Four

 

An hour before we hit town it occurred to me that I’d forgotten to check on Vince’s trailer. The last time I’d seen the trailer—it must’ve been two years ago—it was looking pretty rough. The screen door hung off like a broken arm, the front porch had collapsed and at least one window was busted out. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed, but I’d also forgotten to turn on the electricity. And the water.

Pritchard yawned and gazed around blankly. “Where the hell are we?”

“Go back to sleep,” Vince said.

Pritchard gazed out the window at the same snow-covered fields and low leaden skies. He blinked and wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Got any more of that Beam left?”

“You drank it all,” Vince said.

“What about the weed?”

“You smoked it all.”

“Man this getting out of prison sucks.”

“What’d you expect, hookers and blow? If it weren’t for my brother your ass would be walking home.”

Pritchard didn’t have anything to say to that.

We drove north listening to the heater rattle over some moldy oldie radio station. We passed lopsided farmhouses ready to fall over. We passed some cows, who stared dumbly at us. They were covered in snow and looked cold and miserable.

Vince turned down the radio and said, “Speaking of business, how’s the bar doing?”

“About the same,” I said. “Barely holding on. Seems like every day another Buffalo Wild Wings or Hooters opens up out on the highway.”

“They got real good wings, Hooters does,” Pritchard said. “Let’s stop at a Hooters when we get to town.”

We ignored him.

“Parole board said I’ve got to get a job, but it can’t be around booze,” Vince said. “Any ideas?”

I shook my head. “You ought to talk to Chad. He’s got connections. He knows everything that’s going on in town.”

“Who’s Chad?” Pritchard said.

Vince sighed.

“Who’s Chad?”

“He’s my brother!”

“Jesus, how many brothers you got?” Pritchard said.

The towns were getting larger and closer together, large enough for fast food chains and gas stations and school buildings. Maybe even a cop or two. We were nearing civilization. We passed a roadhouse called Mott’s Lounge and Vince jerked a sharp U-turn and whipped into the parking lot. We bounced over ragged asphalt and jolted to a stop near the front door. The parking lot was mostly empty.

I sat up. “What the hell—?”

“Pit stop.”

“About fucking time,” Pritchard said and kicked opened the passenger side door.

Vince climbed out of the van and stretched some kinks out. “I’ve been waiting four years for this.”

“Place looks like a craphole,” Pritchard said.

“That’s perfect!” Vince said. “Come on, dudes. I got four years of catching up to do.”

I started to say something about needing to get home to pick up the twins from school, but it was pointless. I’d been in Mott’s once before, back when I was single and looking for something other than the same old barflies, same old talk. Best I could hope was they’d slam a couple pitchers, shoot a few games of pool and get bored with the dive.

The bar was long and narrow like a shotgun shack and smelled thickly of stale beer and damp mops. Besides the bartender, a dirty blonde who looked like she’d seen a rough forty or so years, there were only two other people in the tavern, blue collars hunched at a front table drinking their lunch and staring idly at one of the many televisions positioned throughout the bar. We stomped the snow off our shoes, while the blue collars gave us the once over. The bartender glanced up from her smartphone and drifted over to see what we wanted. Her look was one of extreme boredom. Speaking as a tavern owner, her manner wasn’t likely to bring back repeat business.

Vince leaned his elbows on the bar and studied the merchandise like a kid in a candy store. “Let’s see. What’ll I have for my first drink in four years?”

“You already drank a quart of Jim Beam,” I reminded him.

“That doesn’t count,” he said and turned to the bartender. “A shot of Turkey and a pitcher of Bud.”

“Really?” I said. “That’s what you pick? Budweiser?”

“Tequila and a lime and another pitcher of Bud,” said Pritchard.

The bartender lifted her eyes to me.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

Vince nailed me in the gut with the back of his hand. “What the fuck, bro, ain’t you going to drink a toast to my freedom?”

A flush crept across my cheeks. “Oh yeah.” I turned to the bartender. “Give me a shot of Turkey.”

She poured the shots and we picked up our glasses and raised them nose high. “To freedom,” I said.

“I’ll drink to that shit,” Vince said.

“Fucking A,” said Pritchard.

The whiskey hit my empty stomach and wired a signal to my brain that said, What the hell is this? It’s not even noon? Pritchard sucked his lime, downed the tequila and smacked his lips loudly. Vince picked up his pitcher of Bud and strode over to the pool table at the rear of the bar. Pritchard followed. I sat hunched on a stool at the bar and studied the beer selection: Bud. Bud Light. Bud Lime. Bud Dry. Bud Ice. Bud Select. Bud Select 55. Bud Light Platinum. Bud Light Apple. I hated drinking before noon, which is why I didn’t open the Lantern till three o’clock. Hell, I hate drinking before five o’clock. But I especially hated drinking shitty beer before five o’clock.

