Crime Plus Music (26 page)

NO PLACE YOU'RE LIKELY TO FIND

BY ERICA WRIGHT

T
HE
PRIZES
WERE
TRIVIAL
—
A
ROUND
of well drinks, a twenty-dollar gift certificate to the local bowling alley, a T-shirt with the bar name misspelled. Cheap material to boot, not even those soft V-necks Penny liked to wear on buses. And she rode a lot of buses, forgetting sometimes to get off in, say, Montgomery because she thought she was going to Mobile. Or once, confusing Chattanooga with Charlotte. Where was she now? She squinted against the lights, but it was no use. Only the first row of tables was visible in the glare, half-occupied and fully bored. A woman smoked without touching the cigarette, letting the ash drop onto the floor whenever it felt like falling. The microphone smelled of vomit, and Penny turned away to make sure her guitar was tuned. Not that it mattered, she'd decided, after she was announced by emcee Glitter Jacket and his hiccupy laugh.
Ha-a-ha-a-ha-a-ha.

L
OUISVILLE
. N
O
,
JUST
OUTSIDE
. A one-bar town with a talent-show gimmick. It had even been advertised in the local newspaper with a full list of participants. She'd sent the link to her sister who didn't respond. Penny was following a magician with a bag full of birds who was following a ventriloquist with a seasick-looking puppet.
There are worse fluffers,
she thought, then bared her teeth in what might look friendly from the back. If anybody was there. She squinted again and like that—with narrowed eyes and exposed incisors—strummed the first chord of “The Greatest” by Cat Power.

A couple of months ago, there might have been a transformation. Penny might have imagined a hush, the stage lights like tropical sun, crooned herself silly with self-discovery. But the mic really did smell like vomit, and the lights made her sweat, a thin line rolling down her back into her jeans. “Once I wanted to be the greatest,” she sang.

The front-row lady's ash finally drifted down, and Penny watched, only partly aware that her voice still sounded out the words of what used to be her favorite song.
So it's like this now,
she thought, wondering if third place might earn her an extra whiskey for her troubles. Third was the best she ever did at these free-for-alls. Third place, and she'd sleep on the bus. It wasn't that hard to stay out all night in most cities. And if she made it to Florida, she could ride out the winter without needing more than the occasional motel room.

The bartender flipped on a blender, and Penny had what seemed almost like her old spark, an irritation at the person who ordered a daiquiri in a dive like this. Her journey had started with anger in a way. She'd slapped a kid for calling her a bitch, and not even the superintendent could get her out of a very public firing. “You should be grateful there wasn't a lawsuit,” Miss Tallysee from the Art Department had trilled.

“Once I wanted to be the greatest, Two fists of solid rock,”
she sang, getting to the refrain.
Bitch.
Penny should have told Miss Tallysee that using a pottery wheel wasn't the same as getting sixteen-year-olds to actually do their equations homework. Maybe if she'd seen the way Calvin scowled at her under his Red Sox hat, cocky to the point of delusion that he was one baseball scholarship away from being somebody who could call grown woman bitches and be praised for it.

One of the lights went out above her, but Penny kept singing, letting her adequate voice hit all the right notes. Each word died on delivery, no muscle but no mistakes either.
Coming soon to a shotgun wedding near you.

Her song ended soon enough, and she made her way to a barstool. The whiskey was formaldehyde strong, which kept Penny from gulping the whole thing and being done with it. She rolled a quarter around and watched men watch the pretty young thing on stage high kick to some prerecorded marching band dreck. The girl—just turned twenty-one, according to her rambling intro—might as well have been waving hunks of dead snake at a field full of hawks. Penny would have had some sympathy back in Baltimore or even Charlottesville, but those cities belonged to Angry Penny, not Hopeless Penny.
Who was judging this flea circus anyway?
Sometimes it was hard to tell, but she had her money on the owner's wife loitering by the sound booth in a pastel sweatsuit and rhinestone tiara.

The girl's music ended with a clash of symbols, and Twenty-One (yeah, right) twirled one more time for good measure, finishing two beats after the band. Then the whooping of course, the applause and stomping of predators sounding vicious against the plywood beneath their feet. Penny signaled for another, clapping when her quarter rolled out of reach.

