However, starting his third season, his coach had little use for him. Even on passing downs, Nick sat there on the sidelines and watched this pile-of-crap rookie get pummeled yards off the ball. The rookie was a lazy shit-bag, but to the coaches he was a big investment--someone they must develop. Screw that, Nick thought. You play who could get the freakin' job done. But game after game, he had to endure this pudgy dude's less-than-inspired play. The coaches kept on coddling the man for the future.
The only future the rookie worried about was thinking about new ways to fuck his stripper girlfriend and hold homemade porno movie parties for his friends.
That year was the toilet. Nick's move on the coach wasn't planned. In fact, he played a great deal of the third quarter that night, racking up two sacks while the rookie complained of some dirt in his eye. When the coach sent the bastard back in, Nick snapped. He tried to calm down, get some water, and look ahead, but the Superdome was a muffled blur around him. He could feel the heat in his face and the blood rushing in his ears as he drank a cup of water.
The coach, a freckle-faced, racist black man who thought the past-tense of the word "squeeze" was "squez," walked over and said, "Sit the fuck down, Travers. We got what we need from you."
Before Nick knew what he was doing, he gripped the man's neck with his sweat-soaked glove, hooked a foot behind the coach, and slammed him to the ground. He took the ice-cold Gatorade bucket and dumped it on the man's head.
Nick didn't say a word. No catchy line. No ranting diatribe. Just ripped the tape off his wrists with his teeth and retreated to the dressing room. He got dressed, took a cab ride to JoJo's, where they all hated Nick's coach, and got loaded with a bunch of dockworkers who liked what he'd done to the bossman.
Nick snapped back from the memory and shut off the running water. Steam had obscured the mirror.
The window air conditioner hummed and groaned. Nick could hear the pat of water hitting the old carpet. He changed into a fresh chambray shirt and a pair of jeans. He slid on his boots and checked inside, where he stored his Tom Mix boot knife.
At the front desk, he asked where he could find a juke joint called the Purple Heart.
Chapter 11
The Purple Heart hummed with hard-driving music as Nick parked his Jeep between a pickup truck and a portable sign reading,
Tonite Virginia Dare. Cold Beer. Shake your ass.
The juke was a simple cinder-block building painted purple near a crossroad of Highway 49. Orange and yellow cardboard posters advertising the weekend's music wrapped nearby crooked telephone poles. His cowboy boots crunched on the ground all the way to a dented metal door with a sign above announcing,
Where there is dancing, there is hope.
Inside, dozens of black faces didn't give him a glance. No mean stares in the smoky room. No phonograph skidding off the record. No switchblades flicking. Just a Little Walter song coming from the jukebox and a mass of folks dancing on a smooth concrete floor. Maybe there was hope after all.
There was a small elevated stage loaded with the band's equipment, a couple of ratty chairs, and a duct-taped table topped with a small lamp. It looked like a display from a second-hand furniture shop. Painted on the cinder-block wall was a mural of a huge Highway 49 road sign and a boll of cotton.
Nick filtered through the heated crowd and made his way to the bar for a beer, a quart Colt 45, ice cold from a slushy bin. He bullshitted with the bartender for a while, asking him about local acts that played in New Orleans at JoJo's. Just as he was about to start another quart, the jukebox stopped playing.
He couldn't see the stage but could hear the pitch-perfect guitar sounds, licks as clear as metal cylinders popping in a spinning music box. People slowly shuffled around, and he finally saw her. Red hair cascaded into her face as she intently worked a slide along the frets. Her body was trim and athletic under a thin white T-shirt and faded jeans. As she lifted her head and tossed her sweaty hair back, Nick could see her face more clearly. High cheekbones, strong chin, and bright red lips.
It was like one of those puzzles where you had to pick out the one thing that didn't belong. She sure as hell didn't belong here. This wasn't a place where a white person jammed, let alone a white woman. Yet here was this good-looking redhead doing her thing and being perfectly accepted by the crowd. Nothing short of amazing.
As she bit down hard on a pouty lower lip, she ground her hips and changed into an ass-shakin' song. Her guitar wailing and crying and making every damned person in the juke move their body. When she opened her mouth, a throaty voice rattled the concrete floor.
