by Ace Atkins
“Midnight Man coming back?” Nat asked.
“Not tonight,” Fannie said. “Still tending to some business for me.”
“Getting some trouble from that girl Brandy,” Nat said. “She told me that I wasn’t her boss and that she could dance to any damn shit she wanted to. I told that bitch she better not play that ‘Old Town Road’ one more time, Billy Ray Cyrus remix or not. And there she came in today, strapping on that ugly-ass leather cowboy hat and red sparkly G-string and telling me that I could kiss her motherfucking white ass. I’ll tell you what, Miss Fannie. You need to fire that girl. She’s rude to customers, don’t tip out, and the kind of woman who’s gonna soak this place in gasoline one day and drop a match.”
“She’s been going through a bad breakup,” Fannie said, ashing her cigarillo. “Give her some time.”
“Some time?” Nat said, crossing her arms over her chest, going as sexy as she got with a small Vienna’s tee over her big tatas. “Shit. That just don’t sound like you.”
Fannie gave Nat a look that meant no more questions and the black girl walked down the length of the old onyx bar she’d had shipped in from Kansas City special, bought for nearly ten grand at an antique auction. The kind of detail that her grandmother, the late great grand madame Vienna, would appreciate.
Fannie had to smile at the events of the last few days, only having some remorse for her favorite hammer. She’d taken it out to the dock at Choctaw Lake and flung it far and wide into black water. Now she’d make do with the little derringer she kept, another gift from sweet old Vienna.
Fannie finished her cigarillo and then the Dirty Shirley and stood, turning only to check her reflection in the old mirror. She looked especially good tonight in a black Valentino dress, knee-length with a plunging neckline. Her ruby heart-shaped necklace dropping into her massive cleavage, red hair styled high on top of her head. Fannie Hathcock had come a long way, baby, and was in top fucking form.
As she turned to head up to her catwalk office above the stages, she nearly ran right into a scruffy, shaggy-haired man with a handsome face and clear blue eyes. He had on a black Sun Records T-shirt, faded jeans, and pointy-toed boots.
“Don’t leave on my account,” the man said.
“Excuse me?”
“Buy you a drink?”
“I don’t work here,” Fannie said. “I own here.”
“Damn,” he said. “Do you believe in love at first sight? Or should I walk past you again?”
“How about you try the hired help,” she said. “Lap dances are two for one. And all domestics half off. You look like a man who sucks down Budweiser.”
“I don’t pay for no woman to ride my rail.”
Fannie widened her eyes and took in the entire club as if seeing it for the first time. She cocked her head and studied the face of the handsome man. “Are you trying to find the Rotary Club?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I like to look at hot women while I drink cold beer. Where I’ve been that’s in short supply.”
“And am I supposed to ask you where the fuck you’ve been?”
“FCI Beaumont for the last eight years,” the man said. “In case you don’t know, it’s a medium-security federal prison. No one ever took me for a hard case. I go down smooth and easy.”
“Did someone send you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Did you come to scare me?”
“No, ma’am,” he said, offering his hand. “But I sure wanted to meet you. Fannie Hathcock, right? I’m Donnie Varner.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “But I hope it does someday. I sure do respect the way you operate, Miss Hathcock. I’d really like it if you and me might become friends.”
Fannie blew some more smoke into his face.
* * *
• • •
Quinn brought Maggie and Brandon for dinner over at his momma’s house, Jean promising to make fried chicken with field peas and the last of the summer tomatoes on the side. Fried chicken was Quinn’s favorite, having a big advantage over her meat loaf, a meal that no one in the family seemed to be able to get behind. Quinn never understood why Jean Colson took such pride in that bland hunk of meat.
His mother wanted them to have supper on her back patio, lighting citronella candles to keep the mosquitoes away, and played The Best of Glen Campbell on the stereo. “Rhinestone Cowboy” played loud and proud in the family room while Jean flipped the chicken in a sizzling iron skillet. Quinn kissed his mother on the cheek and walked to the refrigerator for the beer. Jean always kept a cold six-pack for her son just like she’d done for his father decades ago.
