The Black Train (17 page)

THE RAILROAD SPIKE
, read the awning sign.

Just what I need, another bar…

A swing door with a circular window opened into murky darkness. Cigarette stench smacked him in the face, and the place smelled like stale Miller Lite. A long bar descended deep, with padded stools as though the place had once been a diner. Collier peered through murk but saw no sign of Jiff. A woman sat alone in a booth, applying lipstick, while several men eyed him from another booth. The bar itself stood tenantless.

What a dive,
Collier thought.

A tall barkeep cruised slowly down to his spot. His apparel seemed off-the-wall and then some: a leather vest with no shirt beneath it, and he had a haircut that oddly reminded Collier of Frankenstein’s monster. He held a shot in his hand, slapped it down on the bar, and slid it to Collier.

“That’s a tin roof, just for you,” the guy said in a wrestler’s voice.

“A tin roof?” Collier questioned.

The keep rolled his eyes. “It’s on the house.”

“Uh, thanks,” Collier said, dismayed.
Damn, I hate shots, and I don’t want to stay if Jiff’s not here.
But he’d feel rude in declining. He sat down at the cigarette-burned
bar top. Collier downed the shot.
Not bad, even though I HATE shots.
“Thanks. That was pretty good.”

“Glad you liked it, Mr. Collier, and like I said, that’s on the house. I heard you got to town yesterday. It’s damn exciting to have a TV star in my bar.”

It never ends,
Collier’s mind droned.

“I love your show, and it’s good luck, you being a beer man and all.” The keep extended a huge hand behind him, to a row of beer taps. “We’re not some redneck dump here, Mr. Collier. We’ve got the
good
stuff here.”

Collier was almost visibly offended by the typical domestic beer taps.
I wouldn’t drink that stuff if you had my head in a guillotine
…“Uh, actually, I was just passing through—”

“Oh, Buster!” a tinny voice called out from one of the booths. “He doesn’t drink domestic beers! Give him a Heineken. On
my
tab.”

Collier quailed. “On, no, really, thanks but—”

The green bottle thunked before him. “That’s on Barry over there.”

Collier slumped. His raised the bottle to the guy in the booth—whom he could barely see—and nodded. “Thank you, Barry.”
Damn
…At least Heineken was a beer snob’s Bud, which could be drunk in a pinch. But Collier didn’t want to drink anymore. “Say,” he addressed the keep, “I’m looking for Jiff Butler. Could’ve sworn I saw him come in here.”

“Oh, that explains it now.” The keep seemed gratified.

“Explains what?”

“Why you’d be coming into a place like this. I got a pretty good eye, you know? I pegged you as straight.”

Collier blinked. “Huh?”

“But how can you be, if you come in here looking for Jiff?” The keep smiled and began polishing some highball glasses.

“Wait a minute, what do you mean?”

“This is a gay bar, and I didn’t make you as gay.”

Collier blinked again, hard. “I didn’t, uh, know this was a gay bar…”

Suddenly the keep’s friendly face turned belligerent. “What? You got a problem with gays?”

Jesus
…“Look, man, I’m from California—I don’t care what people’s preferences are. But I’m not gay. I had no idea this was—” All at once, Collier considered the bar’s name, and felt asinine. “Ah. Now I get it.”

The keep looked quizzical. “And you’re here looking for
Jiff?
”

“Well, yeah. I’m staying at his mother’s inn. I wanted to see if I could borrow his car, but—”

“He’ll be out in a minute…Say, do you know Emeril?”

I sure know how to pick ’em,
Collier thought.

He almost knocked his Heineken over when an arm went across his shoulder. A handsome man in a business suit cocked a smile. “You say you need a car, Justin? Wanna borrow my BMW?”

“Uh, uh—no. Thanks—”

A squeeze to the shoulder. “Love your show.” He shot a finger at the keep. “His next one’s on me.”

“Oh, thanks, but—”

“That Ken doll who just bought you the beer is Donny,” the keep told him. “Donny, leave Mr. Collier alone. He’s
straight.
”

“Oh…”

The man disappeared in murk.

Collier leaned forward and whispered, “Hey, tell me something. If this is a gay bar, why’s that woman sitting over there looking like she wants to get picked up?”

