Outland

by Kiernan Kelly

  Oh, Lord! He must have busted an artery in his melon and gone crazy. "What? We can't do that! We don't know the first thing about running a bar and, besides, we don't have that kind of money!" Hank and me lived on our disability checks from the mill, me for my legs and hip, and him for his heart condition. It wasn't much, barely enough to keep us fed and the lights turned on. We had a few dollars squirreled away, but not nearly enough for what I figured it would take to open a business.

  Hank wasn't listening, I could see it. He popped back up off the sofa and stalked away like a man on a mission. I followed him, intent on making him see reason. A bar! He couldn't be serious!

  He was.

  By the time I realized he wasn't listening to anything I said, he'd pulled out a notepad and a pencil, sat at the kitchen table and started scribbling a list of things he wanted to buy.

  "Now, we don't need much, not to start. Cleaning supplies, some card tables and chairs. Don't need no fancy glasses or shakers or whatnot -- we're only gonna have good old-fashioned beer, and folks who don't want to drink out of the bottle can use a Mason jar. They're cheap enough. Oh! Old Ed Hansel has that busted jukebox in his cellar. Bet he'd let us have it for nothing -- maybe you or Skeeter can fix it up. Gonna need lights, too, I reckon. We can't afford to put in no bathroom, but we can get us one of them port-a-johns and set it out back. Folks will have to make do with it or piss in the bushes."

  "Hank, this is crazy-talk!"

  "We got that old fridge out there to hold the beer. See why I said we shouldn't toss it out? It'll come in handy, huh? We'll probably need another fridge, but we can pick one up at the Salvation Army over in Twilla for practically nothing. Now, we ain't cooking for these people, no, sir. We can give 'em peanuts, though. We'll need to paint the place first off, something nice -- not white, 'cause that'll show the dirt too much. Best if we head out to the Home Depot in Twilla first thing in the morning and take us a look at them paint swatches they got. Pick us out a nice color. I figure we'll need maybe a dozen gallons to get the job done."

  "Hank..."

  He looked up at me then, his face beaming like a little boy on Christmas morning, all happy and excited enough to wet his drawers. I hadn't seen him so lively since before his heart attack. The doctors saved his life that night, barely, but it seemed to me he'd never really gotten over it. He was real quiet after, sadder, somehow. Now he was grinning and his eyes were sparkling again. I couldn't take it away from him. I just couldn't. "Think maybe we could paint it blue?"

  "Blue... or purple. We'll see."

  Purple? Oh, Lord.

  ***

  It wasn't purple. It was eggplant, Hank insisted, and before I knew what hit me, there were twelve gallons of the stuff stacked just inside the door to the stable, along with brushes, rollers, drop cloths, and a couple of gallons of white for the trim.

  We rolled up our shirtsleeves and dove right in, cleaning out cobwebs and squirrel nests, and sweeping up years' worth of dirt. Hank wore a kerchief over his face like a desperado in one of the westerns he liked to watch on TV, to keep from breathing in the dust that filled the air as we cleaned. The hardest part for him was going through the boxes and boxes of crap we'd stored in there, deciding what to keep and where to put it, and what to throw out. Bits and pieces of our lives together went into the trash, bundled up with twine or stuffed into big leaf bags.

  There was a lot of loud discussion over some of the stuff, too, mostly due to Hank's packrat nature. If the object in question wasn't literally falling to dust in our hands, he thought it a sin to chuck it out.

  "No, Beaver, now, you just give them to me. I'll bring them up to the house." He pulled a pair of wooden oars out of my hands, clutching them to his chest like they were pieces of the one true cross.

  "Hank, for God's sake, we didn't need them when we bought them, and we sure as shit don't need them now!" I yelled, yanking them back. "We ain't never had a boat!"

  "Don't mean we won't ever get one!"

  "Hank, be reasonable!"

  "Fine! Don't come crying to me when you find yourself floating out in the middle of the ocean with no way to paddle home. Didn't we see something like that in a movie not long ago? Couple of scuba divers got stranded in the ocean? Sharks ate 'em, and why? Because they didn't have any goddamn paddles, that's why!"

