail toward us, an unlit cigarette clenched between her wrinkled lips.

  “Boys,” she said flatly, “what’ll it be?”

  “Two shots of something cheap and a pitcher,” I said.

  “What’re you two aiming to do? Drink me out of beer?”

  “We’re gonna give it a shot,” I said.

  “Gonna give it the ole college try,” Lee reiterated.

  She began to move away, toward the line of beer taps, when Lee stood quickly on his stool. “Wait! Joyce, come here quick. Hey, how many eggs in that jar, anyway?”

  She looked at us. “How the fuck would I know? You want one? Fifty cents.”

  “No,” he said, “I don’t want one. They look totally fucking disgusting. What I want is to know how many are in there.”

  She sighed deeply, as if in defeat. She knew us, had worked in the elementary school cafeteria, had slopped food onto our molded plastic trays when we were not much taller than her waist. Her husband was a farmer and had dealings with me and the Giroux boys. She looked at the jar, and then back at Lee and said, “Two hundred and twelve.” She started to move away.

  “No! No! No!” Lee yelled. “Come back! That can’t be right!”

  “Lee!” she yelled. “You’re drunk. And Hank’s drunk, too. I’m going to get your beer and shots and then I’m coming back here to get your money. And then, after that, you’re outta here. I don’t care if you got a hundred Grammys. You can wipe your ass with ’em. And that’s that.” She went away.

  “Nice work, asshole,” I said. “I never been eighty-sixed before.”

  “Well,” Lee said, “where are we? We okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think that’s how these things work. I think it’s just going to take time, you know? If it can happen at all. I have to trust you again. I have to trust you again around my wife. I mean…”

  A slow song came over the jukebox, and there was a moment then, between us, I think, when time congealed, when the fabric of things was as it had always been and continued to be for those others in attendance, but between us, a kind of fault separated itself noiselessly like a small mass of land breaking away and going into the ocean. And I was sadder than I had ever been before, and more alone, too. Because I knew that we could remain friends, but I also knew that I could never trust him again in my house, or around my wife. Life had happened. Decisions had been made.

  Joyce came toward us, arms wobbling with effort, a pitcher of golden beer in one hand and in the other, three shots of maple-syrup-colored fluid. She set these things down on the bar, and passed out the shots: to Lee, to me, and then one in her own hand.

  “Mud in your eye,” she said, tossing hers down the hatch.

  “Salut,” we barked in unison. We drank quickly and hammered our shot glasses down on the wood of the bar.

  “Huzzah,” said Lee.

  “Ten bucks,” said Joyce.

  I handed her the money and she leaned over the bar toward us. “Seriously, drink up and get out. You two are spookin’ the other patrons. All right? So, get your shit on outta here.”

  We drank down the pitcher fast, clanking our glasses together angrily, as if intent on breaking them, or each others’ fists, sad and loose and unmoored, the noise of the bar rising about us.

  “What we need,” Lee said, “is a goddamn diversion. A smokescreen, so to speak.”

  “I have no idea how we’re going to accomplish that.”

  “You could start a fight.”

  “No. This is ridiculous. I want to go home. What time is it, anyway?” I looked at my watch—11:39.

  “Wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “I got an idea.”

  He stood up from the bar, crept toward the Wurlitzer, and searched around in the pockets of his blue jeans for what I could only assume were a few hot quarters. Then he punched in a letter and a number, and from the first few notes of music that came on the old jukebox, I knew it was A1, the very first track on that album that had been a soundtrack for us on so many summer nights of our teens. I shook my head. In a small town, it’s so hard to get away from anyone.

  Lee now stood on a stool near the back of the bar and in his deep baritone, called out, “Hey! Hey! Listen up, my friends! Anyone care to sing along with me? Anyone? ’Cause if this ain’t the best goddamned song ever, and I would like to sing this song right here, right now.”

  A group of perhaps four or five women, all in their fifties and sixties, gathered around him as those first piano notes started to be bucked up with the drums and the electric bass, as that classic piece of Americana slid under way.… And then he winked at me, motioned toward the jar, and sure as shit, Joyce was watching him from the far side of the bar, her back turned to me.

