Читать книгу Goodnight, Texas - William Cobb - Страница 9

AFTER WORK Falk and Leon drove a Purple Monster tow truck down Shoreline Drive to where the colossal zebrafish was beached near the Sea Horse Motel’s fishing pier. The tow truck had orange flames painted on the front fenders licking to the back, a metal ramp on the rear that lowered, trucker tramp mud-flaps, and a winch to haul the monster out of its seaweed coffin in Red Moon Bay.

By then it was dusk. The road was a chain of beached whale’s backs, barnacled with gravel and bumpy with potholes. The live oaks leaned away from the wind coming off Red Moon Bay, the palm fronds swayed and rustled. Leon pulled onto the shoulder, between the road and the shore. The smell of beached dead thing was so strong it radiated like heat waves off hot asphalt. In that light, dimming to gray fuzz surrounding the black silhouettes of the pier against the sky, the world was spectral and diminished.

The tide had receded, leaving most of the creature in the sand. The stinky colossus sloshed in the shallows like a beached gigantic tropical fish. The moon was low in the eastern sky above Red Moon Bay, catching a pink glow from the sunset, like lunar blush. Falk grimaced at the smell. He dropped the tailgate and pulled on work gloves. Cars sped by on Shoreline, and one honked in complaint, the tow truck straddling one lane.

Falk and Leon walked around the fish for a few minutes, then stopped and cooked up a scheme. Inside the truck’s cab they found a painting drop cloth, a sheet of clear plastic splotched with droplets of white latex wall paint. Falk unfolded it on the shore, beside the huge fish, as Leon maneuvered the winch hook into position. The wind turned the corners of the dropcloth back, so he weighed the ends down with shells.

Falk looked at the smelly tangle with reluctance. He figured it was worth something. To someone.

Leon said, If anyone asks, I had nothing to do with this.

While they were arranging the plastic drop cloth the Mustang County sheriff’s patrol car pulled onto the shoulder of Shoreline Drive.

Oh fuck me, hissed Leon.

THE SHERIFF BEHIND the wheel trained his swivel spotlight on the fish and upon Leon and Falk, crouching there like thieves of the sea. They straightened in this spotlight beam and held their hands up to block the glare, seemed to be saluting.

Sheriff John Littledog uncoiled his magnificent form from the car and approached in no great hurry, his boots crunching the oyster-shell grit between shoulder and shoreline, his radio crackling in the background. He was quarter-blood Kiowa, the tallest man in Mustang County, and wore a black eyepatch over his left eye.

He’d lost the eye over a woman. It was one thing known by most every citizen in Mustang County.

He had a face you got a good look at it you knew he’d seen some good and bad times, enough to weary of steering the mistaken back to the path of righteousness. He’d been a high school basketball star years ago and still got credit for that.

Sheriff Littledog’s tallness in the headlights cast a wicked shadow. He stopped near the fish, took off his hat, and rubbed his grizzled gray head. His six-feet-seven-inch frame was not without a certain grace. People told him he could have been in the movies but he frankly didn’t give a shit. He put his hat back in place and said, The fuck is this?

Leon stepped forward and shook the sheriff’s hand. One bigass fish is what I’d say.

Falk only nodded, crouched down, and tugged at the tarp. When he’d been caught with a knife in school, he’d been arrested and charged with carrying a weapon on school grounds to teach him a lesson. It worked. After spending an afternoon in the sheriff’s jail, he didn’t want anything more to do with him.

Leon spoke up. The gist of it. Big fish beached and a curious thing it was.

Sheriff nodded. That is a fact. What kind is it?

Leon shrugged. Beats me. None I ever seen or heard tell of.

Ain’t that the hell. Sheriff Littledog walked around it, squatted low to get a close-up view. With the spotlight behind him his tallness cast a long shadow over the waves of Red Moon Bay.

That Oscar Martinez’s truck you’re driving?

Leon said yes, it was. He’d let Gusef borrow it, and Gusef had given them the keys.

Must be a special occasion, said Sheriff Littledog. Martinez treats that truck like his woman. Sheriff Littledog grinned. Or maybe his muchacho.

Leon said they had quite a find. He showed Littledog the horse’s head wedged in its throat, the blond mane and hoof.

Well I’ll be goddamned on a Sunday, said the sheriff. He shook his head. Whatever this is, it ain’t right.

Can I claim it? asked Falk.

Claim what?

The fish.

