Dark Things IV

by Stacey Longo

  Always she would walk in, giving him space but shooting (longing, pitying, welcoming, offering, lethal) glances at him. Their eyes would meet, she too scared to mouth hello, he too full of alcohol and shitty mood to do any more than sneer and look away.

  Until one day, it may have been a Thursday or possibly a Saturday (Billy wasn’t sure, but there was a tray of mini tacos out for happy hour and those two days are taco night). On that Thursday or Saturday, Billy was in a real winner of a mood, real pissy, even for him, even counting only the period of time since the proverbial shit had hit the fan.

  He had tried once again to talk to his mother that day. He’d failed, of course, as all she could do, since news of his infidelity had reached her, was ask him why and repeat that his daddy (God rest his soul) would never have done a thing like that, and just generally rub his face in his mess until he would have willingly peeled off his own skin if it would have shut her up.

  So he’d gotten annoyed, hung up, and taken that as his cue to head over to his Hell away from Hell, the bar. He sat there, with his line of shots, Wild Turkey 101 that day, because that one was a real grand prize winner, and pondered just how long it would be before he lost his job. It was only a matter of time; he knew that. He showed up late consistently, didn’t show up at all often enough, and was abysmally hung-over whenever he went in. He only still had a job because of the work he’d done before his divorce.

  He was adjusting his guess, narrowing down a range that gave him between two weeks and three months left of employment, when he noticed Susan was in the bar. She’d obviously been there for a while, too far outside the radius of his thoughts and shots to be noticed right away.

  She was wearing a baby blue t-shirt and tight jeans, with her hair up in a perky blonde ponytail, and she was talking to a guy. For a moment Billy felt a twinge of jealousy, which at first confused him. You pushed her away; why feel jealous? Billy thought. But then he realized that it added a whole new depth of pain to his condition and he relished it. He conjured up images of Emily finding comfort in the arms of another man, finding love and lust in those arms. He made the men celebrities in his mind, but that made it fake and lessoned the potency. He turned them into their mutual friends, and that really hurt. He dwelled on it, painted torturous masterpieces in his mind to save for appreciation later.

  Then he pulled out of his deeper self and noticed Susan’s face. She was uncomfortable. More than that, she was afraid.

  She noticed him across the bar and started over. The guy followed.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Billy mumbled before he slowly poured another shot down his open gullet.

  She came over to Billy, actually leaned on him so that he could feel her against him and smell her perfume, even amidst the smoke and stink of whiskey.

  Susan got in close, a few loose strands of her sunlight blonde hair brushing against his neck, and whispered into his ear, “I know you hate me, and I feel bad bothering you, but this guy is scaring me. He’s weird, and he’s getting kind of grabby.”

  She pulled away slightly, but stayed close enough that he still smelled her over all else. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose. She smelled of fresh laundry and vanilla, almost sickeningly sweet, but glorious nonetheless.

  His mind screamed behind his serene expression. It berated him about his ruined life, his marriage, his mother, his newfound alcoholism, and impending unemployment. It was all her fault. Who brings home a guy that’s that drunk? If I were a woman I could have called it rape…Who are you kidding? You did it. You know that. Save your anger for yourself, Billy boy, he thought.

  He opened his eyes and slowly turned around, situating himself so that the bar was at his back. He made a conscious effort to let nothing show on his face, to leave Susan uncertain as to what he would do for a moment.

  It’s your fault, but why not let her squirm for a moment or two, he thought.

  “How’s it going?” Billy said to the guy, extending his hand.

  The other man was taller than Billy, but not as broadly built. His hair was dark and wavy, slicked back with gel. His clothes were tight and his pants and shirt were vivid hues, tutorials in contrast.

  Wow, where are you from? Billy thought.

  “How you doing?” the guy said.

  New York! Billy screamed jovially in his head. You got it; you’re the blue ribbon winner, the boy’s not from around these parts.

  “Listen, I don’t want trouble, but this girl’s taken,” Billy said as amiably as possible. She better buy him a lot of shots for this.