  It went on like that for most of an entire week.

  I do admit that even I felt a little sad to see some of it go. Tossing out memories can be painful, I reckon. Like the skis we bought fifteen years ago when we took us a trip up to Vermont. We found out neither of us enjoyed shushing down a mountain at breakneck speed with nothing between us and the trees but a pair of thin metal poles. It was the first and last time we did anything in the snow besides shovel it, but we had some great memories of that weekend. I remember us rolling around naked on the big king-sized bed in the lodge, a fire crackling in the hearth, and us smelling like hot toddies and sex.

  The skis went into a trash bag along with the old wine press we'd bought at a flea market the time we thought we'd try our hands at making our own label, like them fancy wineries in California. That one was a nice dream while it lasted. We managed to make one batch that tasted like vinegar-flavored shit, stuck the press in the stable, and forgot about it.

  All the little projects that we'd bought parts for, but never got around to actually doing, got tossed. The short stack of truck tires we were going to turn into planters and sell at the Haggerty County 4-H fair. The springs and innards scavenged from yard sales that we were going to use to make clocks out of old tree stumps. Five dozen milk crates full of dusty PVC piping elbows we'd collected for a reason neither of us could remember. Boxes of old clothes got set to the side for the Salvation Army; more cartons of knickknacks and old car parts were stacked near the door, ready for the dump.

  By the time all the garbage was cleaned out, the stable looked a lot bigger than I remembered it. There was plenty of room for a bar, a dozen tables, the two refrigerators, and a small dance floor.

  We used a bunch of old shipping crates we picked up from the Home Depot's dumpster to make the bar, setting them side by side and nailing them together. When we were finished, the bar wasn't nothing special -- just a nine-foot long, waist-high box with the open side facing the back for storage -- but we figured it would serve its purpose. It was only a place for people to set their drinks and lean their elbows, after all. We laid tile over the top, giving it a nice, smooth, easy-to-clean surface, and figured once it was painted, it'd serve.

  Fargo stopped by often enough, lending his back to moving the heavier stuff, and helping us paint. The boy was handy with a brush, I'll tell you what. Not bad to look at neither, dressed in his cut-offs and nothing else. Me and Hank found ourselves setting down our brushes a lot more than necessary to go outside and watch him paint the exterior of the stable. Maybe because of that, he had all four walls, trim and all, painted in nearly the same amount of time it took me and Hank to finish off half of the inside. Well, that and because I had to keep resting my hip, and Hank had to stop to catch his breath now and then. Getting old sucks sometimes, and that's the truth of it.

  The scariest part of it all was going to the county for a license to operate a business, and a beer permit. Cost us a pretty penny, too, nearly all we had left to our names. If the county said no to our applications, all our hard work would be for nothing. There wasn't anything for us to do but press on and hope for the best.

  In a few weeks' time, the stable looked shiny and new, and a little bit like a big ol' square grape sitting out in our backyard. Hank shot me the evil eye when I mentioned it to him. "Okay, okay. I stand corrected," I said, laughing. "Make that a big ol' square eggplant."

  Ed Hansel gave us his jukebox, an honest-to-Christ Rock-Ola Comet from the late fifties, and a crate chockfull of records. Buddy Holly, the Four Aces, the Big Bopper, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis... Stagger Lee by Lloyd Price, Runaway by Del Shannon, The Troggs' Wild Thing, Groovin' by the Young Rascals, an
d People Got to be Free by the Rascals when they figured they got too old to call themselves "young" anymore. Even had a copy of Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers. They brought back a ton of memories for me. I remembered my ma and pa playing those records on an RCA portable when I was a kid.

  I drove it home in the back of our pick-up and spent the better part of a week trying to fix the damn thing. Got it going, too, with Skeeter's help, and even though it didn't sound as fine as some fancy, expensive electronic sound system, it was good enough for us.

