Robert Tanenbaum - Absolute rage

"What I can't believe is we're having this conversation. You are honestly, really, not going to have any sex at all until you're married?"

"Uh-huh." She gave him another of those light-filled grins. In the bright sun her tan eyes seemed disks of flashing gold. "At which point, I expect to be completely insatiable. They'll have to pry me off it with a sharp tool. And who can tell, you may be the lucky man."

At these words he felt a thrill go through him, lust mixed with terror.

She added, "But meanwhile I would love a beer in your low dive."

"You would?"

"Uh-huh. I trust you, and also I have a big, ferocious dog with me. And I can outrun you."

With that, she spun around and took off, racing along the edge of the lake, with the black dog at her heels. Dan stood there for a moment, slightly stunned, watching her run, those long legs graceful as birds' wings. She was like something out of a fairy tale, the kind of girl who might, in some shady wood, turn into a deer or summon a unicorn to her lap. Heart thumping, he began to run after her.

The roadhouse was a low, windowless, concrete structure, painted tan, plopped like a discarded brick on a gravel lot. Lucy put Magog under the Land Cruiser with a pan of water and a handful of dog biscuits and followed Dan through the olde-saloon-style swinging doors. Inside it was surprisingly cool, smelling dankly of old beer, the air stirred by ceiling fans, the light dim and colored by several beer signs over the bar and a large TV with the volume off showing a stock-car race. Pinball noises and the click of pool balls came from an adjoining room. In the saloon proper half a dozen country boys and a fat woman in a halter top were engaged in serious drinking. They looked up briefly when Dan and Lucy entered and then went back to their drinks. Dan sat Lucy at one of the eight tables and brought a pair of Coors longnecks from the tired-looking blond woman at the bar.

"So," he said after a long swallow, "do you feel your virtue giving way yet?"

"It's pretty depraved. We don't have anything this bad in New York."

"Just wait. You might get to hear some uncouth language in a while. Someone might even hurl a sexual innuendo."

"Well, let's hope it doesn't happen. I don't want to have to change my underpants again."

"Yes, and you're always making that kind of dirty remark. I mean, if you're going to be a prude, you ought to act like one. How come you're not grim-faced and shockable like the born-againers at McCullensburg High?"

"I'm sorry if I inflame your lusts even more than they are by my preternatural physical beauty…"

"And you keep knocking the way you-"

He stopped abruptly. Something had gone wrong with his face, the expression frozen, the color draining from it so that his lips looked almost blue. He was sitting facing the door. She had her back to it, and he was staring past her shoulder. She turned to look and saw three men walking in, just past the swinging doors.

"Oh, shit!" said Dan under his breath.

The three men went to the bar and loudly demanded beer. They were obviously already drunk: two big ones-one rawboned with an ugly weasel-sneering face, the other huge, neckless, gut hanging over the broad belt of his jeans-and one smaller with a pretty-boy face bleared by drink, with sleepy, sly eyes. Some altercation at the bar. The woman didn't want to serve them. The pretty boy vaulted the bar and extracted a double handful of beers from the cooler. They leaned against the bar and drank, glowering at the occupants. The other drinkers had fallen silent.

The no-neck said, "Hey, Bo. Go put some music on. This place is fuckin' dead."

Bo went to the jukebox. It started to play Merle Haggard's "Okie from Muskogee."

Lucy knew who the men were without being told. She had more acquaintance with killers than most girls her age, and she understood what she was looking at. Next to her, Dan sat frozen, staring at them.

They must have felt the stare, or else their eyes had now adjusted to the gloom of the barroom, for the ugly one said, "Hey, Wayne, ain't that Dan Heeney sittin' there?"

The big one stared and showed brownish teeth, a gap-toothed grin. "Yeah, Earl, I believe it is. How're you doin', Heeney? I hear your brother's in trouble. Hey, boys, let's go cheer old Dan up."

They clumped over to the table and hovered. Wayne said, "Now, Heeney, I want to know why Emmett'd do a mean thing like that? I mean, killin' his folks and his pore little sister. You all must've had a piss poor upbringin', what d'you think, boys?"

Earl said, "Yeah, and his brother's sittin' in the jail, and he's out drinkin' with some damn ugly girl. Heeney, you must be getting some kinda fierce pussy, to go out with a girl that plain."

Wayne said, "Yeah, now that you mention it, Earl, I don't believe I ever have seen a girl that flat-chested. You need to put them things back in the oven for a while, honey, get a little more rise outen 'em."

Then, to everyone's surprise, Lucy said, in a loud, clear voice, audible throughout the bar, over the music. "Yes, I used to worry about it myself. 'Oh, why don't I grow breasts?' I cried about it for years. Now I've come to accept it as my fate. And isn't that the real secret of happiness? To love your fate? Amor fati, as we say in Latin. How much happier you would be, for example," she added, looking directly at Earl, "if you truly accepted your ugliness and lack of intelligence. You would not feel impelled to take out your rage by doing sadistic and cruel acts."

Someone sniggered at one of the back tables. Lucy now looked carefully at Bo Cade. There was something off about him that she found interesting, something that distinguished him from the other two. He had composed his face into a contemptuous sneer, but it had no depth. "It's true," she said in the same tone, "what you feel is real. You're not like them. It's hard to go against your own blood, but sometimes you have to. Drinking doesn't help, really."

Bo opened his mouth in shock and then shut it with a snap. The others seemed not to have heard any of what she said, although Earl was conscious of having been insulted, and his slow brain was contemplating revenge. Wayne understood only that this little bitch who should have been quaking in terror was not, and it made him cranky. He was a good deal quicker than his cousin Earl, however, quick enough to see something pass between Bo and her, although not to understand it.

"Hey, little Bo, she likes you," Wayne said. "Why'nt you ask her to dance? I bet she's a real good dancer. Lady, you touch that fuckin' phone and I'll rip it off the wall and shove it up your sloppy old cunt." This last shouted to the bartender, who had been edging toward the pay phone on the far wall.

Wayne resumed, "Yeah, I want to see some dancing. Bo, go play that song again, and we'll see if Miss Smart here'll dance for us. Go do like I said, Bo."

Bo hesitated and then went and put another quarter in the slot.

When the music started again, Wayne said to Lucy, "Now, get up and dance!"

"I don't care to, thanks," said Lucy.

"Well, I don't give a shit what you care to, honey. Just for being pert, you can dance nekkid. We'll see if you got no hair on your pussy like you got no titties."

When Lucy didn't move, Wayne grabbed her left arm and jerked her to her feet. Dan came out of his chair with a bottle in his hand, but Earl was ready for him and landed a solid punch on the side of Dan's head that knocked him sprawling. He got to his knees, and Earl kicked him in the ribs.

"Don't you ever watch movies?" Lucy asked. They all stared at her. "Every single movie you ever saw, a bunch of thugs goes into a place and abuses respectable people, and every time, something terrible happens to them. You're those guys now, and something terrible will happen to you if you don't stop this right now."