Hob Broun - Odditorium

The joint had gone out in her fingers, a blackened stem she stashed for later in the cellophane of her cigarette pack. Envelope glue was what her dry mouth tasted like; and it was suddenly spooky back there with the cartons and shredded paper, an interrogation room. She went and sat behind the register, sucking mints and scratching pictures on a ledger pad: palm trees, a sofa, free-floating breasts.

Someone banging on the door. Only five after but they wouldn’t go away. Tildy stumbled coming off the stool and banged her hip on the edge of the counter. A skinny woman peered through the glass, deep acne scars, lavender eye shadow and pencil marks on upper and lower lids like sun rays in a child’s drawing, stringy blond hair that hung down past her shoulder blades. Tildy stood blinking, rubbing her hip.

“Come on, come on. I really need some stuff.”

My time is your time. Shrugging, Tildy pulled the door open, kicked a rubber wedge under it to let the breeze in. A little late. The woman sniffed ostentatiously, winked.

“I’ll find what I need. You go on back to whatever you were doing.”

She had chains around her neck, bracelets crowded on both wrists and every time she moved it was like somebody shaking a jar of nails. Tildy hung there beside her, rising and falling on the balls of her feet and staring like an imbecile. The woman backed away, tugging at the sleeves of her black cowboy shirt.

“I’d take five if I was you, honey. Your eyes look like silver dollars.”

Nobody asked you, but okay. Tildy climbed onto the stool and tried to look busy pushing papers around. Flitting among the shelves the woman studied bottles and spray cans intently, lips moving as she read the labels; and then her eyes would roll to one side and catch Tildy doing it too. They were watching each other, appraising. Tildy wanted to start a conversation, but felt timid and blocked. What the hell was going on? All the shivery tension of a blind date.

“I’m looking for a conditioner.”

“What?”

“It’s just so lifeless.” Raking fingers down her scalp. “I should have it cut off…. But if it’s all right, lemme ask what you use on your hair.”

“Nothing.”

“Well, nothing really works for you. It’s got a kind of innocent look, like, I don’t know, some silent-movie star.”

Not very surreptitiously, the woman ripped open a bag of malted milk balls and ate a few. She browsed at the magazine rack and tried on several pairs of rubber sandals. Squatting on the floor and talking to herself, she experimented with different hues of nail polish, didn’t bother to screw the caps back on the bottles. Tildy didn’t bother to camouflage her amazement, either. She envied this one’s gall.

Finally, in one concerted sweep, the woman filled her arms with products and swaggered over to dump them on the counter: tampons, foot powder, wart remover, orange sticks, baby oil, a toy airplane, and three of the magazines that Holstein, left to himself, would never have stocked in the first place.

“You ever check out these pussy books you got? They make the girls too pretty if you ask me. It’s better with all the hair, dirt under the nails and maybe a pimple here and there.”

“So maybe they should leave the faces blank altogether.” Tildy was ringing up her items very slowly, peeling the price tags off.

“But it’s got to be real, see?”

“Yeah, I used to be a stripper about a hundred years ago. Worked three straight nights at this place with a terrible case of hives. They loved me. On the fourth night they wanted to paint them on.”

“No shit, you really did that? How was it?”

“Lousy. But I liked the hours.”

The woman dug into her greasy jeans, spilled a hash of bills and coins on the counter. “Hope I got enough.”

Tildy took a crumpled five. “Tell you what. Pay me for what’s already on the machine and we’ll call it even.”

Shown in a wide smile, the woman’s teeth were small and gray. “I can have the rest for nothing? You sure?”

“Doesn’t matter to me. I’m not working for commissions.”

“Well, muchas gracias . You’re damn good down-with-it people, you know that … uh, Tildy,” reading the plastic name tag, then hooking a thumb at herself. “DaVita. Big D, small a, big V. My mom wanted something unusual, the old cow, and I guess she got it. Yeah, down with it. So what time you get off here, Tildy? I’d like to buy you a drink.”

“Around six. But I …”

“Cool, cool. Can you meet me then at the Paddle Wheel? It’s down Route 17, just past Sears. I’ll wait for you in the parking lot and we can go in together.”

“Why not.”

But when Tildy found her perched on the hood of someone’s jeep around by the rear entrance, DaVita had already been inside. There was a table waiting for them.

“I know the bartender,” DaVita said.

She seemed to know everyone at the Paddle Wheel. As they were sitting down, an older woman in an orange caftan rushed over and threw a drunken sloppy kiss on DaVita’s chin.

“This little girl is just so full of life,” she yipped at Tildy. “I just love her right to death. So full of life. Wisht I could be your age again.”

“Really needs a man, that one,” DaVita reported as the woman shouldered her way back to the bar. “Hasn’t been off work more than forty-five minutes and already she’s sloshed out of her old head. So what do you do for fun, Tildy?”

“Could I get a glass of rum with no ice?”

“Sure. Let me catch my breath a minute. Whoo, but this shit can become a way of life, like Donnie says I should just go on and move in here, all the time I spend. Him and the two kids there in a house-trailer, so if I don’t get out regularly — you know — I got to flip out from all that time boxed up. You married?”

“Seven days a week.”

“Mmm-hmmm. It can get that way. Men seem to move a whole lot slower, that’s what I’ve noticed. They’re like lizards or something around the house. Where’s the fun? Like, Donnie just came off the work farm. Some bank guy came to take the car back and Donnie punched him around. So he pulls three months on the farm and what does he want to do his first day out? Drink beer and fuck me while he watches television. That’s the most fun he can think up in three whole months. Moves too slow for me, that’s all.”

Tildy nodded; she knew about the slowness. “He doesn’t try and keep you home?”

“No point in that. Besides, Donnie weighs close to three hundred pounds. How many times is a guy like that going to get lucky? Once, and I’m it…. But what about you? What do you get into on the weekends?”

“Not a lot. Drive to Tampa and eat out.”

“I know you’re bluffing, a fox like you. Think about it some more and I’ll be back with drinks.”

Not much to think about — that was the problem. Tildy was embarrassed at her own dullness. Playing catch with Karl on a typical off-work day, hitting a few fungos just to watch the ball sail; sometimes going off on a treasure expedition, but unable to share Karl’s rudimentary excitement at digging up a high school ring near a roadside picnic table or a few black Mercury dimes at a demolition site. If she weren’t so perverted, could make the quick, animating choice instead of turning from it, she’d still be in New York and shacked up with Looie. No one to blame, sweets, but yourself.

DaVita showed up with two drinks, two men, and an unsettling gleam in her eye. They all four shoved in around a table for two and it was instant kneesies.

“Tildy, I’d like for you to meet Leroy and Bob. Leroy runs the security for Sears and Bob manages … What is it, Bob, sporting goods?”

“Affirmative. That’s my area, rods and balls.” Beefy Bob chortled through his mustache and his elbow pressed into Tildy’s left breast.