Bull Head (5 page)

“Worried about a break-in?” Earl says.

Hammy laughs.

They shake hands in front of the guards and cameras and prison-yard workers.

“We can't help who we are or what we've done. We just have to keep trying to move forward, right?” Hammy's eyes dart back and forth; he gives Earl an everything's-a-okay smile. “I sincerely wish nothing but the best for you, Big E.” He turns and limps toward the main part of the prison, one guard in front of him, another behind him, his mesh bag of belongings slung over his shoulder, Earl's T-shirt baggy on him; a little boy being sent off to summer camp.

Earl stands alone in front of the prison, unsure of what to do next, where to go. “Hey, Hammy,” he shouts out. “Wait a sec.”

Hammy does not look back.

F
RESH
M
EAT
F
RIDAY
, the bar crowded with men from all over the valley who have come to see the new lineup in town. As Lonnie squeezes into a chair next to Ricky, the men behind him murmur that they paid good money for their seats, sit the fuck down already. They hunch over low tables, pink fleshy mouths gaping like wounds, dirty boots, fading mack jackets, and ball caps pulled down low. Sausage fingers pinch the necks of their beer bottles; eyes blink dull and dim, gawk at the stage. Beneath a mirrored ceiling of red, black, and blue spotlights, the stripper is down to a policeman's hat and PVC thong. “Dirty Laundry” booms through the bar. Ricky clamps his arm around Lonnie, tells him to ignore them, orders another round of overpriced Jack shooters, chased by the beer special.

“Whoo-hee! If she's not the hottest cop I've ever seen.” Ricky leans forward, his tattooed arms and sharp elbows splayed on the stage.

The stripper swings from a gold pole by the crook of her arm. Her hair spills down her back like sun-bleached barley, silver anklet twinkling in the lights. She pivots on five-inch heels and squats, crushes her inflated breasts together, pretends to lick the length of the brass pole. The room grows rigid, a collective
holding of breath, so silent that Lonnie hears the woman's skin squeak against the pole as she lowers herself and crouches before him. Ricky and the men behind him exhale a low, hoarse whistle and for a moment Lonnie imagines a scent of sagebrush and pine needles, deep from the valley's farthest corners, instead of the cheap cologne and rank sweat of men around him, breathing through their mouths like dogs circling for scraps.

Behind the stage, a football game plays on the large screen. The Patriots complete a pass in their hurry-up offence. The stripper stands in front of Lonnie, pulls a finger out of her holster, takes aim at him, fires, and blows the tip of her French-manicured nail. Her green eyes stop on him, sum him up in a flash, and quickly dismiss him. Pass incomplete. Second down.

“Heard anything?” Ricky stares straight ahead.

“Nope.”

The song ends and “All Out of Love” begins. The seats creak, men shift behind him. After three long dance numbers, the stripper circles the stage with her tattered Navajo blanket, one hand to her ear while men whoop and holler and wave.

“Right here, baby.” Ricky thumps the stage with his palm and holds up a folded five-dollar bill. The quarterback scrambles for a few yards before he slips out of bounds. The stripper fluffs open the blanket, spreads it in front of them. Lonnie senses the men behind him lean forward, waits for one of them to pat his back in a sad, conflicted gesture of brotherhood that comes when men drink beer and watch naked women together.

“That's what I'm talking about.” Ricky tosses the note on the blanket, slaps Lonnie on the shoulders. “House arrest, big man.”

Fourth down. Lonnie shakes his head. The stripper slides
toward him on her hands and knees, stares at Lonnie with a look that could split firewood from a hundred yards. She holds up a pair of handcuffs. A silver key glitters from a thin chain on her neck. The men behind him yell, pound their tabletops with their fists. One of them taps Lonnie on the back, pushes him toward the stage. Ricky holds out his wrists and grins. She shimmies closer, sits on her heels and bounces up and down, pinches her nipples and tips her head back in a soft, well-rehearsed moan.