Sheriff Littledog put his hands on his hips. An odd gesture, almost girlish, one hip cocked to the side. Never heard of a boy claiming a dead fish washed in on the tide before. But whatever. No skin off my ass.

You don’t need it for evidence?

Evidence of what?

I don’t know. The horse in its mouth?

You mean I should fingerprint the fish?

You tell me.

What we got here looks like a swallowing to me. Last I checked that ain’t a crime rightly in the books.

He told them to turn their hazard lights on so some drunken fool didn’t hit them while they were pulled over on the shoulder. Martinez would beat them bloody if they so much as scratched his truck. But as far as them claiming a dead fish, it was fine with him.

Leon said, Won’t be stinking up the Sea Horse now will it?

You be doing the county a service, said the sheriff. With that he walked off and gave them a lazy wave. He made a U-turn on Shoreline and headed back toward town. It wasn’t till the sheriff was gone that Falk noticed how fast and hard his heart was beating.

They tied a rope around the tail of the beached fish and managed to use the winch to haul it out of the water. When they got the thing scooted onto the tarp it appeared somewhat smaller. By then moonlight spangled the bay surface and lapped in silver ghost tongues at their feet. They folded the drop cloth over the fish and tied it on both ends. It was wet and slimy and smelled horrible. They wrestled one end onto the hydraulic tongue and heaved, grunted, lifted the other slumped, soggy end, and pushed it into position. Leon loosed the steel cable of the winch and wrapped it around the middle of the fish where the crushed fins created a small dent in its belly, then fastened the hook at the end of the cable to make fast a large loop.

They raised the hydraulic tongue and hauled in the winch cable until the giant fish sat in the middle of the flatbed of the tow truck. There it resembled an enormous bloated zebra wrapped in plastic.

They drove to Falk’s aunt’s house. He was living there now, his parents killed in a bridge collapse the summer before. In the backyard was an old plastic kiddy pool that had been hauled out of a house somewhere and left behind the garage where it collected rain. No one ever used it. In the shadows of a security light mounted on the garage, Falk dumped the pool on its side, stepped back as the rainwater whooshed into the sandy yard thinly covered with grass, then realized it was too small.

He went to look for his uncle.

The backyard was Uncle Ed’s territory. He was a thin, bald man, somewhat vague and underwhelmed by the routine of his life.

The fishermen of Goodnight said Falk’s uncle had once been a hellraiser, forearms big as Popeye’s, that in his day Uncle Ed had hauled enough shrimp out of the Gulf of Mexico to feed half of San Antonio. But his day was over. An accident had seen to that: He’d been filling his bay shrimpboat at the dockside pump on Rattlesnake Point when something had gone wrong. The pump nozzle slipped out of the tank and failed to shut off, gushing diesel across the deck and catching fire from a spark.

Now the roughs called him a gimp, good for nothing more than hauling crab traps out of Humosa Bay. A bottom-feeder of bottom-feeders. Falk stood up for him when he could, but that wasn’t often. Goodnight was a town that could be mean if you listened to the wrong people.

Three squares of yellow light cast their glow on the cement outside the windowed garage door. Inside Ed was mending a wire crab trap. Falk told him what had happened and asked if it was okay if he parked it in the garage for the night.

They walked to the back end of the tow truck. The white legs of the small pony were just visible in the bluish glow of the backyard security lights. Ed leaned against the tow truck, staring at the hooves dangling out. He picked up a stick and poked at it. He shook his head. Well I be dog.

Ed dropped the stick and brushed his hands on his pants. By God it does smell don’t it? Maybe you ought not to let Vicky see it. Get rid of it soon. If she sees it, she’ll raise hell. I know that sure as shootin’.

Falk and Leon drove back to the Black Tooth. Gusef was eating dinner at a booth in the front room, near which a trophy marlin was mounted on the wall. He said, Where is sea monster? Tell me coyotes will not eat only fish in sea for dinner.

Falk assured him it was safe and sound. He suggested Gusef should have it stuffed and mounted, make it a roadside attraction. You can put up billboards for it on Highway 35, drum up some business.

Gusef nodded. Maybe we make money off big ugly thing. Maybe godforsaken bays are filled with it. I will show lazy worthless drunken fishermen what they cannot catch. That will make them feel good I am sure. And myself become Mr. Popular. Perhaps they vote me mayor. He took a sip of his drink. Or toss me in water with anchor for necklace.

I’m thinking more like a curiosity thing.