I ordered a Bud Light Lime-A-Rita and stared furtively at the bartender for something to do. I could see how she might’ve been a looker ten years, three kids, and two divorces ago. At least her hair was still nice, long and black, and she hadn’t gone to fat. Not yet. But everything else was showing its age despite half-hearted attempts to disguise it.

She glanced up in the back mirror and caught me staring at her. “Want to start a tab?”

I reddened and took out my wallet and removed my credit card and slid it across the bar. “Guess I’d better.”

She went over to the cash register. I lifted my eyes to the television above the bar. Some kind of game show was on. People in the audience dressed like animals and sandwiches and various household appliances and jumped up and down like they were on fire. The sound was off and a Waylon Jennings tune played on the jukebox, so thank god for small favors. I pretended the show was a video for the Waylon song, but it didn’t quite work out. The only way it would’ve worked was if they had Waylon kick the crap out of the guy dressed like a Polish sausage.

The waitress came back and handed me the card.

“Declined.”

“Oh for crying out loud.” I took out my wallet again and pulled out another credit card. “Give this one a try.”

This time the card worked and the waitress went back to being mesmerized by the dumb apps on her smartphone. I turned and leaned my elbows on the bar and watched Vince and Pritchard shoot pool. It was painful to watch. The Lime-A-Rita wasn’t doing it for me, so I turned back to the waitress and cleared my throat and tried to get her attention. “How about food?”

“How about it?”

“Do you serve any?”

“No, but we got that.” She jerked her head toward a large jar that sat at the end of the bar. The jar was about the size of a gumball machine and contained a murky gray fluid. Inside you could just make out something that resembled golf balls.

“What is it?”

“I think they’re pickled eggs.”

I took a sip of the Lime-A-Rita. “How old are they?”

The bartender shrugged. “Been here as long as I’ve been here.”

“How long is that?”

Her eyes dulled as she thought that over. “Too long.”

“Yeah, I’ll pass.”

She yawned but didn’t bother to cover her mouth. “We got some jerky behind the bar.”

I didn’t say anything and the bartender shrugged and went back to leaning her ass against the bar cooler and staring at her phone. I picked up my beer and slid off the stool and strode over to where Vince and Pritchard were making a hash of a game of eight ball. You could tell they were seriously out of practice. I guess they don’t have pool tables in the Shawnee State Work Camp. I guess that makes sense. Pool balls and cues are pretty much lethal weapons. Pritchard took aim at the four ball and the cue ball caromed off the four and knocked the eight into the corner pocket.

Vince tilted his head back and roared with laughter.

“We about ready to hit it?” I said.

Vince leaned over the table and racked the balls for another game. He lifted his eyes toward me. “What’s your hurry? We ain’t hung out in four years. You got something better to do?”

Apparently, the whole drive home was going to be one long guilt trip. “Fine then,” I said. “Give me the keys and I’ll pick us up some burgers. I can’t drink on any empty stomach.”

Vince dug the keys out of his jacket pocket. Then he paused and dangled the keys in front of me, his eyebrows arched suspiciously. “You ain’t going to run off and leave us, are you, bro?”

I frowned. “I just drove three-and-a-half hours to pick up your ass. If I was going to ditch you I’d have done it hours ago.”

Pritchard chalked his stick. “I don’t trust him.”

I held out my palm. “Keys.”

Vince tossed me the keys.

 

 

I drove to the nearest town, Callaway, pop. 1,097. I searched up and down the main drag for a fast food joint, but apparently the town was too small for even a Dairy Queen. I passed the remnants of a Hardee’s. It looked like there’d been a fire; the walls were smudged black and the windows and doors boarded up. I turned and drove south and zipped past a patrol car hidden on a side street. I hit the brakes and held my breath, eyes fixed in the rearview mirror.

On went the lights. The cruiser pulled onto Main and zoomed up on my back bumper like a goddamn rocket and the cop whooped his siren at me. Well that little pointless side trip just cost me a hundred bucks. I cursed under my breath and pulled over in front of a boarded-up bank. I thought I sensed a panic attack coming on, so I fumbled through the glove box for a bottle of pills and popped a couple Ativan and immediately felt better. Everything slowed down just a little. Time. My pulse. The red and blue flashing lights. I gazed around at my surroundings. It seemed like every goddamn business in town was either closed or burned up; the town probably got all its revenue pulling over out-of-town idiots like me.

