The Garden of Last Days

by Andre Dubus III

  Renée was swinging round and round on the pole. On her nipples she’d stuck white pasties with foot-long silver threads. Nobody did that anymore. Lonnie looked back at Little Andy sitting on his stool, the curtain to the Champagne Room hanging still. He scanned the girls working the floor. Then he glanced back at Renée and for just a moment he watched her pasties sway and rotate and glitter. Spring was really no different from the rest of them, so why did it pain him to know she was alone in there with some little shit with cash to burn?

  OUT HERE IT was quiet. He could only hear the club noise when somebody walked in or out. He sat behind the wheel of his pickup, his wrist hot and swollen, and she kept saying she wanted to but she was obviously lying and that big motherfucker may have broken his goddamned arm.

  He kept seeing Marianne’s face, those round blue eyes, her smile that at first tonight was warm and friendly like always. Then it got fake and she kept looking back for her bouncer when all he did was hold her goddamned hand. She’d let him hold it a bunch of times before, so why not now?

  Nobody had to tell him. She’d been lying since day one, since his second week blowing a hundred bucks a night on just her. He knew. She didn’t want to hear his plan because she’d been lying all along. Never once meant it when she said she’d meet him somewhere else. Never once meant it when she said she liked him and thought he was nice and nice-looking with nice manners when none of the others are ever that nice. She said she had to dance for them all, but he was the only one she’d like to sit down and talk to ’cause he was so nice, and oh yes, let’s go someplace nice sometime.

  Lying piece of trash.

  And so he wouldn’t let go of her. Couldn’t. Then he must’ve started to squeeze. But did she give a good goddamn how much money he’d wasted on her? Money he’d bled for? She could just try sitting in the cab of an open CAT eight, nine hours a day—the mosquitoes and diesel exhaust, no Walkman allowed so he had nine hours of hearing nothing but vibrating steel and the moaning gears of the arm and bucket, the rattling of the engine pan and all the useless shit in his head: bad tunes from high school ten years ago, his wife’s nonstop whining as she lay there on the couch not doing a thing, her restraining order she thought could actually stop him from coming over whenever he goddamned felt like it. And little Cole. His baby Cole. Too young to even know his daddy’s gone when he’s good and well gone. Her idea, not his. Though he’ll get him someday. He’ll goddamn well pull up to his house in a thirty-five-ton CAT and take him, and that piece of paper won’t do shit to keep him from it either.

  Working along and thinking like that, sometimes the CAT’s treads would sheer off on rock or a rusted chunk of iron from the old days when Florida was crawling with pirates and whores and Creole kings and naked slaves and everybody knew their place. Didn’t do shit without knowing the sword, always thinking of the sword and the man big enough for him to reach for it and goddamn use it.

  That Chinese sonofabitch walking him all the way to the lot. Telling him he could come back another day if he cooled his attitude. Fucker. He’d cool his fucking attitude. He rested his elbow out the window frame, but he could hardly move his hand up and down or right and left and how the hell was he going to work an excavator like this?

  His side view mirror, in this light he could see a dent in the chrome there, the truck just two years old and he couldn’t remember where or when that’d happened. Another thing taken from him when he wasn’t looking. More men walking under the lighted canopy to see all the dancing, lying whores. Rich-looking boys. His age or older. All dressed up in their club clothes—their pressed pants and open shirts and glinting watches and rings. Business boys from far away. Just here long enough to sit in one of those new high rises on the Gulf he’d probably dug the foundation for, look out over the marinas and water and sell what they’re selling, then go get drunk at clubs like this with lying whores like Marianne. Fly home. None of them stupid enough to stay. None of them stupid enough to come around like the women in there weren’t a pack of lying, cheating bitches. All of them.

  He started his truck, gunned the engine just to feel all eight cylinders fire. His wrist was almost as wide as his palm now, something broken in there for sure. He was going to have to call in sick over it. Was going to have to goddamned miss at least a day’s work over it. And he owed two months for Cole already. Couldn’t even see him and still she wanted all his money. Well goddamnit, tonight somebody else besides A.J. Carey would be paying. Somebody else, by God, was going to pay the godamned bill.