Gusef made a shrewd face. Yes well I should display it in Black Tooth. I will mount it above front door for all to see.

Falk rubbed the fuzz of his sunbleached hair. I was thinking something like that. Maybe after some negotiations though.

Gusef stared at Falk. He asked, What?

I was thinking of making some money off it. That’s all.

Gusef nodded. He said, Well okay. You are not stupid. I could pay you.

All right.

Not very much. It is not Spanish galleon.

Well, said Falk. We could work something out.

Gusef smiled. We could.

GUSEF PROWLED GOODNIGHT after closing, thinking about the fish, what he could do with it, trying to weary himself in the dark. He drove his woebegone Cadillac down Shoreline to Pelican Way, past the darkened yards of one-story beach bungalows, beneath the yellow glow of front porch bugbulbs and utility pole-mounted security lights whose bright bluewhite beams cast wild and spastic shadows as they cut the tangled maze of windblown and mosshung live oak branches. He stopped at the Speed-n-Go for gas, filled his tank beneath the hum of mercury-vapor lights, somnambulist seagulls gliding by like memories of his divorced wife and children.

Gusef walked heavily and vodkafuzzed to the cashier, waited in line behind a grizzled shrimper who knew his name. The man turned to him like a shipwrecked fisherman just off the life raft, snaggletoothed and windburnt, and indicated his purchases with one wave of a knifescarred hand, baring a what-the-hell smile.

Chocolate milk, wine, and cigarettes. He winked and stretched forth his turtled neck. It’s gonna be a good night.

Gusef nodded. Yes well one is for belly, one is for hole what is in heart, and one to call forth demons of memory.

The man clapped Gusef’s shoulder and said, Goddamnit, yes. Hank Williams couldn’t have said it better. He waved the sack of wine, milk, and cigarettes as he faded through the automatic glass doors.

Gusef walked to his car and settled into the seat once again. Part homeless wanderer, part feudal baron in exile. He drove past the junkyard across Highway 35, with its rusting cars amidst a thicket of palmetto and swampgrass. Insect smears cluttered his windshield and he cursed himself for not washing it at the convenience store. He circled back around to the Sea Horse.

The parking lot was quiet, but the door to Room 17 was open, a rectangle of light spilling out onto the rusted Nissan parked before it. Gusef stood outside his Cadillac and watched the open door, lit a cigarette, let loose a blue cloud from his mouth. In the office he found one of his employees, Billy Wright, about to eat a bowl of coconut sherbet.

The bossman cometh, said Billy.

Gusef adjusted the stack of magazines on the lobby coffee table. Yes well someone must make sure you do not sleep at desk. Guests do not like to see drool on counter. Or perhaps if I did not visit you would inject heroin with lowlife friends in bathroom.

I wouldn’t do that, said Billy. He put a spoonful of sherbet in his mouth and savored it. We’d at least find an empty room to do it on the sneaky side o’ things.

A clamor outside brought them to the windows facing the inner parking lot. Gusef opened the door and peered out, the bell above him jingling. They could hear a man shouting something unintelligible. Stomping. Slamming a door. He appeared in the doorframe of Room 17 and stepped to the rear of the Nissan parked there, its trunk lid popped open. He removed a cardboard box and lugged it inside, grunting. Gusef and Billy could hear him now. His loud voice shouting, MAYBE JUST MAYBE IF YOU DIDN’T WATCH THE GODDAMN TV SO MUCH YOU MIGHT KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.

Billy leaned close to Gusef. That’s Crawford again, his habit of wife yellin’. He says he’s an oilfield technician? Well, I’m a drummer for ZZ Top. I say he’s a coyote if you catch my drift.

Gusef rubbed one eye into which his cigarette smoke had drifted. I do not like this loudmouth. His woman she deserves better.

Yes, she is a sad one, said Billy. Never trust a man who slaps his wife around, that’s what I say. And this woman? If she was a flower, she’d be a black-eyed Susan.

Many things I regret, said Gusef. Letting him move here is one of these things.

Why not give him the boot?

Gusef shrugged. Where would she go?

They stood silent for a moment, listening to the loud voices, the sound of the wind rustling the palm trees along the parking lot, popping the American flag above the pool, its grommets tinging against the metal pole. A sign on the door read, AMERICAN OWNED.

Billy walked back to his place at the counter, wriggled onto the stool. In front of him was the bowl of sherbet.

Have you tasted this? he asked Gusef. Coconut sherbet. It’s Leon’s idea we should start serving this with every meal at the Black Tooth. Add some class.