Nick took a big sip of the Colt 45 and smiled at her. She laughed and looked into the crowd before she changed into a slower song. After the turnaround, she shyly glanced down at Nick and smiled. She shook her head and put her eyes back down on her bright pink guitar, stamped with stickers like an old-time piece of luggage. One big black woman waddled the rhythm as her partner strutted to the bass.
Nick walked back to the bar and sipped the second half of the Colt 45. His body felt a little numb, but good. This is what it is all about; sometimes in life, you have those times when you're completely content. Right here and right now is where you want to be, like a kid entering an arcade with all the promise and hope of a pocket full of quarters. This was the time. Man, that woman was good-looking. Nice, deep dimples when she smiled.
After the last song, she pounced off the stage and headed toward the bar as people slapped her on the back. Her T-shirt was soaked with sweat. She nodded to the bartender, who handed her a beer and a shot of whiskey. She tossed her head back for the shot and chased it with the beer. As she took another sip, she reached into her jeans and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Nick made his way along the bar and found a place next to her. She cut her eyes over at him, lit her cigarette, and pursed her mouth. Freckles dusted around her cheeks.
"Enjoyed the set," Nick said. "You work a mean slide."
She continued smiling.
"Who am I talking to?" she asked.
"Who am I? Who are you? Does anyone truly know themselves? Hell, Miss Dare, these are all very complex philosophical questions."
"Smart-ass."
"Yes ma'am."
Nick took a sip of his beer and spilled it on his shirt when the fat black woman bumped him with her huge backside. The wet stain spread like a bib.
"Very smooth, Socrates," she said.
"You are tough," Nick said, wiping his shirt.
"Shit, I have to be." Her eyes squinted as she exhaled a smoky cloud. They fixed on his without blinking. "You smoke?"
Nick followed her out a metal door that looked as if it had been pummeled with a ball-peen hammer and they found a stack of concrete blocks to sit on. There was a full moon, and the unplucked cotton fields bathed in a glow as clear as the streetlights in Uptown New Orleans.
"You see the man in the moon?" she asked.
"Yeah, looks like Jackie Gleason," Nick said, tossing a rock into a nearby field.
"There are his eyes and mouth," she said. "They look like pools of water up there."
"Yeah, I can see it," he said. Already Nick could imagine the placement of his right arm around her thin waist. Her back would be damp, and her mouth would taste like cigarettes. Instead, he gave her his best smile and took another drag.
"Do you play?" she asked.
"A little Mississippi saxophone."
"You bring one?"
"I'm always packin' heat," Nick said.
She shook her head. "You are a pistol."
"Please don't tease me. I'm very shy," Nick said, looking far into the field, rows of battered cars parked on its banks. The cotton made crisp, brittle sounds in the warm wind. "You know, Robert Johnson was killed not too far from here."
"Why do you think I play Greenwood so much?" she said, leaning back and pushing her pelvis forward. She exhaled a trail of smoke. "I'm looking for the crossroads. I don't suppose you've found them?"
"The crossroads are wherever you want them to be."
She placed a lock of red hair behind her ear and one hand in her front jean pocket. "You like Johnson too?" she asked.
Nick nodded.
"You know, the first time I heard his music I had to turn off the tape. It was too powerful, like all the music I heard until then was watered down. I had to take in slow sips, like you do when you start drinking whiskey."
"How much can you take now?" Nick asked.
"The whole damned bottle," she said as she smirked and patted his knee. "So, are you gonna tell me your name or are we gonna fuck around all night long?"
"Nick Travers. But we can still fuck around all night long, if you want."
Chapter 12
Dawn broke over Jesse Garon's head like a spilled blueberry milkshake, whipped cream and all. He yawned and started to practice tae kwon do in an open pasture where he'd slept the night before, ten miles outside Greenwood. The morning sky was hard in his eyes as two goats and a mule watched him. One of the goats even tried to ram him every time he gave a loud
"ki-ya
." Next time the stupid old goat came at him, he should kick the thing right in those swinging nuts.
Inside block, upper block, step, kick, and punch.
"Ki-ya!"
The shaggy goat trotted over to Jesse again and butted him softly in the behind.
"Now I tole you to quit. Stop it. I'm tryin' to do a form here."
