Edward Lee - The Black Train

Next, Jiff muttered, “Yeah…”

Collier’s brain told him to walk quietly away, but how could he? He’d been quite the Peeping Tom of late. He continued to watch, peering just around the bush.

“Tighter—yeah…”

Jiff’s stokes slowed, then stopped.

“Thanks, Lottie. Shit, I needed that. Them johns at the bar got me all gunned up. Turned me three tricks today.”

The outrageous scene was over quite nonchalantly. I do not believe it, Collier thought. Jiff perfunctorily pulled his pants back on, then got to tying up his bootlaces, while Lottie threw the shirt into a laundry hamper and redonned her shorts. Collier saw now that she wore a tight, nipple-revealing Tennessee Titans T-shirt. She sat down on the bed, brushing her hair back.

Jiff disappeared for a few moments, apparently to wash his hands, then strutted back into view. “Aw, dang, that’s right, I forget to tell ya. After I got done doin’ Richard in the lounge, I come out to get myself a beer, and guess who I see sittin’ right up at the bar? Mr. Collier hisself.”

Lottie’s eyes shot wide, and she mouthed No!

“Ain’t kiddin’. Like ta shit my pants when I saw that. The Prince’a Beer throwin’ ’em back with Buster, Barry, Donny, and the rest of ’em. I snuck out the back so’s he wouldn’t see. But I never would’a thunk in a coon’s age that he was gay.”

Lottie burst into a round of silent giggles, all the while shaking her head.

“What? You sayin’ he ain’t? Then what’s he doin’ drinkin’ at the Spike? He’s gotta be queer.”

Lottie just kept shaking her head, mouthing No he’s not, no he’s not!

Jiff gave her a stern look. “Don’t tell me you got it on with him!”

Lottie kept smiling, then grabbed a piece of candy off Jiff’s dresser and began to unwrap it.

“Hey! That’s my Chunky!”

Lottie gave him the finger, then opened her hand.

“Oh, right. Here.” Jiff gave her a five-dollar bill. “Thanks.”

Five bucks! Collier outraged. What a rip-off!

It just kept getting nuttier. This really is a different world. Collier slipped away and went back into the inn. His watch told him he only had fifteen minutes. I can’t ask Jiff to borrow his car when he just got done having anal sex with his SISTER, he lamented. Back in the lobby, Mrs. Butler’s old face beamed up.

“Got’cher self a hot date, huh, Mr. Collier?”

Unbelievable. “Actually, yes.”

“Well I hope ya have a wonderful time.” Mrs. Butler was clearly braless again, this time beneath a sleeveless snap-front blouse that shined iridescent pink.

“Thanks, Mrs. Butler.”

Her pose at the desk proffered a wedge of creamy cleavage. Unbidden, Collier’s brain put a younger woman’s head on her shoulders. “Oh, I did want to ask. Are there any other towns nearby?”

“Oh, sure. Roan’s not ten miles west, and they got some nice restaurants there—”

“No, I meant—well, are there any poor towns nearby. Run-down, low-income areas? The reason I ask is because when I was coming back earlier, I saw these two young girls in the woods, and they simply struck me as not from around here. Like girls from a ghetto or something.”

Mrs. Butler looked perplexed. An unconscious finger traced the edge of her blouse top. “None too many poor folk ’cos here. Mostly just old money and ritzy tourist places.”

“No trailer parks or anything like that, low-income housing?”

“No, you’d have to get out a speck for that…Two girls you say?”

“Yes. Sisters. They were playing by a ravine on the hill out here.” The more Collier explained, the sillier he felt. What’s my point, anyway? “And, well, they had a dog—a little mutt—that looked like the one I asked you about earlier.”

“I had Lottie’n Jiff look high’n low for any dogs that might’a snuck in but they didn’t find none,” she said. “None’a the other guests seen it either.”

When Collier thought of mentioning the other oddity—the sisters’ reference to the finger clips—he suddenly determined: Forget it! “Never mind. It was just sort of odd. I was wondering something else, though. Do you…have a car I could borrow for a few hours?”

In the parking lot, Collier winced like someone who’d just discovered their fly open. Mrs. Butler’s “car” was a dented Chevy pickup truck that couldn’t have rolled off the production line after 1955. Rust riddled the flat-black paint like eczema. It looks like that hunk of shit on the Beverly Hillbillies…He glanced, next, to the lime-sherbet Bug, sighed, and got into the truck anyway.

The dashboard had holes where most of the gauges should be. I asked for it, I got it, he reminded himself. He jammed the wobbly three-speed shifter, backed out of the lot, and headed for Cusher’s.

Whenever he looked in the rearview, he saw a sheen of blue smoke following him. Nothing happened when he turned on the radio. Another smart move by me. But at least on the main drag he got fewer looks of hilarity than his airport rental.

At the intersection, a tap on the glass startled him; then the passenger door was creaking open.

Dominique slid in.

“Hi! Right on time…” She assayed the vehicle’s interior. “Isn’t this the truck Mrs. Butler’s father bought to celebrate Eisenhower’s election?”

“I’m sure it is,” Collier groaned. When he looked at her, though, he felt like someone in an inner tube floating at a sudden swell in the surf. Oh my God she’s so beautiful…

Dominique wore a white satin summer skirt with rosette accents and a lacy white bra-cami. The top ran down to just an inch above the skirt’s hem, providing a gap from which her navel could peek. She couldn’t have looked more classily casual. Just below the hollow of her throat, the silver cross flashed.

Collier attempted an explanation. “My rental car looks—”

“Yeah, I heard. Some funky green thing like in a cartoon.” She tossed her head, the predusk sunlight shining orange off each separate strand of hair. “But it’s actually kind of fun riding in a car this old. A whole lot of butts have sat on this seat.”

Collier chuckled. “I never thought of it that way. Posterity measured by posteriors.”

“So how was your day?” she asked, and seemed to be examining her nail polish.

Collier drove through town, frowning each time the truck hiccupped smoke. “Great,” he lied.

“Get much work done on your book?”

“Oh, yeah,” he lied again. What could he say? I got drunk in a gay bar, passed out in the woods, then watched an act of incest. “The book’s nearly done, and I’m happy to say I’ll make the deadline. Speaking of which…”

At the next light, he extracted the permission form from his wallet. “All I need is you to sign this release. It gives me your permission to comment on your beer.”

She signed it without even reading most of it. “This is wonderful. Now more people will know about it than these yokels—Oh, where are we going for dinner?”

Good question. “Since I’m new in town, how about you make the choice?”

“Do you like Korean?”

“Love it.” Collier hated Korean cuisine. It always sat in his belly like a corrosive.

“Good. There’s a great little Korean joint at the edge of town. You’d think you were eating in Seoul it’s so authentic.”

Don’t they eat dog in Seoul? Collier didn’t care—he was with her. They chatted about beer as he followed her instructions to a tiny restaurant squeezed between a hardware store and—Collier raised a brow—a dog salon. An aroma strong as a stench greeted them once they entered: spiced cabbage and lemon grass. But Collier knew it was a good sign that every other patron in the place was Asian. “The bulgogi is terrific,” Dominique enthused at their booth, “but so is the bibimbop. I can never decide which to order.”