Gusef stood in the doorway, silent.

Billy took a dainty sip from his spoon. Frowned. If you ask me, tastes like suntan lotion.

Gusef flicked his cigarette butt into the parking lot and nodded. Well yes perhaps this is good thing. If fatso tourist falls asleep by pool with mouth open, tongue does not get sunburn.

FALK RETURNED to his aunt’s house to get some sleep. There he shared a room with his cousin Leesha. Her real name was Alicia Ann, but she thought the double name too hick, and Alicia too dowdy and dweebish. Leesha was the only person who knew that in bed at night Falk prayed. It was her doing. When Falk’s mother and stepfather died the year before, Leesha’s mother took him in. Aunt Vicky had mixed feelings about this move. She had a problem child of her own and no spare bedroom. Leesha, who slept alone in the smallest room, on the bottom of a bunk bed, wasn’t surprised when he showed up. She knew her mother was a softie, with a weak spot for the orphaned teen.

Aunt Vicky made Falk move in right after the funeral. He said he could live on his own just fine, but she wouldn’t have it. She claimed she’d brought him into her house to keep him from going completely wrong. That evening they were all in the living room, cluttered and cramped, newspapers and remote controls on the coffee table, videos atop the TV, shoes on the shagcarpeted floor. Falk held a duffel bag of his clothes.

She asked him, You and Leesha can share a room, can’t you?

He nodded, his eyes looking away. I don’t want to be any trouble.

Don’t worry about that, said Aunt Vicky. It’s no trouble at all.

You better not toss and turn in your sleep, said Leesha. You do and I’ll end up smothering you with a pillow.

I don’t think I do.

She smiled at him. I’m just kidding. I wouldn’t smother you. I’d probably shoot you. She pointed her hand at him like it was a gun, shooting, making firing noises with her lips.

Alicia Ann? Let him be.

I told you not to call me that.

It’s your name, girl. That’s what you get called when you misbehave. Aunt Vicky gave Falk a wink. Okay then, she added. That’s what we’ll do. Now, honey, why don’t you go unpack your things. There’s towels in the pantry if you want to take a shower. Leesha, you come help with dinner.

Looking again at Falk, who was lugging his duffel down the hallway, Aunt Vicky said, Listen. I’m trusting you two to behave, sharing a room like this. You keep your hands to yourself, you hear?

Leesha said, Mom! That’s disgusting.

Falk tried to smile, seeing the looks on their faces.

I remember being seventeen, said Aunt Vicky. She shook her head. Any funny stuff and you’ll be sleeping outside with the dogs.

Leesha pushed her mother’s back and said, Everyone’s not a pervert. Like you.

The first night atop the bunk bed in Leesha’s room, Falk could barely move. He had never slept so close to a girl before. Leesha was fifteen then and pretty, pale-skinned, with a black teardrop beauty mark below her left eye. Her hair was dyed the color of sunflowers, coffee-dark at the roots, parted on the side. She pinned it in place with barrettes the shape of dragonflies, and highlighted her eyes with dark mascara and blue eyeshadow. He could barely breathe around her. That first night he changed into pajamas in the bathroom they shared, and when he returned she was already wearing a floppy T-shirt. He climbed the short ladder to his top bunk and said goodnight.

I’m not going to sleep yet, she said. I’m studying for a Spanish test, y yo estoy nada.

Falk heard Leesha turning the pages of her Spanish book below him and could smell her scent of soap and girl’s perfume.

I am nothing? he asked.

Oops. I meant, yo sé nada. I know nothing.

I know that.

Oh, great. Now I got a Spanish critic hovering above me.

I’ll be quiet, he said.

When she sneezed, he added, Bless you.

After a while she said, This is hopeless. I’m going to blow this, big time. And you know what? No es importante. She turned off the light and turned in her bunk below him, wiggling the bed.

They were both quiet. He could tell from her breathing that she was awake. Sleep tight, she said faintly.

You too.

After a while she said, What are you thinking up there? You’re still as a corpse.

Nothing.

I bet.

I’m trying not to bother you.

I can barely see your feet, she said. Your heels look like globs. They’re so big! You’re freaky.

Don’t look, he said.

Do you miss her?

The darkened room was a purple color, as of a deep plush velvet curtain, a fold into which they had stumbled. Who?

Aunt Cynthia. Your mother.