  “What? That ya shuga?” the guy said. His twang was both badly executed and obnoxious, and Billy couldn’t tell which pissed him off more.

  The New Yorker looked quite pleased with himself; a smug grin of satisfaction sat on his greasy face.

  Billy stood from his bar stool and moved closer to the guy, slowly, so as not to be misinterpreted as some kind of attack.

  Billy put his mouth by the guy’s ear and whispered, just loud enough to be heard, “Look, like I said, I don’t want any trouble. She’s my friend’s girl, so why don’t you just go, so I…” and without pulling away the slightest bit from the tourist prick’s ear, “DON’T HAVE TO FUCKING KILL YOU!”

  Billy’s eyes glazed over a bit. The reflection from the lights in the bar made them look like the eyes of a coyote at night. He grinned, actually grinned a genuine, sick-bastard, happy smile, and said, “Welcome to Texas,” exaggerating his own real twang to a comical degree. Without turning away from the New Yorker, Billy reached back, found a full shot glass, and poured it down his throat.

  The bar had gotten very quiet.

  “Everything okay, Billy?” Tom Lawrence, the bartender, asked. He and Tommy had grown up together, as their fathers had been best friends since childhood. They weren’t nearly as close as they used to be, but Billy knew he had nothing to worry about.

  “No problem at all, Tommy. Just saying goodbye to my new friend here.” Billy put the now empty shot glass on the bar.

  Tom gave the New Yorker a stern look that wasn’t needed; he’d already decided to turn tail and move to another bar.

  The din of the bar built back up quickly, and soon it seemed all was forgotten.

  Except, of course, that Susan was still standing there, right next to him, looking as if she might say something stupid.

  “Thank you...I’m sorry…for everything, Billy. I really am. If you ever want to talk…”

  “Leave me alone,” Billy said. He turned his back to her and sat back down on his stool.

  She lingered for a moment more and then finally walked away, leaving her sweet scent to linger a bit longer.

  “Can I get another shot or two, Tommy?”

  The bartender gave him a sad look, a look of pity, without even trying to mask it, and poured two more shots. “These two are on the house, Will.”

  Nobody had called him that in a long time, not since childhood, maybe high school at the latest, when somehow everyone had switched to calling him Billy in a reversal of the evolution of any other William he’d ever known.

  Though he was only twenty-nine years old, and though with a shower and a shave he looked more like twenty-four, Billy felt older than dirt as he sat there thinking about childhood, thinking of how different things had turned out from the way they were supposed to.

  He threw money on the bar and went home.

  ***

  Billy woke the next morning with a bitch of a hangover, but he made himself get up off the couch where he’d fallen asleep, shave, and take a shower. He was going to turn over a new leaf. Things were going to start looking up again.

  He went to work, and he actually did work; he accomplished, he produced. He even had a little chat with his boss, during which he was praised for diving back into work after things had seemed so bleak for a while there.

  And how do you know this isn’t just a fluke? Billy found himself thinking as he watched his boss’ lips flap without hearing a
word for a few minutes.

  From work he went directly to Johnny Ringo’s. Tommy wasn’t working. Instead Morgan Dunn was behind the bar. She was the only female bartender employed at Johnny Ringo’s, but she was as masculine as any of the other guys that served drinks there, maybe more so than Jack Crowley, who had been known to get drunk and sing old Patsy Cline songs on occasion.

  As Billy sat at his usual corner seat, Morgan, all 300 plus pounds of her, lumbered over to him, smiling.

  “How you holding up, sweetie?” she asked. She was a mother bear and every regular at Ringo’s was one of her cubs.

  “Pretty well, I think,” Billy said, mustering up a smile that turned out to be genuine. She was a sweet gal, and he knew that her concern was authentic, not just some opener to start his drinking and tipping.

  “You look good, Billy. Really. Nice and cleaned up.” Morgan reached the inside of the bar’s corner and motioned with both hands for him to lean across the bar. He did so and she planted a firm, maternal kiss on his cheek. “What are we having tonight?”

