Lee Johnson - Nitro Mountain

“He’s fine,” she says. “He’s with the cops. Sounds like he was a witness to some sort of shit. He asked me if that guy Bob was here.”

“I haven’t seen him. If I do…”

“Yeah, I told him no. He also wanted to know if you were here. I said no.”

“Thanks. Yeah, I don’t want nothing to do with this. I didn’t do nothing. And I ain’t about to get questioned on it.”

“I got this real bad feeling,” she says. “Larry kept asking had I seen Arnett. You hear what they found today?”

“No. What?”

“That girl,” she says. “The one that’s been missing?”

“Okay.”

“They found her car. In the parking lot of that old Wal-Mart.”

“Where the bus station’s at?”

“They been looking for her for months. And now there’s her car. Just, there it is. Sat there without anybody noticing.”

“Well, let the cops solve the damn thing,” Jones says. “I’m just drinking.”

People are three deep at the bar. “Who’s serving in here?” somebody shouts.

“I got to get to work,” she says. “Don’t leave. Please. That Arnett scares the honest hell out of me. And Larry told me to make sure you was safe, if you came around.”

“I ain’t going anywhere.”

The Jaguars. Tight denim, western wear, greased hair, busted cowboy boots. Their banner hanging crooked behind them. The singer with a beat-up sunburst hollowbody hanging from a rhinestone strap with clusters of stones missing. He bites open a bottle with a bent tooth and spits the cap into the crowd while the other musicians vamp. “Thank y’all much for taking the time,” he says into the mic. “We’ll start with one of our own. We hope you fuck off.”

Jones likes that they’re not starting things off with a cover. And right then the pedal steel slides in and the drums click them into time, the bass thumping and everybody yelling. The nice quiet Hickory transforming into dangerous Durty Misty’s. He feels blessed to the bones to be here seeing it all, hearing it all, drinking it all. Everything that’s going down tonight makes the music that much more real.

Each time Tiff checks on him there’s a freshly frosted pint glass full of yellow beer in front of him, and what’s he supposed to do, say no? He hadn’t planned on drinking tonight but now the cold brew’s turning warm in his stomach and this chicken-dance honky-tonking onstage isn’t helping any, except it is. All the pickers are younger than Jones. Good thing he didn’t do that opening set.

He keeps getting pushed against the bar by all these drunks and smokers and dancers. Larry wouldn’t stand for it. But it takes him out of his head, so he doesn’t have to think about Leon or Misty’s or that poor girl or whatever the hell else. Shane appears out of the wall of bodies, opens his jacket and offers Jones a drink of whiskey from a collapsing plastic fifth stuffed into his sleeve.

Tiff, with her pinwheeling green eyes under those chopped black bangs, is pouring him another pitcher and telling him to turn around. When he does, Natalie’s right in his face.

“Let’s go.” She grabs his glass from the bar and dumps it down her throat, then hooks a finger in his belt and leads him to a table where they have a good view of the stage. He leans into her ear and says, “Look at your hair.” He doesn’t realize until now how drunk he is.

“It’s called Car-Wash Crimson,” she says, fluffing it. “Don’t be worrying about me, watch them boys up there.”

Cool, so nothing’s wrong, just friendly exes hanging out.

He studies the bassist thumping out hand patterns. He’s heard about this guy. One of the original Bristol Boys. Man plucks the strings like his hands are floating. Jones shares the pitcher with Natalie until it’s gone. “I’m sorry about this morning,” she says. “I been feeling bad about that all day.”

“Feels like yesterday to me,” Jones says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Eads and Terri — they bring it out in me.”

“Then quit letting them stay with you.”

“I know it. That’s what I did after you left. I kicked them both out and locked the doors. I’m going to make some changes in my life.”

“So you came out to a Jags show?”

“Changing don’t mean you gotta stop living, does it?”

“You end up sleeping with those two?”

“I thought about it. But only to hurt you. That’s the only thing I would’ve enjoyed in it. Then I realized you were gone, so it wouldn’t matter to you at all.”

“It does matter. I don’t want to see that stuff happening to you.”

Shane and Tiny Tina drop by the table, their secret bottle becomes no secret at all and Natalie’s starting to grab at Jones. Well, why not? One more round. He can taste her lipstick on the mouth of the bottle and then he’s draped around her middle and sweating onto her breasts. His face is numb. They’re dancing. He doesn’t notice much of the music anymore. She’s kicking him in the shins with her boots, telling him to hold her and swing her, and Jones can smell cigarettes in her hair and her body odor. That web of freckles spreading across the bridge of her nose. Her nipples poking through when she presses into him. He puts his arms around her and she pulls his hands back up around her waist and keeps kicking him until he starts moving to his own song, away from her and out the door.

He sits down on the ground in the parking lot, pulls out his cigarettes and falls over. He lies there smoking, little bit of rain coming down.

He hears shouting, props himself up on an elbow and sees two men swinging at each other, connecting every now and then. Oh, that’s nice, like the old days. It really is a beautiful thing.

Natalie’s standing near the action. “Kick his ass!” she’s saying. “Kick his fucking ass!” Somebody pulls her back and drags her away. There’s his girl. No changing that.

Cruiser lights strobe the trees and the building and the cars in the lot. A lady cop stands over Jones. “Are you okay, sir?”

“Just sobering,” he says. “I’ll be fine. You wanna get married?”

“Sure, just a sec.” She walks away to help make the arrest. By the time the fighting men are cuffed, they’re talking like brothers. Which they might be. The cops go inside and Jones hears the music stop, the drummer giving a final crash.

Tiff comes out after a while. “Oh my God, there you are.” She crouches down and peers into Jones’s face. “Damn. All right, you’re sloshered.”

“Where’d the music go?”

“The Jags had to quit. The cops are really pissed and sent everybody home. They’re asking around about Misty’s and nobody’s saying nothing.”

People are standing around, boots and shoes kicking around in the wet gravel. Jones lies there watching everything. The cops finally leave, and Tiff says, “Come on inside, before you get soaked.” She pulls him up, helps him get against the building where it’s dry, wipes his face, brushes him off. “Could’ve burned yourself too,” she says. The cigarette he’s smoking falls out of his mouth and she lights one of her menthols for him.

Jones looks around at people smoking, drinking, laughing, crying, drinking, getting ready to go home. “Where’s Natalie?”

“In worse shape than you, guaranteed. Long gone.”

“Shit, man. I should’ve made sure she didn’t get like that.”

“She ain’t your problem. Let her go. You’re enough for you to worry about.”

A man tries pissing into the ditch and falls face-first into his own puddle. A couple leans against a truck, entangled. It’s a lonely feeling not to be the cause of this trouble. He misses coming out to parking lots after playing shows, smoking a cigarette and knowing he was to thank for all the mess. “You know that kid who used to play bass for me?” he says. “That’s who I’m worried about.”