He took a long time to respond. The wait for his reply was as if he were walking around the shore of a pond. Finally he said, Yes. His voice was faint and brittle. Leesha heard him and her eyes swelled, staring open-lashed at the metal grid of wires and springs above her, atop which lay her orphaned cousin.

You should pray for her soul, she said.

I do.

You do?

Yes.

Show me.

Leesha heard the bedsprings squeak, the frame creak as Falk moved above her, until his face hung upside down in the purple darkness of the room, staring at her, his straight hair hanging down like fringe. He said, You don’t show something like that. It’s private.

She looked him right in the eyes like she had nothing to hide or fear. His hair was funny, hanging down like that. She said, I don’t believe you.

That’s your problem.

Prove it, then. Get down on your knees and pray for your mother’s soul.

She knew she shouldn’t be saying that but she didn’t care. She wanted to talk to him in the dark and it was the only thing that came to her mind. She always said what was on her mind.

His head disappeared, the bed creaked, settled. Finally he said, You can trust me.

I can.

You can.

Okay then. Sleep tight.

Later he let her see him pray. His hands together and everything. She loved him for that. She didn’t know any other boy in Goodnight who prayed with feeling. Plus she liked the way he carried his camera everywhere he went, his odd photos of people and the abandoned buildings around Goodnight.

For a cousin, she could do worse.

. . .

Now, a year later, on the night that Falk and Leon pulled the enormous zebrafish from the bay, he prayed for his mother’s soul, and that some good would come of the discovery of the fish. He told Leesha about the giant thing, about taking photographs of it, how Leon said they’d be worth something, maybe the Associated Press wire service would buy them. They were in the bunk bed, the lights off, talking as they had grown accustomed to do each night.

She said she’d bet money he was going to become a big-time photographer for National Geographic or Time magazine. I can tell, she said. I just know it.

Wishful thinking, he said.

You wait, she said. I just hope you’ll remember me when you’re rich and famous.

He laughed. After a minute he said, I doubt I’ll ever be forgetting you. But just in case, you should let me take your picture.

Now?

No. Sometime.

Why would you want to do that?

Because I want to. Because you have an interesting face.

She was silent below him. Finally she said, in almost a whisper, What a nice thing to say.

It’s true.

Okay then. But I might cross my eyes. Stick out my tongue.

I’ll do it sometime when you’re not looking.

You better not take one when I look stupid.

Don’t worry. You’ll be natural. You never look stupid.

I don’t know about that. Make me look like Uma Thurman or Nicole Kidman. Someone glamorous and elegant.

You’ll look like you, he said. Only natural. No poses.

She was silent. Falk’s brain was buzzing. He lay wide awake, staring into the purpled darkness. After a while he could tell she had fallen asleep from the sound of her breathing. He could smell her soap, her musky teenaged-girl perfume. Into the dark he said, I’ll take a picture of you. And you’ll be beautiful in it. When you’re not looking, he whispered. You won’t even notice.

AT THE CANOE CLUB on Cuerna Larga Road, the sign above the door read, A Nice Place for Nice People. Still you watched your purse or your wallet. Also painted on the outside was the legend: Beer. Wine. Set-Ups. In better days the rough-hewn building had been a barn for a herd of Santa Gertrudis cattle nervous from rattlesnakes nipping their hooves.

Now the floor was mottled gray concrete, cracked and treacherous, spotty with bloodstains at the end of a spirited evening. The ceiling was lofty and black with fruit bats. From the exposed rafters dangled fishing nets and tackle, Clorox bottles used as crabtrap markers. The club’s name came from an entire canoe poised above the crowd, athwart the rafter beams, beside it a jumbled collection of wooden oars.

When Una and Gabriel first arrived they waited at the door for the bouncer to check their IDs. Gabriel said, Come on, dude. We’re getting to be practically regulars here.

The bouncer was wide as an ice machine and had a crumpled, dome-shaped shaved head. Rimples of fat creased his neck. He nod­ded them in, saying, We don’t technically have regulars. All our patrons here are what you might call irregulars.

Hours later the air was blue with smoke and you couldn’t hear yourself think. It had reached the time of night when all the good people were home in bed and those left standing in line at the bar wondered what mistakes had led them to this point in their lives. When and if they wondered at all.

Una sat in a booth and arranged before herself, on the sticky tabletop, a zoo of colored plastic animals. Across from her Gabriel ranted. It wasn’t fair he’d lost his job. The world was going to shit. All the white assholes were ruining everything, the money grubbers. You be a cracker tourist you might as well be a vampire, he said. We should call them las blancas vampiras.

