He stared at me like he was trying to see inside my skin. Then he smiled, slow — a genuine smile this time. “Okay,” he said.
“You know, John, you ought to use that smile more often. It’s a real nice one.”
It was, too. He didn’t seem as ugly when he smiled, and it made those silver eyes look a lot softer. He likes me, I thought, and I felt good that he’d changed his opinion. I want people to like me, the ones I like in particular.
“I’ll keep that in mind, too,” he said. He finished what was left of his beer. “How about getting me a refill and letting me eat my dinner before it gets cold?”
He said it like a joke, and I laughed. “Sure thing.” I touched his arm, you know the way you do, just being friendly, and picked up his empty and turned away. But I hadn’t taken more than about three steps when I happened to look over at the entrance, and all at once I lost my smile and the good feeling I had. If I’d eaten anything before coming on shift, I might’ve lost that, too.
Earle was standing inside the door.
Standing there with his hands on his hips, glaring at me and past me at big John Faith.
Trisha Marx
We were at Northlake Chevron, where Anthony’s brother, Mateo, works, when the guy in the Porsche drove in. Just hanging, that’s all, Anthony and Mateo talking cars cars cars the way they usually did when they were together. Major boring on a good night, and this one wasn’t good. The whole week hadn’t been good. Maybe the last couple of months — maybe my whole life. I was afraid it was gonna turn into total crap and I didn’t know what to do to keep that from happening.
Talk to Anthony, sure. Pretty soon I’d have to. And he’d probably go ballistic, same as Daddy would when he found out. All Anthony cared about was cars, fast cars, and going down to Sears Point to watch the Formula One races and getting high and getting into my pants whenever I’d let him. It was his fault as much as mine, but would that matter to him? Would he want to marry me? And if he didn’t, what was I gonna do then?
Total crap at seventeen. If I was really pregnant.
Two missed periods now, and throwing-up sick two mornings this week. Sure I was pregnant.
That’s what I was thinking when the Porsche pulled in and this huge guy got out of it. I mean, really huge. Pretty old, around forty, with pocks and a scar on his chin and a head like a carved rock. Anthony and Mateo were staring at him, too, and it was plain they didn’t like what they saw. As if he was there to give them a hassle or something, when all he wanted was to buy some gas. He wasn’t paying any attention to any of us as he unhooked the hose and stuck the nozzle into the tank.
Anthony said, “Man, will you look at him.”
“Ugly fucker,” Mateo said. “Wonder if he’s tough as he looks.”
“Why don’t you go find out, man?”
“Yeah.”
“So why don’t you?”
“Shit, man, I can’t just go pop the dude, can I?”
“Think you could take him?”
“If I had to. Yeah, sure, I’m big enough. Look at that face, man. Makes you want to bust it up some more, don’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Face like that... man, you just want to smash it. You know what I’m saying?”
“Like that Cisneros dude down in Southport.”
“Yeah, like him. Ugly puto like that... what’s he doing around here?”
“Go ask him, man.”
“Freak him. I don’t care what he’s doing here, man.”
I quit listening to them. Stupid talk. I don’t know what’s the matter with guys sometimes. Wanting to beat up somebody just because of the way they look. A person can’t help it if they’re ugly or deformed or something, can they? And don’t they have the right not to be hassled, same as everybody else?
Anthony isn’t always such a macho jerk. Only when he’s with his buddies, and worst of all when he’s with Mateo. His brother’s three years older and a total asshole. Always strutting around and starting trouble. Once, when a bunch of us were partying at Nucooee Point, he put his hand up my skirt and tried to tear my panties off — he was drunk on Green Death, that ale from up in Washington, and he’s even more of a pig when he’s ripped — and I practically had to scream rape before he let me alone. I told Anthony about it and he just laughed. As far as he’s concerned, Mateo never does anything wrong. Mateo could blow up the courthouse and Anthony would probably think it was a cool thing to do.
So the huge guy finished pumping his gas and came over to pay Mateo for it. Mateo gave his badass sneer and said something I didn’t hear and Anthony laughed. The huge guy looked at them, one and then the other, not saying a word. Anthony stopped laughing and Mateo stopped sneering, just like that. So then the huge guy reached out and tucked a ten-dollar bill into Mateo’s shirt pocket, hard and with a sneer of his own, and Mateo didn’t move or say a word. Not then and not until the Porsche’s engine roared and its tires laid rubber as it went zooming out of the station.
Then Macho Man gave the finger, jabbing it into the air half a dozen times, and yelled, “¡Carajo! Vete al carajo! Tu madre!” at the top of his voice.
“You should’ve popped him, man,” Anthony said.
“Yeah. Next time I see him I’ll break his ugly fuckin’ head with a fuckin’ tire iron.”
I said, “Only if you sneak up behind him in a dark alley.”
He raked me with his eyes. “What’d you say?”
“He didn’t do anything to you.”
“Came in here with a chip on. Tough guy.”
“No, he didn’t.”
Anthony said, “You saw the way the dude looked at us. Mean, man, like he wanted to break our heads.”
“Why don’t you grow up, Anthony.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Say that again, Trish, I’ll bust your lip.”
“Now who’s being mean?”
“I’m telling you, man. Go bitch on me and I’ll pop you.”
I’m pregnant! I’m gonna have your kid!
I felt like screaming the words at him. But I didn’t, because then maybe he really would smack me. He’d never laid a hand on me before, but there’s always a first time. His eyes were hot and squinty, his face all scrunched up like a little boy getting ready to throw a tantrum. I’ve always thought Anthony’s the handsomest hunk in Pomo and that I was, like, beyond lucky when he first asked me out; I practically wet my pants the first time he kissed me. But he didn’t look handsome now. He looked mean, like he’d accused the Porsche guy of being. And a lot uglier, somehow.
Funny, but all of a sudden I wasn’t so sure I wanted him to marry me. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to keep on being with him, whether or not I had his damn baby.
Douglas Kent
Storm’s eyes were all over the strange beast as soon as it lumbered into Gunderson’s Lounge. When it settled its hairy bulk at the other end of the bar, she shifted slightly on her stool so she could keep watching it without turning her head. Large, the way she liked ’em. Large and unsightly and endowed, no doubt, with no more than two active brain cells. What did she talk to them about afterward? Or were her postcoital conversations limited to contented sighs on her part, satisfied animal grunts and purrs on theirs?
You’ll never know, Kent.
No Stormy nights for you, bucko — past, present, or future.