Ablutions

by Patrick deWitt

  You return to Whiskey Row to find the pretty bartender is gone. Her replacement rolls his eyes when you ask if she will be back—a common question, apparently—but when you say you had plans to meet her he nods and hands you a drink ticket upon which is written the word Sorry. "She must've liked you," he says. "Far as I know she's never been sorry before." You say nothing to this, but shrug. "Consider yourself lucky," he says. "Her man would've spilled your brains, and that's a fact." (You think of the sidewalk dirt clinging to your clammy brains and make a distasteful face.)

  You order a beer with the drink ticket and move to the nearest open stool where you make friends with a lizard-woman named Lois, who tells you apropos of nothing that she is fifty-seven years old, and who hits your arm and calls you a dirty flirt when you ask her for the time. "Anybody can tell my watch is broken," she says, holding it up for you to see. "You don't have to make up lies to talk to me." You tell her you only wanted to know so that you would not be late for the rodeo and she becomes irate and says that you don't know a single thing about rodeos, and you agree, and she asks you not to talk to her about any rodeos, and you promise her you never will again, and she tells you that she's been around rodeos all her life and if you'd like she will accompany you to the rodeo and you tell her, thanks but no thank you, and she falls to glowering. When you offer her a drink she perks up and introduces you to her son, a man your age named Corey, sitting on the stool next to hers. He is dog-faced and dog-haired and has small eyes set very far apart and a baby-blond mustache growing into his mouth, and when Lois whispers in his ear he extends a hand to you and says, "Lo says you're buying drinks." You tell him you had planned on buying a few and he says a few would be fine, and he orders himself a shot of tequila and a Mexican beer and when given a price by the bartender he points not at you but to the wallet tucked in your hand.

  Three rounds later they are desperate for you to stay. Lois grows adamant that you not go or anyway that you not go without her, and she holds your wrists and tells you the rodeo is "nothing but a heartbreaker" but refuses "on principle" to elaborate. Corey, less subtle than his mother, says, "I wish you'd stick around and buy me more tequila." But you are thinking of the bartender and you tear yourself away from the duo. Lois follows at your heels to the door and spins you around at the exit and says, "I used to be beautiful," and in the light you can see this is true, and you tell her she is beautiful now (she is not), and she smiles at you and asks coquettishly if you would like to be friends for life and you say, of course.

  "You know about a spit shake?" she asks.

  "No, Lois, I sure don't."

  "They probably don't have it in the city, that's why you're all walking around with knives in your backs. But you've heard of blood brothers, haven't you? Well we can't do that one anymore because of AIDS and all, so out here we do a spit shake, and once you do a spit shake, you're loyal to the end. See, first you put a great wad of spit in your palm, and then me in mine, and we just grip our hands real tight and slippery—"

  You cut Lois off before she can pack her fist with saliva, telling her you do not have time for the ritual just now as you are late to meet somebody, but that you will return after the rodeo and will be more than happy to oblige her then, and she is sad about your leaving but you tell her it is better this way, because now you will both have something to look forward to, and when you get back you can both spit all over each other if she would like, and she nods her head and reenters the bar, saying that she'll be around, and you'll know where to find her.

  The pretty bartender is not waiting at the entrance of the rodeo and is not in the stands at the rodeo and is not at the concession booths and is not leaning against a fence with her arms crossed smiling at the exit of the rodeo. The rodeo is dull and hot and you cannot concentrate on its happenings, as busy as you are looking around and with the smell of the animals strong in your nostrils, gripping the pit of your stomach. Sitting behind you is a cowboy tapping repeatedly on your spine with the toe of his boot and apologizing; children are led away by their mothers to be put down in their beds and the eyes of drunken men that remain fall critically on you. The bartender has no plan of coming here. When the sun goes down the overhead lights snap on with a creaking, buzzing click and your hands look like an angel's hands floating before you in the glowing fluorescent whiteness.

  Back at the bar you catch sight of Lois and Corey before they do you, and you push through the crowd to sit beside them. The room is at capacity now and there is a country-western band playing on a stage so high that as you pass by, the fiddler's boots are a foot above your head. Corey's little eyes meet yours and he points out your return to Lois, who swings around, waving entreatingly. Her head looks as though it has been taken off and put back on improperly—even without your money it is clear they have continued drinking in your absence. Lois works her elbow like a pump handle while summoning phlegm with a series of deep inhalations and you watch as she spits four times in her palm, and when you reach her she is beaming, holding the puddle of mucus out between you.

  "All right," Corey says, "now you in yours."

  You do not want to touch Lois's hand but can see no way out and so you spit once in your palm and hold it similarly outward. But this is not sufficient for a spit shake, neither the amount nor the ingredients, and you are informed to "get some glue in there," and you make a hacking sound with your throat and cough up a large ball of phlegm into your palm and clasp hands with Lois, whose spit runs over your knuckles and causes you to wretch so that you fear you will vomit, but you do not vomit and it is all over soon enough and Corey passes you both bar napkins and declares Lois and yourself Official and True Friends for Life.