  HIS CIGARETTES WERE on the cocktail table. Marlboros. He was sitting back in the corner of the love seat, his legs crossed at the knees, looking at her. He said something. The club’s music was muted in here but still loud enough you had to raise your voice.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “Smoke?” He nodded at his pack on the table in front of them.

  “No thank you. I don’t smoke.” She smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back, just nodded and took a drag. The champagne was going down cold and sweet, and she hadn’t realized how thirsty she’d been, but it was strange to drink in the club, the Champagne Room the only place Louis allowed it, expected her to help finish off this bottle so the little foreigner would have to order more.

  His eyes were on her earrings, her bare arms, her breasts behind her T-back and blouse. He probably wanted her to dance now. Renée’s second number wasn’t quite over yet, the lead singer shrieking into the microphone, the electric guitars like chain saws ripping through aluminum.

  His lips moved. He nodded his head at her. She had to get closer to hear him. She scooted over a bit, could feel herself sink into the black vinyl love seat. She smiled. Saw the glint in his eye from the dimmed light in the ceiling she’d soon dance under. “What did you say?”

  He leaned forward slightly. “Say to me your name.”

  “Spring.”

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?” She smiled at him, sipped from her glass. She could see his teeth were bad, tobacco and tea or coffee stains between each crooked tooth. He lifted his champagne and drank it down. He glanced at the bottle in the ice bucket. She filled his glass again, then hers, pushing the bottle deep into the crushed ice. Little Andy had brought the first one and it’d be up to her to go get more. Every fifteen minutes he was supposed to come down the hall and knock twice, make sure everything was all right, but he hadn’t come yet and she could feel the little foreigner watching her.

  “Why do you say this lie?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said to you why are you saying this lie?”

  “How do you know I lie?”

  He smiled, like he’d been around the world at least twice and couldn’t she see that? Wendy’s Michael Bolton number was up. April put her glass on the table, stood, and moved to the spot of light under the dimmer in the black plywood ceiling, all ten of these rooms nothing but plywood painted black. Each about the size of a large bathroom. Barely enough room to dance, but she did. She kept her feet together and swayed slowly, letting her hair swish from side to side. In the dark corner he drank his champagne and smoked his cigarette and watched her, his mouth open slightly, and she began with her blouse buttons, starting at the top and working down. He was in the shadows and she only had to look in the general direction of his face and she didn’t like him. Even though she was making more here than in the VIP, at least there she could sometimes glance around the room at the other girls doing their one-on-ones, feel she was just one working part of a large and necessary machine. But in this black room under this single bulb over this tacky red carpet, it was just her and him and she danced off her blouse and let herself think of anything but this; there was this morning, how she’d gotten up just after ten, pulled on her robe and flip-flops, and carried her mug of coffee down the outside stairs to Jean’s garden. The best part of living here, it was surrounded by a high stucco wall painted turquoise and peeling in places, a thin wire mesh showing through. All along t
he base Jean had planted frangipani shrubs, their white flowers so sweet-smelling, and in the far corners were a tall jacaranda and palm tree. A bougainvillea vine, thick with orange flowers, hung from its trunk and at the edge of the garden was a mango tree shading two chairs on terra-cotta tiles. That’s where April sat and sipped her coffee and waited for Franny to come running out barefoot in her T-shirt and bathing suit, her curly-haired girl among the yellow hibiscus and pink allamanda shaped like trumpets, the white spider lilies and ixora, clusters of red star flowers that were so beautiful they were almost ugly. All of this Jean had taught her in her off-handed midwestern way. April uncinched her skirt and let it drop to her pumps. She stepped out of them and felt such a pang to go back and check on Franny she barely saw what the foreigner was doing, shaking his head and motioning with his hand for her to stop dancing, to stop and come back to the love seat where he was.