  I set the jukebox up against the back wall of where we figured the dance floor should be, plugged it in, and took Hank into my arms for a slow dance to You've Lost That Loving Feeling by the Righteous Brothers. I can tell you right now that Hank hadn't lost it at all. He had that loving feeling in spades, and showed it when he kissed me, shucked off his shoes, shoved down his pants, and bent me bare-assed over the Rock-Ola.

  Made the record skip like a stone across the water, is what we did. Hank's dick ain't very long, but it's fat, and fits me like a cork in a bottle. Hank pulled my jeans down, bent me over, slicked me a bit, and plunged right in up to his hips. He was in rare form that day, too, slamming into my ass for all he was worth. Didn't talk much, but there was lots of grunting and half-formed words that sort of ran together, like his mind couldn't decide what it wanted his mouth to say. Assfuckinbaby, and makecomefuck, things like that.

  Lord! It was the best sex we'd had in a good, long while. Felt like I was stretched out wide and filled up to bursting, with Hank's hips beating my ass like a drum. I came before he did, jerking off while he fucked me, painting streaks of white on the colorful side panel of the jukebox.

  We christened the place, is how Hank called it after we was done. His pants were still open, shoved halfway over his hips when Hank painted the word "Outland" on a sawed-off piece of two-by-four and hung it outside the front door. Said he wanted to name the bar that because no matter what Bellows said, America was still the land of the free, and people could come out to our place to be themselves if they had a mind. I liked it and told him so.

  Two months after we first heard Bellows running off at the mouth on television, the approval for our permits came in the mail from the state, and Outland was open for business. All we had left was to wait for somebody to come find us.

  Chapter Three

  "I swear, Beaver, if these bitches don't move their asses I'm gonna cut a switch and whoop their bottoms raw! Ginger! Charity! How many times do I have to tell you? Y'all are supposed to start off on the right foot! Try it again from the beginning of the chorus."

  Miss Amanda Allure sat perched on the edge of the bar, long legs crossed, purple nails tapping against the wood. Amanda's real name was Jethro, but when he dressed up like he was in a frilly dress and silk hose, you'd never know it, and he liked to be called by his drag name.

  Amanda had a real pretty face, red, red lips, false eyelashes, and boobs that felt real enough if you didn't squeeze 'em too hard. Those boobs she had were made of silicone, and cost her a week's pay from a mail-order catalogue out of New York City. Amanda called 'em her chest plate, and didn't Hank laugh until he near wet his pants every time she said it, too. She let me watch her get dressed once, tucking her junk up between her legs like she was putting up beans for the winter. Her delicates had a special pocket built in to hold it all, which was a good thing considerin' that Amanda had a cock long enough to tie in knots.

  Nice folk, all of them, even Miss Charity, who could be a bitch on rails when she took a mind to. They came in a few weeks after we opened Outland, just blew in through the front door one night like a colorful bunch of butterflies. Sure did brighten the place up. Never told me how they found out about us, but it don't really matter. All that does is that they made Outland their home, cozying right up to us, spritzin' their perfume in the port-a-john, building a stage against the back wall, and hauling in electronic equipment so they could put on a show. They had a microphone, speakers, and a big, black karaoke machine, too. Lord, how the genny used to wheeze and sputter when they plugged all that shit in! I thought Skeeter might just pop a blood vessel when he started yelling about them overloading the genny. He took on so that Jethro brought in another genny just to shut him up.

  Fargo took a shine to Miss Ginger, the youngest of the queens. Ginger was Fargo's age, or close to it, and not more than five-six or five-seven in stocking feet. Ginger's real name was Ashley Wills, named after that fella in Gone with the Wind, though his mama spelled it differently, and he was slender and delicate-looking, the sort of boy who was pretty in and out of makeup. Ginger had a real nice smile, warm and sort of shy, and Fargo near about fell to his knees the minute he laid eyes on her in her slinky black dress and six-inch heels.

  Being so young, Miss Ginger was sort of an apprentice to the other queens, and called Miss Amanda "Mama," and the rest of the girls, "Auntie." I had to vouch for Fargo before Amanda would let Ginger go out with him. It was nice to see how they took care of each other, like a family that eventually extended to include Fargo, Hank, and me. Even took a liking to Leroy, bringing him rawhide chews and dried pig ears every week.