  "For Life," Lois says.

  Drinks and more drinks, bought always with your money, and you find Lois's hand is resting on your thigh. Her thumb draws back and forth and Corey can see this and does not seem bothered but you are uncomfortable and try to involve him in the conversation. Lois drags her long, painted nails across your lap.

  "Leave him alone," she says to you. "He's trying to make it with girls."

  This is true. Corey's pickup method is to stare, with his little pig eyes, at the heads of unaccompanied women until they are made so uncomfortable that they ask him to stop; when he does not stop they collect their effects and move to another part of the bar, outside his field of vision. He does this again and again until there are only accompanied women within sight, and he drinks more tequila and begins looking at them, and they lean in to tell their cowboys and the room now turns to ugliness and the night begins its unraveling.

  You are separated from your mind. Lois's hand is worming down the front of your pants and Corey is laughing and licking his mustache and you drink whiskey after whiskey and are taking pills now as well and Lois sees this and says, you don't know nothing about pills, and she hands you a baby-blue circular pill that you eat and which Lois begins immediately rooting around for, forgetting she has given it to you, and she empties her bag on the bar (you spy a roll of condoms) and says, that pill was just deadly, that pill was deadly and I lost it, and you give her two of your white pills and she orders two more tequilas, one for Corey and one for herself, and she gives her son a pill and he takes this without looking at it and chews it up, followed by the tequila, and you hear a cowboy tell him to stop looking at his wife, and Corey, having given up any hopes of finding love on this night, crosses over to fight the man, who stands and grips the neck of his beer bottle in his hand.

  Lois does not stay to watch her son in battle but steals you away to the back of the bar and leads you to the darkened dead end of a service hallway. She is on you now, her gaping mouth breathing hot and foul-smelling air on you, and she places your hands on her body and yanks at your belt and zipper, and finding your body unmoved, begins whining and clawing your chest and humping your leg and she tries putting your hands up her skirt and inside of her but you drop them to your sides and your head lolls back and you are laughing, knocking your skul
l into the damp and sticky wall. She is in a frenzy and drops to her knees and you watch her head moving frantically back and forth and at the other end of the hallway you see the silhouettes of cowboys and you hear their shouts and wonder if they are watching your romance or the fight with Corey, and then you see Corey walking down the hall toward you and you smile at him and say, "Happy Fourth of July, Corey," and he has blood smeared on his cheek and he draws back and hits you in the eye and you drop to the floor and through your covered face see him drag his mother away by the arm like a rag doll.

  You correct yourself and stand and return to the bar. Lois and Corey have moved to another table and neither will look at you and you are no longer friends. You try to buy the man next to you a drink but he politely declines, handing you a napkin for your bloody eye. "But you're sure you don't want something?" you say. "I'm sure of it," he says, then orders a drink and pays with his own money. The lights come up and the country-western band says goodnight and the bartender will no longer serve you and he points to the door and you file out with the others, speaking to those on your left and right and people smile and slap your back patronizingly but will not respond properly to any of the things you say.

  All of the bars on Whiskey Row have closed and the street is overrun with drunks. Discuss the cowboy that is lifted up and carried the length of the street on the crowd's shoulders—here is the winner of the rodeo. He is just a boy, not yet twenty years old by the looks of him, and his smile is the truest and most handsome smile you have ever seen, and he looks sober and embarrassed at the fuss, but beneath this is an unqualified joy and pride and it is a living dream for him as he raises his hat and tosses it to the crowd, and you see the dagger hands of lizard-women reaching up to take pieces of him as he passes by.

  The sight of the rodeo champion makes you sad in your heart and you decide you will visit your old horse and maybe steal him and ride him into the desert, but to do this you have to backtrack against the flow of the crowd and you are shoved and kicked at and offensive to those who touch you, and women gasp as you pass and recoil as you draw near, because your drunken blood is dripping freely from your eyebrow and your eyes are wet with tears, and some of the men you push past want to knock you down but are so repelled by the sight of you they move on or their women pull them along. But now you trip or else someone hits you from behind and you fall to your knees and a pair of hands are on you and they drag you to the side of the road and drop you there, and you are lying down in the dirt watching the boots file past, hundreds of pairs of cowboy boots, no two alike, walking along together in a pack.

