Fender Lizards

by Joe R. Lansdale

  He was some piece of work, that Tim.

  “They send me to the pen,” I said, “put a file in a cake and bring it to me.”

  “You bet,” Sue said, nodding that head of thick, red hair. “Except I can’t bake.”

  We were leaning against the wall on the far side of the Dairy Bob, waiting on customers to show up, catching a few moments of rest, trying not to let our skates slip out from under us.

  “I want to do to my daddy what you did to Tim,” Sue said.

  I knew Sue’s home life wasn’t all that good, but I tried not to pry. I knew her father hit her mother. And he drank. He’d been to anger counseling, but he got in a fight with the anger management guy, so that hadn’t worked out. The anger management guy was now in anger management.

  “I was thinking when he goes to bed one night, I’m just going to get a board and go to work on him,” Sue said. “Just like you.”

  I sighed and looked out at the highway. A bright red, low-slung car I’d never be able to afford drove by. I knew it wouldn’t be stopping anywhere like the Dairy Bob, or anyplace in town. It was driving on through to some place better.

  I looked at Sue. “You don’t want to do that.”

  “He has it coming,” Sue said. “Just like Tim did.”

  “No doubt. But you don’t want to do it.”

  Holy cow, I thought. I’m sounding just like Elbert.

  “You did it,” she said.

  “And I’m seeing a judge, and I may be sharing a cell with someone that makes me wash out their little white things.”

  “You ain’t going to prison, and you know it,” she said. “I was just kidding. This is East Texas. They might give you a medal.”

  “Had Tim been threatening Raylynn,” I said. “Had he come there angry, then I’d have been okay doing it. I could sleep fine at nights. But I snuck up on him.”

  “So?”

  “Well, it’s not the sneaking that bothers me. It’s that me and Raylynn could have left out of there long before Tim come home. I laid in wait, as they say.”

  “I can live with laying in wait,” Sue said. “I can live with Daddy being asleep and me sneaking up on him.”

  “You think it’ll make you feel better,” I said. “And it will. Right at first. But later it won’t. You won’t like that you were able to do it. You ought to get your Mama and get out of there.”

  “She won’t go,” Sue said. “I ask her to leave. But she won’t.”

  “I know,” I said, using my Mama’s mocking voice: “She’s in luuuuuve.”

  “Yeah,” Sue said. “That’s it. And I feel so damn trapped, Dot. I want out and I don’t know how to get out. If I got out, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. It’s like when there’s a parakeet in a cage and the door’s left open and it flies out the window and the other birds peck it to death because it smells like humans, or it starves to death because it’s used to bird seed in a tray. I feel like one of those birds. I get out, I won’t know where to go.”

  “You’ll know this much,” I said, finding myself rephrasing Elbert’s lines. “You won’t be in a cage.”

  “So, you’re saying it’s all right to starve or get pecked to death?”

  “I don’t know what I’m saying,” I said. “I’m not the right person to ask for advice. And while we’re at it, I’m really no expert on parakeets and their life outside the cage.”

  (10)

  Later that day, during the lunch run, a bunch of boys showed up in a nice car. All of them were good looking and well dressed, early college age. Sophomores were my guess. They looked like their biggest worries were which of their shoes they should throw away.

  I skated out to the car, but Gay got things crooked, which is often the case, and muscled in. It was my turn and my possibility at a tip, but she was there first.

  It irritated me, but I didn’t mention it. I’d grab the next one. I didn’t want to say anything to her, because now everyone was pretty sure I’d take a board to them, and it wasn’t any fun working with people who thought you might at heart be a mass murderer.

  I skated back inside the Dairy Bob. There was nothing shaking there that wasn’t being covered by Raylynn and Sue at that moment, so I stood on my skates by the counter, using one hand to hold onto it and steady myself.

  Bob was behind the counter taking money, working the register for a couple of guys. When he was finished with them and they went out, Bob came over and put his elbows on his side of the counter, said, “What kind of board did you use?”

  “What?” I said.

  “What kind of board did you use? On that kid you hit.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” I said.

  “Really. What kind?”

  “A two-by-four.”

  “Oak?”

  “Do I look like someone who knows lumber?”

  “Seasoned good?” he asked.

  “Yeah. It was seasoned.”

  “A good seasoned piece of wood can take a lot of abuse,” Bob said.

  “I don’t think I was worried about the wood all that much,” I said. “Now that I think about it, it might have been a little wormy.”

  The door opened and the driver from the car full of boys Gay had stolen from me came in. He found a table and sat down. I glanced out at his car. The other boys were still in it and Gay was leaning in the window on the now empty driver’s side, flashing her great smile, her butt cocked up in the air. It was a pose. Something she was good at. Already she had modeling assignments for J.C. Penny’s and such, so she knew what looked good and what didn’t. She was supposed to sign up with a modeling agency out of Austin in a few months. At least that was the rumor. Me, I’d still be lugging burgers on a tray.

  She aggravated me, but I didn’t know if it was because she was so beautiful and confident about it, or because I thought she was a little light in the brains and a bitch. I was on the fence.