“No Elvis tonight?” Quinn asked.
“I’m giving Elvis a rest,” Jean Colson said. “I start listening to Elvis and that’ll make me start reminiscing on the past, thinking back to your daddy and me up at Graceland. Shooting guns and riding horses with the Memphis Mafia. And Lord God, you know how the thought of your daddy drives me to drink.”
“Jason has that effect on most people.”
“Funny,” Jean said, removing a piece of chicken and placing it on a paper towel to soak off the grease. “You’ve been calling your daddy by his first name since you were twelve.”
“Uncle Hamp advised me to think of him as a flesh and blood person and not just my daddy,” Quinn said. “He figured maybe I wouldn’t be so angry all the time.”
Jean walked to the big sink to wash her hands, an apron tied over the back of her sizable rump. She’d regained a little of the weight she’d lost last year, her reddish hair now returned to blonde thanks to the stylists at Peggy Raye’s boutique. “And how’d that work out?”
“You know exactly how that worked out,” Quinn said. He cracked open the can of Coors and found a seat looking into the backyard. Outside, Maggie set the table with Brandon’s help, moving around clockwise, Brandon straightening knives and forks, reaching across the table to add a rose he’d picked in Jean’s garden for a centerpiece.
Jean caught him watching his family as Quinn placed a hand on his mother’s shoulder. She reached up and touched his hand. “He’s a fine boy,” she said. “Reminds me a lot of you when you were that age.”
“He fights about as much,” Quinn said. “He’s already gotten in two fights this week. And it’s only the first week of school.”
“Tends to happen,” Jean said, checking on the chicken again. Glen Campbell moving on to “Gentle on My Mind.” Not shackled by forgotten words and bonds.
“Can’t say I blame him,” Quinn said. “One of ’em was Gerry Byrd’s kid and you know what a damn turd Gerry was.”
“Afraid I do,” Jean said. “I don’t want to say anything bad. But those are some nasty folks.”
“All Brandon did was explain to some kids that the universe was created by a big space explosion,” Quinn said. “Maggie had just taken him to a presentation about the Big Bang at the Pink Palace up in Memphis and the boy was just relaying what he’d heard. And Gerry’s kid got all hot under the collar, telling Brandon that he didn’t know what he was talking about, explaining how everything was created by the living God in seven days.”
“Brandon didn’t buy it?”
“Nope,” Quinn said. “He called the boy a damn moron. Said, and I am quoting him, ‘You’re living a lie.’ And you can guess how it all went from there.”
“Those Byrds aren’t the brightest folks,” Jean said. “But maybe Brandon could be more accepting on how most people think about things.”
“That dinosaurs aren’t real and that science is a bunch of hocus-pocus?” Quinn said. “I love me some Jesus. But come on. No reason Jesus and science can’t coexist.”
Jean nodded at that and pointed her fork at Quinn’s chest. “How many pieces of chicken you want?”
Quinn held up two fingers an
d grabbed the platter of sliced tomatoes, pushing out the storm door and onto the back porch. The light was an off-shade of gold, a gathering of pine trees marking their property line, an old fort still standing where he and Caddy had once played. Brandon looked up, already working on a biscuit from a wicker basket. The biscuits came from the freezer, not a rolling pin, but it didn’t seem to matter a bit to Brandon. After he finished, he reached for another along with a knife heavy with butter.
“I can promise you nothing on this table is organic,” Quinn said, taking a seat on the bench next to Maggie.
“The tomatoes are organic,” Maggie said. “They came from our farm.”
“And the chicken?”
“Piggly Wiggly,” Maggie said, smiling. “I didn’t have time to butcher one of ours.”
“You hate killing our chickens,” Quinn said. “You should’ve never named them.”
“I don’t name them all,” Maggie said. “Only the cute ones.”