The keep chuckled. “That woman’s name is Mike. I’ll call him over if you want.”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, please. No.” Collier’s heart surged. “I was just curious.” He tried to clear his head. “Did I misunderstand you? Did you say Jiff was here?”

“Yeah, he’s in back. He won’t be long.”

“Oh, you mean he works here?”

The keep grinned, revealing a Letterman-type gap between his front teeth. “Sort of. And now that you mention it, he owes me some money…but that’s another story, Mr. Collier.”

This was too weird.
I’m sitting in a gay bar drinking mass-market beer,
Collier realized. And another thing:
Jiff’s obviously gay—why else would he “sort of” work here?
No wonder the young man hadn’t been interested in the eye candy at Cusher’s last night.
And Sute…Could he maybe be an ex-lover of Jiff’s?
Sute had seemed distraught enough, but the rest didn’t add up.
Jiff’s young and in good shape, Sute’s old and fat…
Collier didn’t care—he just wanted to borrow Jiff’s car. He stood up and looked at his watch—one thirty. Still plenty of time to be ready for his date tonight. “Say, where’s the bathroom?” he asked the keep.

“You’re
standing
in it!” a voice called from the back booths. Laughter followed.

“Don’t listen to those queens, Mr. Collier.” The keep pointed. “Down that hall, last door on the left.”

Collier smiled uncomfortably when he passed the other booths. Men barely seen in the shadows all greeted him and complimented his show. The hallway was even murkier; he practically had to feel his way down.
Did he say last door on the left, or right?
Only a tiny yellow makeup bulb lit the entire hall. He saw a door on either side.

Then he heard, or
thought
he heard, the words: “Get it, come on.”

Collier slowed.
That sounded like Jiff
…But where was he? In the bathroom?

Dark light glowed in an inch-wide gap at the last door on the right.
That’s not the bathroom, is it?
There was no sign.

Then he heard: “Yeah…”

A man’s voice but definitely
not
Jiff’s. Collier peeked in the gap.

He didn’t know what he was seeing at first, just…two shapes in the murk. Only a distant wedge of light lit the room, which looked like a lounge of some kind. There were several ragged-out couches, a table, and some beanbag chairs. The shapes he’d seen were moving.

Jiff’s voice again: “Ya better get it soon, your thirty bucks are runnin’ out.”

Collier’s vision sharpened like a lapse dissolve in reverse.
You’ve got to be shitting me!

Jiff was in there, all right, bent over like someone touching their toes. He was also naked. Another man stood behind him, buttocks pumping…

Then, “Yeah…”

The motion slowed, then stopped, and the shadows separated. The other man, exhausted now, gushed, “Thanks, that was great.”

“Glad’ja had a good time,” Jiff’s voice etched from the dark. “So where’s that thirty?”

Collier pulled away and slipped into the bathroom opposite.
Now I’ve seen everything.
He backed against the bathroom wall, squinting from the sudden change of dim light to bright light.
Jiff’s a male prostitute. He turns tricks, and J.G. Sute must be one of his clients.
It was an age-old story that worked for gays and straights alike: the Fat Older Man falls in love with the Hot Younger Prostitute—then gets rebuffed.
That must be why Sute was nearly in tears during lunch.

The bathroom was more like one in a gas station. Collier relieved himself, then washed his hands, thinking,
I guess Jiff’s mother doesn’t pay him enough at the inn.
He wasn’t as shocked as he would expect, but suddenly a curdling image assailed him. The scene he’d just witnessed in the little lounge room, only with J.G. Sute as Jiff’s customer…

He waded back through the darkness toward the bar.

“You don’t mind, do you, Mr. Collier?” the keep said, surprising him at the end of the hall.

“Whuh—”

The keep put his arm around his shoulder, then—

“Say cheese!”

snap!

Somebody took a picture of them. The sudden flash left Collier blind.

“Thanks, Mr. Collier,” he heard the keep say. A hand on his arm led him back to his bar stool.

“That’ll look great, framed behind the bar. Our first celebrity!”

Collier could barely see.
I better get out of here and sober up before tonight.
He reached for his wallet.

“Oh, you can’t leave yet, Mr. Collier. Frank and Bubba bought you beers, too.”

“No, really, I have to—”

“Aw, come on. It’s not every day we have a TV guy in here.”

I guess one more won’t kill me,
Collier thought, but was still semishocked by the revelation of what Jiff’s “handyman” work really was.

