I said, “I thought you were desperate for a Coke.”
“I was desperate for ice.” She leaned over with her face up against my ear and whispered in a voice that smelled of tequila, “Here’s how real Mexican women cool down on a hot day.”
Delores dug two fingers into her cup and pulled out an ice cube. Her hand disappeared under the black shiny skirt, moved up and around some, then came back empty. “Ta-da.” She opened her palm to show me the empty hand.
I drank about half my Coke in one pull. “Do all women pop ice up their tunnels?”
Delores giggled and touched my hair. “Of course.”
Something happened during the bull rides, the upshot of which was to affect my own personal life, although the way things were headed, the upshot was probably only a matter of time. The announcer said Neb Larks had drawn a Brahma named Tetanus, and while Maurey explained tetanus to Dothan, and Lydia said, “The mind boggles at the thought of this boy’s sexual preference,” they pulled open the chute and cut Tetanus loose.
I plain don’t care for sports where it helps to be short and skinny—horse racing, high school wrestling—but at least in those sports there’s a reason for staying underweight. My theory is bull riders ride bulls because being small has given them a personality disorder.
Tetanus came out spinning clockwise along the fence, each flying hoof as big as Neb Lark’s head. The bull planted his front feet and rag-dolled Neb into the air, where he twisted, bent forward, and came down face first on a rising horn. It was like exploding a blood-gorged water balloon. Splat. Red foam sprayed everywhere.
Tetanus’s front end soared again and for one remarkable instant Neb lay lengthwise along the bull’s back, his runny crimson face aimed at the sun, then Tetanus popped and Neb flew over the fence into Annabel Pierce’s lap.
People who love rodeo love this stuff. Petey screamed, Buddy grabbed Neb by the shoulders and pushed a bandana into his face. The clowns came over the fence, half the senior citizens fell back and the other half pressed forward. Only Tetanus and Annabel stayed sedate. The bull wandered across the arena, calm as an Irish moo-cow; Annabel smiled slightly and stared vaguely into space. Her head seemed disengaged from her body where Neb lay gushing blood.
Maurey’s hand gripped my arm. “Mom’s not going to like this.”
“She looks okay.”
An ancient, white International Travelall ambulance eased through a gate as Tetanus eased out. The clowns and Buddy propped Neb up to probe under the blood, looking for the hole in his face. The one eye I could see didn’t register pain, more like wonderment. They held under his armpits and feet and lifted him back across the fence. Buddy got in the ambulance first and gently pulled while the clowns guided Neb in.
“This is exciting.” Lydia’s face was flushed and alert. Blood brings that out in her.
“I might ought to see about Mom,” Maurey said.
“I’ll come with you.”
Maurey was too pregnant to see her feet, so she needed help with the bleacher steps. By the time we felt our way to ground level, the ambulance had pulled a U-ey and was blaring across the arena, siren wailing. The siren seemed unnecessary.
All eyes were on the ambulance and no one but Maurey and me saw Annabel dig into her purse and come out with a hand full of Kleenex. She dropped to her knees, spit on the Kleenex, and started scrubbing blood.
She chirped, sing-song-like. “Have to clean this floor before Buddy gets home. A man’s work goes from rising to setting sun, but a woman’s work is never done. Never had a flow this heavy before. Buddy will be angry, he doesn’t want children…”
Maurey knelt, which was a trick, and held one of Annabel’s wrists. “Mama, it’s okay, leave the floors for later.”
“Can’t let Buddy see tracks on the linoleum.”
“She’s nuts.” Howard Stebbins stood a row up from me. “She’s nuts, ought to be locked up.”
Maurey’s eyes blazed as she turned on him. “It’s your fault.”
“No more than you.”
“What’s she talking about?” Howard’s wife asked.
Annabel spotted the blood on her turtleneck. “God, he’s back.” She was up, tearing the sweater off over her head. Maurey jumped toward her; I saw hands battling each other, then Annabel was on her back tearing her jeans off. She kept yelling, “My baby, my baby, you can have my baby.”
Dothan stood on my other side, amazed. “Her pussy’s shaved.”
Every rib showed; her hips were shovels pushing out skin. Maurey fumbled with Annabel’s clothes, trying to force them back on. Petey cried. Everyone else kind of stood there in a semicircle, staring at this emaciated skeleton woman. Now that her clothes were off, all except her bra, Annabel seemed to want her skin off too. She scratched at her thighs, then dug into her crotch. Her panicked face turned from person to person in the crowd, searching for someone, finding Coach Stebbins. “You tore my baby, you killed my baby.”
All Stebbins’s nightmares came true at once.
His wife whined. “What’s she mean, Howie?”
Annabel howled, “Abortion.”
As Maurey moved forward into the pool of blood to get hold of her mom, Annabel went into a crouch. “Where’s Buddy. I have to find Buddy.”
“He went to the hospital,” Maurey said.
Annabel put her hand on the top fence rail, vaulted across into the arena, and took off.
Maurey said, “Holy shit.”
She’d have looked better totally naked. As it was, in nothing but her bra, she looked pitiful. Private hell had gone public.
Twenty yards into the arena, Hank roped her—caught both feet in the loop and jerked. Then he was by her body, covering it with a horse blanket. Since Maurey couldn’t jump the fence, we circled to a gate and crossed in front of the chutes. The crowd around Annabel parted, giving us a straight view of her curled-up body. She lay sniffling, mumbling, with her knees tucked up to her chest and her hands holding the rope behind her legs. Hank held her head up and brushed dirt from her nostrils.
“You didn’t have to rope her,” Maurey said.
He looked up at us. “You’d rather the whole county chase her like a calf scramble?”
“I guess not.”
“I figure the sooner this is over the better.”
Annabel put her face up against Hank’s shirt and sobbed.
As the junior high cheerleader drew the clean sheet up to cover her developing bosom, sweat steamed off her forehead. “Sam Callahan, you get me so hot I can scarcely stand it.”
Sam Callahan left the bed and padded barefoot into the kitchen where he opened the freezer. Back in the bedroom, he set an ice bucket on his night stand. “Here, honey,” he said. “I’ll show you what the older women do when I make them hot.”
Hank and Maurey wrapped Annabel in blankets and got her into Hank’s truck. Annabel seemed to have passed through something and come out on the other side dead. She breathed, but that was all. She didn’t move or speak or have any expression on her face. Hank had to arrange her feet around the gear shift, then fold her arms over the blankets.
After I helped Maurey into the passenger side—the door Hank had fixed—they followed Buddy’s tracks off to the hospital in Jackson, and Lydia, Dougie, and I retreated to the White Deck where half the trucks in the county had gathered. I don’t know where Delores and Dothan got off to, I only hoped they hadn’t gone off together.
Lydia sent Dougie around to bum the last three empty chairs in the place, but we had to share a table with two Mormon missionaries in white shirts and skinny ties. Lydia hates all forms of purposeful innocence. She looked around the crowded cafe and said, “Who do you have to fuck to get a cup of coffee in this joint?”