One Hit Wonders

by Patrick Warner

  “And like Marie wasn’t famous for dousing her pelt with Skank No.5. Jesus, man, she used that much hairspray her hair was like a helmet. The hum off her’d make your eyes water.”

  “Don’t say nothing about Marie.”

  “Alright. Take it easy. Take it easy.”

  Both men looked away, Snuffy at the floor and Gosse at his collection of detective novels.

  “So you didn’t just come here to tell me about your sinuses, did you?”

  “Got any more of that gear?”

  “You don’t want no more of that,” Gosse said, shaking his head. “That’s trouble in a packet. That’s a letter from the devil hisself. It will put a stalk on you that you’ll just have to sink.”

  “C’mon, Perce,” said Snuffy, using his friend’s real name, short for Percival, or Patrick Percival Pitchfork Foley as Gosse’s mother used to call him. “C’mon, Perce, it’s medicinal. Besides, I could move some for you.”

  “Medicinal is it? Jesus, listen to him.” Gosse’s tone went back to their teen years, to the summer Gosse stopped using the smaller boy as a punching bag and decided to adopt him as a friend, which was roughly about the same time Gosse expanded his pot business.

  Snuffy looked up at his mentor and smiled. He knew from the way Gosse was smoothing down his suede-head and baring his teeth like Mr. Ed that he was in. He was being promoted.

  “You see me Thursday after you gets your cheque. And none of this half-a-gram shit. One-twenty a gram. A hundred if you buy more than two. Six-fifty for a quarter ounce. Cash only. No fronts. Got it?”

  8

  NEXT TO THE Fluffy Ruffles Boston ferns and behind the faux-brick partition, Al Calhoun gingerly lifts his glass. He winces when the ice clacks loudly against his lips and louder still against the bottom of the glass as he lays it down. He is afraid someone on the other side of the partition will climb up on a table and leer down at him. He pictures Gosse’s big rhombus head, the lizard-like way his neck muscles fan out where they join with his shoulders, and that cold glittering stare, like fresh-cut rebar. Al knows this is his last moment for second thoughts, his final chance to walk away. He can either do what he has planned to do or not do it: both courses of action are still open to him. He can walk away now, leave by the back door, lay low for a few days, give Gosse some bullshit excuse the next time he sees him at the golf club. He can blame it on Lila, say the little filly got shy at the gate—hell, you know how it is—tell him she threatened to blow the whistle on the whole operation unless he called it off. He can buy Gosse a few rounds, maybe slip him a couple hundred to split with his sidekick, make a vague promise to get the job back on track just as soon as the lady comes around. No hard feelings.

  Al gets to his feet, drops a ten-spot on the tabletop and heads for the back door of the lounge. He rounds the building and pushes open the aluminium front door, entering the Harbour Lounge for the second time that afternoon. A ceiling-mounted industrial heater assaults him with a blast of oily air. Shania Twain is squalling from hidden speakers: “Man, I feel like a woman.” A bearded cleaner, rocking out with his rag mop, is singing along in falsetto: “Totally crazy, forget I’m a lady.” Al understands the Timmins’ singer’s appeal. He thinks of Shania as a kindred spirit, another Canadian with Southern credentials. She’s not hard to look at either.

  The foyer smells of damp carpet and cigarettes. Just beyond it, Al can make out rows of VLTs, each one has someone slumped in front of it. Here sit the cross-addicted, who pay weekly homage to the spinning dials for as long as it takes to return their welfare cheques to the government. The slots are a poor-man’s tax. Al looks at the players with contempt. As far as he’s concerned, the economically disadvantaged are stupid.

  He looks past them into the spotlit room. A waitress moves across his field of vision. She is wearing a short black dress with red and green striped tights and carrying a tray with two pints and two shooters.

  Al decides—despite the slots—that he loves the Harbour Lounge: the stale smell; the two-for-one-highballs all day; the ceiling tiles still yellow from years of cigarette smoke; the worn pool tables and warped cues; the barely legal waitresses; the fact that it’s always practically empty but somehow manages to stay open; the retro country music—especially the music—it takes him back ten years or more, back to when he was a better model of himself.