Maggie faced forward and Quinn sat backward, looking up at the old tree fort. He recalled Caddy sometimes stole his Dukes of Hazzard figures and let the Duke boys go on some wild adventures with Barbie and her sister Skipper. He didn’t know exactly what Caddy had in mind, but more than once he’d found Malibu Christie passed out in the back of the General Lee buck-ass naked.
Brandon was balancing on the edge of the porch and then jumped off to come see Quinn. Quinn held out his hand and Brandon high-fived him. “I did good today,” he said. “No fights.”
“That’s good.”
“I came close to kicking that Byrd boy right in the nuts,” he said. “But I did like you said. I imagined him as a big pile of crap. That sort of made me laugh.”
Brandon looked very proud. Quinn turned his head back to Maggie and nodded at her.
“Did you really say that?” she asked.
Quinn shrugged as Brandon jumped into Quinn’s lap, sending a shooting pain down his spine and into his left leg, the pain so sharp it brought water to his eyes, and he turned his head so Maggie wouldn’t see him. He patted Brandon on the back while the boy reached for the last of his biscuit. Quinn got up slowly and made his way to the back door, trying not to limp or slow his walk.
“You OK?” Maggie asked.
“Right as rain,” he said. “Let me get that chicken.”
He passed the kitchen, his mother asking if they needed more biscuits, and headed on back to the hallway bathroom. Turning on the faucet, he reached into his pocket for two white pills he’d wadded up in some Kleenex. He popped one and scooped water to his mouth from his right hand. He swallowed and steadied himself with the sink, feeling the pain start to slip away as he raised his eyes to the mirror.
He didn’t like what he saw in his reflection.
* * *
• • •
“So let me get this straight,” Fannie Hathcock said, stretching her legs at a little table by the round stage and giving Donnie Varner the good once-over. “You didn’t come here for the titties. You came here to meet me, maybe charm the goddamn panties off me, and then hope I gave you some kind of job?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Donnie said, grinning. “That’s about the tall and short of it. Only not just any job. I’m not looking to Febreze the VIP sofas or scrub down the toilets that frat boys piss all over. I hoped you might need a man with a special set of talents.”
“You look nice in a pair of Levi’s,” Fannie said. “But I’ll warn you about something. I’m not into boys.”
“That’s OK,” Donnie said. “Always figured my sister for a switch-hitter on account of her five-dollar haircuts and taste in music. Last Christmas all she wanted was two tickets to see the Indigo Girls at the Ryman. She might as well have written what was going on up in the sky.”
Miss Hathcock looked as if she was about to spit out that pink cocktail she was sipping on. Instead, she swallowed hard and shook her head, making a face like she’d just been caught sucking on some diesel fuel. “I like men,” Fannie said. “Not boys.”
“Ah,” he said. “OK. Well, last time I checked, my old ding-dong was still hanging loose and free down there. I’m trying to tell you that I’m not just some local yokel fucknuts. It took the damn FBI and ATF to take my ass down eight years ago. And I’d already managed to outsmart and outmaneuver a big-cat hombre from down south of the border folks called Tony El Tigre.”
“If you can fit all that bullshit on a résumé, drop it in the trash can by the bar,” she said. “I got all the help I need around here. Unless you know how to spin some damn records. My fucking DJ called in sick tonight although I know damn well he hooked up with my girl Chardonnay last night and they bolted over to Tunica to play blackjack until they lose every last dime.”
“You got a woman working for you named Chardonnay?”
“Her real name is Becky but that shit won’t cut it out on the floor,” Fannie said, waving her hand into smoke and red-tinted light. “All men want fantasy. Any bitch can be Becky. Who would you rather give you a hand job?”
“I never really thought about it,” Donnie said. “Doesn’t seem like a name would make it even better. That’s like asking me if I’d like vanilla ice cream more if they called it a Fun Sundae.”
