Authors: Stuart Spears
“Want another one?” I asked.
“Nah,” Richie said, standing up. “My dad is picking me up in half an hour. He's making me drive to San Antonio with him. He says he wants me to evacuate, but I know he's just doing it so he can lecture me for three hours in the car.” Sugarland Richie picked up the cigarette pack. Out of habit, he tried to slip them in his breast pocket, but the t-shirt didn't have one. He grinned and stuck the cigarettes in his jean pocket.
“Is he pissed?” I asked.
Richie laughed.
“Oh, fuck yeah,” he said. “You shoulda seen him.” I'd met his father, once or twice. He had round glasses and a round head. “He was red all over. I mean, like his neck, the top of his head. Everywhere.” Richie's shoulders shook a little when he laughed. “But he didn't say anything. Just drove me home, then said he'd pick me up today. It's gonna be a shitstorm all the way to San Antonio.” He was grinning now. “Thanks for the cigarettes, Little John,” he said. “I'll see you after the storm, I guess.” And then he left.
The afternoon rolled on. Redmond had his second Lone Star. Mitchell washed his coffee mug and gathered up his papers and left. I was getting anxious to call Worm, but couldn't get a moment alone. Finally, Frank asked me what else he could do.
“Grab the broom and sweep the parking lot,” I said.
He pulled the broom and dustpan out of the utility closet and pushed back out the front door. Through the window, I could see him, back bent to the Houston sun, serious at the task of sweeping up cigarette butts and broken bottles. I stepped into the doorway and pulled out my phone, but Worm didn't answer. Worry crept up my back but I ignored it.
At five, Tracy came in to work the night shift. She was wearing a tight blue shirt and jeans that pulled beautifully at her hips. She gave me a wink and moved behind the bar without speaking to me. I counted out my tips. Frank stood nearby, hovering a little.
“Frank,” I said. “Would you like to work again tonight?”
He nodded eagerly. I scratched behind my ear.
“Come back at eight,” I said. “I won't be here, but Tracy can show you anything you need to know.”
On the way home, I stopped at Lee’s Liquor, a small store in a strip center near the highway. It was a clean, well-lit place, narrow and long with high wooden shelves and a wall of beer coolers. It was down the street from a massive liquor store, a huge chain with a better selection and cheaper prices. But I stopped at Lee’s whenever I could, in part because they stocked my brand just for me, but also because it was quiet and calm. There was no music playing, no TV.
The hurricane panic had come through Lee’s already. The shelves were half barren. Empty liquor boxes and wine boxes were scattered by the storeroom door.
Mrs. Lee, the owner, waved to me from behind the counter as she waited on a customer. Mrs. Lee had an oval face and short black hair and thin lips coated in bright red lipstick. She and her husband bought the liquor store soon after emigrating from Viet Nam. She was proud of telling people how they slept on the storeroom floor for the first six months, until they could afford an apartment.
“Hey,” she yelled. “I still have two bottles of Blanton's.” She didn't know my name, but she knew my drinking habits. “You should buy both.”
“Both?”
“Hurricane coming,” she said. “You need both.”
I dutifully took the two bottles off the top shelf and carried them to the counter. Mrs. Lee swiped my credit card, then wrapped the bottles in paper bags.
“Where's Mr. Lee?”
“He's at the house. Boarding up the windows. Then he's gonna come back here and we will stay here. All night.”
“Why here?” I asked. “Why not at home?”
“Eh,” she said. “We can always get a new house, you know? We have to be here, make sure the store is okay.” She pushed my card and the slip for me to sign across the counter. “Besides,” she said with a wink, “that's not really my house. That's just where I sleep now. This place will always be my house.”
NINE
At home, I tried Worm two more times. It wasn't unusual for him not to answer his phone for hours, even days, at a time. Even so, I couldn't help feeling itchy and nervous, like I was being watched. I poured myself a Blanton's and looked around my little house.
Everything seemed vulnerable and weak – the front door, the pane windows with wilting glass. I turned on the TV for noise, but there was nothing but news about the hurricane, now a category three in the middle of the Gulf, so I turned it off.
I walked out the back door to the porch to smoke a cigarette and Worm was there, of course. He was crouched on the deck boards, his back against the shingled wall. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before. The ashtray was full on the deck next to him.
I had seen him look worse, but not much. His skin looked like a potato’s skin and under his eyes it was purple and puffy. He had a new bruise on his temple and a cut along the edge of his chin.
“Jesus,” I said.
Worm stood and took a step toward me to give me a hug-handshake, but I lifted my cigarette to my mouth to keep him back.
“Hey, Little John,” he said.