  Billy settled back into his seat and thought for a second. “I think I’ll have a Smithwick’s.”

  “Just the brew? No shot?”

  “Sticking to beer tonight, Morgan,” Billy said, his grin widening a bit.

  Morgan started to pour the beer. As the thick, dark liquid filled the pint, Billy rolled up the sleeves of his pale green shirt.

  She put the beer down, picked it back up, threw down a coaster, and placed it down again.

  Billy said hello to the man next to him, a man he’d chatted with once or twice but whose name he couldn’t remember. Then Susan walked in and his mood soured a bit.

  Morgan looked at him and walked over. “Don’t let it get you down.”

  Billy forced his smile back out, winked at Morgan, and lifted his glass to his lips. He turned back to the man next to him, who said his name was Ray and not to worry about not remembering it, and said, “So what do you do, Ray?”

  “Would you believe I’m a teacher?” he said, motioning subtly to the gin and tonic in his hand. The glass was nearly empty, filled only with ice and extra wedges of lime.

  “Actually,” Billy said, “I’ve no problem believing that at all.” And for some reason he didn’t. The man had something about him, some air of academia, something studious that couldn’t quite be seen, but could be very clearly perceived. “Let me buy you another one of those,” Billy said motioning to Morgan to bring another gin and tonic, “That one’s a bit low.”

  ***

  Billy sat with Ray, bullshitting and drinking beer, and was almost able to ignore the fact that Susan was standing on the opposite side of the bar, playing one Stones song after the next on the old jukebox.

  Ray, it turned out, was not just a teacher, but a professor of literature and, although at points in their conversation Billy felt inadequate and far from well-read, he found Ray to be immensely interesting.

  Things seemed to be going as well as he could have hoped, and then he saw Ray’s jaw drop and felt a bad vibe slither its way up his spine, like a snake lethargic from lying in the sun for too long.

  Billy turned and started to follow his gaze, but it didn’t take long for his own to be caught.

  She was trouble, Billy knew that the second he’d laid eyes on her, but when trouble had a body that spectacular, it seems like the most desirable thing in the world.

  That is the last thing you need, Billy thought to himself as he peeled his eyes off of her. He scanned the bar and immediately noticed two things: 1—every guy in the bar, literally every single male in the place, was staring at her; not just staring, gawking; and 2—every woman in the bar looked like they wanted to claw out her throat and tear her head right off.

  Billy, in his mind, heard a voice with an Australian accent saying, Notice how the introduction of a new alpha female into the pack generates a huge response, piquing the interest of the males, and eliciting aggression from the females.

  What the fuck is wrong with your head, Billy? he thought.

  Billy turned back to Ray and said, “So you really think that Shakespeare wasn’t written by Shakespeare?”

  Ray was still staring at the girl, his lust instinctual and irrepressible, looking right past Billy. But a moment, maybe two, after the question had hung in the air for too long, Ray’s nature and nurture went to war. The civilization that was so engrained in his being forced his mouth, awkwardly at first, to groan out a distracted “Huh?” before, with a slight shake of his head, like a man shaking off the vision of a mirage; Ray’s eyes flittered away from the girl. “I mean…no, well, not necessarily. It’s just been…” his eyes darted over to her, paused, darted back, “…it’s been suggested, or maybe theorized is the right word, that it was someone else, or even a group of other people.” Ray finished and his focus danced over to the girl again.

  Billy, for all he tried to ignore it all, couldn’t help but hear her progress around the bar, the pick-up lines and hellos that went unanswered one after the next from the entrance, down one side, around a corner, and up another.

  They got closer. “Hello” silence “Hey, darling” silence “Evening.” She never answered even a one, and by the speed with which the voices of attempt changed, it was clear she was making quick progress.