He leaned over the table. His face melted. His cheeks drizzled down as if he were a wax figurine in a museum on fire. Turista, vampira, he said. Same difference. Lo mismo. You suck the lifeblood out of other healthy people and turn them greedy and lifeless, except what they need instead of blood is money. Something to sell. A beach towel or an inflatable raft or a kite or a bottle of tequila. A margarita or their souls. All the same. All for sale to las turistas.

Una ignored him. She arranged her plastic animals. She was proud of them. Blue lions with curled tails. Orange long-necked giraffes. A red rhinoceros with a horn so sharp she wanted to poke Gabriel in the eye just to make him squeal. Pink elephants with S-shaped trunks. But she was missing something. She frowned. She needed a green monkey for her collection. Un chango verde. Da me lo. Just like your mother, squawking Spanglish.

She wondered who’d said that.

She had had too much to drink she did not feel good at all she should go home. She watched a tray full of drinks float by and on an elaborate daiquiri glass sipped a lime green monkey. She watched it float by and after a moment realized that was exactly what she needed what the fuck! She knew what she would do. She would find out who was drinking that. She would ask them pretty please can I have your monkey? That was a good idea. She nodded. She would ask sweetly. It worked every time. A pretty girl who asks sweetly always gets what she wants.

Across the table from her Gabriel sulked. He looked at her and said, What?

He faded in and out of focus. What what? asked Una. She stared at him as if he were a museum exhibit, a caveman in a natural history diorama: El Pescador Último. He was so handsome and such a fucker. A handsome fucker. Where did that monkey go?

What did you say? asked Gabriel.

Me? Una turned and stared behind her, then shook her head. I don’t know. She shouted to be heard over the tumult of the bar.

A waitress walked through the crowd calling out in a singsong voice, Last call for alcohol!

I don’t think I said anything. What do you think I said?

Gabriel hunched over the table. You said something.

No I didn’t.

I saw you.

You saw me say something? she shouted.

I saw you, Gabriel insisted. You nodded.

Una waved him away with one hand, as if he were nothing more than a horsefly at the beach. You don’t know what you’re talking about. She got up from the table, her legs wobbly. Before she left the booth she leaned across and hissed in Gabriel’s face, You’re a handsome fucker, you know that? But you don’t know shit.

Gabriel frowned. Don’t talk like that, baby. That’s not you.

I’m sorry, said Una. I think I need another drink. She stood up as if to head for the bar.

Maybe you’ve had enough, said Gabriel.

She looked at him for a moment. She said, And maybe I haven’t.

Una.

What? I’m not doing anything. Wait. Wait a second. I’ll be right back. I have to go find that monkey.

Gabriel said something she didn’t hear clearly.

What? Una leaned closer. What was that?

Save the last dance for me, he said. Gabriel wasn’t smiling. His words smelled of a veiled threat, a command to be followed.

Una leaned away from him, took a gulp from her margarita. That’s not what I thought you said.

What did you think I said?

She set her glass down sloppily, almost tipped over the table. I thought you said Save the lap dance for me. She laughed. Get it? Her eyes went big. My monkey! Where’s my monkey! I have to find that monkey!

She lurched into the crowd. A funhouse world undulated beneath her on the Tilt-a-Whirl floor. She tripped and stumbled. A lunk with long sideburns picked her up and when he did she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tight, clasping his neck as if it were the neck of a pony while riding bareback. Pony! she giggled.

He laughed. I think someone’s had too much to drink, he said.

A girl at their table pointed her beer bottle at Una. I know her. She works at the Black Tooth. She’s all right.

Una peered over the guy’s shoulder at the strange faces bobbing around the table. Do you have a green monkey? she asked. I need a green monkey.

What about the pony? asked the guy holding her.

Forget pony. I need my monkey. I saw it come this way? She nodded and closed her eyes as if she would fall asleep, curled against this stranger’s neck. I need it, she said. For my zoo.

Una cuddled closer to his neck. Pony, she whispered. She was dimly aware one of his hands was cupping her butt cheeks to hold her weight. It felt good. He was as solid as a tree. She heard Gabriel’s voice say, Get your hands off her.

The clamor of the crowded bar dimmed for a moment. People nearby turned to stare and grin, some stepping back a bit in case things got ugly.

Off who? asked her savior.

Off her. Off my girlfriend.

This your girlfriend? I don’t see any sign on her.