  A single peep from his wristwatch: 15:03. He pushes through louvered, harp-shaped saloon doors and enters the inner sanctum. He walks between pool tables, trailing his left hand across their cloth surfaces until he feels a friction burn on his fingertips. He puts on his Eastwood eyes. He looks left and then slowly right, letting his gaze drift until he can no longer ignore Gosse’s tattooed arm waving back and forth. Something about the swaying movement of that arm reminds him of kelp. He is entering the murky depths.

  It’s the moment of immersion. Even as I write these lines I feel myself moving out into a new space, one in which the many possibilities begin to coalesce, move in one direction, draw together as though surrounded by the invisible walls of a trawl net. For the first time since Lila’s death, I have a sense of purpose. My heart stutters so violently that I can see its palpitations through my cheesecloth shirt. I have traction. I have penetrated the outer layer of this mystery. I feel—what am I feeling? Distant warning bells in my psyche—a blue spot tracking my vision as I lift my eyes from page to window. I must stop for a minute and examine my conscience. I am about to trespass, transgress, break and enter. I’m about to step inside the world Lila kept hidden from me, the place where she vanished for a time, returning with the seeds of her own death. I experience no pleasure in the thought, no mounting intellectual excitement. In truth, I am agitated and close to panic. I know where this journey will take me. I know where it ends, but I also know it is my duty to be present here—to be present now where in the past I was absent—to walk with Lila through this world, to bear witness, to understand.

  “Here’s our man now,” Gosse says, raising a tattooed arm above his head.

  Snuffy looks up to see a deeply tanned older man approaching. He notes the stiff way the man carries himself and the slight forward lurching motion he makes as he walks, followed by a corrective pull back. He looks like he is about to stumble. At the same time, Snuffy thinks, everything else about him looks loosey-goosey: from the relaxed set of his shoulders, to the way one arm hangs straight by his side, while the other is thrust into his trouser pocket, fingers audibly jingling loose change. He is smiling—showing five thousand dollars of orthodontist work, easy—apologizing for being late before he even sits down. He looks drunk, but not drunk, either.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, guys.”

  “Al, this is my good buddy. Snuffy’s like family.”

  Snuffy feels a surge of adrenalin—a stippling sensation on his scalp. Gosse has never said anything like this about him before. He is wary—maybe Gosse is putting on an act—still Snuffy can’t help but take it as a compliment.

  “Brothers by a different mother. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Snuffy. And again, let me apologize for being late. I was with my little lady for a quickie and she insisted on seconds. Know what I mean?”

  Gosse laughs a bit too loudly. Snuffy tries a grin, but it freezes into a rictus. Something about Al has taken him out of his depth. Despite the older man’s peculiar gait, everything about him says mover and shaker. From the wool overcoat over his camel sport coat to his shiny leather shoes, everything about him speaks of a bigger league.

  “Damn, that boy used to be good,” Al says, gesturing to the white disc speaker embedded in the Styrofoam ceiling tiles.

  “He was, before he started all that Chris Gaines bullshit,” Snuffy says.

  “I’m with you on that one. But guess how many albums that man has sold?”

  “How many?” Snuffy and Gosse ask at the same time.

  “Over seventy million. That’s more than the Beatles, more than Elvis, even.”

  Snuffy lets out a low whistle
.

  “Drink, Al?” Gosse asks, motioning to the waitress who is already on her way over to the table.

  “Well, hello darlin’. I sure like your striped stockings. Not too many gals could wear those. You have the gams. Let me guess. You’re an English major?”

  The waitress reddens. “How could you know that?”

  “Why you’ve got La Belle Dame Sans Merci written all over you.”

  “I guess…”

  “Ah, I’m just joshing. No big secret. I saw you reading Raymond Carver at the cash station when I came in. I knew him in his Hollywood days.”

  “Really? Are you serious? Oh my God. I’m totally into Raymond Carver. What was he like?”

  “Hell of a guy. Liked his sauce, if you know what I mean. Speaking of sauce, we’ll have whatever these two gentlemen are drinking and I’ll have a lime Gatorade.”

  “Is orange Gatorade OK? We’re out of lime. You really knew Raymond Carver?”