“Sentence me, baby. Give me life.” Ricky pulls out another fiver and drops it next to her. She smiles and grabs Ricky's head, smothers his face against her chest. He gives the thumbs up and men yell, raising their drinks in the air. She pushes Ricky away and turns to Lonnie; with a pout, she reaches to touch his bad eye with her fingernail. Interception. Lonnie freezes; her face softens. He jerks his head back, stands, and marches across the bar to the door marked G
ENTS.

The toilet is empty, quiet. Back in the bar the men chant, “Shower, shower, shower.” Ricky's voice croaks above the rest.

Lonnie looks into the mirror, examines the black and purple bruise spreading outward, thinning into jaundiced yellow. Another week and it will fade. He scrubs his hands with a cracked, filthy bar of soap. His gold wedding band is buried in the flesh of his finger, but grazes him when he splashes water on his face; he wants to drag the edge of it along his skin, scrape his face into something grotesque. Lonnie stands back from the mirror and sucks in his belly, pulls up his pants, cinches his belt a notch, but it only hurts his hip and makes his stomach look larger when he inspects his profile from the side. “You're not fooling nobody, lard-ass.” He pinches the doughy folds of flesh, jiggles them in
his fingers, imagines slicing them off to give himself the flat washboard look he convinces himself he once had when he was younger. “All Out of Love” starts again near the end of the song, an encore; the men roar and slam tables. Lonnie pulls his shirt-tails out and swings the door open.

Ricky waves a rolled-up poster at the waitress, points to his shooter glass, and raises two fingers. The stripper meanders between tables, leads a grey-haired man by the hand. Just a salesman, not a real working man, Lonnie decides. Her red satin housecoat pulled tight at the waist, she carries a bundle of clothes and her blanket, handcuffs dangling from her fingers. She offers Lonnie a weary smile. He stands aside; his butt pushes against the chair backs.

“See you around.” She brushes past him. The old man follows, raises his eyebrows in a conspiratorial glance. They wind their way through the bar toward a doorway marked N
O
E
NTRY
. She shoulders the door open, pulls the man in, and bumps the door closed with her hip.

Lonnie joins Ricky, grips his shoulder. “Sorry, bud, gotta go.”

“What? Duos are next.”

“See you in a few days.”

“What the hell, big guy? I got shooters coming.” Ricky taps Lonnie's stomach with the poster. “Christ, she's got you by the short and curlies.”

Lonnie raises a fist as though to punch him. Ricky doesn't move.

“Hit me.” They bump fists. “Later.”

Lonnie glares at the men sitting behind Ricky. One of them lifts his bottle and sneers. “You have yourself a good night.”

He leaves through the back, passes the N
O
E
NTRY
door. At the
edge of the parking lot, two does graze on pine needles, lift their heads, and scamper into the trees. He climbs into his rig, lights the diesel, reaches for a pack of bubble gum, unwraps two pieces, and pops them in his mouth to mask the stink of beer. He starts the engine, slips the truck into gear, and begins the hour-long drive home.

The fresh tang of summer dusk rushes through the cab window. The sky a dark sepia film, two ravens swim over the road, land on the shoulder and hop off into the ditch as Lonnie's truck rumbles toward them. He drives east along the Crow, built on the dry bed of the Elk River, cutting through the once sacred land of the Kootenai. Narrow valley bottoms crowded by the granite billows of sharp mountains. The sun drops off the horizon behind him, casts shadows over the eastern hills. These mountains are his home, not Dani's. She came to ski, and like many others, did not leave after the snow melted and the prairie crocuses sprouted up. As he clears the tunnel, Bull Head Mountain comes into view, towers over town, the postcard-perfect shadows showing a Kootenai Chief and his daughter on horseback, legend has it, chasing another man. It gives Lonnie the creeps each time he sees it.

He pulls up on the patch of dirt in front of his boyhood home. Spackled siding with shards of broken glass mixed in; faded porch boards in need of paint. The curtains are drawn, but the living room light is on. Next door, Johnson waters his garden, the embers of his cigarette glowing in the darkness. A glass of homemade plonk sits on top of Lonnie's low fence.

“Long day?”