Pony, said Una aloud. Pony pony pony pony pony.

She doesn’t need a sign.

I don’t know about this. The drunken guy holding Una turned to the table of people he was with. What do y’all think?

The girl who knew Una looked at Gabriel and said, I think he’s had too much to drink, too. What we got here is a pair of drinking problems.

The whole table laughed. It was the same-old-same-old, a couple of drunks having a spat.

Then Gabriel reached out and swiped the drink glasses and beer bottles off the table. Glass shattered, ashtrays fell into girls’ laps, and one guy stumbled backward and fell on his ass in the confusion. Others jumped back and shouted.

From her angle propped against her savior’s neck, Una could see a girl who said, Now there’s no call for that.

Her savior said, The man is out of fucking control.

Gabriel took hold of Una’s wrist and started pulling her away. She felt the tugging and her arm stretched. A voice called, King? King, goddamnit. Goddamnit, King. Put the girl down and let these people alone. They got more troubles than we do. So let’s just stand aside and pretend this never happened. You’re going to get us thrown out, is what you’re going to do.

I’m not doing anything, said King. It’s closing anyway.

Una found herself back on her feet. Gabriel pulled her beside him and marched them through the crowd, people staring. In her ear he said, I’m going to get that big motherfucker if it’s the last thing I do.

Una tried to catch her breath. She told Gabriel to slow down.

I’m going to get that motherfucker, he said again.

Honey? Don’t. Really. I was just—

You were just what? he hissed. You were just going to leave me in a bar in the middle of fucking—

If you’d let me finish! she shouted. I just wanted a monkey for my zoo. If you wouldn’t always, I mean, slow down!

Una saw faces whirling by her in the crowd. Rubberneckers at a car wreck. She tugged her wrist and twisted her hand. Would you let go?

Gabriel hit the exit door with a sharp smack of his open palm and they stumbled into the parking lot, the light above them blinding their eyes, Una still fighting his grasp.

Get in the car, he said. Get in the car or I’m just going to leave you here, okay?

The humid air made Una want to wipe her face. She yanked her hand and said, Let me go! Would you let me go?

The heavyweight bouncer, Mr. Ice Machine, morphed out of the shadows and jabbed a wide hand in Gabriel’s chest. He looked like the kind of guy who would bite the head off a duck if he was dared to. He punched Gabriel with his open hand and said, Let the woman go, okay?

When Gabriel released her wrist Una stumbled into a car and banged her knee. Ow! she cried. She leaned over to rub the burning sharp pain. Oh, God, she said. She put one hand to her forehead. I don’t feel so good.

Behind her Gabriel swung at the bouncer but missed. He swiveled into a glossy black pickup truck and hit his head, then got back up. The bouncer smacked him openhanded on the top of his head, as if he were a giant bug. Gabriel got to his feet and swung again, but the bouncer stepped back and Gabriel’s hand smashed into the pickup’s wide side mirror, breaking the glass.

He winced, holding his right hand, and crumpled into the parking lot. Oh fuck, he said. Fucking shit.

Una crouched against the front fender of a car a few feet away. A wave of nausea crested and she puked onto the oyster-shell parking lot. After that her stomach felt empty, but she continued retching. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. She wheezed, trying to catch her breath through the mucus in her throat. One of the girls from the table showed up holding a green plastic monkey. She looked at the bouncer. I saved this for her, said the girl. I’m sorry. We didn’t mean anything.

The bouncer pulled Una’s hair out of her face. He said, Just get it all out, darlin’. Get that poison out.

People piled out of the bar, closing time. A guy in a crumpled cowboy hat walked up, laughing, until he stopped beside the glossy black pickup. What the fuck? Look at this. He neared his mirror, propped from the front right fender on metal struts like a piece of farm machinery. It was smashed and broken.

Now I don’t like this one bit, he said. Who the fuck broke my mirror? He saw Gabriel in the shadows, mumbling. Yo, little drunk dude? Tell me you didn’t just smash my mirror? Tell me that and everything’s going to be hunky-dory.

Fuck you, said Gabriel. You probably looked into it is what you did.

The cowboy lifted his hat off his head, sighed, and put it back in place, his shadow in the bright light above the entrance going tall, then shrinking into the parking lot and casting a pool of darkness. He stepped forward and neared Gabriel, who was still hunched against the back fender of the glossy pickup. He said, I guess I’m not as pretty as you.

You were born ugly, said Gabriel. And you’ll fucking die ugly, too.

