Sharyn McCrumb - Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Other Stories

“Old times.”

“I lost big tonight at the tables. I played seventeen in roulette a dozen times and it wouldn’t come up for me. Seventeen-my number!”

She caught herself nodding forward, and forced the number seventeen to roll around in her memories. Oh, yeah. “ ‘Seventeen, My Heaven Teen,’ ” she murmured. “That was your big hit, wasn’t it?”

“I got a Cashbox Award for that one. S’in the den at my place in Vegas. Maybe I’ll show it to you sometime.”

“Wouldn’t your wife object?”

She heard him sigh. “Jeez. Trina. What a cow. She was a showgirl when I married her. Ninety-five pounds of blonde. Now she acts like giving me a blow job is a major act of charity, and she’s in the tanning salon so much she looks like a leather Barbie doll. Not that I’m home much. I’m on the road a lot.”

“Yeah. It’s a tough life.” She pictured him in a suite the size of her apartment. Maybe one of those sunken tubs in a black marble bathroom.

“It’s not like I’m too keen to go home, you know? I have a daughter, Claudia, but jeez it breaks my heart to see her. She was born premature. Probably ’cause Trina was always trying to barf up her dinner to stay skinny. She’s never been right, Claudia hasn’t. Brain damage at birth. But she always smiles so big when she sees me, and throws her little arms out.”

“How old is she?”

“Twelve, I guess. I always picture her when she was little. She was beautiful when she was three all over. Now she’s just three inside. Her birthday is the seventeenth of June. My lucky number. Seventeen.”

“Not tonight, though, huh?”

“No. Tonight it cost me plenty. I shouldn’t bet when I’m loaded. Loaded drunk, I mean; the other kind is never an issue. I like to be with people, though. I’d like to be with you. You don’t have an ax to grind. You’re not like these glitter tarts here, running around in feathers, can’t remember past 1975. You’re good people, Maggie. Look, can I come over sometime?”

“I bet you get lotsa offers,” said Maggie, hoping somebody else would take the heat.

“I like you,” he said. “You’re real. Like my kid. Not just some hard-ass in the chorus line with a Pepsodent smile and an angle. I’ve had a bellyful of them.”

She shouldn’t have let him tell her about his kid. It made her think of Richie, and made her think that maybe Devlin Robey hadn’t had it all his way like she’d figured. All of a sudden, he wasn’t just some glossy poster that she could toss when she tired of it. He was a regular guy with feelings. And maybe she owed him. After all, she had used him as her fantasy all those years ago. Maybe it was time to pay up.

“Okay, like Tuesday? That’s when I’m off.” She could send Richie to her folks in Rockaway. They kept talking until his voice slurred into unconsciousness.

“Your monogamous John is here,” said Cap the bartender, nodding toward table seven.

“Yeah,” said Maggie. She’d already seen Devlin Robey come in, trying to look casual. He came three days a month now, whenever he could get away from his casino gig. Sometimes it was her night off, and if it wasn’t he’d sit at number seven until closing time, nursing a Dewar’s-water, and trying to keep a conversation going as Maggie edged her way past to wait on the paying customers.

On her nights off they’d eat Italian, which meant mostly vino for Devlin Robey, and then go back to her place for sex. Robey was only good for once a night, so he liked to prolong it with kinky stuff, strip shows, and listening to Maggie talk dirty, which she found she could do while her mind focused on planning her grocery list for the coming week, and thinking what she needed to take to the cleaners. She felt sorry for Robey, because he had been famous once, and the coddling he’d received as a star had crippled him for life. He couldn’t get used to people not being kind anymore; to being ignored by all the regular folks who used to envy him. Whereas she’d had a lifetime of getting used to the world’s indifference. But he had been her idol, and he had once stooped down to be kind to her, a nobody, with a beautiful, sincere handwritten letter. So now he needed somebody, so it was Payback. And Payback is a mother. She thought about how famous he was while he grunted and strained on top of her. She pictured that airbrushed poster on her wall.

“Maybe you should charge him,” said Cap, as she was about to walk away.

“I ain’t on the game,” said Maggie.

“Didn’t say you were. But you’re providing a service. Shrinks charge, don’t they? And they got more money than you, Maggie dearest.”

She shrugged. “Some things aren’t about money.”

“Well, if money is no object with you, you can leave early tonight. You might as well. It’s dead in here.”

He said it too loud. Devlin Robey heard him, and she saw his face light up. No use telling him she was stuck here now. Thanks a heap, Cap. At least Richie was gone-sleeping over at Kevin’s tonight. Devlin Robey was already putting his coat on by the time she reached his table. “Boy, am I glad we can get outta here! I’m afraid I might have company tonight.”

His face was even more like a fish belly than usual, and his eyes sagged into dark pouches. “What do you mean, company?” asked Maggie, glancing toward the door.

“Tell you later.”

They went to a different Italian restaurant, but it had the same oilcloth table covers, and the same vino, which he drank in equal quantities to the usual stuff, and she had the angel-hair pasta, less rubbery than that of the old place. He wouldn’t talk about company , while they were eating, but he kept looking around, and he whispered, even when he was just talking to her. She had to get him back to her place-in a cab, because he was scared to walk-and get two cups of black decaf down him, before he’d open up.

“Tell me,” she said, and she wasn’t being Fantasy Girl this time.

“It’s okay.” He took a thick brown envelope out of the breast pocket of his suit, and laid it on top of the stacks of Redbook and Enquirer . “I got it covered, see? Most of it anyhow. I think it’s enough to call the dogs off.”

“You’ve been gambling again,” she said.

“Hey, sooner or later seventeen will sing for me again, right?”

“So you owe some pretty heavy people, I guess.”

He shrugged, palms up. “It’s Atlantic City. They’re not Boy Scouts. I was supposed to meet them tonight with the cash, but I was a little short. Had to come up here, hock some things. Borrow what I could from a homeboy, and hope I got it together before they came looking for me. Now I’m okay. I can take the meeting. It’s not all there, but it’s enough to keep me going. I wrote a note with it, promising more next week. I got record royalties coming.”

Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “Why’d you want to see me?”

“Not for money!” He laughed a little. “Maggie, this is way out of your league, doll. You just keep your stash in that cookie jar of yours, and let me worry about these gentlemen. I just came to see you ’cause I love you.”

He probably does, Maggie thought sadly as she led him to the bedroom. He can see the reflection of the record album poster in my eyes.

It was past two when she got up to take a leak. Robey had been asleep for hours, sated with sweat and swearwords. She saw the envelope lying on the coffee table, and scooped it up as she passed. Might as well see how deep he’s in, she thought. Was saving a fallen idol part of the deal? Maybe she could talk him into getting counseling. Gamblers Anonymous, or something. She wondered why dead and famous were the only two choices some people seemed to want.