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by Phil Robbins
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The music was loud, making it hard to hear anything else. But that didn’t matter; I wasn’t here for the atmosphere and I certainly wasn’t here to meet any of the locals. I took a seat at the end of the bar, my back against the wall and a clear view to the door. The band was playing country, of course, and a Patsy Cline wanna-be with the looks, but not the voice, was butchering an up-tempo “I Fall to Pieces.” I’d driven ten hours on I-25 from Casper on my way to Galveston, stopping just outside of Amarillo, figuring to get myself liquored up enough to sleep, and to forget, before heading off to the coast. I was aiming to roughneck on a rig in the Gulf, but the job was a longshot, and I’d settle for pretty much anything I could get. I’d taken just enough cash for gas, Slim Jims, and whiskey, figuring I could sleep in my pickup along the way.
The bartender wore a leather vest, accompanied by a faded Aggies hat and a button that said, “I’m Carrying.” His face was pockmarked with a road map of scars. I figured he’d probably served as the joint’s bouncer in a previous incarnation. He didn’t bother to ask me what I wanted; shouting the obvious was pointless in this room. I pointed to the cheap bourbon, put up two fingers with my left hand, and pantomimed shots with the right.
“What d’ya think of Buttigieg?” I asked, knowing he couldn’t hear me. He nodded and took five ones from the money I had placed in front of me.
I scanned the scene clockwise, tracing imaginary perpendicular lines on the floor and dividing the room into quadrants. Twenty or more couples clad largely in flannel and denim were doing the Travelling Cha Cha or some kind of western tango around the room, fluidly moving across the quadrants and making it a challenge to keep the players all straight. It didn’t matter that no one could give a shit that I was there; I still had to go through the drill.
***
It was the banging on the door that did it this time. Not the yelling and certainly not the swearing. Janey could swear like a trucker but it was nothing that hadn’t come out of my mouth daily for the last eight months. But the banging! Call me a motherfucking, worthless, piece of shit drunk as much as you want and I’ll just shrug. Maybe even agree with you. But rush up behind me or bang on a closed door and that’s a whole ‘nother ball game. Like with the hygienist. Kenny G on the speaker and a steady scraping and humming lulling me into a detached haze, when suddenly she touches a nerve, literally, and jolts me alert, my whole body tense.
Bang! “That’s it? Just like that, you tell me you’re heading off? What the fuck am I supposed to do? Two fucking years you’re gone and before that how many other times? I’m supposed to just wait while you what, find yourself? How about you find it right here, like a real fucking man?”
I said nothing.
“Answer me!” Bang! Bang! “Never mind me. What about your daughter? How you gonna explain this to her?” BANG! “You think not answering me is gonna make this go away? You’re a fucking coward, that’s what you are. I don’t give a shit how many of those damn medals you got. Dave! You hear me in there? A fucking coward!”
Janey’s voice underwater, muted.
Bang! Bang! Trapped under his Humvee, Mookie slamming his helmet on the rail.
I sat, huddled in the corner, staring without seeing. A slight breeze had stirred the blinds to life, rhythmically alternating with Janey as they ricocheted against the sill. Parallel lines of light moved with the rhythm, reaching toward me and retreating, toward me and retreating. A stronger gust traced the light to my feet. They knew where I hid.
“Get away!” I screamed.
“FuyougetawayI’mnottheonegoinganywhere,” the words a blur of nonsense syllables.
“They’ve got us lined up!” I shouted to Mookie, “hold on!”
“Dave, please, honey, it’s me.” Her banging had stopped but the blinds had not gotten the message, slamming harder now as they fell, the wind bringing with it traces of barley mixed with burning fuel and flesh.
“I can’t make it!” I yelled, crying. “I can’t help you! I can’t help you.”
Janey and Mook both understood, their silence damning.
