Someone like Dawson.
“Fuck that,” I said out loud to shut up the smarmy voice inside my head.
“You’d like to fuck that. Too bad your luck ain’t holding.”
I didn’t respond. Just drank. Steadily.
Laronda slithered into the space next to me. The gold bracelets on her arms clattered like a rattlesnake’s tail as she waved down Muskrat.
Her overprocessed hair brushed my cheek like a piece of cheap carpet. Too bad I didn’t smoke. One flick of the Bic and her starched mane would flame up like underbrush in August.
“Maybe it’s not bad luck. Maybe it’s your attitude.”
“Fuck off, Laronda.” I reached for an empty ashtray.
“Then again, maybe it is your age.”
“You want to go a round or two with me tonight?”
“No. I was taught to respect my elders.”
Shake it off, some helpful voice inside my head suggested. I didn’t listen. I spit a stream of tobacco juice. It missed the ashtray and splashed on her manicured hand.
“Watch it!” Her gaze narrowed until her ratlike eyes nearly disappeared. Her laugh rang as phony as every other thing decorating her person. “You are a class act. No wonder you’re sitting here alone glaring at your beer.”
After she paid for her vodka sour, she sashayed away to dick with someone else.
The alcohol soaked in. On my return from the bathroom, I paused to observe a game of darts in the back room. Barely thirty seconds passed before I smelled her. Coating her slimy skin with cheap perfume wouldn’t mask the venom in her blood. I waited for her to open her big trap and her forked tongue to emerge.
It didn’t take long.
“I suspected you’d be back here trolling.”
“You would know all about that.”
“Ooh. Meow. You are an old sourpuss, aren’t you?”
Jesus. I needed another drink, and I was already three sheets to the wind. I started to walk away.
“Hey, I’m talking to you.”
Laronda made the mistake of sinking her claws into my shoulder.
Instinct kicked in. I grabbed her hand and twisted her arm behind her back. “Don’t ever touch me.”
“That hurts!”
“Good.”
“Let go.”
I did.
When she whirled around to attack me, I smashed her back into the concrete block wall until her head cracked. I braced my forearm across her windpipe, hindering her hands with my free arm and blocking her legs with mine. Boring. I could take her even when I was shitfaced.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me. Don’t look at me. If I even think you’re breathing in my direction, I will fuck you up. Understand?”
Laronda glared, but didn’t answer.
So I pressed harder on her throat.
Her eyes began to water. Her face turned as red as the cherry in her sissy-ass drink.
“Are you clear on that?”
She tried to nod. When she couldn’t, she panicked.
I let her.
She thrashed.
I let her.
I whispered, “Stay away from me.”
She thrashed some more.
I didn’t care. I had a burning desire to get her to that elusive point right before she passed out where she couldn’t breathe. Where she thought she might die. And my apathetic eyes would be the last things she’d see.
“Mercy,” he said my name sharply. “Let her go.”
I removed my forearm. Laronda coughed and gasped, dropping to her knees, which I figured was a natural position for her.
It’d be smug and voyeuristic to watch her wheeze, so I faced John-John. “What?”
“What were you doing to her?”
“Um… punching her dance card?”
“Not funny.” He leaned in to sniff my breath. “I oughta have Muskrat throw you out for that stunt.”
“Do it. I don’t give a damn.” I sidestepped him. The crowd granted me a wide berth as I headed back to my lonely bar stool.
At the bar I upended the remaining beer.
John-John edged up beside Muskrat. “Are you drunk?”
“Close.” I hated the sympathetic look in his eyes. “You tossing me out?”
He shook his head.
“Good. Then bring me another round.”
“I don’t think-”
“Leave her be, John-John.” Muskrat swapped the empty glass for a full one. “She’s entitled.”
For that, Muskrat deserved a big tip. I toasted him and blew him a kiss.
“So whatcha gonna do for fun next?” John-John asked. “Kick a few senior citizens?”
“Dance. Think any of these guys will give me a spin?”
Muskrat snorted.
“You could always use force. That seems to work for you.”
“Fuck off, John-John.” I smiled meanly. “Then again, some guys prefer to be dominated, don’t they?”
“I see you overdosed on vitamin bitch today,” John-John shot back.
“Knock it off, both of you,” Muskrat said.
“I’m just getting started.” I twirled on my bar stool. Grabbed the first guy who walked past: a fifty-year-old biker with faded prison tats, and a gray soul patch around his hard mouth. “Wanna dance?”
His four teeth made his grin interesting, if not downright charming. “What the hell. My old lady ain’t here.”
We danced. I drank. I found another willing victim to two-step to “Right or Wrong” by George Strait. Another fearless young Indian brave slow danced with me to Keith Urban’s “Raining on Sunday.” The partners and songs began to blur. Dancing didn’t alleviate the too-tight feeling of my skin. The booze didn’t diminish the ache in my soul.
When I returned to my seat for another shot, John-John placed his hand on my drinking arm. “Is this helping, doll? Because you don’t look like you’re having fun.”
“I don’t know what fun looks like anymore.” I closed my eyes and knocked back a shot. It made me very, very dizzy. I was very, very loaded. I’d passed the I love you, man stage and reached the my life sucks stage.
“Where were you before you decided to drink yourself into oblivion?”
“At Geneva’s fortress of self-righteousness.”
“Did you two have a fight?”
My soft laugh held a bitter edge. “Takes two to fight. She treated me to a diatribe.” I shivered. The excessive alcohol had thinned my blood. Or, if I believed Geneva, I was already cold-blooded. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Let me know when you do.” He slid a Coke in front of me. “Can you take a break from straight shots?”
“I’d probably better.”
I drank the soda. Ordered another. Took a break to rid myself of some of the booze, but I didn’t run into Laronda in the bathroom. Maybe she’d slunk back underneath the rock she’d crawled out from.
The door blew open. Several soggy bikers stumbled in. Thunder rattled the rafters. Clementine’s didn’t have windows, so I couldn’t tell if lightning accompanied the rain.
I dug out the Skoal Bandits and nestled it in my cheek. The weather fit my mood; I was sinking in my own little cesspool. I didn’t notice the subdued noise level in the bar until he bulled his way in behind me.
“I need to talk to you.”
Why did his deep voice cause a quiver in my belly? “Go away, Dawson.”
“Talk to me here or I’ll drag you to the office. Your choice.”
“Your girlfriend called you, did she?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
The silence in the bar was short-lived.
“Did she whine to you about me being mean to her? Boo fucking hoo.”
“Did you physically threaten her?”
“Yep.” I still hadn’t turned to look at him.
“Why?”
“Because I felt like it, that’s why.”
“This isn’t helping.”
“So? I don’t give a rat’s ass. Slap the cuffs on or get away from me.”
John-John was watching and listening from behind the cash register.
Dawson wrapped his hand around my upper arm. “Mercy-”