“Tom?” He shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. They say he’s been a mean one all his life. Daddy was the same way. I just try not to get on his bad side.” Duane smiled.
“Yeah.…” I caught myself spinning my glass of whiskey around on the bar top and made myself stop. I dug my cigarettes out of my pocket and lit one up, snapping my Zippo open like the old timers do. I set the pack on the bar with the lighter on top.
Duane picked it up, and ran a finger over the custom scrollwork, read the engraving aloud, “Them Old Blues.”
I exhaled smoke and nodded. “Ex-wife gave it to me.”
He grinned, setting it back down. “The lighter or the blues?”
“Both.” I turned my head left and right, like I was looking around the bar, like something had just occurred to me. “Hey, Duane, where’s Katie tonight?”
It was Duane’s turn to fidget. He cleared his throat, looked down, picked up a glass and a rag and started wiping. “Said she’s out sick.” He didn’t look at me.
The vibe was off. It wasn’t right. I had a bad feeling. “Seemed pretty chipper last night. She get sick often?”
Duane shot a glance toward Tom before meeting my eyes, serious. “Bout once a month. Six weeks.” His voice was low, tight, almost grim.
My guts were rioting. There was an anger blooming inside me that felt like it wanted to turn into rage. All it needed was evidence.
“You know, Duane.…” my voice felt like it was coming from a long way off, “Katie’s a nice girl. I’d like to take her some chicken soup. Any idea where she lives?”
He screwed his mouth up, considering what to say. He put his elbows on the bar and leaned in close. “Somewhere near 3rd and Lincoln. You didn’t hear this from me, but … I don’t think she’ll work tomorrow, and Tom’ll be here early doing the bottle count with me. From around two o’clock.” I got up and started back to the stage to play my next set. I’d taken about two steps when I heard him say, “Just don’t leave the bowl where he can find it, huh?”
* * *
I hardly slept at all that night. Too keyed up, imagination dragging me from calm to worry to rage and then back through them again. I realized then just how much she’d come to mean to me. Seeing her felt like coming in out of the rain.
The morning passed in a haze of nicotine and nerves. I had the TV on, but nothing registered. It was just noise. Finally about quarter to two, I got in my old car and drove.
It was a lower class neighborhood aspiring to be more and not quite making it. For every concrete box with a fresh coat of paint and a little garden out front, there was another, dingy and faded, with a car up on blocks out front and children’s toys on the lawn. I guess it wasn’t the lowest class, the toys hadn’t been stolen.
I drove down the street until I found the house with Katie’s little tan car out front. I went past it without slowing and turned around four blocks past. I came back slowly, looking down side streets and in front of neighboring houses for any sign of Tom’s black truck. Not that you could miss it. A man buys a truck that big, he’s trying real hard to tell the world something. I left my car a couple of houses down on the other side of the street and walked across to Katie’s place.
Freshly painted in blue, no garden, no toys. I tripped over a sprinkler in the lawn and nearly fell before catching myself. One of those big, triangular things, attached to a hose. I barked up the ragged rind of a laugh. I hadn’t seen it. I should have seen it. I approached the front door and raised my hand to knock. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement in the front window nearest the door. A gun, pointed right at me. I jumped two feet straight out of my skin before I realized it was just a sticker, a fist wrapped around the butt of a gun. In large block letters, it said, “Nothing in this house is worth dying for.” I laughed a little too hard.
I knocked. I waited. I watched the peephole, saw the pinhole of light darken. Someone was looking at me. The dot of light appeared again. No sound. No one answered. No one shouted or discharged a firearm. I knocked again.
Two minutes later, I knocked again.
And again.
Finally I heard Katie’s voice on the other side of the door. “Frank, go away.” She sounded tired.
“C’mon, Katie, open up. Let me see you.”
“Go away, Frank. We’ll talk later.”
“I’m not going away till I see you.”
I guess I was speaking too loudly, the sleepless night and restless morning getting to me. Katie said, “Keep your voice down, Frank! If the neighbors hear you … do you have any idea…?”