  I skated over to the table where the guy from the car had sat down. I pulled my pad and pen from my apron pocket, said, “What would you like?”

  He looked at me. Oh, he was fine. Green eyes and black hair, dark skin, so smooth it looked as if it didn’t have pores. He had broad shoulders and very nice teeth; the kind that cost money and made regular trips to the dentist. He made me realize I just had on some old ratty jeans, and not cool ratty, but just plain ratty, and a loose black tee-shirt.

  He said, “Oh, I don’t know. A hamburger, I guess.”

  “Cheese?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “You can put jalapeños on it,” I said, “or mushrooms, but I don’t recommend the mushrooms. They’re dry and in a can. Cook just warms them in the microwave. They taste like scabs.”

  He smiled at me. “You eat a lot of scabs?”

  “Told on myself,” I said. “My favorite meal.”

  Yeah. I know. Not that good. But I was a little dazzled by his smile.

  “After that description, I’m not sure I want a hamburger,” he said.

  “Sorry.”

  “Just kidding,” he said. “Give me the cheeseburger, and put the jalapeños on it. I want mustard and mayonnaise. French fries with ketchup. And I’d like a bit of mayonnaise for the fries too. I like to dip the fries in both.”

  “I never heard of that,” I said.

  “My parents were Yankees. What you gonna do?”

  I laughed. “You want it all, don’t you?”

  “I do,” he said. “I like to taste a little of everything, if I can.”

  I was about to skate off with his order, but hesitated. I said, “All your friends are in the car. How come you came inside?”

  “Because I’ve been here twice before and you never wait on me. I wanted you to wait on me.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Frankly, I think you’re very attractive and I wanted to meet you.”

  “So, is this part of a college fraternity thing?”

  “What?” he said
.

  “You know, some sort of thing where you have a chore to do, like come in and try and get a date with me to prove you can, but you really don’t want one.”

  He stared at me. “If I asked you for a date I’d really want to go on a date.”

  “So, are you asking?” I said.

  “Friday night. Seven o’clock. I can pick you up wherever you like.”

  I had to take a long moment to process that.

  “That’s good,” I said. “Friday night’s good. No… No it isn’t. I work Friday night. Saturday I work too. I only have Sunday off.”

  Actually, I had plenty of time after my shift, but I knew Bob could change it on a whim, move me to nights, and I didn’t want to ask him for anymore time off after bailing on him like I did.

  “Then let’s make it Sunday,” he said.

  “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Herb Wagoner. Now you know it.”

  “Glad to meet you Herb. I’m Dot Sherman. But, I just realized I accepted a date from someone I don’t know much about.”

  “Talking is how you find out. I’ll take you someplace nice for dinner. We can talk over good food.”

  “Once again, I don’t even know you,” I said.

  “But you accepted right away.”

  “I did, didn’t I?”

  “You did.”

  “Dang it,” I said, and smiled. “Then I guess to keep my word I have to go.”

  “That’s the way I see it,” Herb said.

  (11)

  I was on cloud nine the rest of the day.

  I kind of drifted through my work. I made several flubs, like skating the wrong tray out to the wrong car a couple of times. Bob started calling me Gay, which kind of hurt my professional pride as a Fender Lizard. This should of course been insulting to Gay, if she heard about it, but she didn’t care if you complained about her. Unlike us, she knew she was merely passing through, this job a bit of a diversion before she left us and this town and its life behind.

  When I came inside after finishing an order and was turning over the cash to Bob, he said, “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “You don’t seem yourself.”

  “Maybe it’s because I’m going to court.”

  “You need a character witness, girl. You just ask me, I’ll be there.”

  “That’s nice of you, Bob.”

  “Oh, I’m not all that much in defense of your character. I just liked that you took care of Raylynn, who’s the real worker. So, I owe you one.”

  He didn’t smile when he said that, but I knew he was kidding. Mostly. Raylynn was a good worker.

  “Nice,” I said.

  “Here,” he said, pulling out four cardboard posters from behind the counter. “Tape these up.”

  I looked at the one on top. It had a painting of two women skating on it. They were shoving each other as they skated, looking beautifully furious. They wore white shorts and purple tops and had on high-laced white skates. Above the painting in broad letters were the words DARBY’S ROLLER CIRCUS with the CARNY KILLERS. Rides. Clowns. Exhibits. Fun for the whole family. Coming August seventh, MARVEL CREEK FAIR GROUNDS. Below all this was written in smaller letters: Darby’s Roller Queens challenge all comers. Ten thousand dollar prize.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “What it says,” Bob said.

  “Yeah, but I don’t know what it means.”

  “It’s a traveling roller derby and small carnival. They challenge local teams. If the local teams don’t have anybody, they have another group of skaters with them. A kind of built-in team to play them. Its good entertainment. The women wear shorts.”

  “So people go to see this stuff?”

  “Some do. The women wear shorts.”

  “You said that,” I said.

  “You don’t get too old to like women in shorts.”

  “That’s good to hear, Bob. You been to a roller derby?”

  He shook his head. “Used to watch them on TV. They’re not popular anymore, but they were for awhile.”

  “They actually give out a prize like this?” I asked. “Ten thousand dollars.”

