HE FOUND THE ARMADILLO, A CORNER BAR ON THE BOTTOM FLOOR of a three-story building. He parked and went inside and sat down at the bar. Brick walls and a sticky wooden floor and a yellowstained ceiling. A dozen or so people sat at the tables and along the back wall was a small stage. Stacks of speakers were on each end of the stage and a drum kit set up in the middle. The chairs and tables were pushed back away from the stage, leaving room for dancing. A young man appeared from a door behind the bar. He carried a case of beer and he slid open the top of a cooler and stacked the bottles inside. His arms were covered with tattoos and his hair messed up in the right places. Russell sat alone at the bar and when he finished stacking the beers he gave Russell a nod and Russell asked for one of them. For the next hour or so this was the game. The bartender came and went in preparation for the night ahead and Russell sat quietly, smoking and watching, trying to decipher where one tattoo ended and another began. He occasionally asked for a beer and the bartender gave it to him.
In the next hour the door to the Armadillo opened and closed more frequently as the tables began to fill up. Russell moved to the end of the bar where he could watch the door. Most everyone who came in looked either too young to be in there or too old. A burly, bearded man came in the door and stepped into the middle of the floor. He looked around. Stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Another bearded man wearing a black bandanna around his neck pushed open the door and then guitar cases and amps were walked in and through the maze of tables. Once the equipment was in place the band plugged in cords and tapped microphones and tuned guitars. It was the ugliest band Russell had ever seen.
Another bartender showed up to help with the crowd. A young woman, equally tattooed. Her shirt bared her belly and a sun flared around her belly button and Russell happily watched it move behind the bar. Jesus or Elvis could have walked in the door and he wouldn’t have known or cared as he was magnetized by the black sun and the way its rays bent and twisted as she reached for bottles and poured strong drinks.
The bar stools filled up next with those who had come without friends and after the burly band drank a few beers and smoked a few cigarettes the lights went down and a row of moody, yellowish bulbs illuminated the stage and dance area. A guitarist struck a wiry chord and then on the count of four the night jumped to a new level as the burly band played Skynyrd as tight and crisp as Skynyrd themselves. Heads began bouncing and shoulders began swaying and there was no more talking, only yelling, and the band never slowed between the first three or four songs and a couple made its way to the space in front of the stage. Clutching and clinging more than dancing but damn sure not caring what anyone thought about it. Russell’s knee bounced in rhythm and he noticed the tattooed bartenders pouring the drinks heavier than they had been pouring them before the music began. People kept coming in and it wasn’t long before it was hot inside and in another handful of songs there were more sweaty faces than dry faces. Russell had to go to the bathroom but knew if he left his bar stool he wouldn’t get it back so he tried to ignore it by watching the sun that was now glistening with sweat in the neon light of the beer signs hanging behind the bar.
The band decided to take a break and the bodies returned to their seats and the crowd seemed to take a collective breath. The noise and the energy falling and the bartenders hustling to get everyone filled up before the second set. The bar stool next to Russell opened up but was quickly taken by a blond man. A man Russell thought was much too pretty to be in a place like this. He asked for a drink and when it was delivered he tried to pay with a hundred but the woman bartender shook her head and said no damn way. She picked up the drink and handed it to someone else who wanted the same thing. The man asked Russell if he had change and Russell shook his head and the man returned to his table and explained to the three women he sat with that his money was no good here. One of the women reached into her purse and gave him a twenty and he returned to the spot next to Russell. Russell noticed his smooth hands as he held them folded on the bar and waited for another chance. And he noticed the starch in his shirt and the watch on his wrist and if it wasn’t his first visit to the Armadillo Russell had a hunch it’d be his last. This time the man ordered two drinks and the exchange was made and Russell watched him walk back to his table. The woman who gave him the money leaned over and whispered into his ear and then she licked it and he pulled away and looked around as if his name had been called. She laughed and the other two women laughed but he didn’t and he sipped his drink cautiously while the women continued to have a good time.
Russell couldn’t hold it anymore so he had no choice but to vacate the stool. He left his beer on the bar hoping to mark his seat. Neither of the bathroom doors was marked but a line of women stood outside one of them. He was lucky to get in and out of the men’s room but when he returned to the bar stool it was taken. His beer had been pushed to the side and a woman sat in his place, her shoulders covered only by the shoestring straps of her dress, her hair reaching her sunfreckled shoulders. Russell walked up behind her and started to reach around for his beer but as he reached the stool next to her came free as a couple all wound up together made their way out of the bar and toward somewhere that offered more privacy. He sat down and with less of a reach he slid his beer in front of him.