I dropped into the folding chair and reached down for the ashtray. Worm sat down next to me but couldn’t stay down. He got back to his feet.
“What the fuck do you want?” I asked. Worm couldn’t keep anything still. His hands scratched at his forearms. His feet shuffled on the porch.
“Nothing, man,” he said. “I mean, nothing really. I just, you know.” He pulled at his ear. “My phone’s been dead and I was trying to reach you and I figured I’d just wait here. You know.” He moved to sit again but didn’t.
I flicked the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. His eyes went to the cigarette, then back to me, but I didn’t offer him one. He rubbed at his nose and I stared into the back yard.
“I just needed to talk to you,” he said. “Things are a little different today than they were yesterday.” He glanced at the door then at his feet then at me. “I figured it wasn’t fair, you know, to make you hold that stuff for me. I knew you didn’t want to.” I stabbed out my cigarette and he watched it. “So, I thought I’d come back and get it so you don’t have to worry about it anymore. Because, you know. I don’t. It wasn’t.” He raised his hands then dropped them at his sides. “It wasn’t fair of me.”
He was pacing and twitching over me and it was getting annoying, so I stood up and moved to the railing. He moved behind me as I lit a cigarette.
“So, you know,” he said. “If you’ll just give me the stuff, the money and the gun, I’ll just take it so you don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
I flicked the end of my cigarette with my thumb and looked up at the treetops.
“It’s not here, Worm,” I said.
“Oh,” he said, “Okay.”
I put my cigarette on the edge of the railing.
“It’s at the bar,” I said.
His voice went high. “No, it isn’t,” he squealed and I turned and punched him in the stomach as hard as I could.
Worm dropped to his knees. His right hand curled across his stomach, his left hand splayed on the deck boards. I picked my cigarette up from the railing. I didn’t step on his hand. I didn’t kick him in the face. I sat back down in the folding canvas chair and listened to Worm try to retch.
“Jesus,” he said, gasping. He gagged a couple of times and rolled onto his side. I smoked.
He drew air in deep through his open mouth then finally pulled himself up on the railing.
“What the fuck, Little John,” he said. “Fuck.”
“I ought to fucking kill you, that’s what,” I said. “You stupid son of a bitch. You told someone I had the money and they broke into my bar.”
“No,” he said, raising his hands. “No.”
“Don’t,” I yelled. I was on my feet and standing over him. “Don’t fucking lie to me.” He was still hunched over his gut, so I pushed his shoulder back so he was looking up at me. “They broke into my bar, you asshole. You told somebody that I had the money and the gun and they broke into my bar looking for it.” His eyes were darting, looking around behind me. “They knew about the floor safe. Mitchell didn’t even know about the floor safe.” He started to open his mouth. “Don’t fucking lie to me anymore,” I said, pushing him again.
“Okay, okay,” he said. He slumped back against the railing and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. When he spoke again, his voice was thick and low. “It’s not mine. I mean, you figured that out already.” He sighed. “It’s not mine and I shouldn’t ever have touched it. And now I need help, John. I need to give them the money back or they’ll …” His voice trailed off and he waved his hands in front of his face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry they broke into the bar. I didn’t think any of this would happen.”
I sat down in the chair again and pulled out my cigarettes. I shook one out for me, then handed one to him. He sat down in the other chair and we lit our cigarettes and smoked.
“I’m sorry, Little John,” he said. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I didn’t think I’d get caught.”
“You’re an idiot,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “Jesus, I know. But now if I could just get the money back, it’ll all be okay. The money and the gun. I just. I just. Just let me take it back and everything will be okay.”
The smart thing would have been to drive him to the bar and give him the money. Drive him right then and there and give him the gun and the money and be done with his stupid ass forever. That would have been the smart thing. But I was enjoying watching him squirm.
“You can’t have all the money, asshole,” I said. “Your friends stole $12,000 of my savings, plus the drop from last night, plus what was in the till. So they don’t get it all back. I’ll take my money out and they can have what’s left.”
Worm eyes went wide like he was going to cry, but he just said, “Okay.”
“And it’s not here,” I said. “It’s at the bar, but your friends were too stupid to find it.” I thought, suddenly and gleefully, of Ruby. I looked at my watch. “Come by the bar after closing and I’ll give you the money and the gun.”
His voice was a thin rasp. “Why not now?” he whined.
Because I was enjoying it.
“Because I have fucking plans, asshole,” I said. “Come by the bar after closing. Late, like three-thirty, so the staff is all gone. I don’t want anyone to see me with you.”
“John,” he said. “What am I supposed to do until then?
I laughed. “Do what worms do best – crawl in the fucking dirt and hide.” His face dropped. “Three-thirty and not before. I’ll give you the money and the gun and then we are done. Do you understand? We are done. You are no longer a part of my life.”
