Running the Bulls (17 page)

“I'll lift and carry,” Howard said to Pete. “You pack 'em into the truck.”

***

It had taken them almost two hours to load all the boxes into the back of the big rental truck. At least, it had taken Howard that long. Pete had found one excuse after another to avoid work, cigar breaks being at the top of the list. And several times, declaring he could function no more without water, Pete had knelt by the outdoor spigot where Howard usually attached the garden hose and drank from the flow, his lips wrapped around the faucet like some kind of mutant horse. Howard's impulse had been to run over and kick Pete's ass, but then, the moving was
his
fault, not Pete's. All Howard could do was carry away the contents of his life, pack them neatly into the back of the rental truck, and then drive away from the suburbs, toward the nasty cluster of billboards and businesses downtown.

Now, aching and tired, he was sitting atop one of the lopsided stools in the Holiday Inn lounge as Larry sang “Candle in the Wind” to the happy hour crowd. It was the song Elton John had written about Norma Jean Baker, also known as Marilyn Monroe, and it was causing Howard Woods a great deal of pain. It wasn't that he missed Norma Jean, or gave a hoot about her tragic life. It was because the sadness in the tone of the thing reminded him of his own sadness. But that was the general concept behind happy hour: render everyone so miserable and depressed they'll drink barrels of booze.

Wally came by and put a postcard down on the bar in front of Howard. It was from Freddy Wilson, the Mattress Mogul. The picture on the front was of a seedy-looking pinkish hotel in the Bahamas.
This
is
where
Howard
Hughes
lived
for
a
time,
Freddy had written on the back. Apparently, Freddy had beaten the postcard back to Bixley. According to Wally, the Mattress Mogul, like some kind of Elvis impersonator, had “just left the premises.”

“That's his cigar,” said Wally, and pointed to the still smoking butt in the ashtray at the end of the bar. And then Wally went to clean the ashtray, fearing, no doubt, another assault from Eva Braun.

“Hey, Dances with Bulls!” Pete shouted from a nearby table. Howard ignored him. Minutes after they'd arrived at the lounge, Pete had spotted two plump, fiftyish women sitting by themselves for a happy hour drink. It had taken him just seconds to ingratiate himself, and now he was perched in a chair between them, hitting on the more attractive of the two. Howard knew that this was the exact verb that was taking place since Pete had said so. “I'm gonna go hit on those girls,” Pete had declared, as he took his martini and strutted off. As far as Howard was concerned, the only
hitting
Pete Morton should do at his age was that of a baseball to a grandson. And now, Pete was trying to enlist Howard into the action. He turned on his stool, away from Pete and the women, to listen to the last of Larry's song.

“Hey, soldier, when do you ship out?” he heard Pete shout from behind him. Howard picked up his rum, downed it, and motioned to Wally that he wanted another one. Just as Wally put the fresh drink down on the bar, Howard felt a soft tap on his shoulder. He spun around on his stool, ready to inform Pete Morton that it was time for him to grow up, and that's when he looked into the face of a woman with eyes so blue they defied sensible genetics.

“Loretta,” she said, and held a hand out to Howard, who took it. She had probably been a natural blond once, but now her hair was a Hollywood blond, and this made her eyes that much more unreal.

“I've never seen eyes so blue,” Howard admitted. He simply couldn't quit looking at them.

Loretta leaned in close and confessed, “Contact lenses. But don't tell.” Perfume hit Howard's nostrils and a sweet, sickly taste appeared in his mouth. He had always hated too much perfume. “Why don't you come join us?” Loretta added. “Your friend tells us you're about to go to Spain and that you may not be coming back.” Loretta smiled at this. So, they were having a little joke about his running of the bulls, were they?

Howard looked over at Pete, a cigar butt peeping from the corner of his mouth, as if he'd just swallowed something with a stubby brown tail. Pete held up his martini glass and toasted Howard from a distance. Howard looked back at the fake blue eyes before him.

“Pete's a funny guy, all right,” Howard said. “And now that the penicillin seems to be working, it's good to see him dating again.”

