How It Ended: New and Collected Stories (6 page)

I stop at the men's room door and take a deep breath, trying to compose myself, to think what I'll do if I find them in there. I push the door open. A couple of good old boys in Stetsons, propping themselves up against the urinals. No one in the stalls, which is a relief, I think.

I finally find her at the bar, alone, sucking down a margarita.

“So?”

She shakes her head. “Let's get out of here.”

In the car, she says, “He told me he wanted me to meet his mother.”

“He must get a lot of pussy with that line.”

“Actually, I think he was serious.”

“So where to?”

“Let's go to Tini's,” she says.

“You sure?” I'm still sober enough to feel some trepidation about Tini's. The last time we were there, somebody got stabbed, although we didn't actually see the fight.

“If we're going to go for it, let's just go for it.” Her earlier diffidence seems to have evaporated. “Turn it up,” she says, when “Mr. Bright Eyes” comes on Lightning 100.

It's early for Tini's, but the Friday-night house band's already playing. We settle in at a table and order drinks. Mostly old drunks and a few friends of the band so far. A fat mama in a gold bustier calls out, “Tell it!” and “Play it!” in between choruses. It would be easy to imagine these losers are playing the same song over and over, the same twelve bars on an interminable loop, but every once in a while a lyric emerges or the guitarist cuts loose and at some point I make out Sonny Boy Williamson's “Fattening Frogs for Snakes.”

Then I see him approaching, rolling like an aspiring pimp, gold chains bouncing on a voluminous white T-shirt. He grabs the empty chair at our table and flips it around, then straddles the back of it. He's not much more than twenty, if that, very dark-skinned.

“I seen you here before,” he says.

“That's possible,” I say.

“Yeah, I seen you all right.”

“I'm Susan, and this is Dean.”

It's true: I remember him. We partied with one of his friends.

“I'm dry,” he says.

“What are you drinking,” I ask.

“Yac and Coke.”

“I'll get you one.”

“Hennessy,” he says, getting cocky.

I look over at Susan to see if it's okay. You need to have signals; you've got to be able to communicate. But she seems fine. In fact, she seems more than fine, with that blurry, lascivious look on her face. How the hell much did she drink at the Corral anyway?

I'm waiting at the bar, listening to “Little Red Rooster,” when I hear three little pops. It's like the witnesses always say when you see them on the eleven o'clock news; it's like firecrackers, or maybe somebody snapping a whip outside the door, so I don't even think about it until a young guy with a reddish Afro in a puffy black parka comes running in the bar, shouting, and even though I can't make out a word of what he's saying, the place starts clearing out. Suddenly, Susan and the kid are beside me.

“There's been a shooting in the parking lot,” she says. “Derek needs a ride.” She doesn't quite wink at me, but she's got that little smirk on her face.

Outside, I catch a glimpse of legs on the ground between the legs of the onlookers, bright white Nikes splayed on the pavement.

“I don't need that shit,” the kid says as we're driving away. “You know what I'm sayin'?”

“I hear you.”

“You can drop me on Broadway.”

“Whatever,” I say.

“Or you could come to our place,” Susan says. “We could party.”

“I got a bottle of Courvoisier,” I say.

“XO?”

“I think. It might be VSOP.”

“Y'all got any reefer?”

“We've got some fine bud, plus some killer blow.”

He seems to be considering the offer, weighing the pros and cons. I try to find him in the rearview, but it's too dark.

“Where y'all's crib?”

“We're over in Green Hills.”

He snorts. “More like the white hills.”

“Len Simmons lives down the street,” Susan says. I turn toward her and roll my eyes, but she's not looking at me. Jesus Christ, I think. But the kid seems impressed that we have a Heisman winner in the nabe.

“Not bad,” he says, surveying the house from the vantage of the entry hall.

“Yac and Coke?”

“To start with.”

“Susan will show you around,” I say, handing him a Baggie with buds and papers.

When I return with the drinks, they're sitting beside each other on the living room couch. Derek is sealing the joint with his tongue.

“What's a crib like this set you back?”

“We bought in ‘01, back before the big run-up.”

He lights up the joint, inhales and hands it to Susan. “I'm gonna get me a house like this.”

