Joe Lansdale - Lost Echoes

“Which isn’t going that well.”

“Sure it is. You always forgive me, don’t you?”

There was a knock on the door.

When Harry answered, Tad was standing there. He wasn’t dressed up, but he had on a sports coat and his hair was combed and his bald spot was shiny under the porch light. Coat he wore was one of those writer-style jackets—blue corduroy with black leather elbow patches.

“Tad?”

“Yep. Thought I’d take you to dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“Sometimes called supper.”

“Sure…Why?”

“I’m bored.”

“Come in.”

When Tad came in he sniffed slightly, eyeballed the wine. He looked at Harry, then at Joey.

“I’m not drinking,” Harry said.

“I wasn’t going to ask.”

“Hey,” Joey said. “You’re the drunk.”

“What?”

“The other night at the bar.”

“Oh, you must be Joey.”

“That’s right. I helped haul your ass out to Harry’s car.”

“Thanks. Lucky you didn’t help haul me up these stairs. You might have gotten a hernia. Harry managed that by himself.”

“You did some funny stuff that night. Drunk luck?”

“Sure,” Harry said. “Not that I really remember.”

“What’s your name?”

“Tad.”

“How about a drink, Tad?”

Tad paused, took a deep breath. “No thanks. Smells cheap.”

“It is, but it still does the deed.”

“So does hair tonic.”

Joey raised his glass to Tad. “You sound like a man of experience.”

Harry cut in quick. “I don’t know about dinner, Tad. I mean, I got Joey over.”

Tad studied Joey. “Any friend of yours is a friend of mine. Aren’t we ex-drunks together, you and I?”

“Ah, so this is the guy’s got you on the wagon,” Joey said.

“I got myself on the wagon,” Harry said.

“We’re both on it,” Tad said. “I’m just the guy drives the wagon a little.”

“That’s thoughtful of you, Tad. That’s good of you,” Joey said.

“Kind of guy I am.”

Joey grinned and licked some wine off his lips, said, “You and me, ’cause Harry’s your friend, we’re friends?”

“Friendly enough. Sure, I’ll enjoy your company.”

“Damn nice of you, Tad. Damn nice.”

“Very well then,” Harry said, pulling his coat off the back of the couch. “I could eat something. Where to?”

“Steak place. New. I don’t know the name of it. Something like Attila’s.”

“Khan’s,” Harry said. “I drove by it.”

“I love a good steak,” Joey said. “But alas, I seem to be temporarily short on funds.”

“Come to think of it,” Harry said, “how ritzy is this place?”

“It’s on me,” Tad said. “The both of you.”

“Can’t beat that,” Joey said. “Let me get myself a little refresher, and I’ll be ready.”

“Going with me, leave the wine,” Tad said.

Joey paused. “Leave it?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want it in my car. We go in my car, no wine.”

“We can meet you there in Harry’s car,” Joey said.

“Not if I’m buying.”

“Leave it, Joey,” Harry said.

Joey sloshed the wine in the jar, then turned it up and chugged it down. He walked over to the bottle, poured the jar full, tipped it to his mouth, gulped. Some of the wine came out alongside his mouth and ran down his chin. He chugged it all. He picked up the empty wine bottle and dropped it in the trash can, wiped his face with the back of his sleeve.

“Ready,” Joey said.

Harry felt nervous. Here he was with his oldest friend, a big old asshole, and his newest friend, who was kind of an asshole. He wondered what this said for him, riding around with two assholes.

Thing was, he was scared. It was a new route, and that meant new sounds. He tried to concentrate on the things Tad had taught him. Tried to draw his focus in, let everything that was unimportant remain outside. Way outside.

So far, in the car, it was working swell.

28

For a little town the steak place was pretty swank. They had a valet that took the car, guy that walked you to the door, and a gal he handed you off to inside. She walked you to your table, menus under her arm, left those with you, told you your waitress would come soon.

Actually, it wasn’t a table. It was a booth, and it was one of the few spots in the place that wasn’t so well lit you felt like you ought to do a dance number. Fact was, it was a little shadowy over in that corner because there was a kind of canopy over a series of booths there.

Rest of the place was bright and loud, with music playing, some guy at a piano in a suit, and Harry thought it was all kind of silly in a town like this, people dressed up like they were going to church.

“They didn’t ask for reservations,” Harry said.

“Already had one,” Tad said.

“They didn’t know how many,” Joey said.

“I made a reservation for a booth.”

“You some kind of big shot?” Joey asked.

“No. I just have money.”

The waitress came. She was cute and so happy and sweet, and her name was Sandy, and there wasn’t anything she wanted to do more than serve them, and she told them so, and gave them smiles. Harry had the taste of saccharin on the back of his tongue when she left.

He sat there and hoped there were no sounds outside of the loud music, guy at the piano. Nothing hidden in anything he might bump. It was a new joint, so maybe it was safe.

Joey was not loopy, but the wine had made him happy, and something of a loudmouth. Or a louder mouth. He was talking about the waitress and how he’d like to give her an exploratory plumb, or some such thing, so Harry decided to go to the bathroom.

Tad and Joey watched Harry thread his way through a new batch of patrons, and Joey said, “You a queen, Tad?”

Tad turned to him, said, “Now say that again.”

“I said are you a queen? You got a thing going for Harry?”

“How do you like your steak?”

“I asked you a question. I didn’t mean anything by it, asking you if you was queer.”

Tad gently placed his menu on the table, shifted his position, and laid an arm across the back of the booth.

“All right. Let’s you and me get down to it,” Tad said.

“Suits me.”

“Thing is, other night, that stuff happened with those thugs. I don’t remember it. Harry told me about it. But none of it was an accident. Just take that note.”

“Trying to scare me, Tad?”

“Just make that note, like I told you.”

“Tad—”

“Shut up, Joey. What I got is a major drinking problem. I don’t happen to be gay. If I were, though, I want you to know that I would be the best goddamn dick sucker ever fumbled with a zipper. I tell you this to let you know when I decide to be good at something I am. I tell you this to let you know that I am very good at whipping people’s asses. I tell you this because I don’t think you’re any kind of friend to Harry. I think you’re a fucking little parasite that would suck the blood out of the withered balls of a dead hyena.”

“You don’t have to get nasty.”

“You opened the door, shit-dick. You wanted to know about me, and now that I’m in touch with my true feelings, let me stay in touch. I think you are one rotten piece of stringy, sun-whitened dog shit lying windswept on an ant-infested hill. And you want to make everything and everyone around you turn dead and white too. Can’t stand the fact Harry’s got something going and has a chance and could quit drinking. ’Cause where would that leave you? Folks that didn’t grow up with you, they wouldn’t give you fifteen minutes in an outdoor shithouse unless it was on fire and you tied to the toilet.