***

By seven o'clock that evening, Howard had dialed both Ellen's home phone and her brand-new cell phone several times, but no answer. The rums had come in a steady stream, some being charged to his own tab, some from acquaintances who drifted in and out of the bar all afternoon as happy hour turned into happy evening. Pete had finally gone home to his wife, and the azure-eyed Loretta had gone to a birthday party, taking her friend with her. Now the people in the lounge had become a dreamlike kind of people, the mood in Howard's brain switching from sad to pleasant, then more pleasant, then very pleasant. Fuck Ellen O'Malley Woods! Fuck her, and the horse she rode in on. Ben Collins would be a good name for that horse. Fuck them both. He had even dialed up her home phone yet again to tell her this. And yet again, her answering machine had clicked on. This time, instead of just hanging up so that she wouldn't know it was Howard calling, he had taken the time to leave a message.

“Fuck you and your horse Ben Collins!” Howard had said, noticing for the first time a sudden thickness to his tongue. “Fuck Buffalo and your friend Molly!” He hung up and then instantly called back. “And fuck those fucking pots you've been making! And your cell phone! And your fucking ballet classes!” Then, he slammed the receiver down. There, that ought to prove to Ellen that he had accepted the idea of divorce like a gentleman.

On his way back from the men's room, where it seemed the rum would never stop pouring out of the end of his dick, he stopped to request “Never Been to Spain” again. Larry Ferguson nodded, nervous suddenly, as if anxious for Howard to go sit down. Howard found this odd. He'd been requesting the song every half hour, and Larry was playing it almost that fast. Three Dog Night had been one of John's favorite groups. How did Howard know, back in those years when he was listening to “Never Been to Spain” blasting from behind his son's locked bedroom door, that it would one day be his own theme song? He couldn't. Life was such a hoot, and Howard Woods was beginning to prefer it that way.

At the bar, he discovered a rather attractive young woman in a smart red suit sitting on the stool next to his. Wally had just put a Bloody Mary down in front of her.

“Is it a double?” she asked Wally, who nodded his head, terrified. Howard smiled what he hoped was a sexy smile as he slid back onto his stool. He lifted his rum, held it up as a toast. The woman looked over at him. He guessed she was in her thirties.

“Here's to divorce,” said Howard. “The legal alternative to murder.”

At this, the woman smiled. She clinked her Bloody against Howard's rum, and then they both drank. Howard wished Pete was still around to see him
hitting
on a woman so young. Pete should save his energy for moments like this, and not for the Abigails of the past. Not for fake blue eyes.

“I'm Donna,” the young woman said. She put her hand out and Howard took it. “You're one of the regulars, aren't you?” Howard lifted her fingers up to his lips and kissed them. A glob of spit stayed on the hand, and so, gentleman that he was, he wiped it away with his shirtsleeve. He heard Wally drop something from behind the bar. It crashed and broke. Larry suddenly couldn't remember the words to the song, or so it seemed, for he quit singing.

“You're a good-looking young lady,” Howard said then.

“You're not so bad looking yourself,” Donna replied, and it seemed to Howard that she honestly meant it. She tilted her head then and looked closely at him. Was she being seductive? Was this a female signal, a transmitting beacon? Howard grinned. He couldn't help himself. Jesus, it was good to be alive. Why shouldn't he be talking to this woman? He was almost divorced. He was certainly retired. And he still had between his legs the pump nature had given him. Why the hell not?

“Here's to life,” Howard said, and they toasted again, taking long drinks. Then, as fast as it had come, the smile was gone on Donna's face.

“My boyfriend just broke up with me,” she said, lip trembling. “He's gone back to his wife and kids.” At this last disclosure, she burst into tears. Wally appeared instantly, like someone shot from a circus gun, the Human Cannonball, a stack of napkins in his hand. He put them down in front of Donna, who grabbed one. Howard took a second napkin and held it out before her, waiting, a kind of backup for when the first one grew soggy.

“Do you know what the problem is with men?” she asked. Howard shook his head. He didn't. “They spend ninety-five percent of their time thinking about their penises.” Howard considered this. That was a lot of time. How did he ever manage to read
The
Iliad
twice, not to mention Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Dickens?

“I haven't thought of my penis since I got back from the mens' room,” Howard told her. Donna smiled at the joke. It seemed to placate her.

