John Domini - Highway Trade and Other Stories

“Oh, so now you’re going to tell me what I should do. You. Fitzie Faithful.”

Fitzie’s look shortened. She tongued her front teeth, thit , and returned to the toy-like letters and prices.

Still it was another week at least, three or four more times with the incense candle going and Ernie leaving his curls all over her neck and chest, before Wade gave her the kick she needed in order to make a move. Wade, as always. Before she’d started tending bar, same thing, she’d needed his go-ahead. Mom I’m old enough . This time, Ernie offered to take the boy Christmas shopping in Portland, and Wade just couldn’t handle it. He’d already taken on managing the basketball JV’s, something that had come out of all that sports-talk with the man.

“And Christmas shopping on top of that?” she told Fitzie. “In Portland? I mean, I shouldn’t even have waited till they brought Wade home from that exhibition game. As soon as Ernie sprang that one on us I should have said no, this was getting much too serious. Too serious on Ernie’s end I mean.”

At least tonight Fitzie wasn’t diddling around with the menu board. Nellie had let her know to begin with that it was some heavy-duty news, and the other waitress hardly broke eye contact to light a cigarette.

“But I blame myself, Fitzie. I blame myself. They had to bring Wade home, first basketball game of the year and he’s like totally stressed out — he had to go through that before I realized the kind of pressure we were under.”

The worst was how the boy tried to giggle his way through it. M-Mom, I’m afraid there’s been an accident. This, when she could see he’d had to borrow one of the team’s sweat pants for the ride home. Of course for months he’d been warning her that he wasn’t going to haul around that stupid waste bag all the time any more. In front of the coach, Nellie had lifted Wade’s chin, checked out his eyes. In fact she would have taken him off the team then and there, if it hadn’t been for that coach.

“I mean Fitzie, who does that guy think he is? Big shot high-school junior varsity basketball coach.” It made no difference that she’d suffered through his kind of thing before, all that smug I’m-so-sorry. You never got used to how people wanted to score points off the Bad Girl. “To hear him talk, you’d think he had a hotline to George Bush himself.”

And Wade, well. This was all about him anyway, right? “The last thing he told me before he went to bed, the first thing he said when he got up — Wade really wants to stay on that team. So I figure I know the boy, it’s worth the risk.” But when it came to going out with Ernie, she’d laid down the law. No way.

“I mean I even called Ernie at the office to let him know. I even left a message , so the other people there would see it.” She shook her head, crick-crick against the long night’s ache.

“So that’s your heavy-duty news? That’s not so—“

“Hold on, hold on. It gets better.” Fitzie was right, though; this wasn’t coming out nearly hard enough. “I mean that man — I might as well be trying to stop a fucking bulldozer. Swear to God. The next time Ernie comes over, the very next time, he starts in trying to get around me.” Ernie had suggested another kind of trip, all three of them together. “Some kind of benefit concert down in Eugene. I didn’t get it all, something for the homeless.” Still, that much had only left her worn down, worn and unsure; she hadn’t gotten angry with the man till Wade had gone to bed. “See, once Wade’s out of the way, the guy starts pulling all this nostalgia stuff on me. You know. Like, ‘Some of your old crowd should be at the concert, Nellie.’ Like, ‘Some of the people you took drugs with, Nellie. They should be there.’ I mean, he was asking for it after he said that.”

Fitzie kept her look set, drawing smoke.

“Some of the people I took drugs with, Jesus Christ on a crutch. If there’s one thing that really fries my ass…” “What’d you pull on him, Nellie?”

“Oh.” She fought down a shiver, pretending to shrug. “Wade’s father came back through town a couple days ago. Him and me we went to the old motel. Then after that, you know me, Fitzie. I had to stick by my rules.”

And she was able to look the other waitress in the face, another taste of Johnny Walker was all it took. The signs were good, just what Nellie had hoped for. Plainly the delay in getting to the point hadn’t cost her, Fitzie was going through such changes. First she was shocked (“You told Ernie? You told him?”), then she was smart. The cigarette and the shot glass seemed suddenly much too delicate for such a big unstable body. Nellie got some of the old hardball payoff, especially after a fresh mouthful.

“Nellie Nellie girl. Sometimes you scare me.”

“I can’t out-talk the guy, Fitzie. I have to give him that, he’s one guy I just can’t out-talk.”

Some of the old payoff, sure. But also the other woman’s face sagged so badly by two in the morning. Had Nellie actually given her such a tumble, or was it just that Fitzie’s eyes had gone pouchy, her neck was starting to flap? “Nellie Nellie,” she was saying. “Whoa. Sometimes I think you should live up in those hills. I mean it. You should take Wade out of school before he gets too big to leave you, and you should go hide out up there with the growers. You know who I mean, the people up there who sell sensamilla. You went with Rusty to the motel?”

Nellie lowered her eyes but kept her grin fixed.

“How’d he take it, anyway?”

Through the red liquor, it looked as if her fingers were broken. Still the shrug came easy: “Ernie? You notice he didn’t bring his act in here tonight.” Then, drinking, she glared across the ungainly dim lounge and allowed herself to sink at last into the low-grade soreness that had nagged at her since she’d come in. Such a dud joint. Those lamp-cages along the ceiling, filthy with grease, the lamest kind of play for class. Especially combined with the cheesecake shots for Red Hook Ale, frat-house stuff. You’d think there’d be some decent highway trade at a place along Route 20. But it was over a year now since Richter had made them wear these damn tit-shakers, and the most interesting guy who’d stopped to talk — she admitted it, sank into it — was Ernie. How could she help but miss him? On her break tonight, when she’d called Wade, same thing. Tonight when he’d started in on his usual round of cracks about her boyfriends, it’d stung so much she couldn’t even think to change the subject. High school had turned him into such a wise guy. And much as she needed that smart mouth sometimes, tonight as she’d listened she hadn’t been able to think. She hadn’t been able to tell the boy that Ernie most likely wouldn’t be coming by any more. She’d sat with the phone at her neck, buffing her nails with a bar rag, working till the red polish was hot. Nellie didn’t like to dwell on the sex in these things. She didn’t like the idea that at the heart of all her machinations and teases there was nothing but a few soaked minutes of wildcat clutches and grunts. Kicking out the cupboard doors. More soreness just to think of it tonight. But then Nellie herself had been the one to keep a running tab on Ernie’s performances, so regular that now she could probably remember every tumble. If you assigned a rating, it helped you maintain control.

So how was she supposed to handle it when the next morning, Sunday morning, Ernie showed up to make brunch? As if nothing had happened, sure. Except of course he’d come banging at the door before ten o’clock. While Nellie stumbled to get it she was fighting off paranoia, the FBI or a government crackdown. Ernie brushed past her and went into his setup like a pinball, so quick that at first she didn’t notice how carefully he was checking the place out.