***
I saw the blonde staring at me and made a point not to look her way. That obviously didn’t work because when I looked back, she was crossing the room, tracing a line through the flannel circle toward me. She wore heels, not boots, and had her shirt opened enough to make clear her intent. I thought of the yellow rooster tails I’d used to land trout in the Winds every summer since I was ten, my father telling me that the light flickered off their bodies to imitate dozens of insects.
“How come the trout don’t learn?” I used to ask him. “It’s the same trick every year and they just keep biting ‘em? Even after we let ‘em go, they come back for more.”
My dad’s lips would turn up just slightly, a hint of a smile that meant more to me than the hugs of his Ma, who took care of pretty much everything in our home. “It’s instinct,” he’d tell me. “They can’t no more lay off that lure than a baby latching on to his mother’s tit.”
I blushed in response and my dad’s lips turned up again. “Yeah, well, I figure if her…”
“Tit,” he filled in for me.
“Well, yeah, if it suddenly had hooks coming out of it, the baby might want a bottle instead.”
Another brief smile. “I guess you’re right, Davy. But instinct is a powerful thing to fight.”
At the moment, everything about me wanted the bottle, and I signaled the bartender for another round—only one, not wanting to give the yellow tail approaching me the wrong idea. She looked like she’d been trolling for years, probably landed quite a few like me who were passing through and wanting a place to refuel for the road. Aerosol blonde and glitter with enough cheap perfume and makeup to try to hide that she was at least a decade older than me and most of the guys in here. Ten years ago, I might have played along. But ten years ago I had a new wife, a baby on the way, and a sandbox of pain and memories I’d yet to make.
She leaned forward, offering me a look and asked if I wanted to dance. At least, that was my best guess about what she said, pointing toward the floor with a jostle of that platinum coif. I raised my hands to beg off; last thing I needed right then was more regret. But some anglers are persistent and she tossed out another line, again one I couldn’t hear, but this time accompanied by her hand placed midway up my thigh. I took her hand off my leg and yelled “no thanks.” I couldn’t hear her response but I’d read “fuck off” enough on people’s lips to know she was miffed. I ordered another round with a Bud chaser and watched as she approached a table of locals and pointed in my direction. Two of them stood up and walked my way. You’re fucking shitting me, I thought. Like I’m wearing a fucking sign or something.
I didn’t wait to see if they wanted to dance. Grabbing my Bud by the neck and, holding it low by my hip, I smacked it quick against the side of the bar, spraying glass around my feet. The bigger of the two took the first swing but I landed first, thrusting the jagged edge into his forearm and then kicking up hard between the other’s legs. I started toward the door but not before the bartender hoisted his Winchester at me and a half dozen or so others joined him with a mini-arsenal of handguns. I raised my hands and backed toward the door, briefly wondering whether it was some sort of sick joke that I’d made it back to the States and might end up getting strafed by a platoon of rednecks.
***
I’d walked out before but I knew this time would be different. There were only so many mulligans a guy could get before the door was locked from within. The sun had barely come up when I grabbed what little I could fit in my pack and a handful of fives and tens, making sure to leave the twenties behind. Janey’s door was closed and I didn’t bother to go in to wake her. What more, really, could I say that she didn’t already know? She already knew I wished I were dead. She knew that I couldn’t distinguish between our babies’ cries and Mookie’s howls. But more couldn’t—shouldn’t—be said. The truth was one day, maybe today, maybe a month from now, I’d return fire. And leaving, I knew, was the most loving gesture I could possibly make.
I threw my bag into the back seat and opened the cab door. Turning back, I looked at the house, half-brightened by the rising sun. Movement in a window caught my eye and my oldest daughter looked out and waved. I stared back, fighting tears. I blew a quick kiss, tapped my fist to my chest and pointed at her, before getting in the truck and leaving.
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Phil Robbins has been a clinical psychologist for over thirty years. He began writing while forced to conduct his practice over the internet during the pandemic, writing his first (and only) novel and short stories. His work has been accepted by the Wilderness House Literary Review and Passengers Journal. When not working or writing, he spends time hiking (and backpacking), playing guitar, creating at the stove, and losing to his family in board games.
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