The Right Side

by Spencer Quinn

  “Again,” she said.

  The bartender, in conversation with the Stetson-wearing customer down the bar, turned to her. “Another round?”

  “Bingo.”

  He served her another shot and another Negra Modelo. “More ice?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  He brought another glass of ice cubes.

  “Run you a tab?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’ll need a credit card.”

  She handed over her Army MWR MasterCard.

  “You in the military?”

  “A comrade out of arms,” LeAnne said.

  He laughed, changing the shape of those bushy sideburns. “Meanin’ on leave, huh? Shoulda told me—we got a ten percent discount for active military. I’ll make it retroactive.” He ran the card and returned it, also laying a small folded towel on the bar. By that time, the second shot was a goner and LeAnne was working on Negra Modelo numero dos. The head pain was almost beyond detection, lid twisting or metal shearing or whatever the fuck went on beneath the crater easing up. LeAnne was struck by two realizations. First, she understood what the towel was for, namely drying her hair, wet from the melting ice. Second . . . second was something that had evaded her back at Walter Reed, but now she had it. Number two turned out to be . . . turned out to be . . . it slipped it away again. Damn little varmint. The trick would be to keep drinking until her mind reached autopilot and then would do all the remembering on its own. Another round or two and she’d be there. Sounded like a plan!

  LeAnne unfolded the towel and patted her hair dry. She shook it out in the free and confident manner of good-lookin’ gals everywhere. Of course, she knew the real actress she reminded people of—she’d been hearing it since her late teenage years—but she wouldn’t voice the name to herself. She downed the rest of her beer and took another look at her image in the mirror. Her face was dark and gloomy, so different from what she was feeling inside.

  LeAnne took off the sunglasses. Hey! Not so bad. Even kind of distinguished and piratical with the patch, or was that only for men? And the scars, which had invaded so much of the right side of her face, didn’t seem so ugly. Were they more like interesting features? Or was all this because of the dim lighting down here in the dimmest part of Rooster Red’s?

  LeAnne pocketed the sunglasses. Then she patted the bar, a wooden bar with a worn, homey feel. “Again.”

  Initial Evaluation for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Mental Status:

  4. Suicidal or Homicidal Thoughts, Ideations or Plans or Intent:

  LeAnne’s image in the mirror behind the bar at Rooster Red’s in a southern Arizona town whose name she hadn’t noted was starting to look like its old self when the front door opened and someone came in. LeAnne didn’t bother looking. She was happy to be all by herself at the far end of the bar, working on a Negra Modelo—no more shots for her, feeling plenty good already, thank you very much!—and a bowl of mixed snacks: pretzel sticks, peanuts, and little Chex-like squares with a taste she couldn’t identify. She ate them first, and moved on to the peanuts, saving the pretzels for last. But just when she was almost there at the pure pretzel stage, the bartender refilled her bowl with the whole mixture! And it might not have been the first time! She didn’t get mad—you’d have to be crazy to get mad at something like that—and just started all over on the Chex-like squares.

  Meanwhile, she was aware that the newcomer had taken a stool somewhere between her and the Stetson wearer. She had real good situational awareness: it was in all her evaluations. As long as whoever it was stayed in his or her own space, they were cool. No need for LeAnne to even glance that way. She sipped her Negra Modelo, kept busy on the Chex-like squares—she was kind of hungry today. When was her last real meal? She was trying to remember that when she felt someone’s gaze on her face; the left side, in profile.

  Then he—the someone turning out to be a he—spoke. “What the heck are those things, anyway?”

  LeAnne turned very slightly in his direction, maybe fifteen degrees, no more. From the sound of his voice, she might have expected some sort of good ol’ boy, or a desert cowboy wannabe, but he turned out to be something else, an urban type, most likely: clean-shaven, short-haired, dressed in a button-down shirt, jeans, and loafers, about her own age. LeAnne remembered the dirt streak on her chin and wiped it off on the back of her hand.

  “These?” she said, holding up one of the Chex-like snacks.

  “I can’t figure them out at all. And I’m in the business.”

  “The snack business?”

  “Well, no. Broader than that. I’m in restaurant supplies.”

  “Sounds . . . normal.”