“It's a great investment.”

Susan inhales deeply on the joint while I chop the coke on the coffee table.

Derek nods at me. “We oughta call Len Simmons.”

“His daughter goes to school with our little boy.”

“That wife of his, she look like she know how to get down.”

“She's hot,” I say, handing him a length of straw.

“White folks is all about the powder,” he says. “Where I comes from, s'all about the rock. You ever smoke that rock?” He leans over and snorts a couple of lines, then hands the straw to Susan.

She gathers her hair behind her head and starts to lean forward. “Would you hold my hair?” she asks.

“No problem.” He holds her hair as she crouches down over the coffee table. I've always found this incredibly sexy. When she comes back up, she strokes his arm and kisses him on the cheek. I get the feeling he's just beginning to get a sense of the possibilities.

“What kind of party y'all got in mind here?”

“Just hanging out, getting down,” I say.

“ ‘Cause I ain't into no dudes.”

“You're a ladies' man,” Susan says.

I shake my head. “Me, neither,” I say.

“I ain't ridin’ no trike.”

“I hear you.”

Derek scratches his chin contemplatively. “We need some tunes.”

“Coming right up.”

I figure
The Black Album
is a pretty safe choice. Marvin Gaye or Al Green might just be pushing it, at least to start. Susan's bending down over the coffee table. Derek takes her hair in one hand and puts the other beneath her breast. This time when she comes up, she starts to kiss him. I hold my breath, standing beside the sound system. This is no time to call attention to my presence. I wish I could say why this thrills me, why I love seeing my wife sticking her tongue in this stranger's mouth, especially when he has skin the color of French-roast coffee. They make out for three or four minutes while I stand there. Then I see Susan going for his belt. By now I have inched a few feet closer, but she has her back to me, blocking most of my view, as she slides his pants down below his knees. At this point I have to remember to keep breathing. Still in stealth mode, I move around the coffee table to improve my angle.

I hear Bongo just moments before I see him; he's barking frantically even before he launches himself at this man who is wrestling with Susan on the couch. The ensuing racket is terrifying, Susan screaming, Derek cursing, Bongo snarling and barking, until he comes flying in my direction, yelping as he lands at my feet. I grab hold of him as he tries to make another run at Derek.

“Motherfucker bit me. Jesus Christ. I'm bleeding. That fuckin' dog bit my ass.”

Susan is examining his thigh, which seems to have been the part of his body that actually sustained the wound.

“Fuckin' crazy,” he says. “Where'd that racist motherfucker come from?”

“I think we need to get him to the emergency room,” Susan says to me. Bongo's still barking and lunging as I clutch his collar.

“You people are way fucked-up,” Derek says as we lay rubber out of the cul-de-sac. “What the fuck's wrong with y'all?”

There's not much to say to this, so far as I can see. I hear a sniffling sound from Susan's side of the car and I see that she's crying.

“Fuckin' crazy white folks.”

“It's true,” she says.

I feel like pointing out that he was down with the program until Bongo bit his ass, but I decide to keep my counsel. I mean, nobody was holding a gun to his head, were they?

Derek can't contain his indignation. “Whassup with you people? You pick up strange white dudes, too, or is this some Mandingo thing?”

“No, it's not.” Susan wipes her nose and sniffles. “It's not just—it's both.”

She looks over at me, as if trying to read something in my face.

“I think maybe, I don't know, Dean likes it better when it's, you know, a black guy.”

“Me? What are you talking about? Don't put that on me. You started that.”

“If I did, it was only because I felt like you wanted me to.”

“I never said that.”

“You never complained, either.”

“And that gave you license to go for it,” I say. “Which is obviously what you wanted.”

“Deeply fucked-up, man.”

“Hey,” I say, “we never forced anybody.”

He leans forward in the backseat and slaps me on the head. “Shut the fuck up,” he says. “I want to hear what she say.” To Susan, he says, “You into this shit?”

She looks over at me, and I don't like what I'm seeing.

“I don't know. I guess I've gotten used to it.”

“Gotten
used
to it?” I can't believe this. She's completely rewriting history.

“You know, after a while it was just … something we did.”