“Okay, ninety percent,” she said.

“I just moved all my stuff out of my wife's house,” Howard confessed then. It felt amazingly good to be confiding in a stranger, someone who didn't know Ellen, who could remain, if not on Howard's side, then at least neutral. Donna blew her nose now on the napkin and tossed it down on the bar. Wally fetched it up instantly, disposed of it in the trash barrel.

“Bring me another double Bloody,” Donna told him.

“Put that on my tab,” said Howard.

“Oh, don't be silly,” Donna laughed. “I'm not one of those broads who sit in bars hoping men will buy them drinks. Besides, mine are all free. I manage this big white elephant.” And that's when the disco ball in Howard's head slowed its spinning. He now realized why Wally had become like some pathetic Step 'N Fetch It, why Larry had launched right into “Crocodile Rock.” This was Eva Braun sitting next to him, two of her three sheets already flapping in the wind! Good Christ, but Howard Woods was hitting on corporate America in a skirt!

“I came to this shit-pile town to save this dump from extinction, and what do I get for it?” Donna said. “Deceit and lies.”

“I know all about that, sister,” said Howard, sympathy now seeping from his pores, along with rum.

“For five years he's been getting a divorce,” Donna said now. “He promised.”

Howard slammed his glass down on the bar. “You heard the woman!” he shouted to Wally, who appeared to be frozen in front of the cooler. “Another double Bloody!”

***

Larry Ferguson had to get used to the sight of a sweaty Howard dancing with Donna Riley, aka Eva Braun, before he could even play “It's All in the Game.” But Howard did what he used to do on all those anniversary celebrations over the years. He requested his and Ellen's favorite song.
Many
a
tear
has
to
fall.
His shirt had dark wet moons under both arms, but he didn't care as he pulled Donna up close to him. She had taken off her red suit jacket earlier, a corporate red all right, a dress-for-power color. All evening Howard had watched the movement of breasts beneath her white blouse, as if they were sleek, white dolphins swimming just beneath waves of silk. Now, he could feel those breasts against his chest as he and Donna danced, slow, sensual, pelvis to pelvis. Twice, she had lifted herself up, unsteadily, on the tips of her feet, to kiss Howard on the lips. And he had kissed back, even allowing some of his tongue to wander into the arena of her mouth. He had stopped caring that Wally and Larry were watching every move he made, every move
she
made. As far as Howard was concerned, there was just the two of them, just him and this firm young woman who was going places in the corporate world. Now and then, he looked over toward the blue beads on Larry's forehead to request another song. “Never Been to Spain” had become the most popular one of the night.

“Let's get out of here,” Donna whispered, and Howard nodded.
Let's do that,
he wanted to say, but words were not important just then. They were on the same wavelength, he and Donna Riley, their two broken hearts joined on that night, in that seedy lounge, to make one good, solid heart.

***

Between the two of them, and what with holding each an extra drink which they'd brought from the bar, it took Howard and Donna Riley twenty minutes to get to his room. Part of the delay had been in Howard's insisting they stop at the pay phone where he again dialed Ellen's answering machine. This time, laughing too hard to say anything himself, he had handed the phone to Donna and motioned for her to speak. She had done so, pretending into the receiver that she and Howard were having wild sex.
Oh, Howie, baby, oh that feels good, that feels so good, do it again, Howard, oh baby!
And then she had hung up. Howard couldn't remember when he had so much fun. But that was before Donna put her two Bloody Marys down on the floor and again took off her red jacket.

“Come on, bulley bulley,” Donna said, beckoning to Howard. “Look what I've got.” She then flapped the red jacket back and forth as Howard thrust fingers out from each side of his head, implying that horns grew there.

“Olé!”
Howard shouted, as he charged the red jacket. But Donna whipped it out of his reach.
“Olé!”
he shouted again, as he turned and came charging back. For five boisterous minutes Howard had charged Donna's red jacket, there in the long hallway of the Holiday Inn. Twice, sleepy guests had complained by opening their doors and threatening to call the manager. This caused even more mirth as Howard covered his head with Donna's jacket and listened while she explained, between fits of giggles, that
she
was the manager.