Johnny Law took his old sweet time getting out of the cruiser. Nine or ten minutes dragged by before his door opened and he trudged through the gray slush up to my window. He was younger than I was by a good five years, which annoyed me. I’d noticed that most of the cops, bartenders, doctors, lawyers, I met were now younger than me. It’s a hell of a thing to realize.

I rolled down the window and handed over my license and insurance card before he could ask, thinking just write me the goddamn ticket and let’s not take all day.

“Clocked you doing forty-one in a thirty,” the cop said and blew into his hands.

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I didn’t realize I was going that fast.”

He paused to study my license and then he fixed his eyes on me. “Have you had anything to drink?”

My blood turned to ice water. I wondered if he smelled the liquor on me, or maybe a town like this, you just expect everyone to be drinking or shooting up first thing in the morning. Surely that shot of Wild Turkey and a Bud Lime-a-Rita wouldn’t put me over the limit…

“Just a lime soda. And a coffee this morning.”

“Uh huh.” He examined my insurance card. “Going anywhere in particular?”

I wanted to say, yeah, I’m going to the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony. The King of Sweden awaits. Fucking idjit. “I was just looking for some fast food, place to get a couple of burgers.”

A car hissed by and some rube driver rubbernecked us. The cop gazed off down the street. “We had us a Hardee’s once, but it burned down about three years ago.”

“Yeah, I saw the ruins.”

“Shame, too. That Hardee’s drove my uncle’s diner out of business, then it goes and burns down. Now we got shit-all, excuse my French.”

Apparently we were good buds, now. Either that or he was just looking for some victim to jaw at.

“You could try the gas station,” he said. “They sell hot dogs and nachos. The hot dogs are pretty good if you load them up with onions and relish. I wouldn’t recommend the nachos. The cheese tastes like plastic. Looks like plastic too. Hell, for all I know it is plastic.”

I didn’t say anything to that.

He nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll be right back.” He turned and trudged back to the cruiser. Sometime later a second patrol car pulled up behind him and a female cop got out. She looked older than the male cop. Anyway, those two talked a while, flirted, I guess, then I started to worry about it taking so long, imagining all kinds of worst-case scenarios. Was there a warrant out for my arrest? Had I forgotten to pay a parking ticket somewhere? I vaguely recalled getting a speeding ticket about two years ago, but I paid a traffic lawyer to fix it for me.

Unless he’d forgotten.

That was entirely possible. I had a friend who’d gotten a speeding ticket in St. Louis, back before everyone carried a cell phone all the time. He asked a lawyer friend to take care of the ticket, but the lawyer forgot. Guess it wasn’t a priority. Two months later my friend got pulled over in St. Charles County for a missing headlight and the cops found the warrant and cuffed him and dragged him off to the county jail. It took the city cops two days to come and pick him up, then he spent another day in the city jail before they finally let him call someone to bail him out. For four days, nobody knew where the hell he was. He lost his job because of it.

I’ll bet that goddamn traffic lawyer forgot to fix my ticket.

At length, the cop walked back and handed me my license and insurance card. “Sign here.”

I signed.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes with a printed copy of your ticket and some instructions.”

He turned and trudged back to his car. Evidently this traffic stop was going to take an entire day.

At least I wasn’t going to jail.

Five minutes later, the cop tramped back, handed me the ticket and told me the court date. The fine for driving more than ten miles over the speed limit (but less than twenty), was ninety bucks. I shoved the ticket and my license into my shirt pocket.

The cop breathed into his hands again. “The Conoco is two blocks ahead. Go left at the light and take the first right you can’t miss it. Just keep her under thirty.” He pocketed his ticket book. “By the way, you got an interesting license plate.”

“I’m aware.”

“Yeah. Well, you have a good day.”

I did just like the cop said, but damned if I could find the Conoco. I drove around another five minutes before I stumbled on it. Or maybe it was a different Conoco. Anyway, I went inside and bought their last eight dried up dogs and three small bags of chips. I ate my share in the van, then drove back to the bar, getting lost only once along the way.

Vince and Pritchard were waiting outside the bar when I pulled up. They hurried over to the van and jumped in. Vince had an inch-and-a-half gash above his right eye. Blood spilled down his cheek and jaw, but he didn’t seem to notice or care.

