James Crumley - One to Count Cadence

"Yeah, guess so," he said, then laughed. "Shit, yes."

They drank silently for a few minutes, acknowledging each other's sadness, but soon were scolding the darkened air with words again.

Later she began talking about herself, saying, "And as long as I'm careful about choosing my friends, neither too straight, nor too gay, I live the good life. The only thing," she said, pausing, then looking directly into Morning's eyes, "The only thing is that this is a dead-end bag. I've found a couple of chicks who thought they could make the permanent scene with me, but both of them finally asked me to drop out of drag, and I wouldn't. Sometimes I even think about a family, oddly enough, but then I wonder what would happen if a kid of mine found out about me. I'm foul enough; no need to pass it on. I get enough ass off latent dikes; I'm beautiful; I'm happy." She smiled, happiness professionally touched with sad eyes.

"That's what counts, man," Morning said.

They drank, talked some more, then Morning realized that it was past time for his first set. Too drunk to sing, he called his boss, who said, I know your ass is downtown drunk with that naming queen of a bastard, and Morning said, My ass is here, yours is there, shove my guitar up it and smile. Thus went his job.

When he went back to his stool, he found a slick middle-aged man who fancied himself a swinger sitting there, putting a big play out for Linda. Morning sat on the other side of her.

"Kansas City, Kansas," the traveling man was saying. "Sales. Regional director. Electronic bookkeeping equipment." He then thrust out a hand at Morning, an aggressive hand, saying, "Howard Tingle. Electricity in that hand, boy," then laughed, and squeezed Morning's hand.

Morning winced in mock pain, saying, "Hey, cat, lay off the hand, huh?"

"Young fella like you ought to keep in shape, boy," he said, slapping his gut. "Hard as a rock, all the way down," he smirked. "Handball twice a week at home. Swim in motels on the road, but not always in the pool." He laughed again. "You young kids shouldn't let yourselves go like that."

"Yeah, man, I'll take up toilet tilting tomorrow," Morning said, but the salesman had already turned to Linda, whispering in her ear.

She laughed, half-turned her head to wink at Morning, then seductively poked the john in the ribs. She led him on for nearly an hour, matching Morning drink to drink. The three of them moved to another bar, a place where Linda and the salesman could dance and cuddle in a booth. The salesman tried to kiss her on the dance floor, but Linda leaned back, coy as a high school girl, and shook a finger at him. Morning had to grin drunkenly at himself. After one song, she swept by the table for her purse, then pranced, hips thumping under the tight red satin, to the rest room, whispering over her shoulder to the salesman, "Now don't you be a bad boy and try to peek."

"Boy, oh boy, that is some woman," he said, sitting across from Morning. Sweat beaded his forehead and he wiped at it with a cheap handkerchief, his face slack with whiskey. "Say, I'm not messing anything up for you, huh? Hate to do that," he chortled, unbuttoning the blue collegiate blazer he affected.

"Not a thing, man."

"God, she's some broad."

"She'll show you things you never dreamed of, man."

"I'll show her something she's always dreamed of," he said, patting the lump in his crotch.

"Go, baby, go."

Even in the dim light from the jukebox Morning could see the heavy coat of fresh lipstick gleaming like a wound on Linda's mouth as she walked back to the table, a smile of anticipation curving across her face.

"Let's dance," she commanded.

They swayed close, slowly, and Morning saw Linda place a perfect lip print on the salesman's rolled oxford collar, then the salesman was trying for her mouth again. She avoided him, laughing, teasing, until the end of the song when she turned away then quickly spun back, grabbed the salesman's face, and kissed him long and hard, the muscles of her neck rippling like her tongue in his mouth, but she pulled away before he could raise his startled arms, and ran giggling back to the table. Morning didn't answer her grin; he turned his face, then ashamed, turned back with a slight smile.

The salesman stayed on the dance floor, stunned as if the red on his mouth came from a fist, but then he came at the table, lust ugly on his face. He cornered Linda like a dog after a bitch, clung to her mouth as if receiving life itself from her, his hands clutching at her arms, then running like crabs at her legs, up the smooth sand-colored hose, toward the the dark crevice. Morning saw what was coming, so he ran to the rest room.

The water gushing in the sink as he washed his face didn't cover the angry gasp, the curse, the mocking laughter, the knifing "what did you catch hold of there, john," the quick stumbling across the dance floor, the hand stabbing at the door knob.

But the salesman's face wasn't angry, just sadly confused, when he said to Morning, "She's a goddamned man. Did you know that? A fucking man." His shaking fingers gripped Morning's denim jacket. "A man. Did you know that?"

"That's okay, man," Morning said, pity twisting to contempt on his face, "I'm a woman."

The anger needed a second to travel from the salesman's tired, drunk brain to his face, and then another to transfer to his arm. But the room was narrow, and his wild swing ended against the metal towel container, but his words got through:

"You fucking queer bastard."

Morning's knee and fist moved at the same instant; the knee, faster, found soft purchase first; the knuckles swept a red trail across the salesman's blanched forehead. He fell back on the white toilet, his face framed by the pure white wall: his smeared, benumbed, moaning mouth; his eyes clenched as tight as his fist had been; the lip print perfect on his white shirt, gleaming like a deliberate clue left by a clever, romantic cat burglar at the scene of his crimes. Vomit bubbled at his shamed mouth as he hiccupped, then reeling to the side, he retched into the cavern of the urinal.

Blind madness and rage hit Morning, and without thought, he slammed his fist against the side of the salesman's face and neck, five, six, maybe seven times. His head rattled against the inside of the urinal like a marble in a cup, but wouldn't bounce out, and when Morning left, he still moaned into the blood, piss, and whiskey; a small moan, no louder than the trickle of water dripping down the drain of the urinal, but it had the same determined futile patience of the trickle, determined to wash the waste of man away, and the same futility too.

Linda had the Jag running when Morning walked outside. She had scrubbed the smeared make-up from her face and let her hair down. She had good clear skin under the cosmetic mask, and under the street lights she could have passed for a sixteen-year-old virgin.

"Bad?" she asked.

"Bad," he said.

"Then maybe we should take a quick run up to Tahoe. I've got a place where we can lay up for a while. You have anything you can't leave?" Without seeming to drive fast, she took the car quickly down to Indian School Road, then up on the Black Canyon Highway, north toward Flagstaff. "You have anything you can't leave?" she asked again as she laid the car out up the expressway.

A guitar, some records, a few books, but the landlord would hold them for back rent. "I don't have anything anywhere that I can't leave." He paused, then said, "Hey, don't pull, don't pull that kind of shit around me again."

She turned her face, clean, fresh, soft in the muted glow from the dash, and from her scrubbed pink mouth: "Why the fuck not?" The exhaust followed them in the silence, a trailing echo chasing its source.

"I don't know. It was a bad scene. That cat was a turd, but I didn't like beating up on him." He refused to look at her, but her hair brushed past his face as she tossed her head.