“Matters later on,” Fannie said. “When you check your wallet and say to yourself, how many times in your life do you have a woman crawling in your lap that smells like cherry perfume and has an exotic name. We have a Trinity, a Sapphire, two Jades, a Nokia, and even a Ramen, named after the girl’s favorite noodles. I help them like that. Come up with names that are personal.”
“Why Trinity?”
“What’s that?”
“Why’d that girl want to be Trinity?”
“Said she couldn’t help herself from getting into three-ways with her boyfriend,” Fannie said. “Said that’s how they met and it was his favorite activity outside racing dirt bikes down in Louisiana.”
Donnie nodded, taking all the information in as if this might be an important part of his job one day. He tried to make himself seem attentive and interested in about everything that came out of that woman’s mouth. Although it didn’t take much to pay attention to a woman like Fannie Hathcock. She was a walking, talking erotic dynamo. A damn Venus de Milo with both her arms and a bigger set of tits. She knew he was looking, too, the way her long, delicate hands with those sharp red nails would play with the silver necklace and dip down to the ruby locket set right in her cleavage.
“Is there somewhere more private we can talk?” Donnie asked.
“What’s wrong with right here?”
“Figured you didn’t care to talk business out in the open.”
“You see anyone around?”
“Damn sure never know who’s listening.”
“You think I’m so goddamn stupid, I don’t know when the Feds have bugged my own home?”
“No, ma’am,” Donnie said.
“Then come out and say it,” Fannie said, touching his knee like you would a bad boy who wouldn’t come forward for teacher. Who put that tack in my chair, Johnny? “What’s on your mind, Donnie Varner?”
“Guns,” Donnie said, throwing up his hands. “Got some folks who need a whole bunch in a real bad way. They got plenty of money and I know you, Miss Hathcock, know where I can get them.”
“I don’t know you.”
“You will.”
“I don’t like men who come on strong.”
“Try me, Miss Hathcock,” Donnie said. “Kick my tires, take me for a spin around the block. I’m here and don’t plan on going nowhere for a good long while. How about me and you play a little house together?”
Fannie held her cigarillo high and stared at Donnie for a while. “I’ll do some checking,” she said. “And will be in touch if I like what I find out.”
“And if you don’t?”
“Mr. Varner,
you better do some checking of your goddamn own,” she said. “Nobody fucks this bitch over.”
* * *
• • •
“Ana Gabriel,” Sancho said. “Are you asleep?”
“I was asleep until you woke me,” she said. “And now you will try and keep me awake with your constant talk and worrying.”
“How can I not be worried?” Sancho said. “Here we are in the middle of a foreign land in someone else’s home with no idea where to find our father. Or where the police took our mother.”
“This isn’t a foreign land,” Ana Gabriel said, pulling the soft white linens up to her chin. They were both in a small cabin at The River, a nice woman with the church helping them move their things over from the Frog Pond before they were evicted. “It’s Mississippi.”
“It feels like a foreign land to me,” Sancho said.
“And this isn’t someone else’s home,” she said. “This is our church. And Miss Caddy is a friend.”
“Your boyfriend’s mother,” he said. “Do you think that perhaps you like to stay here because it keeps you closer to Jason Colson?”
“Please shut up,” Ana Gabriel said. “And go to sleep. School will come early.”
“I can’t,” Sancho said. “I can’t keep thinking about that mean man’s face and his crazy big ears. Like Dumbo, the flying elephant. Did you see the way he looked at the children? Like someone on the hunt. Someone who would like to catch us all in a net and take us far away.”
“You have a large imagination, Sancho,” Ana Gabriel said. “Please. Good night.”
“You know I am not normal.”
“Yes,” Ana Gabriel said. “I most certainly do.”
“I have premonitions,” he said. “Dreams. Didn’t I tell you I awoke on Christmas Day, crying? I had dreamed that our mother fell into a hole that had no bottom. Like the one we visited at Tamaulipas with Grandfather. The great blue lake, water like a jewel. The place that he told us had no bottom, that went all the way through the core of the earth.”