  The crowd thins out and you sit up against a hitching post and across the way you see the Mexican barback and call out to him and he walks over. He has a date on his arm and he asks if you are all right and you do not speak but give him the okay sign. His date asks him a question in Spanish and he answers in English, "This is the guy I told you about, the one that almost got it from Penny's boyfriend," and she nods. Now Penny the pretty bartender and her boyfriend come over to say hello to the barback and they see you on the ground and Penny gasps, and the barback asks her boyfriend if he is the one who did this to you, and he promises it wasn't and he reaches down and picks you up to stand and it is unusual to have his strong hands on you because he only wants to help you now, and he asks where you are staying and you point towards the horse and they as a group walk you in this direction. Penny cleans your face with a tissue and asks you what happened, and who did this to you, but you cannot remember just then and you say you don't know. Her boyfriend and the barback are holding you up and the barback's date says something in Spanish that causes him to laugh and Penny asks him to translate, and he does: "She says he walks like a cigarette thrown out of a car on the highway. You know, the way the cherry dances?" and they suppress their laughter at the girl's joke. You break away and they do not follow after but call to you, apologizing, and you hear Penny's boyfriend saying, "Let him go, let him go if he wants to go," and you stagger closer to the old horse, thinking of him standing in the alley by himself with nothing in his mind but gray sound and all of a sudden you are so sorry for hitting him like that, and you cannot understand why you would do such a thing and it seems to be the worst thing you have ever done in your life, and you choke and cry at this and have never felt so intense a hatred for someone as for yourself at this moment, and you will not ride the horse but stroke his face and make friends with him and you will give him more pills, all the pills you have to help him with his life's pain, and he will not know why but he will feel a supreme happiness and a change in the sound of his mind to a kind of heavenly and eternal music, and when at last you reach the alley there is goodness and repentance in your ringing spine and ringing heart but this vanishes when you find that the alley is dark and the tired old horse is gone.

  Four

  Discuss your wife. It is the early afternoon and you are sleeping on the couch in the living room when she returns for the remainder of her things. She is packed and loaded and she wakes you up to speak with you. You are down on your luck but will surely pull yourself up by your bootstraps and afterward come out swinging. Now she looks at you and is thinking about her lost and probably wasted time and she becomes angry. Time is more important to young women than to men, she explains; this makes sense and you agree that it makes sense and you excuse yourself to vomit and though she does not know you are silently vomiting you are annoyed that so little has changed since she left you, because after all it would have been an exceptional feeling for her to come back and to see you dressed in clean clothes, with your hair combed and your glasses shining brightly, your shoes creaking with unbendable leather newness. Your wife is on the phone and you hear her tell someone she loves him or her and when she hangs up you say, who was that, who do you love? "I love lots of people," she tells you. "Who do you love?" When you do not answer she moves toward the door. A male voice calls out; you hear the honking of a car horn. "Who's that?" you ask.

  "No more questions," she says.

  "One more question," you say.

  She stands there waiting for the question. But it is a cruel question and you shrug it off. She points to her watch and holds her palms out; you nod and point to the door and she is gone. Your telephone rings and you walk to your room to answer it. Your bed is made and the covers are cool and you bury your face in them, pulling the receiver to your ear. It is Simon calling from the bar and you say to him, good day, proud South African.

  "Look buddy, are you on or off tonight?" he asks.

  "What do you mean?" you say. "What's the matter?"

  He says that he is tired of fielding calls from you when you are drunk and you say, what? He says that he has better things to do on a busy Saturday night at work than to listen to your abuse and you say, wait, what? He tells you that this last call makes the fourth time you have called the bar drunk and quit, and you begin to laugh and so does Simon, reluctantly. You explain or try to explain that you have been on the road and contracted a case of dreaded desert fever, and you ask is he aware that the symptoms of said disease include animal cruelty, sticky-wrinkly romance, and muddy drawers? He informs you that that is none of his business and he becomes angry again and reminds you that your job is to wash dishes, the work of an ape, and can't you do the work of an ape? And aren't you paid well enough, in cash? If you can't do it, he tells you, if you can't do this brainless work of an ape, there's a line of people waiting to do it for you, which is true and you know it is true and you, recalling your overdrawn bank account and upcoming rent, make a sincere apology to Simon and tell him you will shape up, not ship out, and he tells you he hopes so because after all, over the years he has grown sort of fond of you. You have three hours more to rest before leaving to open the bar and you are impressed with this length of time for it is somehow both too long to wait and also not nearly long enough.

  You are sitting in the magical Ford outside the bar when Junior the crack addict walks up and steps into the car and you both si
t there watching the building. His smell is otherworldly, like a demon from deep in the earth's crust, and he repeatedly passes the fiercest gas; he has been too long without his drugs and his body is causing a fuss. He does not greet you and you do not greet him; a rift has grown between you recently, or rather a rift has grown between Junior and everyone—he is in the worst way and the doormen say he has been robbing people with his machete blade after hours. You are not afraid of him and you do not believe he would ever do you any harm but you wish he were somewhere other than sitting at your side, wondering about the contents of your pockets.

  He is fidgeting with a lighter and finally he says to you, "I need twenty dollars, man. I need it bad." When you tell him you haven't got any money he punches your dashboard and pouts, asking himself how long this torture might go on. You tell him to wait a minute and you enter the empty bar, retrieving twenty dollars from the safe. You walk it out to him and he is relieved to see this money but wants to know where it came from. When you tell him you stole it he looks worried and asks if you won't get into trouble, which is insulting because you know he does not actually care one way or the other. "Do your drugs or don't do your drugs," you say. "Don't stand around sobbing and bitching about it." He straightens himself up and nods and hustles off to find his dealer. All through the night you are bothered by guilt and self-loathing for speaking with him so harshly and angered that such a man could conjure these emotions in you.