“Give me a fucking break,” I say. “You love getting fucked by strange men. And you really love getting fucked by strange black men.”

Derek smacks me again, harder this time. “Shut up and keep your eyes on the fuckin' road. And show the lady some goddamn respect.”

We're coming up on the hospital.

“How long's this shit been goin' on?”

Susan is slumped over in the front seat, as if she's suddenly gone boneless. I notice the little blond Kelly doll sprawled, arms and legs akimbo, at her feet. I'm getting fed up with this inquisition. I mean, what the hell difference does it make how long it's been going on, and what does he care?

“I can tell you exactly,” Susan says. “It was after Dean …” Her voice catches and a sob escapes her pursed lips. “It was after he found out about something I'd done.”

“Somethin' you done? Or
someone
you done?”

“Well, yeah, someone I'd slept with.”

“What are you talking about?” I say. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Oh come on. As if you don't remember.”

“I don't know what the hell you're talking about.”

“I'm
talking
about you finding out about me and Cleve Thompson.”

“What the fuck does that have to do with anything? And why are we talking about this now?”

“Come on, Dean. That's what really started this. How long was it between you finding out about Cleve and you telling me to pick up that man at the Last Exit.”

“That was like … That was way later. And you're the one who brought up the idea of coming on to that guy.”

“Oh please.”

“Even if it was my idea, which it wasn't, I didn't hear you protesting real loud.”

She turns and gives me a look, which is worse than anything that's led up to it. “No, you didn't,” she says. “But let's at least all be honest about our motivations here, for a change.”

None of us says much of anything as we wait in the ER. I give them my credit card because Derek doesn't have any insurance and it seems we're pretty much responsible for his being here. I'm wondering if the guy who got shot at Tini's came through here. Across from us is a rail-thin country boy in a bloody NASCAR T-shirt, clutching a bloody towel to his neck, sitting beside his fat mother, who's wearing a voluminous pastel sweatsuit. “I done told you,” she says several times over the next ten minutes.

Finally, after they take Derek in to be stitched up, I turn to Susan. “You don't really believe what you said back there,” I say. “That our … little adventures … that I'm, what? Punishing you?”

“For Christ's sake, Dean. Wake up.”

Forty minutes later, I'm dropping Derek off at a bar on Sixth Street.

“Why'n cha come on with me?” he says to Susan.

To my amazement, she seems to be considering the offer. “I should.”

“Give old numbnuts here somethin' to think about.”

“I appreciate the offer.”

“You know where to find me,” he says, climbing out of the back and slamming the door.

I can't imagine what to say now. Neither, apparently, can Susan. We drive past the bright neon signs of one franchise after another in silence. It's a little past one. A gibbous harvest moon hangs over the interstate, leaking an orange glow into the surrounding sky. It's a beautiful sight, even now.

I look across at Susan. A shiny tear moves down her cheek. “What?” I say.

“I was just thinking of the first time.”

I almost ask the first time for what, but I don't. That would be hostile. Instead, I pull over in front of the Outback Steakhouse.

“You remember?”

“Of course I do.”

“We drove up to your uncle's place on the lake. In that terrible car of yours.”

I remember all right. It was a Friday night, the week before graduation. We drove up to Center Lake in my old Subaru, which had a hole in the muffler and smelled inside of gas. The mattress in the bunk bed at the shack smelled like mildew, but my new sleeping bag had a fresh, synthetic smell that was eventually canceled out by the heady, deeply organic funk of our mingled secretions—the first time I'd encountered the smell of sex. I remember the furious creaking of the rusty old bed and the lapping of waves on the shore outside and, eventually, afterward, Susan's muffled sniffles. I didn't know what to think except that somehow I'd failed. “What's the matter?” I'd finally asked. “I'm fine,” she'd said, wrapping herself around me in the sleeping bag, her cheek wet against my shoulder.

“You thought I was unhappy,” she says now, as if she's reading my mind.

“What was I supposed to think?”

“I was crying because it was perfect, and because it would never be the first time again.”

I shake my head and shrug.

“I was crying because I didn't want to ever lose you, but I knew that if we stayed together, sooner or later we would hurt each other.”