  “I’m out of lime, you’re out of lime, this whole goddamn court is out of lime,” Snuffy barks. Everyone turns to look at him. No one laughs. He shrugs his shoulders, holding his hands out before him like a burlesque comedian. “What?”

  Al and Gosse focus again.

  “Orange is OK. And yes, to answer your question, I sure did know Ray, or Frog as some folks called him. You seem real interested in that old boy. Maybe you and I could get together later and talk about him.”

  “My boyfriend is picking me up after work.”

  “Lucky son of a gun.”

  The three men watch the waitress’s ass as she walks away from the table.

  “Man, there goes a little piece of heaven,” Al says.

  “Gatorade, Al?” says Gosse.

  “A case of the squirts the last day or so. Must have been something I ate. I’m trying to build up the electrolytes. That’s what you get when you cross a vacuum cleaner with the Northern Lights.”

  Gosse laughs but Snuffy doesn’t. The waitress returns with her tray of drinks.

  “What time did you say you got off again, sweetheart?”

  “I didn’t.”

  All three of them watch the waitress’s backside again as she walks away. No one says anything until she glances back over her shoulder and grins.

  “There you go,” says Al. “Wish I’d bet on that.” He then turns his attention to Snuffy. “So let’s get down to business. Gosse and me, well, we share a couple of things in common. We both see an opportunity to bring a shipment of a certain sort into the City of Legends, but we are hamstrung by a lack of cash flow at this particular juncture. That’s why I’m here today, to put a proposition before you boys. More specifically, I’ve come to put a proposition before you, Mr. Snuffy. I think we’ve figured out a way to turn the valve on that old cash pipeline. But we need your help. Gosse here needs a right-hand man.”

  Snuffy is suddenly drunker than he wants to be.

  Al continues: “See, there are easy marks everywhere. But I can’t recall a time when I found two this easy. No, sir. This couple of starry-eyed fools are sitting on a small fortune and it will only take a teeny tiny effort to part them from it. And that, my friends, will be the beginning of a new business venture.”

  Snuffy tries to remain expressionless. He wants to give the about-to-be-proposed proposition an enthusiastic thumbs-up but he feels obstructed by a ball of energy that is moving from his gut upwards to his brain while at the same time forcing all the blood in his body into his hands and feet.

  “You look pale,” Al said.

  Snuffy does not respond; he is too busy trying to take in what he has just heard. Gosse and Al are in cahoots. They have already made a plan. They are only now sharing it with him. This makes him the patsy, the pig in the middle, the fifth wheel, the turd in the crowd.

  Snuffy is about to get to his feet when Al snaps two photographs down on the table, like the winning pair in a poker tournament. “Here, let me show you,” he looks to Gosse, who nods his approval.

  Pictures of Lila and Freddy. Snuffy looks as though he is about to say something, but stops when Gosse’s biker boot comes down on the toe of his sneaker. Snuffy’s thinking takes a slow turn. His anger towards Gosse recedes. The braking motion Gosse is applying to his foot tells him that the smart move is to say nothing, play it cool. The penny drops. It’s not what he thought; it’s not Gosse and Al against him, it’s him and Gosse against Al.

  “What a babe,” Snuffy says, leaning forward to take a close look at the woman. “Looks like a model, like that actress…What’s her name? Natural blond, too, I’d guess. And look at those eyes, so blue.”

  “Contact lenses,” Al says. “This chick is vain, let me tell you. This was a passport photo, right? They sent it back because her eyes are the wrong colour—the counter clerk spotted it—her eyes are actually kind of yellowish. But what ain’t cosmetically manipulated is that game expression, that twinkle, that sparkle, her jenny-say-kwa—know what I mean? This is a gal who would pick your pocket while whispering sweet nothings in your ear. This is a woman who would tell you straight out she was wearing blue contact lenses and dare you to care.”

  Snuffy is about to ask Al her name when he is interrupted by the sound of a group spilling into the bar. He turns to the source of the commotion and sees a scrum of maroon leather jackets with white sleeves, topped by unshaven faces and trendy haircuts. “Students,” he says. “Probably friends of the waitress.”