  The man smiled a puzzled smile but friendly. LeAnne could see he was the friendly type, at ease with people. “Normal how?” he said.

  “Blessedly normal.”

  “Depends where you’re coming from, I guess,” he said. “There’s nothing normal about the restaurant business, in my experience, except for failure, usually sooner rather than later.”

  “So why are you in it?” LeAnne said. All of a sudden she was her old sharp self. Was ordering one more shot a good idea? Why not? She’d been a sharpshooter practically her whole life. LeAnne came close to laughing out loud.

  “The restaurant business isn’t the same thing as the restaurant supply business,” the friendly man was saying.

  The bartender, loading glasses into the underbar dishwasher, snickered. The corner of a paper napkin on the counter fluttered in his snickery breeze.

  “Meaning,” the friendly man went on, “the more failures, the more start-ups. And start-ups like to start all over with their own visions.”

  “I got it the first time,” LeAnne said. Yes, her old sharp self for sure. And maybe a touch of Marci-like snappishness as a new add-on. What a crazy idea: she could be better than before! And take Marci along for the ride!

  His smile wavered. He sipped his beer. “And you?”

  “What about me?”

  “What do you do, if I’m not being too pushy? Name’s Kevin, by the way.” He shifted closer, settling two stools away, and extended his hand.

  That set LeAnne up for a tough choice. She could either shake hands—right hands, of course—which involved turning far enough to face him, leading to the big reveal; or not shake hands, which would be uncalled-for rude. There was also the possibility of first putting on the sunglasses and then shaking hands, but that was just weird. LeAnne turned and shook his hand, a small hand for a man and cool to the touch.

  “LeAnne,” she said.

  “Nice to meet you, LeAnne.” His gaze went directly to the patch and fucked-up flesh that couldn’t quite be covered by the patch, despite its size, almost cartoonish. But the next moment he was back to just looking at her in general, meaning maybe the damage was invisible in the murky depths of Rooster Red’s. “What are you drinking?”

  “I’m good,” LeAnne said.

  He glanced at the bottle in front of her, called to bartender. “A Negra Modelo for LeAnne, here.” He downed what was left in his glass, tapped it on the bar. “And a refill for me.”

  The drinks came. Kevin held out his glass for clinking. LeAnne clinked it. She caught a whiff of his smell, slightly lemony, kind of nice. Plus he looked kind of nice, and his manners were kind of nice. Then, from out of nowhere, came a real bad thought: she herself most likely did not smell kind of nice. In fact, there was no way she could smell nice. When was her last shower?

  “So,” Kevin said, “you were about to tell me what you did. Or not.”

  Good fuckin’ question. LeAnne gulped down a big hit of Negra Modelo. It had no effect, certainly not on the cave-ins happening under her mood. “I’m . . . between things at the moment.”

  “Cool,” said Kevin. His nodded toward the patch. “I had to wear one of those when I was a kid myself.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The bartender, entering orders on a touch screen by the beer taps,
seemed to stiffen. LeAnne was aware of that, but had no idea why.

  “The, uh, eyepatch,” Kevin said, gesturing toward it with his glass. “For lazy eye. I wore it on the good eye so that—”

  “Huh? You’re saying I have lazy eye?”

  His head moved straight back a few inches like he was avoiding a punch, which was where LeAnne got the idea of what could come next. “No, no,” he said. “I was saying I had a lazy eye, not that—”

  “Stop it with the fuckin’ lazy eyes,” said LeAnne, now on her feet.

  “Whoa!” Kevin said, raising a hand palm up in the stop sign. LeAnne was in no mood for anybody to raise a hand to her, even if you couldn’t really count this as raising a hand. “There’s no call for any—”

  She batted his hand away, good and hard. “Don’t order me around.”

  “Order you around? I wasn’t ordering you around. Geez. All I—”

  “And don’t fuckin’ mention lazy eyes again.” LeAnne stepped toward him, ripped off her patch, and leaned in close. “This look like a lazy eye to you?”

  “Oh my God,” said Kevin, shrinking back. At that point, his nostrils quivered slightly and he made a bit of a face, smelling her for sure. LeAnne placed both her hands on his chest and pushed, not even that hard, but he was already shrinking away and now hit the stool and tumbled backward right over it, falling hard to the floor.

