A Certain Slant of Light (15 page)

  
Mitch shook his head. "Light me a cigarette."

  
The Rusty Nail was a large, barnlike building with a huge
neon sign blazing the name in red light on the outside and an in
festation of cowboy and mining antiques floor to ceiling on the inside. A butter churn, cracked and useless, hung mounted high
on one wall—a relic from my forgotten days as outdated as a
Roman chariot.

  
The bar was veiled in smoke and the dining room clashed
with noise. Mitch and James found Rayna, the young woman
from the night before, sitting in the bar with her pirate by her side. Apparently his name was Jack. Others were with them:
Chris, a muscular man with a shaved head and a tattoo of a shark
on the back of his hand; his sweetheart, Dawn, who had short
black hair and wore a short black dress; Libby, Dawn's sister, a buxom girl with black curls and a red shirt with a green dragon
on it. They were already drinking.

  
"Who's this?" asked Libby, giving Chris a push.

  
"You met Mitch before," he said.

  
"No, this one," she said, watching James.

  
"That's his brother, Billy," said Rayna. "Too young for you,"
she warned.

  
"Hell, no such thing," said Libby.

  
I hovered away from them, staying in the corner beside a buf
falo head that hung on the wall, as they slid into a large booth. James, who sat on the end, scanned the room until he'd located
me. I had been to many restaurants with my hosts, especially
Mr. Brown, but with James it was different. He was so conscious
of me.

  
Libby sat between Mitch and James, her hand on James's
thigh, the shiny nails, like little crimson beetles, hopping on his
knee. He lifted the hand and placed it on her own lap, as if it
were a dead rat. She smiled at him and gave him a playful swat
on the wrist as if he had been the one flirting.

  
The others ate and laughed and smoked cigarettes. James sat
as far from Libby as he could without falling out of the booth.

  
Libby stretched, the dragon on her shirt expanding in a mute
roar over her breasts. "Are we going dancing?" she asked. "I
wanna have fun."

  
Then there was a discussion about movies, and finally they
were moving toward the door and putting their coats back on.

  
"We got five in our car," Rayna told Mitch. "Can you two take
Libby?"

  
I followed them at a distance as they split into two groups in
the parking lot. The older men went to inspect Jack's new truck
while the women cornered James against the rusty car.

  
"Is Mitch okay about Jill dumping him?" asked Dawn.

  
"I guess," said James.

  
"Who's Jill?" Libby asked.

  
"Ex-girlfriend."

  
"What's this bruise?" asked Rayna, tilting James's face toward
the streetlight.

  
"Nothing."

  
Libby stood with the other girls but stared across the parking
lot at Mitch like a carnival gypsy about to guess his weight.

  
As they left for the movies, Libby sat in the front with Mitch.
James got into the back seat. I joined him. He was so relieved, he slumped back as if exhausted.

  
"What's wrong with you?" asked Mitch, watching him in the
rearview mirror. "Never mind. I'm sorry I asked."

  
"Want me to sit back there with you?" Libby offered, turning
around in her seat and winking at him.

  
"No!" said James. "No, thank you."

  
As we drove under the flashing street lamps, James had his
hand resting on the door handle. He fingered a tear in the uphol
stery. He looked at it closer and pulled on the corner of something. It looked like a square of paper. James slid it out. It said
Trojans on it. James laughed and felt in the tear again. This time
what he pulled out was a tiny envelope. He went white.

  
"What's wrong?" I asked.

  
He opened the envelope and looked in, then closed his eyes in
pain. He glanced quickly in the rearview mirror. Mitch had his
eyes on the road.

  
"You seem tense," said Libby, putting a hand on the back of
Mitch's neck. "I give great back rubs." Then she leaned toward
his ear and her hand slid down his arm and out of view. "I give
great all kinds of rubs."

  
The car swerved and Libby giggled.

  
"Christ," said Mitch. "What're you doing?"

  
James tried to push the envelope back into the hole in the lin
ing of the door, but it wouldn't go in far enough. Next came the
sound of a siren. Lights began to flash in the opposing lane.

  
"Oh, God," Mitch moaned, slowing and letting his head drop to the back of the seat.

  
"No," James whispered.

  
"Is that for us?" Libby sounded shocked.

  
Mitch parked by the curb and put his head in his hands.

  
"Don't worry, sugar," said Libby. "I'll talk to him. I can be
very persuasive."

  
The police car parked, facing Mitch's vehicle, pointed the
wrong way, lights blazing in through the windshield like a light
house warning.

  
"Do not mess with him," Mitch warned Libby, rolling down
his window.

  
"Good evening," said the police officer. James ducked down
behind the. seat. "Is everything all right with you folks?" the po
liceman asked.

  
"Sure," said Mitch. "Was I speeding?"

  
"No, sir. Could you please show me your license and registra
tion?"

  
James motioned me closer and whispered, "Tell me when the
other one looks away from our car."

  
I passed through the door and found that a second man was
sitting in the police car.

  
"Would you mind stepping out of the vehicle?" said the first
officer.

  
"What did I do?" asked Mitch.

  
"Just step out."

  
I moved to the patrol car, watching the second officer, who sat
inside, chewing gum and filling out a form on a clipboard. Mitch
got out of the car, and the first officer shone a small flashlight in
his eyes.

  
"Have you been drinking tonight?"

  
"One beer," said Mitch.

  
"Who's with you, sir?"

  
"Just a friend and my kid brother."

  
I watched the second officer lean down to take a plastic bag
out of a box on the floor. I called to James, "Now!"

  
James's car door opened. He dropped the tiny envelope down the sewer drain.

  
"Is that your brother?" asked the first officer. He shone the
flashlight in the back seat. "Please step out of the vehicle, sir."

  
James climbed out of the car. The second officer joined his partner, and they looked at everyone's ID, searched the car with
flashlights, gave Mitch and James breath tests to see whether
they were intoxicated. Neither was.

  
"Why didn't you give me a test?" Libby asked, as if insulted.

 
 
"Well, ma'am, it seemed quite likely that you had been in
deed drinking but that you were not under age and that you had
a designated driver."

  
"Guess what?" she said, as if bragging. "I was the one that
made him swerve." She laughed. The officers just stared at her.

  
"You know what I mean," she said, coyly. "I was getting a little friendly."

  
"In my opinion," said the first officer, not even inspecting her
dragon, "that would seem like a very bad idea." He tore off a
ticket from the pad he held and handed it to Mitch.

  
"Please stay in your own lane in the future," he told Mitch. "And please respect your driver," he said to Libby. Then he
squinted at James. "You look familiar."

  
"He has one of those faces," said Mitch. "Thanks."

  
Mitch made Libby sit in the back seat alone. I waited beside
the car, and when James glanced up through the window and mo
tioned to me, I passed through the car door and sat on his lap.

This was a very strange sensation. I could feel a tingle drum up and down my body everywhere we were touching. I wasn't sure
what it felt like to him, but he held the door handle and the back
of the car seat tightly. At the theater parking lot, when the others
got out of the car, I stood by his door, but James didn't get out.

  
"Now what?" asked Mitch.

  
"I'm coming," he answered. He opened the door and stood up slowly. I walked beside him, the others far ahead. He didn't look
at me.

  
"Was that Billy's treasure you found in the car?"

  
James sighed. "It's frightening not knowing what the boy
might have done that'll come back to bite me." His voice was low,
but Mitch turned and looked back at him. James shrugged as if
he didn't know what he wanted. I admired his mastery of
twenty-first-century body language.