Andrew Neiderman - Deficiency

"Why not?" she replied.

"I was told this was practically a historical site," the stranger said. "Wasn't there some kind of famous murder in here in the early 1800s?" Darlene laughed.

"Who told you that?"

"This elderly lady who runs the tourist house I'm at. She's old enough to remember, I think," he said and Darlene laughed.

"That's a legend the owners and previous owners of this property have used to boost up its value for as long as I can remember," she said.

"Sometimes legends are more valuable than facts," he replied. There were more demands for service now that the Outlaws paused to take a break and reluctantly, Darlene had to get back to work. Every once in a while, she glanced back at the handsome stranger and caught him watching her, smiling softly with those perfect, strong lips. The slight cleft in his chin reminded her of a young Kirk Douglas. His eyes followed her every move. Sensing his full attention on her, she moved faster than usual so she could return to him as soon as possible.

"So," she said catching her breath. "You're not researching local history or something, are you?"

"No," he said laughing lightly, "hardly."

"What are you doing here then?" she asked. She asked it with such forcefulness and surprise in her voice, he stared at her a moment, his smile frozen. She realized how she sounded. "I mean, the Old Hasbrouck Inn isn't exactly on the tourist tour these days."

"Oh, I'm just passing through and wanted to get out for a while. The old lady said there was music here so I thought, why not? It's always more interesting to see what the locals do anyplace, anyway. At least, it is to me."

"What are you, a salesman or something?"

"I'm into computers, networking. What I do is set up systems for mid-to-large companies. I'm on my way to Ohio, actually, after completing a job nearby. You live here all your life?"

"All my twenty-eight years, yes," she said.

"You're kidding me. You're twenty-eight? I had you pegged for twenty at the most."

"Thanks, but that's just the poor lighting," she said and went to serve two other customers, thinking to herself, what would he think if he knew I had a threeyear-old boy and a two-year-old girl back home with my mother? Would he be more impressed or would he make like the wind and blow? He could be full of what makes the grass grow, too, she mused. It had been so long since she was in a conversation with anyone more sophisticated than a chimpanzee. Jimmy Hummel walked by, eying the stranger but keeping his distance. He finished his Jack Daniel's.

"You want another?" Darlene asked quickly, the note of hope hardly unrecognized.

"Yes, please," he said. "I think I'd like to hear another round of that music. The singer has a flash or two of something, but you're right," he added quickly,

"she's gone about as far as she will."

Darlene nodded.

"Local kid, too," she said reaching for the Jack Daniel's. "Back about four years behind me in high school."

"She is?" He looked at Paula sitting at a table with two men, the smoke pouring out of her nostrils like a dragon as she downed a beer. "I would have thought it the other way around: she was four years ahead of you."

"Like I said, booze and drugs and cigarettes."

"You don't drink or smoke?"

"When you work behind a bar, you get a first-hand look of what it does, so no, I don't drink much. I hate smoke and wouldn't be working here if I didn't have to, and as far as drugs...."

"Yes?" he said smiling.

"I won't even take an aspirin unless I'm force-fed." He laughed.

"I thought you looked too healthy for this sort of life," he told her. She blushed.

"I do what I can to take care of myself."

"It's paid off," he said.

She glanced at him quickly, her neck warming with a blush, and then she went down the bar again. A little more than ten minutes later, the Outlaws began to perform. More people came into the Inn, and it became a great deal noisier, at times the laughter and the loud conversations really competing with the singing. None of the three members of the group seemed to care or even realize. Darlene was working constantly, barely having a moment to say a word to the stranger who ordered another drink and immediately turned away this time to face the trio.

She was disappointed. For whatever reason, he was losing interest in her, and despite the negative comments they had both made about Paula, he was fixated on her. As she sang, Paula's eyes seemed to gaze above the crowd and not at it, but finally, her attention was drawn to the handsome man at the bar, dressed in a nearly electric black tank top and blue sports jacket. She could feel his eyes were on her and her alone and without realizing it, she began to direct all her energy and her singing at him.

It wasn't lost on Darlene, who slammed glasses down harder on the counter and whipped insults at any of the customers who so much as breathed too heavily in her direction.

"I've only got two hands!" she screamed at one poor young man who had asked twice for a beer only because he thought she hadn't heard him the first time.

"Well, use them then," Jimmy Hummel shouted from behind the young man.

"Go fuck yourself, Jimmy," she shouted back at him over the din.

"If I did, you'd be jealous," he replied with unusual quick wit. It brought a wave of laughter that seemed to wash over the bar and drown Darlene in her sudden sense of misery.

She glanced at the stranger to see if he had heard the exchange, but he hadn't turned from his concentration on Paula.

"I hate this job," she muttered when she was close to him. She was looking for any way possible to restart what to her was the most interesting conversation of the night with the most interesting person. However, if he had heard her, he didn't care to acknowledge. His continued interest in Paula Gilbert convinced her he was just another dickhead, just one better dressed and with better manners.

Despondently, she returned to the end of the bar where her sometimes boyfriend Dave Taylor and two of his fellow carpenters sat. Every once in a while, she looked toward the stranger. He nursed his drink and avoided conversing with anyone around him. When the Outlaws took another break, he slipped off his stool and walked over to Paula, who seemed to be expecting it. Darlene watched them converse and saw Paula's eyes light up with interest as she laughed at something he had said.

The break in music produced another run at the bar, so she didn't have much time to watch the stranger in action, but when she looked at Paula a while later, she was surprised to see her sitting with the other members of the trio and the stranger gone. She stopped and looked around the Inn. He wasn't anywhere to be seen. Maybe he had gone to the bathroom, she thought and watched for him, but he didn't appear and the Outlaws began their final set for the evening.

"What the hell? I knew he was too good to be true," she muttered to herself, smiled, shook her head, and returned to heed the call of another customer.

Terri pulled into her driveway slowly, her eyes more on her rearview mirror than her garage door. Since she had made a turn off Highway 17, she no longer saw Clark Kent's car behind her. Maybe, she thought, I just imagined it was that man. She decided to stop at a 7-Eleven to get some fresh milk for the morning. After she emerged from the store and started for home again, she watched for him, studying every vehicle behind her or coming toward her. Although she didn't see him and kept telling herself it had really only been her imagination after all, her anxiety level didn't diminish.

Still concentrating on the rearview mirror, she studied the road in front of her home carefully as the garage door rose. Remembering a documentary on selfprotection she had seen recently, she did not get out of her automobile when she had driven into the garage, and kept the car locked until the garage door was fully descended and locked in place.