  “Hey!” said the bartender. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Back the fuck off,” LeAnne told him.

  Instead the bartender reached behind the bar, came up with a baseball bat. LeAnne grabbed her Negra Modelo by the neck, smashed it on the edge of the bar, brandished what was left. He, too, shrank back, lowering the bat.

  “Get some help,” he said.

  LeAnne dropped the broken-off bottle and walked out of Rooster Red’s. If only she had a weapon! She’d shoot up the whole town. LeAnne took a few more steps and reached the Honda, where it suddenly hit her that shooting up whole towns was the kind of thing the Wakil Razaq Salams of the world aspired to. She bent over and puked her stomach empty.

  Later that day, LeAnne checked into a motel outside an old mining town, about half a mile beyond the last heap of bright orange tailings. The motel was empty except for an old woman in the office, who barely looked up from her screen. She gave LeAnne a military discount—based on the credit card and without being asked—and a key to the best room, which had a kiva fireplace.

  First thing, LeAnne took a shower, long and hot, washing her hair and scrubbing her body once, twice, and again. Then she brought all her clothes into the stall and washed them. She wrung them out, hung everything that would fit on the shower rail, spreading the rest—jeans, hoodie, two T-shirts—on the floor. After that she lit a fire, and sat in front of it, wrapped in a blanket. Outside the wind blew, a cold, mile-high-type wind, whistling and moaning. It was good to be alone, with lots of time to organize her thoughts. Her initial thought: it was horrible to be alone.

  Thought two was all about Jamie: What had he wanted? I told you already. Six letters. Starts with L and ends with E. Had anyone ever said anything better than that to her? And what had she given in return? LeAnne gazed into the shifting flames of the fire. Were they mocking her? Did they seem to be engaged in a hostile and contemptuous dance? Why would that be? Not too hard to figure out: she’d failed Jamie, gotten him killed on account of her stupidity or incompetence, or exaggerated self-regard, or some other bad quality. That was the reward for his love: he was dead and gone forever. So was there any reason she deserved to live? The flames had the answer to that one, a great big dancing negative.

  For the first time in her life, LeAnne considered voluntary ways out. You could make an exhibition of your inner self, by hanging, for example, or settling into a hot bath and slitting your wrists. She didn’t want to make an exhibition of herself. ODing on something or other seemed cowardly to her. How about driving off a lonely road at ninety miles an hour, straight into a boulder? She must have fallen asleep, they’d all say, what a tragedy. Nothing queasy-making about it, nothing guilt-inducing or too painful for friends and family to contemplate. Call this Plan A, the kind of pain accommodated by normal human contemplation.

  LeAnne went on to Plans B, C, D, and more, but none topped Plan A. Ninety mph plus boulder: call it a family tradition. The flames died down, still dancing their nasty dance, but smaller and smaller. LeAnne lay down on the floor in the best room of the motel beyond the last heap of bright orange tailings and pulled the blanket tight around her. You had to face facts in this life.

  Next morning LeAnne stopped in at the office to return her key. The woman wasn’t there, but a landline phone sat on the counter. LeAnne tried to remember the last time she’d seen her own phone and could not. All the way back in Afghanistan? Very possible. But so what? Who was she going to call? Who was there to talk to? She picked up the woman’s phone, called Walter Reed, was put through to Dr. Machado’s office.

  “Hi, this is Dr. Machado. Sorry I’m not here to take your call right now. Please leave a short message after the beep.”

  Beep.

  “Dr. Machado? Um, if you’re there, I’d . . . like you to . . . I’d . . .”

  It was one of those bad connections where you hear an echo of your own voice. LeAnne heard her own voice, maybe not loud and clear, but loud and clear enough. She sounded pathetic. Pathetic and pitiful, useless and helpless. And now a fucking beggar on top of it, begging for she didn’t even know what. Not so long ago—hardly any time at all, really—she’d been a leader of men.

  She said no more, just hung up, leaving the room key on the counter. Then she hit the road. The speedometer readings went from zero to 140.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  No boulders appeared. What a crazy development! When couldn’t you find boulders in the desert, and if not a boulder, how about a cliff face, or even a cottonwood tree? But no. LeAnne laughed at herself, at first just on the inside, then out loud.