The damned old goat baaed at him and shit all over his bare foot. "Son of a bitch!" Jesse yelled, looking at the chunky brown mass. "Should kick you right in your ass."
He gritted his teeth until he heard them squeak. But when he backed up to get a good start on the animal, he suddenly stopped and fell to his knees. The way that animal just turned to look at him, so helpless-like, it was like the animal was just plain scared of him. And that made Jesse sad; so sad that he grabbed the fetid-smelling goat and wrapped his arms around him. Poor old animal. Just sitting here chewin' his grass, doing his business and hell, just protecting his family. That was no different from what he would do. If someone was to come around his momma, he'd probably shit on their foot too.
All over it.
He let go of the goat's neck and wiped his eyes. He untied the black belt from around his yellowed
do-bok
, stripped naked, and carefully tucked the uniform back into his Captain America suitcase. He pulled on a pair of shorts and a tank top. The black tank top made E's tattoo stand out real nice.
The hard brown grass itched his legs as he tied his shoes staring out at the countryside. Sure was flat around here. Flat and quiet. Not a soul in the field. In the distance, he could see the green walls of the forest and a few little patches where trees hadn't been cleared. Across the highway, a section of irrigation equipment streched like a snake on its high wheels.
This better be something to Keith, big man in New Orleans, always braggin' about the women he'd done and people he'd met. Just like when he was in the bodyguard school in L.A., talkin' shit 'bout movie stars. Said they're people just like you and me. Momma had always told him actors were nothin' but trash.
"See if he has the nerve," Jesse said out loud, kicking a hunk of soil skyward. Puka didn't believe he was as good as that damned muscle-bound son of his.
Jesse knew better. E lived for fifteen years in a one-bedroom house with his momma and daddy, and look what happened to him. The German chick knew it. Didn't matter if Puka was just plain stupid. He'd show that fool. "Fuck him," Jesse said.
"Sorry Elvis, Sometimes I know not what I'm sayin'." With two fingers, he crossed his heart and silently mouthed: "Takin' care of business. TCB."
Chapter 13
Nick woke up in a twisted pile of sheets underneath the motel-room sink. His faded blue jeans hung from a lamp. A Colt 45 bottle was tucked inside a rogue boot and a redheaded woman walked out of the bathroom brushing her teeth with his toothbrush. His head pounded, his teeth ached, and his loins felt as empty as the malt liquor bottle in his Tony Lamas. Nick opened one eye and said in a gruff voice, "Oh my God. There's a strange woman in my room."
Virginia laughed and spit in the sink. She had on his Tulane football T-shirt and no underwear. Even in his sickness, she looked more beautiful than she had last night. He looked down at her calves as she raised on her toes to look in the mirror.
"Do you work out?" Nick asked.
"No, genetics. My mother was built well. You okay?"
"Yeah, but I feel so used."
"Mmm-hmm."
"I think I'm dying," he said.
"You want to swim? There's a nice pool outside."
"You crazy?"
"C'mon, it'll be fun."
"I don't swim . . . " Nick said, grabbing the edge of the sink and pulling himself to his feet. "On the first date."
"All right," she said, reaching into the twisted nest Nick had left. She pulled out her bra before walking across the room to find her panties. She stripped off the gray T-shirt, strapped on her bra, and pulled her panties up over a thigh tattoo. It was of Earth, about the size of a small orange.
"I'll be back," she said, opening the door and walking outside.
The sunlight cut into Nick's eyes like a laser as he felt his way into the bathroom and onto the road to recovery. After showering, shaving, taking four aspirin, and draining a cold can of Coke from a vending machine, he felt a little better. Somewhat human. Still sorta animal.
Virginia came back in and shook her damp red locks like a dog. "Now that's the best hangover remedy I can think of." Her face was a bit pale but burned with a ruddy glow. It was a natural look like you would expect from a beautiful Irish woman centuries ago.
"I'm going into town," Nick said. "How 'bout breakfast?"
"No thanks. I'd appreciate a ride back to the Purple Heart, though."
"You live around here?"
"Questions, questions," Virginia said. "Let's see how long you stay around before I answer any."
Nick tossed her a towel, and she ran it over her tight body.
"How 'bout you?" she asked. "You in the Delta looking for the blues?"
Nick smiled and said, "Exactly."
?