The dancer made her way toward the bartender, beaming at her own triumph. She ordered a strawberry daiquiri and turned toward Penny, expectantly.

“Hey, nice song,” she said. “You write that yourself?”

Penny was excused from answering as the blender turned on. The emcee paused, too, shuffling his index cards and waiting for the racket to end. It did, and the bartender slid a dripping pink concoction toward the girl. She took a gulp and pressed at her temple. “Good and cold,” she said. “How I like my men.”

Penny didn't believe her, but didn't respond either. A girl like that at her former school? She'd have the pick of the litter. No boys with bitten nails and rebuilt junkyard cars. She was quarterback material, at least second string.

“I'm Lark, by the way. You a songwriter?” she tried again.

“Nope, I only play.” Penny took a sip of her drink and stared at the initials carved into the bar with ballpoint pens.

“My grandma on my dad's side paid for some piano lessons, but they never stuck. Dancing, though? Dancing came natural. Like your guitar, I bet.”

Penny glanced down when Lark gestured toward their feet where a plain black case sat, collecting whatever filth this place had to offer. Penny liked how nondescript it was and refused to muck up the exterior with band stickers. Besides, what was the point of advertising for other people and not getting paid for it? Lark kept talking, ignoring the slick man who sidled up to her and eavesdropped, looking for an opportunity.

“Community college, you know?” Lark said to Penny who nodded, unsure of the question. “Say, you look pretty out of it. They serve food here?”

The hoverer took his opening. “Fries and such. You want I get you some?”

Lark finally turned toward him. “Sure, aren't you a charmer?”

The man smiled and loped off. Penny rubbed her head, knowing she shouldn't get involved and knowing she would. There was something about these girls that always got to her. She never won any teaching awards, but she'd stay late to help the homecoming queen attendants, do her best to get them to look beyond the walls of a concrete classroom, its asbestos hidden like so many well-kept secrets: pot in the tampon dispenser, eight traffic summons in Mr. Mulholland's glove compartment, a first grader who bore a striking resemblance to Principal O'Connor. The kind of place to let indiscretions slide. Just not hitting a kid.

“Watch yourself,” Penny said, then cleared her throat to speak more forcefully. “He's no ticket out.”

Lark scrunched her delicate features in confusion. “Oh, the fries? Girl's gotta eat.”

She laughed, and the emcee seemed to sense her joy from across the room.
Ha-a-ha-a-ha-a-ha,
he boomed into the mic. “The judges have judged, and we have a winner, chickadees.”

The burned-out stage light hadn't been replaced, and his face was partly shadowed. He consulted his notes and awarded third prize, a set of shot glasses, to the ventriloquist. Penny held up her whiskey in mock salute, glad she wouldn't have to cart glassware around. The coffee thermos from Richmond took up enough space already. Second prize went to a trumpet player Penny had missed because she was late. The emcee made a spit-happy drumroll with his tongue, and Lark grabbed Penny's hand, hard. Startled, Penny found a small part of herself rooting, as well. When the name of a handsome singer in cowboy boots was announced, she was a little deflated by the faint blush appearing on Lark's cheeks. The girl had planned to win.

“An inside job,” Penny said, giving the girl's hand a squeeze before letting go.

“How you figure?”

Penny nodded at the tiara-clad wife-turned-judge for the evening who thought nobody noticed her patting the cowboy's backside in congratulations.

“Oh well, isn't that the pits.” Lark tugged at one of her spandex sleeves until it covered her wrist. She let go, and the fabric snapped right back to mid-forearm. “I guess it's like that everywhere.”

Penny started to object, but stopped when Lark's attention whipped toward the plate of fries and onion rings headed in her direction. The man carrying them grinned like he was delivering something he killed and cooked himself.

“Watch yourself,” Penny said again.

Without turning, Lark scratched at her ankle, knowing Penny's eyes would catch the silver glint of a holster and a doll-sized pistol. Real enough for its unimpressive size. Penny should have been relieved by a young woman taking care of herself, but instead she was uneasy, sure that at some point her luck would run out. It always does.