  After a while Billy found himself smiling, damn near laughing, at how stupid they all sounded. God, do we always sound like that? he wondered. Then he heard a woman’s voice, “Hey, Red, let me buy you a cold one,” and he had to take a drink or burst out laughing. So he took a big swallow of beer, held it in his mouth until the laugh had passed, and then sucked it down. Okay, it’s not just the guys, must be something about this chick, Billy thought, adjusting his theory.

  Then the greetings stopped just behind him, and Ray was looking practically through his head to see her. Billy swore he could feel the weight of her presence up against his back, poking and tickling him, but with no more substance than a shadow.

  She leaned in. He felt it before she’d even made contact with him, before her lips had brushed his ear and her breasts had pressed up against his back.

  From the corner of his eye he saw flecks of red. He smelled cinnamon and cloves. Then she exhaled before she spoke and her breath toyed at his nostrils, teasing another smell, a coppery one, a familiar one that he couldn’t quite place, which both aroused and disgusted him.

  “You must be shy.” Her voice in his ear was a whisper of a whisper, the echo of a faint breeze, but it hid something as well: thunder. It was the way she spoke, the way her mouth and throat formed the words, the syllables, even in the quietest whisper they boomed and reverberated in his mind.

  “Why do you say that?” Billy asked without turning to face her.

  Her lips still brushing against his ear, her breasts now pressed even harder against his back, she whispered, “You’re the only man trying to ignore me.”

  Where was that accent from? Billy wondered. She sure as hell wasn’t local, but it didn’t quite sound like any accent he’d ever heard before.

  No sooner had his mind registered the intriguing accent, than it had gone back and noticed the sheer vanity of what she’d said.

  “You’re just a little too vain for me, darling. Too much trouble.” Billy grinned, still facing away from the girl. He thought he could hear the symphony of clicks as every jaw around the bar snapped open and hung there.

  “Is that so?”

  Billy looked at Ray, whose eyes went right past Billy’s head, looking at the face of the girl just over his right shoulder. He wished he’d gotten a better look at her before he’d diverted his attention. He’d seen her, quickly tried to take her in, and perceived enough to appreciate that she may well have been the best looking woman to ever set foot in Johnny Ringo’s, but no girl could possibly be worth all of the attention that this one was getting.

  “Look at me,” she said, breaking Billy’s concentration.

  “What?”

  “Turn aro
und and look at me.” He could hear the smile in her voice. He noted the feel of his own on his face. When did this become some kind of game, Billy wondered.

  He turned on his stool so that he faced her. She stood about 5’6”, so sitting on the high bar stool he was just about at eye level with her.

  And what eyes they were. They must have been brown, they had to be, but they looked like onyx, like a stone so perfectly black and glossy that it belonged in a ring or set into an ancient relic, a holy statue from some tribal culture long gone and forgotten.

  Her hair was the sanguine color of a head wound, a red so rich and thick that Billy could think of nothing more than running his fingers through it, burying his face in it and smelling it, being lost in it forever…

  It’s just hair! Billy’s internal critic jeered.

  But it wasn’t. Nothing about this girl was just anything. Physically, she was very complicated.

  His eyes trickled down to her lips, full lips that pouted even as she let herself toy with the possibility of a smile.

  Her neck was slender, delicate, and covered with skin so white that it would look repulsive on any other human being, but not on her. On her it was vanilla ice cream, soft and sweet and cold.

  The canvas of her body was painted with contradictions. It was slight, thin, and delicate, and yet graced with a lean muscular quality that gave her body a curvaceousness lacking in most women of such fragile build. She was also blessed with a body that allotted all of its extra weight to just the right places, so that a slender waist and hard flat stomach led up to large breasts and down to hips that curved perfectly to make her every posture one of seduction, her every step a dance, slow and rhythmic and deliberate, that caught the eyes and held them until she saw fit to stop and let them go.

  Only after Billy realized that he’d slowly traced his gaze from her hair, down to the features of her face and the curves of her body, and gotten halfway up again, did he manage to force his eyes back onto hers. He noticed, during his quick visual ascent, that her smile had shifted out of the realm of possibilities and into something devious and playful, the mouth of a trickster goddess.