  She hated that. Having to sit and talk in just her T-back and G-string, garters and heels. He lifted the bottle from the ice and topped off her glass. Michael Bolton was singing at his highest pitch how he couldn’t live anymore if living is without you, and she wanted to pull her skirt back on but knew this one wouldn’t like it. She smiled and squatted and picked it up, draping it over the cocktail table on her way to the love seat. He held her full glass out to her. “Please, you sit.”

  She took the champagne and sat at the edge of the cushion, her knees together. On the table was the empty bottle. He kept his eyes on hers as he drank, and she did too. The champagne was still cold. It was helping; she could feel it planing down some of the jagged edges of this shitty night where nothing had gone quite right yet. She wasn’t much of a drinker, never had been.

  Two loud knocks came through the door.

  “We’re good, Andy!”

  “Why does he do this?”

  “What?”

  “Interrupting. I do not like it.” He was sitting forward, both elbows resting on his knees, the smoke from his cigarette curling up into his face. His eyes moved from hers down along her ribs to her thighs. His shoulders were narrow as a girl’s, his arms slender.

  “He just wants to know about the champagne. Should I get some more?”

  He leaned back and pulled out his money. It was an inch thick, and nothing but hundreds. Hundreds. “And brandy or cognac or what you call that.” He handed her two bills. “Quickly.”

  Usually she wouldn’t take a command like this from anyone; no please, no tease. But with this one she did. She didn’t know why; she just did.

  She took his money and the empty bottle and left their room without her skirt and blouse. The hallway corridor was dark, lit only by a string of tiny white Christmas lights tacked to the baseboards. The rest of the rooms were black and empty, their doors wide open. Wendy’s act was just ending and she’d probably be back here with Gordon before long. April knew she was lucky to get into the Champagne at all, but her little foreign customer had a meanness in him she could feel and she opened the door and moved through the red light and the velvet curtains.

  Little Andy glanced down at her from his stool. The VIP had been full before but now there were only three girls dancing. That happened. A bunch of men would go to the VIP all at once. Maybe because they could see all the others going. They’d sit for their private, spend their twenty, then back at their table they wanted to drink more and save their money for that. Most of them were low rollers. Family men. She probably was lucky to get this asshole and his hundreds he might spend more of. She’d get him what he wanted and check on Franny, too.

  She walked through the smoky light of the VIP to the blue bar. A few men out at the tables watched her on her way. She didn’t like walking through the club like this, giving them a peek at her naked ass for nothing. Retro was back onstage swaying in her formal gown to that soft, black music April had never really liked.

  She moved behind Paco. He was leaning on his elbow talking to the fat banker she’d danced for earlier. The bartender was new, in his fifties somewhere with thinning hair that was oily and parted on the side. He wore glasses in thick frames and in the bright blue light of the bar he was reaching into the beer cooler, his eyes on her belly he didn’t seem to see. He straightened and put two Budweisers on the waitress’s tray, then turned to April, his eyes dropping to the empty champagne bottle.

  “Another?”

  “Yeah and two Rémys, please.” She was about to ask his name and tell him hers, but he was ducking under the bar for the walk-in cooler. She had to cut through the main floor to see Franny and she didn’t like all the looks she was getting from men at the tables, most of them regulars who’d only seen her work the floor in her skirt and blouse, looking classy and not for sale on the cheap like she must look right now.

  The air had gotten thick with smoke, the young guys at the front drawing on their Portofinos while Retro slipped off her satin gown. At nearly every table was a girl working it for the VIP and April didn’t look directly at any of the men as she passed. But some of them were standing, and when two or three of them glanced at her she smiled and kept moving, saw Lonnie watching her from the Amazon Bar as she rounded the corner of the stage, stepping to the side to let a waitress by, pushing open the swinging kitchen door into the darkness split with fluorescent light she stepped into, the curtain sliding off her shoulder and face, and now there were the smells of frying meat and dishwashing soap, and the old Cuban stood in the rising steam, lifting a tray of glasses off the conveyor belt. She was heading for the dressing room to her left but her right foot stuck itself to the floor and she fell, catching herself on the corner of the ice machine, her heel wedged between two rubber mats Louis must have just installed because they weren’t here last night, damnit.