He spent the next hour trading banter and TV stories with the keep and other patrons. The beers slid down fast, and God knew how many autographs he signed. “Oh, that’s right,” the keep eventually remembered, “you wanted to see Jiff. Mike, go back there and see what he’s up to, all right?”

The beautiful female impersonator rose from the booth, went down the hall, then reappeared a few moments later. “He’s not there, Buster,” Mike said in a silky voice. He hoisted his bra beneath a tight blouse.

They seemed to be shielding the conversation from Collier, but even through the alcohol haze, he could hear traces: “He’s supposed to slip me a ten each time.” “He probably went out the back.” “How do you like that!”

The extra beers were exactly
not
what Collier needed. He felt narcotized. “Problem?” he asked, when the keep came back.

“No, no biggie, Mr. Collier. But I’m afraid Jiff’s gone; he must’ve left out the back door. If he comes in later, I’ll tell him you were looking for him.”

“I’m sure I’ll see him back at the inn…”

A Pabst clock told him it was past two thirty now.
Less than five hours and I’m on a date with Dominique
…The fact buffed off the weirdness of his current situation. He was determined to leave soon; he needed some time to nap off his buzz. He had one more beer to be polite, but then his head was spinning. He put a twenty down for a tip, took another fifteen minutes saying good-bye to everyone, and at last stumbled out into daylight.

Holy smokes, I’m drunk out of my gourd…

He had to concentrate on each step.
Focus, focus!
he ordered. If he fell down on the sidewalk, everyone would see. By the time he got to the end of the street, that last beer was overriding his liver. Collier walked as though he had cinder blocks tied to his shoes.
Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall,
he kept thinking.

When he looked down Number 3 Street, he saw a drove of tourists moving toward him.
There’s no way I can fake it,
he knew,
and with my luck they’ll all want autographs. I’m so stewed right now I doubt that I could sign my name…
He made a forty-five-degree pivot on the sidewalk—
Here goes!
—and walked right into the woods.

I’ll walk through the woods around the hill. No one’ll see me, and that’s a good thing because I’m pretty damn sure I’m gonna fall on my face a couple of times.

Among the trees, he found a convenient footpath, then—

flump!

—fell flat on his face.

The town buffoon,
he thought.
Me. Washed-up TV hasbeen alcoholic wreck and L.A. burnout useless waste of
space! Gets shit-faced in the middle of the afternoon…
Collier hoped there was no afterlife. He didn’t want to think that his dear dead parents might be seeing him now, lamenting tearily, “Where did we go wrong?”

He dragged himself up, then lurched from tree to tree for about a hundred yards. He could only sense where the inn was.
Over there someplace,
he thought, and gazed drunkenly left. He squinted through double vision, saw that he still had about four hours before his date…

I can’t make it, I need to sit down for a little while.
His butt thunked to the ground, and he thought he heard the seat rip open. He heard something else, too, a steady disconnected noise…

Running water?

He shot his face forward and thought he saw a creek burbling through the woods.
I ought to go put my face in that,
he considered, but now that he was down, he wasn’t getting up. There was no bed to spin here, only the woods.

He nodded in and out. The steady sound of the creek reminded him of those sleep-machine things that supposedly offered calming sounds but only wound up alerting the sleeper. He nodded off again, quite heavily. He felt as though he were being buried in sand.

Pieces of dreams pecked at him: the clang of railroad workers, and men singing like a chain gang. He dreamed of Penelope Gast fanning herself in a posh parlor as female maids tended to her, and then he dreamed of the smell of urine.

A splendid horizon, into which a steam locomotive chugged briskly, smoke pouring, and a whistle screeching as it disappeared into the distance…

“I wanna do it, too,” the voice of a young girl whined.

“Don’t be stupid!” insisted another older-sounding girl.

The brook burbled on, but beneath it crept a fainter sound:

scritch-scritch-scritch

“Then let me do it to you…”

“You’re too little, stupid! You’d cut me!”

“No I wouldn’t!”

Something like alarm pried open Collier’s eyes. The voices weren’t from a dream. He craned his neck and stared forward, at two young girls doing something near the creek. One dirty blonde who looked about thirteen or fourteen, and the other about ten, with a ruffled helmet-cut like a 1920s flapper, the color of dark chocolate. They were both barefoot, wearing white smocklike dresses.