  “What the sign says. But let me tell you something, kid. It’s no easy take. They wouldn’t offer a prize like that if they didn’t figure they could beat whoever. Bunch of yokels on skates would have a hard time beating a trained team. And my guess is they’re not only trained, but they’re mean.”

  I looked at the poster and studied the women in the picture. They looked strong and confident, like maybe life didn’t push them around without them pushing back. Sometimes I felt that way, but most of the time I thought I was kidding myself. I kind of envisioned myself at eighty-five bringing out food on trays, riding a wheelchair instead of skates.

  I put up a couple of posters, taped them to the inside of the glass with the picture looking out at the drive through on one side, and a parking spot at the front. I put the third one on the glass door.

  I skated outside and put the last poster in my car.

  After that we were slammed for awhile. When that was over, all of us went out back and leaned on the wall, and Raylynn, who is an idiot, smoked a cigarette. Then again, I hit people with a two-by-four, so maybe I didn’t have room to be a role model.

  I said, “Any of you ever heard of a roller derby?”

  They said they had all read the posters I put up, but no one really knew what it was.

  “They have a large money prize. They skate. We skate. We could maybe get some of the other girls to join in, and we could put together a team and challenge the Darby Roller Queens when they come to town.”

  “We know how to skate,” Sue said. “But we don’t know how a roller derby works.”

  “I think they hit you,” Raylynn said. “I think maybe I did see a movie about them once. I think they elbow you and shove you.”

  “I might break my nose,” Gay said. “I’m too pretty to break my nose.”

  Coming from anyone else that would have sounded like conceit, coming from Gay it just sounded like the truth. She was in fact a work of art. We all nodded in agreement.

  “Maybe we find out how it works,” I said, “we could give you a minor position, Gay.”

  “I don’t want a position.”

  “Sounds like a bad idea to me,” Sue said. “We’d have a little over a month to get ready for that. But first, we’d have to find out what that is.”

  “Bob has seen them on TV,” I said.

  “There you are,” Sue said. “Bob’s seen them on TV, so we’re set.”

  “Dot’s right,” Raylynn said.

  We all looked at her. She still had markings on her face and under her eyes, having not quite healed up yet. She was slumped up against the wall. With those blackened eyes she looked like a raccoon lounging. She dropped her cigarette and put her heel to it.

  “Who’s right?” Gay said.

  “My sister,” Raylynn said.

  “I am?” I said. “I’m right?”

  “What else are we doing? Except for Gay, couple of the other girls on shifts, we’re all going nowhere fast, and in a burning handbasket. I say we find out about it, train as much as possible, and do it. I say we make Dot our captain.”

  “I don’t want my nose broke,” Gay said.

  “We got that,” I said. “You can bring snacks.”

  “What we do,” Raylynn said, “is we find out more about roller derby, practice, then, come August, we challenge them.”

  I thought: Good for you, Raylynn. Good for you.

  “We’ll lose,” Sue said. “I don’t even really know what roller derby is, but we’ll lose. People like us, Gay excluded, we always lose.”

  “That’s a nice way to look at it,” I said.

  “How far off am I on that?” Sue said.

  “You may be on the money,” Raylynn said. “But I been losing for a long time. Maybe it’s time for my good number to come up. Maybe it’s time for all of u
s to have good numbers come up.”

  “I’m not so sure we have numbers,” Sue said.

  Gay cleared her throat.

  “Except for Gay,” Sue said.

  (12)

  Raylynn’s shift was slightly different from mine. She came in at the same time, but she was a year older and could work longer legally. Now and then me and Bob pushed past that, but there was a limit, only so much Bob was willing to risk, even if he paid me for that time off the books. So when I finished up for the day, I went to a café and got coffee. I could have got it at the Dairy Bob for nothing, but come quitting time I was sick of the place, and besides, Bob’s coffee tasted like it was mostly made from boiling dog hair and dirt in a coffee maker. You couldn’t put enough cream and sugar in it to make it taste good. The food there was decent, except for rubbery French fries, but the coffee, it was dipped straight from Hell’s sewer.

  I sat at a table and drank my coffee and thought about things.

  Right then, in spite of what Sue had said about us not having numbers, I wanted to believe things were turning around for me. There was that whole looming court thing, of course, but there was a date Sunday with a boy who looked like a movie star, and now I had a plan to be a roller derby girl. Whatever that was.

  I sat and thought about how we would split the prize money up and what I’d do with my portion. I wasn’t sure what my portion was, of course, because I wasn’t even sure how large a team was required for roller derby. Four? Twelve? A small army? I had no idea.

  I sat there and daydreamed for several hours. The waitress, an older woman in a pink and white dress eyed me a lot, but she kept bringing coffee over. I knew how she felt. I was what they called a camper. Someone who comes in and nails down a spot and stays there drinking drinks and running the waitress. Usually, someone like that doesn’t leave a tip, or much of one.

  When I was ready to go, I made a point of leaving her a fair tip, and drove back to the Dairy Bob and picked up Raylynn. We then headed for the day care center to pick up the kids.

  “That roller derby idea,” she said. “I’m going to say it again. I’m all in.”