He is crazy. What the hell was he thinking? He had only meant to get something small, just a gesture. A humble apology. But here he is, stumbling into the bright light of the parking lot of the flea market off the highway with a giant teddy bear in his arms and a ring in his pocket and half his money gone already.
Jules had paid five bucks for the teddy bear. It is almost as big as he is and bright pink with a white belly and muzzle. With black glass eyes and a black plastic nose. He had hefted it onto his hip and started down the crowded corridor of the market, trying not to sweep goods off the tables as he passed. He had seen the stand from a long way off, the fat old biker behind the table, his shaggy beard, his hairy belly peeking out of the bottom of a faded black T-shirt. There was an old cracked aquarium sitting there, full of jewelry. Gold chains and plastic beads and silver bracelets and rhinestone earrings piled on top of each other in a tarnished, mouldering mass. Here, he thought, are some deals to be had. A necklace for Trudy, maybe a little trinket for Mercy.
But no.
That biker had seen him coming with his giant pink bear in his arms. He had seen that look in his eye. The look of the penitent, of a man in the doghouse. Easy prey.
The biker pulled a dark green velvet tray from a box at the back. Twenty, thirty rings in rows. All of them crappy. Dull, bent, pathetic. Stones missing. Except one. (Clever salesman!) One ring in the very middle of the tray. An opal surrounded by rubies set in gold. Gleaming, polished gold. Pink, blue, yellow sparks flashing in that milky stone. From Australia, the man said. Antique, he claimed. A real beauty. A bargain at twice the price.
Jules plucked the ring from the tray and slid it onto his left pinkie finger. He spread his fingers and held his hand out at arm’s length. Absurd, this beautiful, delicate thing on his nasty hand. Hairy, with crooked knuckles from bad breaks, and scarred. That first night Trudy had stayed over, she had held his hand in both of hers, running a finger over the perfectly round scars clustered in a pyramid on its back. A game from his youth. What was it? You and your opponent each held a five-dollar bill over the back of your hand, and if you could burn a hole through it with a lit cigarette, you could keep both bills. Or the first person to quit lost, and the other got to keep both bills. Either way, you came out of it scarred for life. He hadn’t cared. He had needed the money. And pain could be reassuring sometimes.
“Pretty stupid to do it once,” she had said.
“Yeah.”
“But three times.”
“I know.”
She had kissed him then, put his stupid hand on her soft breast.
Jules slipped the ring off his finger. He loved it. He had never seen anything like it. Trudy would love it! His money was there in a thick roll in his front pocket. Burning a hole, as the saying goes. The bristly old biker took the ring back, his fingernails filthy. With a flourish he polished the stone on his shirt and placed it into a ring box shaped like a silver bell and snapped the lid shut. Sold!
Easy come, easy go, thinks Jules as he drives down the highway toward Preston Mills. Money. What does it mean anyway? He swallows hard, thinking of the bills at home, the stalled construction at the ramp site. They’re only numbers, he tries to convince himself. Oh, well. It is going to take a lot more than five hundred bucks to get him out of the hole he was digging anyway. It really is a beautiful ring. He looks over at the pink bear in the passenger seat and starts laughing, shaking his head. He pushes his foot down hard on the accelerator just to feel the back of his head press against the headrest. The sun is starting to sink in the sky as he roars down the road, his heart on fire with love and his belly full of dread.
“Doesn’t matter! Never mind!” he says out loud.
DOESN’T-MATTER-NEVER-MIND!
Never mind, never mind, never mind.