She looked at him and halfgrinned. “Was that yours?”
He nodded.
“And I bet this was your seat,” she said.
“You’d win that bet.”
She started to get up but he said, “Sit back down. We’re good.”
She grinned again and held her drink with both hands. He didn’t recognize her and he hoped she didn’t recognize him. Her nails were long and pink like ten delicate daggers and bracelets dangled from each wrist. She sat with her legs crossed and sipped her drink as if she had all night.
The band decided the break was over and they started out with Hank Junior and it took less than a verse for the mood to rise again. Dancing replaced sitting. Yelling replaced talking. Russell had finished off his pack of cigarettes and he noticed a pack sitting on the bar in front of the woman. He pointed to them and asked for one.
She obliged and lit it for him with a lighter she pulled from a tiny purse that he hadn’t noticed in her lap. She put it away then she folded her arms across her healthy chest and squeezed like she had missed herself. Russell watched her breasts push together but looked away quickly when she turned to him.
“You like to dance?” she asked.
“Probably not the way you do,” he said. “I got a feeling you can shake it.”
“Few more of those and you’ll be ready.”
“Few more of these and I’ll be ready for anything,” he answered, surprising himself with how easily the remark came out.
She cut her eyes at him and then held out her hand. “I’m Caroline.”
“Russell,” he said and he held her fingers and shook them.
He hadn’t noticed but she had turned on her seat and was now facing him with her legs uncrossed and almost touching his hip. He was a man who had not seen the legs or shoulders of a real live woman in too damn long so he thought what the hell and he started at her ankles and followed up her calves and over her knees and up to her thighs to where the dress began. And then he trailed up her stomach and stopped a moment at her breasts and those freckled shoulders and then he made it to her chin and unsmiling mouth and nose and eyes and she stared back.
“So should I hike it up or pull it down?”
He shook his head.
“Want me to stand up and turn around?”
“No. Maybe.”
“Least you could do is dance with me first.”
“You don’t want to see that.”
“God knows you owe me a drink after giving me such a look.”
“I can do that,” he said and he waved to the bartender.
They got their beers and clinked bottles.
“Damn it to hell. That was the best compliment I’ve had in about half a dozen years.”
The interview began. She asked if he was married and he said no. She asked if he had kids and he said no again.
“Are you sure?” she said.
“I think I’d know.”
“Shit. I heard that one before.”
He didn’t think she believed him and he was right. He tried to sit up straight. Look at her when answering. He liked the way she leered at him with playful, suspicious eyes and when she asked what he did for a living he lied and said painted houses. He tried to keep his face forward so that she wouldn’t notice the beginnings of the scar at the edge of the beard. Because she would ask about it. There was no doubt she would ask about it and then he would have to lie and that might blow the whole thing. He kept waiting for some Armadillo regular to stick his head in and try to drag her away.
He bought her another beer and she said don’t you want to ask me the same questions but he didn’t. He hadn’t even bothered to look at her ring finger though she made it a point to drink with that hand and to play with her necklace with that hand.
The band kept on and Russell asked if they played here often.
“Don’t know. I don’t come here much,” she said.
You look like you own that bar stool, he thought to say. But he was hiding things so he let her lie. Russell then turned and watched the four rugged rockers, unable to decide if their better days were behind or ahead.
“They’re not bad,” Caroline said. “For this place.”
“Nope,” he answered, turning back. He waved for two more. He promised himself that he’d drink more slowly though he realized that it was a flimsy promise.
“Let’s make a deal,” she said. “I go to the bathroom and you keep my seat. You go and I keep yours. That’s also the other’s chance to make a run for it. No questions asked.”
“That’s a damn good deal,” he said.
“Fine. Me first.”
She left her cigarettes on the bar and took her tiny purse in her hand and went to the ladies’ room. Russell kept one hand on his drink and the other palm down on top of her bar stool. He wondered what kind of woman would make a deal like that. How often she played and how often she came back to find the man gone. She didn’t look like the kind of woman any man would run from. Not in the Armadillo. As he waited he watched the band and watched the bartenders and begged himself not to say or do anything stupid.