Craig shrugged, sliding clean Pilsner glasses into the rack. “I’ve been hearing some pretty shitty things about you. They true?”
“N—” Paul began. He stared into the depths of his beer. Then he said: “Yes. I guess they are.”
“Vera really catch you in bed with two girls?”
Paul nodded. Only one of ’em wasn’t really a girl. “She tell you that?”
“No, she disappeared. Just something I’ve been hearing. You know how word gets around downtown. That’s not like you, man. And coke? Since when do you do drugs?”
“Never,” Paul said. Never in my life. “I don’t know what came over me. Got shitfaced, met two girls, next thing I know I’m in bed with both of them. I’ve never been so out of control in my life.”
“I heard one of the girls was Daisy Traynor.”
Paul squinted. “Never heard of her. In fact, I never seen either of these girls before.”
“Daisy Traynor’s a hooker. They call her ‘Daisy Train,’ on account of she pulls trains—you know, gangbangs. You’re out of your mind going anywhere near that. She’s a crack addict. Every now and then she’ll stumble in here real late, all fucked up on cocaine, and I’ll just throw her right the fuck out. Last summer me and Luce hear about this big party going down at Cruiser’s Creek, near the water off of Bestgate, so we check it out. Some party. When the kegs went dry some of the locals started passing around coke and PCP, so me and Luce leave. But before we’re out of there, we see Daisy back in the woods behind some guy’s house, doing a whole motorcycle gang. She’s pure scum, man. Probably got every disease in the book.”
Paul groaned. Once he’d gotten his shit together, he’d gone to the doctor’s for blood tests. Thank God they’d been negative. “What’s this Daisy look like?”
“Skinny, short blond hair, ragged-out. She’s like twenty-two but looks ten years older. She’s got a little cross tattooed in the pit of her throat.”
“That’s her,” Paul lamented. He remembered that much. And the redhead, the guy/girl, must’ve been one of her friends. Days later, when he’d snapped out of it, he’d found his wallet cleaned out, his watch and other valuables gone. Bitches, he thought. Goddamn whores. That’s how they worked. Get a guy all fucked up, and then rip him blind. You got no one to blame but yourself, asshole, he thought.
Craig stepped hesitantly closer when refilling Paul’s glass. “No offense, man, but you kind of smell like garbage. And…” Craig sniffed, scrunching his nose. “Whiskey cream?”
“Don’t ask,” Paul said. “I gotta find Vera. You know where she is?”
“Naw, all I heard was she took some new job out of town. Bunch of people from The Emerald Room come in here after they close, and they’re bitching up a storm.
Seems Vera took all their best people with her, and the restaurant’s going downhill.”
“Couple guys named Georgie and Dim have already made me well aware of that fact,” Paul said. “There’s got to be someone who knows where this new job is.”
“Talk to the owner, that fat guy. Wherever she went, she must’ve left a forwarding address for her W-2 and any vacation pay she’s got coming. Ask him. McCracken, I think his name is.”
McGowen, Paul thought. I gotta talk to him. Vera had mentioned him from time to time, said he was a fat slob who liked to put the make on the waitresses. He probably wouldn’t be too keen on meeting the guy who’d caused his manager to leave town, but Paul couldn’t think of any alternatives. He’d have to give it a shot.
“Haven’t seen your byline in the paper lately,” Craig remarked, shaking up an order of Windex shooters for some rowdies at the other end of the bar.
“And you won’t, not in the City Sun, anyway. Tate fired me.”
Craig just shook his head, pouring the shooters. “You want some friendly advice, Paul?”
“No, but I have a feeling I’m going to get it anyway.”
“Get your act together, and do it fast. Look at yourself. A month ago, you had a great job, a great fiancée, and a great life. You had it all.”
“I know,” Paul muttered.
“When you were with Vera, you were going places.” Craig looked at him, almost disgusted. “But you ain’t going nowhere now but down.”
Paul paid his tab and left. There were tears in his eyes. The moon’s bright scowling face now seemed to smile in hilarity. Down, down, down, Paul thought. Craig was right. The dark streets were all he understood now, and the bracing cold and brittle light. He was alone, and he deserved to be. I deserve nothing, he thought.
His tears turned to ice on his face. How could I have fucked up my life so bad?
««—»»
“When are you going to talk about it?” Donna asked, rather meekly. She dawdled about her open dresser, fishing through her lingerie.
“Talk about what?” Vera asked.
“You know. Paul.”
The name caused her to fidget on the cushioned settee. After their shift, she’d come up to Donna and Dan B.’s room, to borrow the book about haunted mansions. She thumbed through it now, not even seeing its words. Paul, she thought.
“I don’t know. I’m thinking that I should probably never talk about it. Why remind myself of something…like that?”
Donna continued to dawdle, inspecting the frilly garments. “Well, sometimes it’s good to talk about things that hurt. If you keep them bottled up, they can explode.”
This was true—sometimes, at least. But Vera felt differently in this case. Simply hearing his name gave her a flexing, negative spasm in her soul. Not only did it hurt, it embarrassed her, for it was embarrassing, to be with someone that long, and then to find out what kind of person he really was. It made her feel stupid, as though she possessed no manner of adult judgment at all.
Yes, the less she heard about Paul, and talked about him, the better. I’ll erase him from my memory, she vowed. I’ll banish him from my mind. Goddamn him anyway, I’m gonna pretend that he was never even born.
At least that’s what she hoped.
“What do you think?”
Vera looked up and nearly gasped. While she’d been pondering over Paul, Donna had changed into black garters and stockings, and a see-through black camisole, which left little of Donna’s bodily features to the imagination.
“Dan B.’ll have a heart attack when he sees you in that,” Vera exclaimed.
“More like a hard attack,” Donna laughed. “And that’s the idea, isn’t it?” She twirled around, giggling, then stood to appraise herself in a carven-framed wall mirror. “Yeah, this one’s really going to set him off.”
Donna’s body, Vera couldn’t help but notice, seemed as bright and robust as her newfound happiness. She was a little overweight, but in a healthy, attractive way, and the extra weight left her better proportioned with her five feet, three inches. Vera remembered how awful Donna had looked—how ragged, scrawny, and malnourished—back in the days of her alcoholism. Sobriety not only embellished her appearance but it also gave her life, energy, love. It was wonderful to see her so happy.
How happy am I? Vera thought in a sudden doldrum. Was she jealous? Donna had surfaced from the abyss, and now had quite a bit to show for it. Moreover, she had love, and a good man who loved her. And a sex life, Vera reminded herself.
Why can’t I have those things?
She frowned then, at her selfishness. She was feeling sorry for herself, and that nearly disgusted her. It was weakness. Too often it was easy to want more—there was always more—but the fact remained: she was a healthy, successful woman in a free state, and she must never forget that. Quit complaining, Vera. Most women in the world would give their right arms to have what you have. So stop being a baby.