“I understand,” Worm said. He looked at his hands. “I’m sorry, John.”
I stood and jabbed my cigarette out in the ashtray.
“Good,” I said. “Now get the fuck off my porch.”
I went inside and pretended to watch TV until I was sure Worm had left. Then I took a scalding hot shower and lay on the bed and let the breeze from the ceiling fan cool my skin. I felt good. Great. I was done with Worm and free of the money and everything was back to how it had been but better.
I was done with Worm, so I’d quit the coke. Or at least cut back. If I wanted any coke, I’d have to get it from someone else and that alone would make me cut back. My head was racing, with Worm and cash and coke dealers, but I felt good. I had a chance at a clean break and it would start with dinner with Ruby.
TEN
At seven, I met Ruby in the parking lot and, despite everything, despite the money and the gun and Worm and the break in, everything but Ruby fell away. Just looking at her was a physical thing, like an ache I felt in my hands and arms. She was wearing a white tank top with a lacy black scarf over her shoulders and large round earrings that looked Balinese or Indian.
I wanted to take Ruby somewhere new, show her how Houston had changed, but I didn't really know any of the new places and she wanted to go to The Bayou. It was a Cajun place we'd been to a few times when we were dating. It was really just a small room with white walls and purple Mardi Gras posters. The chairs were folding chairs, the tables were card tables with a roll of paper towels propped up in the middle of each one. Other than us, the place was empty.
“Slow for a Saturday night,” Ruby said.
“I guess everyone else had the sense to leave town,” I said.
The waitress rolled up to our table. She was a heavy-set black woman in her fifties. Ruby ordered gumbo, I ordered a poboy. The waitress put the notebook in her apron and gave Ruby a searching look.
“You two came in here a long time ago, just when you had gotten engaged,” she said, wagging her finger at the memory.
“Wow,” Ruby said. “You remember that?”
The waitress smiled at her powers of recollection. “Oh, I remember lots of things,” she said. “So you two get married?”
I looked across the table at Ruby, at those green eyes, and for a moment I could imagine that we had, that we were sitting down to dinner as a couple, celebrating our anniversary maybe. I looked at Ruby and smiled.
“Yes,” Ruby said before I could answer. “It will be six years next month.” Ruby rolled her eyes at me, just a little.
“Well, that's great,” the waitress said. “That's just wonderful.” She rolled back into the kitchen. Her excited voice joined the sounds of pots and pans and water running as the kitchen door opened and closed. Ruby shook her head at me.
“Are we gonna start that game again?” I asked, smiling down at my hands. “Why not, I guess. I was always better at pretending to be married than actually being married.”
“You were good at faking commitment,” Ruby said.
The waitress returned, carrying a large tray.
“Y'all like oysters?” she asked. We both nodded and she set down a dozen oysters, shimmering in their shells in a bed of crushed ice. “These are on the house. You know, oysters can help fire up the romance in a six-year-old marriage,” she said, giving me a wink and a slap on the shoulder as she walked away.
Ruby peeled open a package of crackers and forked an oyster onto it. Horseradish and cocktail sauce and lemon and Tabasco. Oysters are as much about the ritual as they are about the meat.
“How was San Francisco?” I asked, prepping my own oyster.
Ruby thought for a moment, her hand poised, holding the cracker.
“Well,” she said. “If you’re asking me about the city, I’ll tell you. If you’re asking me about my life there, I’d rather not talk about it yet.”
“Okay, tell me about the city, then,” I said.
She chewed the oyster thoughtfully.
“It’s beautiful, of course,” she said. This was one of her personas. Professorial and pedantic, with a posture like a TV journalist. “That's obvious. What it has that Houston doesn't have is hidden corners, nooks and alleys and tunnels. You could live in a neighborhood for years and, one day, you turn a corner, and there's a shop you've never seen before in a building you swear wasn't there. Or stairs that lead down somewhere that you'll never go.”
“Yeah,” I said. “There's no hiding in Houston.”
“Do you know that it's one of the things I missed about Houston?” she said, picking up another cracker.
“The sprawl?”
“I don't know. The openness of it, I guess. Everything is kind of on the surface here. The houses, the buildings. You can see them all from the street, even the big ones owned by Saudi princes and oil men. I got lost a lot in San Francisco. Not lost. I'd be on a street I'd never been on before and, if I thought about it too much, I couldn't remember who I was. Do you know what I mean?”
“I think so,” I said.
She looked off for a moment.
“I missed it here,” she said. Something like electricity, like life, shot through me as I felt her leg graze mine.