  “Can’t even goddamn—” she began, but then—this was on Highway 79, closing in on the Valley—she heard a scary high-RPM buzz from right above. She wrenched the wheel to the side, jammed on the brakes, came to a fishtailing stop ten or twenty yards off the road, then threw herself on the floor, hands clasped behind her head, mouth pressed into the dirty rubber mat. After that came sounds pretty close to whimpering. The buzz buzz buzz seemed to circle above her before receding. LeAnne rose and got out of the car. She saw a helicopter, altitude maybe three thousand feet, range close to a mile, moving north. Close enough to be identifiable: a Little Bird, easy to tell from its chubby, egglike shape.

  “One of ours,” she said. But who else would be in our airspace? So what was there to be afraid of? LeAnne’s mind stopped being afraid. Her body kept shaking and sweating a little while longer. Also she’d pissed herself. She stood by the side of the road, hands on hips. An eighteen-wheeler blew by and the driver checked her out and leaned on his air horn, a horrible noise that didn’t scare her, just made her mad. She waved her fist and shouted something at him, smothered by the air horn.

  In the bathroom of a gas station south of Florence, she cleaned herself up and changed into her freshly washed jeans from the night before. What was the point of having freshly washed jeans on hand if you’d be dead before wearing them? And how set on suicide was someone who whimpered at the sound of passing helicopters? Was she a coward? Or did she simply want to live more than to die?

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “Be right out,” LeAnne said.

  “Hurry!”

  “Did it, uh, work this time?” Ryan said. “I tried not to hurry.”

  Yes, it had worked, beyond doubt. LeAnne, gazing at the ceiling in her bedroom, which was on the sunny side of the double-wide—the double-wide now hers alone—had a very strange thought: was sex a form of work? She rolled over and there was Ryan, sharing her pillow, a casually anxious expression on his face.

  She smiled, more
like she just relaxed into a smile, as though smiling would be her default look, now and forever.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  She nodded a tiny nod.

  “Oh. Good. Nice.” He laughed at himself, then got a look in his eyes that meant some little joke was on the way. “Good job,” he said.

  Yes: a form of work! LeAnne laughed, a laugh that suddenly threatened to turn into tears.

  “Hey. It wasn’t that funny.”

  A lock of his hair fell over one eye. She brushed it aside.

  “And did it work for you?” she said.

  You hardly ever saw boys blush, but Ryan’s cheeks pinkened a little bit. “Yeah,” he said. “Like it’s kind of obvious, right? For guys, I mean.”

  “I know that,” LeAnne said. “I knew that. I guess I meant . . . damn, who knows what I meant?” She poked him between the eyes, very gently.

  Ryan withdrew his head an inch or two. This was after her dad’s wake. How much after? LeAnne didn’t really know—those days went by in a fog of pain, remembrance, and useless wishes—but there were still leftover deviled eggs in the fridge. LeAnne had had very little sexual experience. This was the fourth time with Ryan, and the first successful attempt, if you could put it that way. Why now? And was it too soon after her father’s death? Were there unwritten rules about that? She wondered what Daddy would have had to say on the subject and shied away from that real quick.

  Fourth time with Ryan and fifth overall, including one single episode after a meet the year before with a visiting track star who’d shown an amazing lack of endurance for a distance runner, although she’d only been struck by that fun asymmetry weeks after the event. Right after the event, she’d gotten the feeling he never wanted to see her again, and it was totally mutual. The next week she’d placed fourth, the first time she hadn’t been top three in any competition for her whole high school career. But in between vaults, the Saturday of the week after that, she’d glanced out from the infield, watched the progress of the boys’ ten thousand meters on the oval track, and realized that the lead runner was this former—what would you call him? Certainly not lover. More like one-night stand. She’d kept her eye on her former one-night stand, gliding round and round, and not long before the finish line, tape already held up for him to burst through in triumph, he’d finally glanced her way. And stumbled on his very next step! Which had led to his getting passed and nipped at the post, nipped at the post being a favorite expression of Mr. Adelson. LeAnne felt a very odd arousal, faint but definitely there. Less than a minute later was when she cleared 13’ 2" for the first time and got back to her winning ways.