I stopped at the top step and gave a little wave as she pulled out of the muddy parking lot. I saw her wave back through the rear window as the Dodge bounced up onto the highway and tore off, back toward the foothills. I realized too late that Grandpa’s 30.06 was still in the gun rack, but that was okay. It just meant that I’d get to see her again. I turned to the front door and realized I still had to face Fat Ernst.
I eased the door open as quietly as I could, feeling a flash of panic at being late. But it passed. I peered around the door and found the bar was empty except for Heck. He swiveled around on the bar stool, staring atme through red, sunken eyes, and greeted me with a tremendous belch that crumbled into wet coughing.
“Morning yourself there, Heck,” I said cheerfully, shutting the door behind me. “You need a napkin or anything?”
He shook his head and gave me the thumbs-up sign. I gave him the thumbs-up right back and moved through the tables. I counted three empty glasses on the bar, each coated in some sort of red, grainy liquid. Bloody Marys. Heck was getting started early. One of the glasses had a little purple umbrella sticking out of it. That was different. Fat Ernst must have been in a good mood as well. “Where’s the boss?” I asked, heading for the kitchen.
Heck jerked his head toward the restrooms. Perfect, I thought. All I have to do is collect up these dirty glasses and retreat into the kitchen before Fat Ernst gets out of the bathroom. That way, I could claim I’d been here for at least fifteen, twenty minutes. “Be right back,” I told Heck and ducked through the swinging doors. Once inside the kitchen, I stood next to the refrigerator and stretched, reaching up to the ceiling, standing on my tiptoes. Grandpa’s boots felt a little stiff, but comfortable. My body felt loose, relaxed, damn near strong. I grabbed the gray plastic bin under the sink and headed back out to the bar.
Heck hadn’t moved. He sat, leaning back against the bar, staring out the front windows. I followed his gaze and watched a shadow appear at the front windows. Darkness gathered at the top of the window and grew as a soft blanket of white noise enveloped the building. Rain spattered against the back wall and marched north across the roof. The wall of black clouds rolled out across the highway, slid over the foothills, and melted into utter blackness above the eastern mountains. Raindrops started landing in the flooded parking lot, creating thousands, millions of muddy explosions.
Heck swiveled back around, shaking his head. “Goddamn rain. There goes any business for the day.” He sighed, then said, “What the hell. Might as well just have a couple more.”
I was reaching for Heck’s empty glasses when a deep, booming crack of thunder shook the air. That’s when I saw Heck’s plate. It was sitting directly in front of him and the glasses surrounded it like bloodied cops guarding a horrible crime scene. There was a lot of yellow wiped around the plate, and I remembered that Heck liked his eggs over easy, just barely cooked. Mixed into the bright, primary-color yellow were a few bits of crust and what looked like the chewed ends of a couple of hamburger patties.
Where had that food come from?
Fat Ernst appeared in the restroom doorway, patting his huge belt buckle affectionately. I jerked my hand away from Heck’s plate as if I’d been stung. Not wanting to draw attention to myself, I started grabbing glasses and stacked them in the plastic bin. Fat Ernst stomped through the dining area, hitching up his jeans as he barreled along like a freighter in heavy seas. “Mornin’. How’d it go last night?”
The question caught me off guard. What the hell did he mean? I shrugged. “Uh, okay, I guess.” It came out more as a question than an answer, but Fat Ernst didn’t seem to notice. At least he didn’t seem pissed that I was late.
“Good, good.” He stopped next to me and Heck and fished around in the front pocket of his jeans for a second, then reached out and grabbed my left hand. I tried not to flinch, but if I did, he didn’t notice. Or at least, he pretended not to notice. He just slapped something dry and crinkled into my left palm. Then he waddled around the end of the bar and came toward us on the other side.
I risked a glance down at my palm. A fifty dollar bill was wedged into the crease of skin between my thumb and forefinger. I almost dropped it in surprise. “Yeah, last night was fine,” I said.
“Glad to hear it.” Fat Ernst met my eyes for a moment and I thought I caught a flash of a smirk on his fat face, but it was gone before I had a chance to register anything clearly. He winked at Heck. “How you doin’ there, old man? Looks like you might need another one.”
Heck nodded, as if this were the solution to a complex mathematical problem. “Yeah, you know, I think you might be right.” He glanced over at the jukebox. “Now, if you could just manage to put a couple of songs from the Sons of the Pioneers on that goddamn jukebox of yours, hell, I’d die a happy man. You know, something like ‘Water.’” Heck started singing in a high, warbling tone as I grabbed his plate. “All day I face the barren waste, without the taste of … water …” He placed both hands flat on the bar and drew himself up, as if his head were attached to a fishing line that was being reeled up to the surface. Heck echoed himself in a high, falsetto voice, “… water … water …”
Fat Ernst grinned, eyes bright. “We’ll have to see about that one, Heck.”
I decided to take advantage of Fat Ernst’s good mood and satisfy my curiosity. It just seemed like the right time to ask. Without really thinking, I opened my mouth and the words tumbled out. “Hey, have you guys ever seen Ma Sawyer? I mean, do you know anything about her?”
Heck crunched his dentures together like a startled snapping turtle. Fat Ernst stood back for a moment, then sagged, leaning on the bar, staring at me. He didn’t say anything for a several seconds. “Why?”
“I, uh, saw her last night,” I stammered.
“You saw her last night?” Heck scrunched his eyebrows together. “Huh.” Then, as if he’d forgotten his question, said suddenly, “I saw her once, man. Way back, before the accident.” He stared at the bottles behind the bar. “It was over at Smith’s Butcher Block, that place on Third Street.” He took a sip of his drink before continuing. “Now this, this was damn near thirty years ago. Them boys, they were just little kids.” I had a hard time picturing Bert and Junior Sawyer as little kids. “Pearl had gotten into an argument with the butcher over some damn thing.” Heck looked up at Fat Ernst. “You remember old Guy Smith, right? Well, man, she backed him up against the counter and was chewing into him like you wouldn’t believe.” Oh, I can believe it, I thought. “At the time, what took my attention the most was those boys, man. They were grabbing handfuls of ground beef and just flinging them ateach other like goddamn monkeys throwing their shit at each other. I couldn’t believe it. It was just, well …” Heck searched for the word. “… uncivilized.”
Fat Ernst nodded, settling into his stool, while I stood there, plastic bin on my hip, next to Heck. I thought about climbing onto a barstool, but it was kind of an unwritten rule that employees weren’t allowed on the stools. Heck stared at his plate. “But now … hell, man, I remember that woman. She couldn’t have cared less about what her boys were up to. She was too busy staring old Guy down. I guess she was wanting to know why he wasn’t buying any meat from her. Man. Poor old Guy. He kept saying that it wasn’t up to him. But she wasn’t listening.” Heck pounded the bar in sudden recognition. “I remember ’cause it was around Thanksgiving. I was there getting some pork sausage for the stuffing. That’s right.” He stopped, deep in his memories. “Finally, Guy tried to get away, to get around the meat counter. But Pearl, man, she just struck, like a goddamn snake, just grabbed poor Guy by the balls. She looked strong, I tell you that much. She grabbed old Guy’s nuts, I mean hard, man, and hung on, demanding to know why her meat wasn’t being bought. She’d shake him now and again and Guy’d turn about the color of this plate here. The last thing I heard was that rusty voice screaming, ’You listen to me ‘less you want me take a hammer to your balls again.’ I don’t know what finally happened, man, but what I remember—clear as daylight—is that you don’t mess with that woman.”