The night's live entertainment was at an end, and the jukebox blared to life. Customers began shouting their conversations, but Penny didn't care. She didn't have anything to say to anyone. Her drink was mostly water from melted ice cubes, and she swirled the liquid. Buzzed but not drunk yet, she wondered if she should call it a night, but it was ten, and her bus didn't leave until eight the next morning. As far as she could tell, there wasn't too far to meander in this town. Twenty minutes on foot would take her to the outskirts, and she'd never been that keen on wildlife.
Bugs. They grow giant bugs in the South.

“A drink for my friend, please?” Lark signaled to the bartender who slung a wet rag over his shoulder and pulled out the cheapest bottle of whiskey available. He served it up neat, and Penny didn't complain. You'd think he'd remember a small thing like ice.
You'd think a middle-aged ex-schoolteacher wouldn't be blowing through her savings to lose a country's worth of talent shows,
Penny reminded herself. She'd gotten better, lately, at perspective.

Lark plowed her way through the food and ordered another daiquiri, everything going on the man's tab. Penny hated to see the scene if she didn't give him her number at the end of the night. Number? Hell, he'd probably expect more than that. Penny hiccupped, surprised to find her glass empty all of a sudden. Not surprised to find she liked how the room seemed softer, the way voices altogether sounded like the whirring of a film reel. Not even the sad country song, something about empty beds and early mornings, dimmed her mood.

She eased herself off the stool and headed toward the bathroom, liking the hot sensation in her cheeks. She was warm, Florida warm, and if she could make it another 1,200 miles, she could survive the winter in Key West without too many motel rooms. Had she said that before?

“Sounds like a good plan,” Lark said, holding onto her elbow. Had Penny said that aloud? Must have.

They stumbled through the ladies' room door, and Lark locked it behind them. The noise from outside was still there, pushing in on them, but for a moment, they were cocooned.

“Only us girls,” Lark said, pulling down her pants and hovering over the toilet. Penny turned toward the window and listened to the stream of urine. “You mind opening that?”

Penny unlatched the frame, and it groaned up, letting crisp air into the space. The alcohol-induced heat left her skin. She didn't think it was right that she had seen this stranger's panties, but she couldn't say why exactly. Maybe the more and more certain feeling that Lark was a teenager with a fake ID. The toilet flushed, and Penny headed toward the door.

“No, your turn,” Lark said.

Penny hesitated then unzipped her own jeans and sat, not up to squatting above the seat. At first, nothing happened, then four drinks took over. Lark swung herself up onto the windowsill—half-out, half-in—and leveled her gaze at Penny. “Better?”

Penny nodded, thinking that the girl might escape into the night, leave the bar flirt waiting for her with a fresh drink. She turned to flush, but the tank hadn't refilled, and the toilet paper swirled.

“Just a sec,” Penny said, wanting desperately to be out of the room. She was embarrassed and ready to leave the night behind her. She waited until the familiar suction sound of the flapper, then pushed down again on the handle. She moved quickly to the sink, and that's when she saw that Lark had removed her pistol and was fiddling with the cylinder.

“You should use a stage name,” Lark said, squinting at the circle of bullets then popping them back into place.

“Excuse me?”

“Penny McAllister isn't that glamorous.” There wasn't any soap, so Penny ran her hands under the water, then wiped them on her pants. “Makes you easy to find, too.”

Despite her haze, Penny knew what to expect when she looked up into the mirror. Not the red blotches that had appeared on Lark's face, but her unsteady hands holding the gun in front of her.

Penny thought at first—back in Providence—that she'd been running toward something, each new state a step closer to redemption, a life worth more than a lost pension. But no, aren't we more often running away from ourselves? Aren't we dodging the devil until he's done playing?

“Here's as good a place as any, I suppose,” Penny said.

“Calvin and me were going to start a life together. Then he starts losing. Missing pitches, missing practice.”

Penny sighed when she should have screamed. Not that anyone was going to hear over the music. “That kid was going nowhere fast. You're better off rid of him.”