Joe Lansdale: Leather Maiden

“Peculiar, but not incredible,” I said. “Sometimes people are afraid to approach the good-looking girls, maybe even give them the ass end of things because they’re jealous. Print it out for me, if you don’t mind. All of it.”

“I’ll have it by the end of the day.”

“Perfect,” I said.

“You need any more information, drop in anytime. I’m here late at night, sometimes midnight, two in the morning. I don’t sleep that good, so I work.”

That afternoon, the file Mercury had made me was on the corner of my desk. I picked it up and went through it.

Good. He hadn’t added information about flying saucers and lake monsters. It was just the straight goods on Caroline.

Sweet.

8

I took off at four-forty-five. From Gabby’s ads in the Yellow Pages, I knew she was open until five. I drove by there and saw that hers was the only car parked out front.

I parked, took a deep breath and went inside.

When I came in I could smell some kind of strong disinfectant and the pungent smell of wet dog coming from somewhere, and then she came walking through a door that led to the back, rolling her sleeves up, ready to go home. She was whip-lean and her hair was still long and dark brown and time had done nothing to her, except make her look better. I felt a little nauseous and my throat grew tight. I stood by the door and didn’t move, and soon as she saw me her body twitched, then deflated a little.

“Cason, you shouldn’t be here.”

“I just wanted to say hi.”

She shook her head, looked at the floor. Somewhere from the back of the place a dog began to bark. Gabby finally lifted her head, looked right at me. Her eyes narrowed, like a sniper about to sight down a rifle.

“How clear can I make it?”

Several dogs started barking. Maybe they knew it was closing time. Perhaps they got treats before she locked up. Somehow, I was messing up their schedule.

“Cason, I don’t know how to tell you this any better. I wrote you the letter. When you got back, I talked to you on the phone. I read all the notes you sent me. They don’t change a thing. I tossed them. It’s not about finding someone else. It’s not about any of those things. It’s about the fact I don’t love you. Maybe I never did.”

“Don’t say that.”

“There’s an old saying: When the dog is down and dying, you shoot it in the head. Sometimes, love is down and dying.”

“Is that a folksy veterinarian saying?” I said, and stepped forward.

“Stay where you are,” Gabby said, and she held out one hand like a traffic cop.

“For Christ sakes, you don’t think I’d hurt you, do you?”

“I don’t know what I think, the notes, the calls…But it’s done, Cason.”

I shook my head.

“You were over there alone, scared, I’m sure. I was your anchor. It was a way for you to hang on to something. I represented home. Escape from fear, and you blew it all up in your mind, how we felt about one another. It was never that big a deal.”

“That’s not what you said, not how you talked when we were together. You telling me you were lying to me all along?”

I hadn’t meant for it to happen, but my words came out a little loud.

“I’m telling you, Cason, I was caught up in the moment. I was in love with the idea of being in love, not with you. I didn’t know it until you were gone…Cason, I didn’t miss you. I felt sorry for you, and was worried about you, like I would be for any soldier over there in harm’s way.”

“Any soldier?”

I was starting to feel as if I needed to sit down. The dogs were really barking now.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” she said.

I stood there for a moment. No words would come. I took my hands out of my pockets and put them back.

“I really need you to go, Cason. I see you again, I’m going to get a restraining order. I want you to stay away from me. No more notes. No phone calls. And if you have to drive by my office, drive by, don’t coast by, rubbernecking. Six months from now, we pass on the street, I see you, we can wave, say hi, like old acquaintances, and that’s it. Please go. While I at least don’t hate you.”

I went outside and got in my car and drove away, not even considering which direction I was driving.

9

There were all those months in Iraq, the earth the color of a dried-up tortilla, the sky a bright blaze of hot blue forever, and always the sounds of explosions and the smells of death, and me counting down the moments, knowing to the hour, almost to the minute, when my time was supposed to be up, expecting to have my stay extended, certain of it, feeling as if it would all never end. It was as if I had been dropped down onto another planet where the people and the world bore no relation to me.

There was the loss of my buddies and seeing innocent Iraqi people, as well as those who were not so innocent, lying dead and bloated and full of the stink of the bloody departed.

All those months, those days, those hours, those minutes, riding around in half-assed vehicles with hillbilly armor, stuff we made for ourselves out of whatever we could find and tack on to our rides. So there we were, cruising, expecting a blast to blow right through it all, knock shrapnel up our asses, then, to top it off, came Gabby’s letter and nothing much mattered anymore, except maybe dying, and then there was the big fight in the Baghdad street, and I caught some business, and some buddies of mine caught it too, killing two of them. I was injured, but saved.

Booger, he just got blown skyward, like some kind of goddamn circus act, and he did a few rolls and came up wearing smoking clothes, still had his piece in his hand, and baby, he let it rock. Rocked and rolled all over that street. I don’t know if he shot anyone, had anything to do with anything, but he rocked it and bopped it and bullets tore this way and that, and when it was over there was meat all over the place, pieces of cloth, disconnected Iraqi souls colliding together into a rising smudge of thick, dark smoke.

I was saved. Booger did it. And saved for what, if not to go home to Gabby, to make a life with her? I could imagine her with her long brown hair brushed until it was so lustrous it glowed like wet chocolate, and I could see her in one of the outfits she wore, a blue suit jacket with wide lapels and white pinstripes, and a skirt to match, and I could remember the way her high heels made her legs look, long and muscular in dark stockings, the way her eyes flashed and the way she smiled, her teeth perfect. And in my imaginings we would come together and kiss. I would be the conquering hero. We would go to her place, and I would slowly take her out of that suit and pull her boots off and gently guide her stockings off her legs, and we would make love, slowly and happily, like we had always done, but this time, it would be even more wonderful, because it would be a new beginning, and soon we would marry, and the sunlight would always be warm and the moonlight would always be romantic, and our days would be full of fine moments and even the rain would be gentle and sweet to the nose and rhythmic to the ears as it splashed to the ground.

Such are dreams.

It was a hard pill to swallow, even now, and to make it go down good, I drove out to a little bar that didn’t belong to my boss’s husband. When I got inside it was cool and dark as if it were hours later. The place had that peculiar smell bars have that is a mixture of spilt liquor and cigarette smoke, sweat and shit-filled dreams.

There was a pretty good-looking woman on one of the bar stools wearing a dark blouse and a short blue jean skirt and some oversized white shoes. I could tell from the way she sat there, smoking her cigarette, her legs crossed, one foot bobbing a shoe, the near empty glass on the counter in front of her, that she was as regular here as the rising and the setting of the sun.