  They were rehearsing for a new show, the second one being put on in Outland. It was gonna have a Broadway theme, with music from Cabaret, Chicago, and Sweet Charity. Amanda did the best number as far as I was concerned, If They Could See Me Now from Sweet Charity. She didn't lip-sync the song as the other queens did -- she really sang it. Lordy, she had a voice that belonged on Broadway, I tell you what! Could hit all the high notes, and sounded like Ethel Merman when she let loose, good and loud and perfect.

  She was busy putting the rest through their paces for the fifth or sixth time when Fargo came in. Didn't look or act like himself -- he didn't even wave at Ginger. He looked nervous, his hand sliding to his crotch without him noticing. Came around behind the bar and caught me by the sleeve, whispering in my ear.

  "We got us a problem, Beaver. You and Hank better come outside where we can talk," he said. His eyes shifted toward the girls, and I knew he didn't want them to overhear whatever he had to say.

  I crooked a finger at Hank, and we followed Fargo outside. Even out there we could still hear the music and Amanda yelling at the girls. "Right foot! I said the right, Charity! The other right! Do I have to mark your left from your right like a kindy-gartener?"

  "What's all this about, Fargo? You look like you're wound up as tight as a bow fiddle," I said as soon as the door swung shut behind us. Hank stood next to me, arms folded across his chest, looking just as worried as I felt. Fargo was acting strange, real jumpy and jittery.

  "I been hearing some things, boys. I was out on Balder Road, gassing up at Pete's Chevron station and jawin' a bit with Davy, Pete's kid, when Sanford Matthews pulled up at the pump. You know Sanford, right? Tall man, red hair, with a hooked nose that almost touches his chin? Well, he noticed me, and got a look on his face like he just tasted fried squirrel shit. So I asked him, 'What are you lookin' at, Matthews?'"

  Fargo's hand was worrying at his crotch again, and Hank slapped it away. "And? What did he say, Fargo?" Hank prompted.

  "He said he knew what us faggots are doing up here, and that we'd better stop if'n we know what's good for us. I asked what business was it of his, but he wouldn't say nothing else, just went on filling his tank and left."

  "So? You dragged us out here for that? Sanford Matthews is knock-kneed weasel, always has been," Hank said, shaking his head. "He talks out of his ass so much that it’s a wonder he don't shit out the other end."

  "I don't know, Hank. You know what church Sanford goes to, don't you? First Corners," I said, feeling a shiver dance up my spine. My ma used to say a rabbit jumped on your grave when that happened. I got the feeling my shiver was caused by something a helluva lot bigger and uglier than a bunny. "You think Bellows knows about Outland? Things could get rough if he shows up here."

  Hank waved a hand at me. I could see his jaw clamped down tigh
t, a muscle twitching in his cheek. "Good. Let him come. I ain't scared of him."

  "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you was spoilin' for a fight, Hank," I said, frowning. "You got a heart condition to worry on. You don't need to be knocking heads with Bellows."

  "Come on, Beaver! We knew he'd find out about us eventually. You wanna close down now, after all the work we put in? You gonna let him run us off like he did the others?"

  "Didn't say that," I said, although it was exactly what I was thinking -- close up shop before Bellows could sic the hounds on us. Then I felt ashamed of myself for being a coward, even if it was only in my head. "Let him say what he wants. He steps foot on our property and I'll have his ass hauled off to jail, see how he likes it."

  "That's my boy," Hank said with a smile. He threw an arm around me and hugged me close, then pulled Fargo in, too. "Come on. The ladies are gearin' up for a dress rehearsal, and I don't want to miss it!"

  ***

  To be on the safe side, just so there'd be no misunderstanding, I tacked up big, yellow "No Trespassing" and "Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted" signs at the bottom of the hill where the dirt road to our place met the highway. Our regulars knew those signs weren't meant for them. They were a warning to Bellows to stay clear.