“You want me to go away,” I said, my voice low, but firm, “open this door.”
I was aware in that moment of the silence, the stillness, the oppressive heat of the day. Somewhere far away a lawn mower purred, but it seemed as if absolutely nothing else was moving between there and here. Katie’s voice, when it came, was quiet, tired. “You’re just gonna make things worse.” A second or two later, I heard the tumblers in the lock turning, the deadbolt sliding back.
She opened the door about three inches. Enough to see half her face. She left the chain on. She looked mad. “There. Will you go away now?”
I looked her over. She looked fine—what I could see of her. She didn’t look or sound sick, either. What had he done to her that she couldn’t work? “C’mon, Katie, what is this? Let’s just talk for a minute.”
“Frank, you shouldn’t be here. You can’t go coming around my house. If Tom saw you here, he’d … we’d both be in a world of shit.”
“Yeah, I know that, Katie. But when you didn’t come to work last night—”
“So I didn’t come to work one night, Frank, so what? It’s an emergency?” Her voice was angry. “I’m a child who can’t take care of herself? There’s nothing wrong here. I’m just … I’m not feeling well.” She sighed. “I like you, Frank. But you can’t come around here. You need to leave. Right now.”
I felt chastened. I felt slapped. She was talking to me like I was some kid who didn’t understand the big adult world, who’d gotten out of his place. I looked away, took a shaky breath, then another. Rubbed my face with both hands. Got myself under control. Got some perspective back. “Katie, listen. I was worried about you. I’ve got every right to be worried about you. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here, but I’m here now. So you and me are gonna sit down and talk for five or ten minutes, and when I’m satisfied that—” Katie was already shaking her head, eyes closed. She must have forgotten herself. When her right eye crossed into that space between the edge of the door and the frame, I broke off mid-sentence.
“Oh, my God! Katie.…”
Her eyes snapped open. She looked scared.
“Jesus Christ! That sonofabitch!”
“Frank, no—listen—”
“He gave you a fucking black eye!”
* * *
It didn’t take long to get through to her. It was hard for her to defend him with her eye nearly swollen shut. Sitting on the worn red couch in her living room, surrounded by their things, their pictures, the air they argued and made love in, I told her she had to leave him.
“Frank, I just can’t.” Looking at her hands in her lap.
“Damn it, Katie, you know this is just gonna get worse. What’s it gonna be next time? A broken arm? It’s time. You’ve gotta get away before something really bad happens.”
“He won’t—”
“He won’t what? What wouldn’t he do?”
The silence was long and heavy. Finally she looked at me. “Where would I go? What would I do? I don’t have people here. Tom ran all my friends off years ago. We work together.”
“You can get another job and you can stay with me.”
“Frank—”
“I’m not talking about forever, Katie, just as long as you want or need to. I understand you might not be ready to commit yourself to anything, but … you need somebody, I’m here. You need help, and I’m offering it, and you need to take it.”
&n
bsp; She looked at the ceiling, trying to blink back tears. “He’d come after me. He’d come find me. It doesn’t matter where I sleep or where I work, he’d find me. He doesn’t quit. He’s jealous and possessive and he’s violent and he just doesn’t quit.” Now the tears were really coming.
I wanted to ask her if she didn’t think I could protect her, but I knew that’s not the way she meant it. And more than that, the truth of it was I knew I couldn’t take Tom in a fair fight. No way. I’d have to fight dirty or use a weapon—and even then it might be iffy. It hurt my pride as a man to have to admit it, but there it was. I slid over and put my arm around her shoulders and let her cry it out while I thought.
When she’d recovered enough that she was just sniffling and wiping the tears off her cheeks—oh, how it hurt me to see her working gingerly around that big purple eye—I told her, “Katie. I’ve got a friend in Vegas. Owns a little bar with some slot machines. I got a standing gig with him any time I want. All I have to do is just show up. I’ve kind of been making my way out there slowly anyway. You ever been to Vegas?”
She looked at me without speaking, her cheeks still slick, her eyes unreadable.