  “Reckon you’re right,” Al replies, scooping up the photographs and slipping them into his inside jacket pocket. “Still, I’d be more comfortable if we took our business elsewhere. I haven’t had anything alcoholic to drink, so what say you all we take a little drive and then maybe get something to eat. Maybe run over our lines—if you get my drift. We have a lot to discuss.”

  Gosse and Snuffy throw back their drinks, showing stained lower teeth through their pint glasses.

  “Allow me,” says Al, summoning the waitress. “One cheque, honey, please.”

  “You may want to reconsider that, Al,” Gosse says. “We’ve been here a while.”

  “I dare say you have,” says Al, as the waitress presents him with the scrolling bill. “You boys can sure hold your liquor. I’ve got some catching up to do. Whoo-wee.” He peels five twenties from a fat wad of the same and hands them to the waitress.

  “That’s probably too much,” she says. “The bill is hardly half of that.”

  “The rest is for you, darlin’. I didn’t get your name?”

  “Tanya.”

  “The rest is for you, Tanya. We’re much obliged to you for your fine service this afternoon. What time did y’all say you got off again?”

  “I didn’t.”

  9

  THE THREE AMIGOS exit the bar and make their way across the lobby, where Al suddenly stalls, looks puzzled, and veers hard right. “Excuse me a second, fellas, but nature calls. Might be a minute or two.”

  Shania Twain is blaring from the lobby speakers and oily air is blasting from the ceiling-mounted heater. A spent fly strip—studded as a hipster’s belt with mummified bluebottle corpses—hangs above the cigarette machine. Nearby, a housefly cruises in parallelogram around a naked lightbulb.

  Al swerves left, towards the door marked with a Stetson, pushing on the brass push-plate worn dull from countless palm jolts. The bathroom’s fluorescent light mixes with sunlight to blinding effect. All colours seem to have leached from the room, leaving in their wake a rich bouquet of odours.

  Al is nervous but he has learned not to show it. His nerves could be firing like a mall full of Christmas trees and no one would notice. The canary of Al’s nervous system is his bowel, which, moments earlier, had given an alarming chirp.

  He sees two cubicles, recently painted teal blue. One has a latch that still works. In a hurry, he slams the door, drops his pants and sits. His stomach immediately contracts but produces no result. He knows from experience that nothing will move until he relaxes.

  He looks for gr
affiti. Several blocks of cursive have partially bled through the new paint. A palimpsest, he thinks, pleased that he remembers a technical term he has not used since college. Producing a pen from his inside jacket pocket, he begins a new text in a flowing script: Camel meat tastes like caribou, but camel toe tastes like denim.

  Still no movement. He closes his eyes, inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth. If there is a scent that should be preserved for future generations, he thinks, it is the complex smell of the public restroom at the turn of the century: deodorizing urinal pucks, fresh paint, air freshener, some heavy duty cleaner wafting up from the floor, not to mention whatever it is that turns toilet water blue. A few deep breaths and the air seems to shrink-wrap his throat, making him aware of the cartilage rings in his windpipe.

  He decides he hates that Shania Twain uses the word “prerogative” in her song. It ruins the illusion for him, makes her come across as uppity, tarnishing her image as the girl who overcame a rough start but never forgot where she came from.

  There is no time for further thought on the subject. In an eye-widening five seconds, and with a dry rasping sound, Al expels from his body a turd he subsequently imagines is a blunt-headed parsnip, hairy and anemic. He has to imagine it, because—much to his disappointment—it hits the water with a resounding plonk, managing to navigate the u-bend without even leaving a skid-mark. The result—when he stands up to look—is an empty bowl, a sight that leaves him wondering whether what just passed from him really passed from him at all. He can only conclude that the new drugs he is taking have some interesting side effects.

  A minute later, he is leading the way across the Harbour Lounge parking lot, Gosse next to him, Snuffy a few yards behind, kicking a pebble. Al produces a set of keys and clicks on a thumb-shaped electronic door opener. A black SUV chirps to life and winks its tail lights. “Like a happy puppy,” he says, opening the back door for Snuffy, while Gosse rounds the vehicle and climbs into the passenger seat. Snuffy sinks into plush upholstery and that new leather smell. He stretches, his hand reaching back to find the tungsten lines that wind boustrophedon style across the rear window.