Someone walking by laughed and said, Someone’s beggin’ for an ass-kickin’.

The cowboy turned to people walking by, said, I’m a reasonable man, is the truth. But this piece-of-shit taco eater, he broke my window.

Beside the building stood a yellow plastic mop bucket full of dirty brown water, a mop sloshed in it, a wringer mechanism on the lip of the bucket. The cowboy picked up the mop, a huge dripping filthy thing like a Rastafarian hairdo, and walked back to his truck. As Gabriel got to his feet the cowboy swung the heavy wet threads of the huge mop across his face, slapping him broadside with it. People groaned. Someone laughed.

Stinking mop water splashed all over Gabriel. He grabbed the mop head and jerked it out of the cowboy’s hand, then slipped on the wet asphalt and fell again.

As he started to get up the cowboy kicked Gabriel in the shoulder and knocked him against one great knobby-treaded tire. Hey, shithead! You know what your problem is? He kicked him again. You got to learn to keep your mouth shut, little shit! He kicked into the shadows again, his boot crunching against something. Gabriel scrabbled under the pickup like a spider.

Una stood upright. She was panting, trying to get her breath. Leave him alone! she screamed. He’s drunk! Can’t you see that!

The cowboy backed off, looked around at everyone, lifted his hat off his head again and replaced it. He raised his eyebrows at Una. Well of course he’s drunk, china doll. Hell. We all drunk. He laughed. That’s no excuse for anything.

Around him people climbed into their cars and trucks, slammed doors, started engines, turned on radios. We all of us drunk, the cowboy shouted into the humid wind. He shook his head. Don’t change a damn thing.

On the drive home Gabriel winced every time he shifted gears with his right hand. He stank of the filthy mop water and his face was disfigured with anger.

Una sat slumped and nauseated. I’m sorry, she said. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I was only looking for a monkey. You’re the one who overreacted. If you would have just—

Why don’t you shut the fuck up? Can’t you shut your fucking mouth? Is that so hard?

Don’t tell me to shut up.

I’ll tell you what I feel like telling you. Gabriel fished a cigarette out of the pack in his front pocket, his hands shaking. He punched in the cigarette lighter.

Una said, Those guys were assholes. We’re never going there again.

Gabriel refused to look at her. He put the glowing orange tip of the lighter to his cigarette and mashed it too hard, crumpled a kink in his smoke.

Una reached across and stroked his wet hair. Baby? Come on. Baby?

Don’t call me baby, he hissed. He brushed mop water off his forehead and wiped it on his pants. How could you do this to me?

Una turned away. Staring out the window, she watched the waves in the moonlight. I said I was sorry and you didn’t listen. You act like I was flirting with him. All I was trying to do was—

You’re drunk and disgusting. You think a man wants a drunken woman hanging all over strangers in a bar? Is that what you think?

I hate when you smoke. That’s what’s disgusting, if you want to know the truth.

Gabriel turned to glare at Una. She slouched in her seat, her head leaning out the window.

Are you going to be sick? If you’re going to fucking puke you better tell me to stop because if you get it on the side of my car I’m going to—

Gabriel pulled his El Camino onto the oyster-shell shoulder of Shoreline Drive. With the car suddenly stopped the air off Red Moon Bay reeked of salt and fish. A car’s passing headlights glared into the front seat and shone upon Gabriel and Una, their faces wooden and harsh. It seemed as if they had paused for a moment, unsure of which direction to go next, at a turning point, a fork in the straight road along the ocean.

Una rubbed her face and sighed. You know what? I’m not sorry. You think I did it to you? You’re pathetic. No hice nada. You did it to yourself.

You were the one hanging on that pendejo, said Gabriel. That’s what started all this.

I’m sick of this. It happens every time. You know that? I never have any fun.

You were hanging—

Maybe I should.

Should what?

I don’t need this.

Should what?

Una got out of the car, stumbling on the uneven shoulder of the road. Leave, she said. Just leave, okay?

Don’t push me, Una. Don’t fucking push me.

Go home. I don’t need you.

Gabriel watched as she stumbled down the shoulder of Shoreline Drive, illuminated in the headlights, her small body like a young girl’s, something forlorn and heartbroken in the way she moved alone on the road in the night. For a moment he considered running her over, just to put the both of them out of their misery.

He gunned it and drove off, the El Camino tires burning rubber on the rough asphalt, leaving Una in a cloud of burnt tire smoke and exhaust.