“Shit man, you get lost again?” Vince said, strapping on his seatbelt. “It’s fucking freezing out there.” He turned up the heater to its highest setting. “Let’s boogie.”

I pulled out onto Main Street and pointed the van north.

“Can’t this heap go any faster?” Pritchard said.

“I just got a speeding ticket,” I said.

“So that’s where you’ve been?” Vince said.

I ignored that. After a moment, I said, “Somebody going to tell me what happened back there?”

Vince twisted the rearview mirror and studied his wound. “Huh. Not as bad as I thought.”

Pritchard leaned forward over the seat. “What’d you bring us?”

“Is somebody going to tell me what just happened?” I repeated.

“Probably leave a cool scar,” Vince said. He pushed the mirror back into place. I readjusted the mirror.

“What’s in the bag?” Pritchard said.

“Hot dogs. Chips.”

Vince nodded toward Pritchard. “You missed it. Dumb ass here broke a beer bottle over some dude’s head,” Vince said. “Then all hell broke loose.”

Pritchard reached over the seat and snagged the sack of hot dogs. Vince yanked it out of his hand.

“Don’t be greedy, asshole!”

I looked at my brother. “Why’d he do that?”

Vince handed Pritchard a hot dog. Pritchard took a big bite out of the hotdog and spoke with his mouth full. “Fucking gay bar.”

“Didn’t seem like a gay bar to me,” I said.

“You must be gay then,” Pritchard said.

“What the hell does that even mean?”

Vince turned to me. “Where’s the beer?”

A local patrol car screamed past. I recognized the same young cop behind the wheel.

“Jesus McChrist,” I said, “you haven’t even been out of prison two hours and you two have already committed assault and battery.”

Pritchard mimicked what I said, but with a whiny girl voice.

I let it go. Another forty-five minutes and I’d be rid of them. Both of them. I kept the van under twenty-five, one eye glued to the rearview mirror till we were well outside the city limits. The cops never did come after us.

We passed a green birdshot-pocked road sign that said Belleville forty miles away.

I can do this, I told myself.

Vince let out a long belch. “Damn, I ain’t had anything that tasty since I can’t remember when.”

“Probably four years,” I said.

“Yeah.” He looked through the bag for napkins, which I’d forgotten to pick up, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Dude, why didn’t you get any beer with the dogs? I told you to get some beer.”

“Actually you didn’t,” I said. “Besides you just had how many pitchers?”

“Pull in at the next gas station.”

I shook my head. “We’re almost home, then you can drink yourself into a coma if you want.”

“Why the hell’d you let him drive?” Pritchard muttered.

When they’d finished their lunch Vince tossed the empty bags out the window. He turned to Pritchard. “Bus your table.”

Pritchard ran down the window and tossed out his empty bags. “How much longer?” he said. “This is like being locked up all over again.”

“We’ll be there in a half hour,” I said. “Just chill.” I craned my neck to look at Pritchard. “By the way, where am I dropping you off?”

Pritchard shrugged and gazed out the window as we passed the familiar sight of the sewer treatment facility. “You got a couch?”

“You talking to me or Vince?”

“Either one.”

I ignored him. Vince did too. Vince popped open the glove box and dug around among the CDs, reading the labels and commenting on my bad taste in music. “Hey, I remember this.” He unsheathed my old hunting knife, a Fallkniven NL4.

“Huh. I wondered where that went to,” I said.

Vince studied the blade, running his thumb along the edge. “This thing is fucking awesome.”

“Let me see it,” Pritchard said.

Vince ignored him. “Mind if I take this?”

“What?”

“It’s just sitting in your glove box.”

“That was a birthday gift…from grandad.”

“I know it was a birthday gift.” He turned and put his eye on me. “Dude, do I have to remind you what I did for you?”

I sighed.

“What’d you do for him?” Pritchard said.

“Mind your own fucking business!” Vince snapped.

Pritchard slumped back in his seat.

“Fine,” I said. “Take it.”

“Sweet.”

“Anything else you want? My first born?”

“Which one’s your first born?”

“Hunter. By six minutes.”

“Naw. I’m good.”

Pritchard leaned forward and rested his arms on the back of Vince’s seat. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to give that psycho a knife.”

Vince turned in a flash and planted the blade under Pritchard’s chin. “One more word out of you and I’ll gut you like a mud carp. Try me.”

“Christ,” Pritchard said. He fell back into his seat. “What a psycho.”

Vince wiped the blade on his jeans and slipped it back into its sheath.

In a half hour I’ll be home, I thought. So what if I get another ticket.

I pressed down on the accelerator.