But all the swirling logos and white-handled shopping bags could not mask the fact that Waldorf was still Waldorf-the memory of the abandoned 301 Drive-In still loomed like a decaying gray ghost over the highway, and it still took fifteen minutes to get an ice-cream cone from the geriatric hair-netted help at Bob-Lu’s Diner. Then there was Reb’s Fireplace (the sign had two silhouetted swingers dancing the night away over the tag line LET’S PARTY TONIGHT!), aptly named since it had become a raging inferno one night three years earlier and had remained und nGHTemolished, a charred shell and unforgivable eyesore to the occupants of the Volvos who cruised by nightly on their commute home to the planned “city” of Saint Charles.
Billy pulled the car into the next lot down from Reb’s, where a nightclub called the Blue Diamond stood windowless and alone. The lot was filled with Ford and Chevy pickups, late-model American sedans, and Mustangs and Firebirds. We parked next to a black El Camino that had a blue tarp in the bed covering varying lengths of PVC pipe.
“What’s going on?”
“One of April’s haunts,” Billy said. “She used to stop here on the trip home, and usually on the way back. Maybe someone’s seen her.”
I patted the dog, who had instinctively lain down when Billy cut the engine. We locked up and walked across the lot. A couple of young men exited the club as we approached. They didn’t look at us, and they didn’t hold the door. The Top 40 rock coming from inside faded and then blared out as I pulled the door open once again.
The Blue Diamond had two circular bars on either side of the room and a large dance floor in the middle, with a live band playing on a barely elevated stage in front of it. The band was finishing up their set with “Glory Days,” the vocals buried somewhere in the heavily synthesized mix. A sea of acid-washed jeans, high-tops, and ruffled shirts moved on the dance floor. A glitzy banner behind the band announced that they were FRIDAY’S CHILD.
Two mustachioed bouncers, both twig-legged but heavy in the chest, checked our IDs. We moved to the bar and ordered a couple of domestics. I paid the tab and added a healthy tip, and the neckless bartender took both without a nod. Billy and I turned and leaned our backs against the bar.
No one spoke to us while we drank or even gave us a hard stare. Finally I turned to Billy. “Come here often?”
“I like it like cancer.”
“We’re way too old for this shit. Nobody even wants to kick our asses.”
“I know,” he said. “Let me ask around, then we’ll split.”
“That’s my job.”
“And you can do it. But I’ll do it here. I know some of these guys.”
“Go ahead.”
I grabbed my beer off the bar and walked into the men’s room. After I drained I washed up in a dirty sink and ran a wet paper towel across my face. When I walked out Billy was on the other side of the room talking to the barkeep. He was putting something back into his wallet while he talked. He nodded and headed back in my direction. I finished my beer and placed it on the Formica-topped bar as he arrived.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Any luck?”
Billy shook his head quickly. “These brain-deads don’t know a fuckin’ thing.”
›
We moved across the empty dance floor to the entranceway. I noticed the blue vein of determination on Billy’s temple, and I knew he was going to crack on the doorman, knew it like I knew the sun was going to rise, knew it from all the teenage years we had spent together in bars more dangerous than this. When we reached the door, Billy turned to the larger of the two bouncers and smiled.
“Thanks,” he said. “We had a great time. And oh yeah”-Billy whacked his own forehead thoughtfully-“I meant to tell you when we walked in. I really like those jeans you’re wearing tonight.”
“Yeah?” the doorman said with hesitance.
“Yeah,” Billy said, the smile turning down on his face. “My sister’s got a pair just like ’em.”
The doorman sighed and said, “You guys have a nice evening,” holding the door open for us as we walked out. I zipped up my jacket as we moved across the lot.
“What the hell you do that for?” I said.
“It’s his job to take shit.”
“You always had to do that, Billy. You always were a mean drunk.”
“Drunk?” Billy said, showing me his young-boy grin. “Man, I’m not even halfway there.”
We climbed into the car, and Billy started it up while I fixed him a beer. Maybelle’s nose touched the back of my neck. Billy caught rubber and tilted back his bottle as he pulled back out onto 301.
Waldorf ended abruptly, and then the highway was the same as it had been before-flat road and forest with the occasional strip shops, failed antique stores, and billboards. Billy kept the needle at seventy, and ten minutes later we hit La Plata, much like Waldorf only less. Past La Plata were last-chance liquor stores and low-rise motels with Plymouth Dusters and Dodge Chargers and Chevy half-tons parked in their gravel lots. Billy aimed the Maxima for a red-and-blue neon sign touting on/off sale as we both drained the last of our beers.
“You go in,” Billy said, cutting the engine. “I’ll pitch the empties in that can.” He nodded to a rusted oil barrel open on one end that stood near the bar entrance.
We were parked in front of a wide, noncurtained plate-glass window. The bar-it had no name-was cinder block painted white. Through the window I could see a small group of men in their thirties and forties shooting pool. “I’ll be right back.”
I left the car, walked to a glass door, pulled it open, and entered. It was only ten o’ clock, but the place was lit up like last call. I guessed they didn’t go much for atmosphere-a look around the place confirmed it. There were three scarred pool tables standing on the industrial-tiled floor, with some metal folding chairs scattered around the tables. A jukebox was against the left wall, though it wasn’t lit and there was no music playing. A narrow wooden bar stood against the back wall, also unlit, with a small selection of low-call liquor racked behind it.
There were two games being shot, and the entire snd ont patronage of the bar was grouped around the games. The men wore designer jeans circa 1978 and sweatshirts with the sleeves pushed back to reveal uniformly pale and hairy forearms. The few women in the joint, teased hair and also in jeans, sat in the folding chairs drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, the ashes of which they flicked to the floor. The men’s cigarettes were balanced on the edges of the pool tables, lit end out.
I moved to the bar and on the way got a chin nod from one of the players, a nod that I returned. The woman behind the bar was blond and maybe fifty, with a raspberry birthmark on her right cheek.
“What can I get you?” she said in a businesslike but upbeat way.
“Two sixes of Bud bottles to go,” I said, “and a pint of Old Grand-Dad. Thanks.”
“Don’t have the Grand-Dad. Something else?”
“A pint of Beam, then.”
“The Black or White?”
“Make it the White.”
She wrapped the bourbon and handed me the bag. “Let me go in the back and get you the beer.” She winked. “Rather not pull it from here, have to restock the cooler later.”
She left the bar and entered a walk-in to the left of it. I turned, rested my back on the bar, and looked out the plate-glass window onto 301. Billy was standing in the gravel next to the Maxima, looking down at the rush of his own steaming urine as he peed toward the window. His hair was unmoussed now, full and ruffled as I remembered it from his youth, and his mouth was slightly open, with that dumb look of stoned concentration he had perpetually worn as a teenager. I felt a sudden sting of guilt and looked away. I drew a cigarette from my jacket and lit it, keeping the hot smoke in and giving it a long exhale. Someone tapped my shoulder.