“I know he’d give you a job, and anyway, waitress jobs are easy to come by in Vegas. Pay a lot of money out there, too. Wouldn’t be no time till you were up on your feet, could get your own place … if that’s what you wanted.”
There was a light in her eyes, a wondering look, a smile teasing at the corners of her mouth. “Frank—” Her eyes searched mine. “Well, I just—I don’t know if could.”
“Of course you could,” I said. “We could leave as soon as you like. My little room rent’s due in a week anyhow. I don’t have much stuff to pack. My little crop duster’ll get us out there. We could leave tomorrow if you’re worried. Hell, we could leave tonight.”
She looked so close to happy, even with that big, angry shiner on her pretty face. She looked so full of hope. “We could do that?” She thought about it and nodded to herself. “We could.” She looked down at her hands, and I noticed how tightly she was squeezing them together. I laid my big hand over top of them both. Her skin was smooth and cool. “Oh, I’m just so worried,” she said.
“What about?”
“That he won’t stop,” she said. “That he won’t stop until I’m dead.”
* * *
We packed her most important things in two suitcases. She fretted and clucked every so often about something she would have to leave behind, and I reminded her that she’d be able to find stuff that was so much nicer in Vegas and she’d accumulate new stories and memories to go along with them. I wanted to keep her momentum up, didn’t want her to give in to inertia. As we pulled away from her house, she looked pained and happy in equal measure. And when I turned right at the end of her street, she seemed to let go of it—or most of it. She looked a little worried, a little relieved, and she put her hand on top of mine and squeezed.
I dropped her and her suitcases at my little room. I had to go by the bar and get my guitars and amplifier. They were too dear to me to leave behind. At dawn we would hit the road. Katie was terrified Tom would find us out if we waited any longer. She was even worried about me going to the bar to get my stuff. It frustrated me.
I didn’t like the feeling of sneaking around. I offered to talk to Tom, sit down, man to man, and explain things to him. Because that’s what a man does, in my view. I offered, even though the idea scared the hell out of me. I was pretty sure that kind of sit-down would leave me unable to make it out of the parking lot, let alone to Las Vegas. And that frustrated me too, that distance between my idealistic side and my practical side. But Katie was vehemently against it. Got terrified at the mention of it. So I agreed not to—to my relief and increasing frustration.
I agreed not to talk to Tom about her and me. Just slip in while he and Duane were doing the inventory and split. That’s what I intended to do.
Why I tucked my little pistol into the back of my jeans and covered it with my shirttail before I left, I don’t know.
* * *
I was feeling really good on the way over. It wasn’t just a warm, sunny day, it was like the movie version of a warm, sunny day—one of those that makes you feel just an inch more alive than you feel the rest of the year. I was happy to be leaving this little town, to be heading to Vegas, and happy to be taking Katie with me.
I pulled into the parking lot, noting how different the bar looked in the daylight. At night it affected a certain rough glamour. In the daytime, it just looked rundown. Tom’s black truck was there, so big it seemed to impose itself without apology on the rest of the world. I thought maybe Duane’s car would be beside it, but when I pulled around and parked I saw the lot was empty but for my vehicle and Tom’s. I felt my nerves go on alert. I took a deep breath. “Calm down,” I told myself. “You’re just here to grab your shit and go.” I got out and leaned on the car. I lit a cigarette with my old Zippo. Took two drags. Started walking for the door. I pitched the butt before I opened it.
The bar was all lit up inside, the bright lights not doing the old wood paneling any favors. Tom was behind the bar counting bottles. He turned his head and looked at me. I looked back, though I found I could hardly stand the sight of him. All of a sudden his face congealed into a real hard, nasty look. “What the fuck do you want?” he asked.
I realized my face probably wasn’t hiding too well what I thought of him. I made myself turn away toward the low stage in the corner. “Nothing,” I said as I walked. My voice sounded loud and hard to my ears, even though in my chest it felt like I was talking low, holding back. “Just came to get my stuff.” I heard him grunt. I started unplugging things, wrapping up cables. After a few minutes, I chanced a look. He’d gone back to counting bottles, his bulky muscles swelling and dimpling under his shirt as he shifted things around. “Duane not here?” It hurt to ask him the question. I didn’t want to ask him anything. I could feel my hatred burning into his back.