“You know it.” Lonnie stands at the rotting fence, careful not
to lean on it. Another item on his long to-do list of repairs around the house. “We've been hauling near 120 Mile, Top of the World.” Johnson's black and tan barks, strains against a short, frayed rope tied to the porch. The water dish lies upside down. Fresh mounds of dug dirt stack against the side of the house. Lonnie catches a whiff of dog shit.

“Cutting that far back now, huh?” Johnson shakes his head. “Hell, we used to cut near the front of the valley. The trips short and sweet. I'd get five or six in a day, take a dip in the hot springs and still be home for dinner and a tumble in the sack. Those were the days.”

A lanky blond boy carries a stack of fresh poplar limbs into Johnson's house. Lonnie considers what he'd use them for, too green to burn. Another boy sits on the ground, pushes a dump truck back and forth, scoops shovelfuls of mud into the back of it and then tips it out. The third boy stands beside Johnson's leg, tugs on his belt loops.

“Hi, little fella.” Lonnie reaches to tousle the boy's hair, but he turns away. The dog barks.

“Goddammit, shut that mutt up.” Johnson turns to the boy, smacks him on the head. “Where's ya manners?” The boy stares at Lonnie. “They'll be the death of me,” Johnson says. “Starting with her.” Johnson nods toward his wife coming up the alley. She's heavy and bloated and carries two garbage bags rattling with empty cans and bottles. A small boy drags his feet behind her. “It's a race I got no chance of winning.”

The dog pulls at its rope, its barks turn into high-pitched yips. Dani was right: the wife is pregnant again. Her theory that Johnson keeps getting her pregnant so they can collect child
allowance from the government to supplement his disability cheques seems about right. Lonnie nods, but her face remains passive as she walks past them and enters the house. The little boy next to Johnson runs in after her.

“Jesse, shut that goddamn dog up.”

Jesse pushes the toy truck, dumps another load of mud, and kicks the truck on its side. He slaps the dog's head with a plastic shovel. The dog yelps. Jesse lifts his shovel again. The dog cowers and whimpers.

Johnson crushes his cigarette against the fence and slides the butt into his cigarette pack. He takes a long guzzle from his glass. “I want to show you something. Gimme a minute.”

While Johnson disappears inside his house, Lonnie studies Johnson's greenhouse, brightly lit, but covered with a thin black screen, making it difficult to see the leafy plants growing inside. Johnson has told Lonnie he grows tomato plants, but they don't smell like tomatoes. He comes out carrying a rifle, glances up and down the alley, cocks the lever-action.

“Check it out. 1892. Modelled after the gun that won the west.” Johnson lifts it to his shoulder and aims down the alley. He pushes the rifle toward Lonnie. “Go on, take it.”

“That's all right. It's a fine looking gun.”

“C'mon. Try it. She pulls a bit to the left but she's honest. A real collector's piece.” Johnson offers it with both hands. “Careful, she's loaded.”

Lonnie takes the rifle. It feels lighter than it looks, makes him anxious, as if it could go off at any moment and change the course of his life. But what makes him more nervous is the knowledge that his neighbour stores a loaded gun in a house with a pregnant
wife and five boys. That would be a deal breaker for Dani. If she found out, they'd have to move out.

“It's yours. Hundred bucks.”

Lonnie shakes his head, hands the rifle back to Johnson. “I better get home.”

“I'd do the same if I had a pretty little lady like yours. Eighty.”

“You don't understand. It's not the money.”

“A hundred then. It's still a steal. I know you're good for it.” Johnson picks up his bottle and crosses the alley. “Sleep on it.” He raises his glass and enters his house.

Lonnie walks across the yard, opens the door to his truck, slips the gun behind the back seat, covers it up with his Storm Rider, and climbs the front steps of his porch.

Inside, the house is warm and smells of chili. A wooden spoon rests against a plate next to the stove. He kicks off his boots, lifts the lid, sniffs, picks up the spoon and digs into the pot, blowing on the chili to cool it before taking a mouthful. An empty wine bottle sits on the countertop next to the toaster and coffee maker. He reaches inside the pot to get another taste.

“Don't stir with that spoon.” Dani startles him, leans against the doorframe.