The waitress came back with our food. She gave me a small smile as she set down the plates. Ruby watched her walk away. Her leg wasn't touching mine now, but I could feel where it had been, like a sunburn.
“If you could start over, Little John,” Ruby asked, laying her napkin in her lap, “what would you change?”
I shook Tabasco onto my poboy and thought for a moment. I had to look away, look at the floor, to concentrate. I knew this was a test. Ruby wanted a real answer from me. I fought down the desire to look at her, at her long hands.
“That's tough,” I said finally. “I've screwed up lots of things.”
“How?”
“I don't know,” I said. “I haven't been a great dad for Jacob. I screwed up my relationship with Sarah, and right now that means my relationship with him is screwed up, too.”
“Can you fix it?” she asked.
“I don't know,” I said. “I don't think Sarah and I can get anywhere. We just fight. I can't seem to make it right, and that makes it hard for me and him.”
Ruby nodded. We finished our dinner in silence, not looking at each other, but not avoiding each other, either. I couldn't have avoided her if I wanted to. Ruby filled the room. It felt like her warmth and her flesh were everywhere.
The waitress turned on the stereo and Sam Cooke came on, singing “We're Having a Party.” Sam Cooke, who would later be shot outside a hooker's motel room, singing about parties and popcorn and Coca-Cola, wholesome parties where couples held each other and danced to the radio while strings of lights swayed in the breeze.
I finished my sandwich and leaned back and watched Ruby eat. Her green eyes were focused off somewhere and she seemed to be listening to the music. The she looked up at me and gave me a vague, easy smile, and I tried hard not to feel what I was feeling.
I got two Abita beers from the waitress and Ruby and I moved out the side door to the patio. It was a small wooden deck stuck on the side of the building and it was empty. Christmas lights were wrapped around the crooked railings. Picnic tables leaned here and there. Two speakers hung from the awning of the roof and Sam Cooke sang “Bring It On Home to Me,” his voice drifting out across the street. Ruby and I sat on a picnic table. I handed her her beer and pulled out my cigarettes. She leaned back while she smoked. Her blouse. Her long neck. I put my elbows on my knees and looked at my feet.
“I’d love to meet him,” she said after a few minutes. “Jacob, I mean.” Ruby’s burgundy lips turned up in a tight smile and she flicked her cigarette with her thumb. My heart thumped.
“I’m having lunch with him tomorrow. And his mother,” I said. “Come with me.”
“She won’t mind, his mother? I’d hate to intrude.”
“She won’t mind,” I said. “In all honesty, she’ll probably be relieved to have someone besides me to talk to.”
“I would love to meet your Jacob,” she said. “If you’re sure it's kosher with the ex.”
“Absolutely,” I said. We made the arrangements. We’d meet at the bar in the morning and drive out together.
The patio door opened and the waitress came out into our darkness, carrying a tray.
“Excuse me,” she said. On the table next to Ruby she set down a plate with a piece of pecan pie with a candle in it. “The cook wanted me to give you this. It's a little early anniversary present,” she said. She put down two napkins and one fork. “I'll leave y'all alone.” She went back inside and closed the door. Ruby smiled at me. I held her eyes for as long as I could, then she turned and blew out the candle.
“Things could have been very different,” I said. I took a chance and let my hand drop on top of hers. She took it and turned to look at me.
“John,” she said.
“It's nice to imagine,” I said and leaned forward to kiss her. She held back for a moment, then raised her hand to my neck. She broke the kiss, leaned back and looked up at me, her eyes green and huge and so close. There was something almost like fear in her expression, fear and longing.
“Can we just imagine for a while?” I asked. Her eyes went dark but then she turned and stretched to kiss me again.
We drove back to the bar in silence. Warm night air poured in through the open windows. I didn't bother to turn on the air conditioner. Ruby smoked and looked out the window. I pulled into the parking lot, next to her little Toyota. She didn’t turn to me.
“It's just pretend, Ruby,” I said. I wanted her, wanted to consume her, but I didn’t want to be trapped, to be hurt.
“I know,” she said.
“I just want to make sure you know.”
“I do,” she said.
She took in a deep breath and held it. I fished a cigarette out of my pack, my hands shaking a little. I lit it, concentrated on the smoke filling my lungs.
“I had a really nice night,” she said at last. She leaned across the seat and kissed me again. The sweet, misty fruit of her perfume filled me. She leaned back and held my hand in both of hers. She looked at me, her eyes dark and still, then she opened the door and slid out. She turned and leaned in the open window.
“I'll see you in the morning,” she said.
She turned and walked away. I watched her climb into her car and sit in the darkness for a moment before turning the ignition and driving away. I knew there was pain coming for me. There had to be. At that moment, I absolutely knew it and absolutely did not care.