He answered without looking at me. “Went for pizza.” It was like a low growl roughly hewn into words.
I closed the locks on my two guitar cases and started walking them out. Tom looked over his shoulder at me as I drew alongside the bar. The fall of the overhead lights left his eyes in shadow under his pale brow, making him look even more inhuman. “Aren’t you supposed to play tonight?”
I should have lied, told him I was coming back. It would have been easier. But I wasn’t feeling the lie. “No. I’m leaving town.” He just looked at me. It was like the air between us was heating up, throbbing, pressing down on me like a living thing. “Something’s come up,” I added, hating the words before they were fully out of my mouth. I felt like I was sneaking. Goddamn, I hated sneaking.
Tom’s face pinched. “Just like that? No notice? Nothing?”
I shrugged.
“I always knew you were a piece of shit.” He turned back to the bottles, like I was below his notice.
My temper got away from me. I felt a hot ball of fire pushing its way up through my chest. I heard myself say, “Piece of shit? A man who beats his woman is a piece of shit.”
His whole posture changed, like a ripple running through him. He turned his body to face me, and I felt his stare, his furious intent, pierce me. One side of his mouth curled upward, not quite making a smirk.
The air between us was hot now, stinging. “You’re done,” I said. “You hear that? It’s over. She’s with me now, and I’m getting her the hell away from here. Away from you.”
And for an instant, Tom’s face softened, opened up, and he looked lost. Sad. Like a little kid. It might have lasted a second, a fraction, but it was enough to throw me off balance. I felt an unexpected twinge of pity. And of kinship. Like I wanted to buy him a beer. I didn’t want to feel it, but it was like some kind of recognition, involuntary.
And then suddenly Tom’s face hardened into the fury I was no longer prepared for, and he was vaulting over the bar. I opened my hands, dropping
the guitar cases, and when he hit me, I swear, I don’t think they’d touched the ground yet.
I was on my back and hurting like a sonofabitch. And not just my face—which felt like I’d been hit by a bowling ball—but my lower back, too. Something digging into me. And then, in that quick, wordless, instinctual way, I remembered what it was.
Tom was stepping to me, his face a cloud of murderous rage. I was panicked. I knew if he got his hands on me, it was all over. Me and Katie. Las Vegas. Maybe even my life.
I dug my hand up under my back.
Tom reached down for me.
I yanked at the butt of the gun, but it wouldn’t come. It was hung up on something.
Tom curled his fingers in my hair and yanked my head up off the floor.
I tugged at the gun, my grip slippery.
Tom drew back one huge fist. It looked like a furrowed wall of bone and flesh.
And the gun came free. I thrust it out in front of me.
I shot him point blank in the forehead.
I don’t know how long I lay there, listening to the sound of my own breathing, feeling like the whole world had just slid over on its axis, but eventually, I pulled myself to my knees. And then to my feet.
Tom had fallen on his side, his eyes staring up past the ceiling at something in the space beyond, a ragged, red little hole just off center above the bridge of his nose.
I stared at him. I reached in my shirt pocket for a cigarette and found the pack and the lighter gone. I scanned the floor. They were about three feet away. Must have fallen out when he hit me. I picked them up, sat on the edge of one of the barstools, and lit one, hands shaking, breathing heavily, looking at Tom’s dead body.
It was a while before my mind came back to me. I realized Duane should be back any minute. In a daze, I loaded the stuff in my car—paranoid that each car that passed on the street was slowing down to pull in.
* * *
I’d like to tell you she left a note. That she’d spelled out her motivations and tried to ease me into it. That she’d decided she couldn’t go away with me because she didn’t really love me, or that she needed some time on her own, to learn to be by herself before being with anybody else. Or even that she’d realized she didn’t really want to leave him after all. I’d like to tell you that, just so you wouldn’t have to wonder. But there was no note. She was gone and she’d taken her suitcases with her.
The Malfeasance Occasional Page 20