  And there I was, back behind the bar, on tiptoes for no good reason, smiling the faintest hint of a smile that I couldn’t nearly help, closer and closer to that absurd, gigantic jar of pickled eggs. Thinking, This is really stupid. What in the hell are you doing?

  And all the while, the jukebox choir sang along:

  I was a lonely, teenage broncin’ buck

  With a pink carnation and a pickup truck

  But I knew I was out of luck

  The day the music died

  Then Lee pointing at me, as he nodded to the beat mouthing: “Now! Now! Now! Get that jar!” And Lee, really putting on a show, really distracting them by knocking over glasses of beer, pushing over pool cues, squeezing the asses of a few over-the-hill barflies.

  And me, my arms around the jar as if tackling a giant, my knees bent wide so as not to blow out my back, and lifting it! Lifting that goddamned thing like it was an Olympic event … Off the bar … And there, in the space where it sat, look: the wood there a completely different shade of mahogany and with a great thick halo of dust to mark its old resting spot. And now, Leland, smiling broadly at me, clapping his hands, and the eggs obscenely sloshing in their jar, and Lee breaking ranks, still singing, stumbling to the door, and out into the night we went, two egg thieves, giggling crazily, stupidly—heartbroken, heartbroken, heartbroken. Going, going, gone, into the misty Wisconsin night, with nowhere to go and a giant jar of pickled eggs between us.

  * * *

  “What now?” I asked, out of breath and stumbling, the jar slipping, Lee there to steady it, to help me regain my grip. We walked quickly down Main, away from the VFW and toward Little Wing’s hundreds of houses, all mostly darkened, a few windows glowing blue with midnight televisions, and sleeping viewers, their feet propped up on battered recliners.

  “I don’t know,” Lee said. “But I don’t want to think too much about it, right now.”

  We crossed Main and trotted down Elm Street, where there had been no elms for many years, save for a few persistent stumps that had yet to rot fully, all those decades since their disease had wiped out Little Wing’s elm-tunneled streets. Lee stopped a second and pried off the lid of the jar, threw it into the front yard we were standing beside.

  “Here,” he ordered, “grab an egg
.”

  “Hold on now, just hold on. This’s our chance to count them,” I slurred, still carrying the jar, and suddenly very drunk. Then, “Shit. Um. You mind if I set this thing down for a sec?”

  “You’re in no condition to count,” Lee said.

  “I’m a better counter than you.”

  “Just grab an egg like I told you, all right? Grab an egg while they’re still hot.”

  “This is stupid.”

  He laughed, pointed a finger at me. “But it ain’t sad, is it?”

  I set the jar down and reached my arm into the juicy sea of pickled eggs and grabbed four, but not before my arm hair was drenched in pickle juice.

  “Is it?” he insisted.

  I removed my hand from the jar, and it shone slick in the night as if shellacked.

  “This was a bad idea,” I said. “We shouldn’t have stolen these stinking eggs.”

  “Throw an egg at that car over there.”

  “That’s Eddy’s car,” I said. “I can’t throw it at his car. He’s our friend.”

  “Yeah? But if anyone has good insurance, he does. Least nowadays.”

  Lee stopped, reached out for one of my eggs, tested its weight in his own palm, felt the pickled, clammy, gray skin of the egg, and then reared back and fired it hard, an oval fastball, right at Eddy’s Ford Taurus.

  The egg did not splatter, not quite. It collided loudly with the American steel of the automobile’s driver’s-side door, dimpling the metal there. Lee laughed. The egg must have been easy to throw, its weight facile, its shape perfect for the middle and index fingers to hold with the thumb before flipping the thing out into the night. Just then, from down the street, a set of headlights illuminated the wet pavement, announcing the approach of a midnight motorist.

  “Get behind a tree,” Lee hissed, hefting the jar up on his hip now, his pants thoroughly soaked with pickle juice and the two of us suddenly noxious smelling. Hiding behind young maples hardly thick enough to conceal us, we listened as the car approached, and then let it pass before Lee moved away from the tree and drew back his arm to throw. An egg went out, end over end, wobbling in its trajectory before hitting the bumper of the advancing Toyota Camry. We leapt back into the shadows, watched as the car jerked to a stop, then sat idling, then drove off.