  She leaned on the machine and pulled her stiletto out. Then the old Cuban’s damp hands were on her elbow and hip, helping her up. She could smell his sweat and all the soapy steam on him, saw how yellow his eyes were, the deep lines in his face. An old man.

  “Thank you.”

  He smiled and nodded, ducking slightly as he went back to his work. Ditch stood at the Frialator shaking hot grease from two baskets of fries and out in the club Retro’s number ended. April was sure the new bartender had her order ready. She should really turn around and get back out there, but this was a thought that only trailed behind her as she stepped into the black hallway and Zeke opened the door for her and she had to blink at the brightness of the empty dressing room. She could feel the Moët-warmth in her neck and face, and she had to pee. Donna still reading in the corner.

  Tina’s office door was slid open a few inches. On the floor against the wall were the food tray and dirty dishes. Most of the fries were gone, just a few in a ketchup streak. The hamburger was missing its top bun and the meat only had three bites taken out of it, three little half-moons.

  The bar noise was loud here. On the other side of the thin walls came Paco’s voice over the music and banter and clinking ice, the thump of bass in the speakers, the crowd hollering for Retro.

  April put her hands on the door and leaned into the narrow opening there. Franny lay asleep on the couch. A Puma Club linen was tucked under her for a sheet, another on top. April felt obscene in her garters and G-string and heels, and she turned and walked fast to Donna in the corner. “Where’s Tina?”

  “Louis’s office. And she better be back soon ’cause there’s no business for me tonight.”

  “Shit.” April moved fast to her locker, working the combination, swinging open the door. She pulled out her purple money bag and stuck in the two hundred. She pictured her customer back in the Champagne Room he was paying so much for, sitting alone, maybe smoking and glancing at his watch. Quickly, he’d said. Quickly.

  She zipped the bag and locked up. “Tell Tina I don’t appreciate her leaving this fucking room, Donna.”

  “You tell her.” Donna didn’t look up from her book, and she was right but April wanted to push her face into it. She hurried into the bathroom, peed and washed
her hands. She glanced into the mirror as she passed, saw this tanned woman with long brown hair, her ass pale with a bikini line, her hoop earrings dangling.

  RETRO ALWAYS GAVE a good act. Tonight she was even better than usual and had to take up the whole pause between numbers to get her cash off the stage floor. The young men at the table kept up their hollering for her and she smiled and winked over at them on her knees. Now Hank Jr. was back in the air and Retro just barely scooped up her gown and underthings before Sadie came dancing onstage in her white Stetson, vest, and boots. A pocket opened up to Lonnie’s left, the front curtain parting pink, two men leaving, three more coming in. The main floor was still crowded and loud and smoky, but only three girls danced in the VIP, and Hank Jr. going on about his family tradition took Lonnie to Austin where he was raised, their small framed house overlooking a culvert where bluebonnets grew along the cracked concrete, his happily drunk mother and ineffectual father who’d made a life out of watching over books at the university library. Cataloguing them. Keeping the mold off. Checking them out to thousands of people over the years. He was tall like Lonnie, but quiet, and would let anyone say anything to him in anger and do nothing, from his wife to a man in traffic out on MLK Boulevard. On his off-hours he listened to records—Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, Waylon Jennings and Jerry Jeff Walker, Hank Sr. and Jr., and for Lonnie it was hard to hear the son without thinking of the father, his, though now Spring walked quickly from the kitchen and around the stage still half-dressed from the Champagne, her long hair swinging low just above her naked bottom. She walked tall as usual, but there was nothing usual about her being in the Champagne or having to leave half-dressed and Lonnie felt the steps under his feet as an afterthought. He moved between the tables and cut her off between the Portofino boys, the lights on Sadie flashing white in a rodeo strobe. He put his hand on Spring’s shoulder. Smooth skin and warm muscle. She stopped and looked up into his face, hers beautiful but distracted. He leaned close to her ear, her hoop earring brushing his chin. “Everything okay?”