“Y'all drank up, now,” the bartender said.
Woodrow raised his bottle and drank from it. Gloria was trying to weave her bottle into his to make some kind of a toast. Virgil was glad Woodrow was sitting between them since he'd seen her give somebody a blow job on one of the pool tables one night and figured she was probably diseased.
“I'll be ready in a minute, Virgil,” Woodrow said.
“I ain't in no hurry.”
The boy had come in for a while with him, where he was welcomed by the drunk and the sober alike, bought beers, told tales of war, and given advice. Don't pat em on the head. Don't fuck em if they cough cause they got TB. That old thing about it being sideways is just a bunch of bullshit. Virgil had talked fishing with him in those few hours and he hoped him well in his distant war.
“Y'all come on, now, I got to go home and eat supper,” said the bartender.
“Me too,” Virgil said. It was probably going to be something out of a can. That was about all he had, beef stew or soup. He guessed he could make some tuna fish. All evening he'd thought about that fried chicken and the one who'd fried it. He'd had some vague hope earlier that maybe the afternoon would somehow take him by there, but that had died now. It had been a long time since he'd seen her. He'd held himself back and today at the store there had been those questions in her eyes. He guessed it had been close to a year. And there had been no way for her to see him as long as he stayed at home since she wouldn't come by there. The few times she'd called him he was still feeling guilty over Emma. Maybe she'd gotten to hurting so bad she couldn't stand it.
Woodrow lifted his bottle again and emptied it, set it down. He picked up a fresh one already opened.
“All right, come on, let's let Fred go home,” he said.
They got off their stools and said their good-byes. Woodrow had to take Gloria's arm to steady her because her hipbones weren't good and she was weary with drink. Virgil followed them out the door, his sack tucked up under his arm, watching his step out in the dark gravel lot, making his way behind them over to the car. He got in the backseat with the dog, who was sitting there looking around.
“Old Nimrod ain't took a shit back there has he?” Woodrow was poking his head in the window at him.
“I can't smell it if he has.”
“Good. If he tries to bite you or anything, just knock the shit out of him.”
Woodrow went around and got Gloria into the front seat. She turned around, smiled at Virgil with her hag's smile.
“I'll suck you off for two bucks, Virgil.”
“I'll pass.”
“Woodrow won't get it in good till he'll shoot off. Grown man like him.”
“Well I guess you just look so good Gloria he can't control himself.”
“I guess so.”
She seemed happily satisfied with that and turned back around. Woodrow came over to Virgil's side and got in behind the wheel. He turned that last beer up and then stuck it between his legs. Then he reached forward and cranked the car and they pulled out. He turned the lights on and Virgil looked at the dog next to him. An immeasurably sad hound with his long drooping face and ears that hung way down. He looked big enough to bite your hand off.
“You still gonna sell this dog, Woodrow?”
“Hell yes. I'm gonna take him to Ripley first thing in the mornin. Trade him for a crate of chickens or maybe a goat. Trade him for a good goat and he'd keep my pasture cleaned up.”
Virgil borrowed the opener from the dash and took the top off one of the beers and then passed it back. He took a good sip and settled back in the seat. The headlights carved a tunnel of light through the black woods that surrounded them, high sage grass in the ditches on either side and the road twisting through hills and curves where sometimes deer stood stark and gray with their big ears and electric eyes. Sometimes they froze where they were and sometimes they put their tails up and leaped fluidly away, bounding over downed logs and brush piles with their tails waving like banners.
Gloria had moved closer to Woodrow and she was saying something to him in a low voice. Woodrow was nodding and listening and Virgil wondered what she was telling him. What she was going to do to him maybe. Probably nothing that mattered. Just drunk talk. He'd said plenty of it himself more times than he cared to remember.
He sipped his beer and looked at the dog. The hound had curled up on the seat with his head hanging over the edge, jostling slowly inside his skin as the old car bumped and rocked over the road. Woodrow drove slowly and the radio played country tunes at a low level, songs by an angel of the earth whose soul had been freed on the side of a mountain.
He got one of the last Camels from his pocket and lit it, resting his elbow on the armrest and leaning against the door as they began to be bathed softly in a pulsing red light that seemed to have drifted upon them from out of the sky.
“Damn,” Woodrow said. “The law's got us.”
Virgil turned around and looked at the car tailing them and the dust rising against the headlights so that they were steadily emerging from a cloud of tiny particles that threatened to cover them, put them out.
“Hell, I guess I better pull over.”
Woodrow came to a stop in the middle of the road and left the motor running. Virgil turned back around to face the front and watched Woodrow looking into the rearview mirror.
“He's comin up here,” Woodrow said. “Stick this beer in between us, Gloria.”
She took it and did something with it, maybe secreted it away somewhere in the folds of her dress. Woodrow had his window down and Virgil heard a car door slam behind them.
“It's Bobby.”
Virgil turned his head and looked at him as he came up beside the car.
He had his gun on and he looked in at Virgil first, then at Woodrow and Gloria.
“Hey Bobby,” Woodrow said.
“Hey Woodrow. What are y'all up to?”
“Aw, we just been down to the VFW for a little bit. We was takin Virgil home.”
“That right?”
“Yeah.”
Virgil didn't say anything but he wondered why he'd stopped them. The car was still running and Gloria was looking straight ahead. Bobby just stood there for a second like he was trying to think of what to say. Then he bent over and put his hands on his knees.
“I need to talk to Virgil,” he said. “I thought I might run into y'all down here somewhere.”
He moved down to the window where Virgil was sitting and leaned over to him. “You mind getting in with me for a little bit? I'll take you on home after while.”
It wasn't like he could say no. But there was nothing unreasonable about it. Bobby'd picked him up before. And even seemed glad to see him sometimes.
“I guess I can. Let me get my beer.”
Bobby reached and opened the door for him. The headlights of the cruiser behind them made little shadows stretch ahead of the rocks in the road.
“Sure. I just need to talk to you for a little bit.”
“Ain't nothin wrong is it?”
Bobby shook his head and looked down on him with a face that was full of sadness.
“Ain't nothin wrong, Virgil. Come on and let's take a little ride.”
The dog had been watching this but now he settled back down on the
seat and closed his eyes. Virgil gathered up his sack and got out of the car holding the single beer bottle in his hand, the cigarette in his mouth. Bobby shut the door behind him when he stepped away from the car and he turned to look back at Woodrow. He looked worried. Gloria was still sitting woodenly beside him.
“I'll see you later, Woodrow.”
Woodrow nodded and lifted one hand and gave a little wave good-bye to him. He pulled the car down in gear and sat there for a moment.
“Take it easy, Virgil.”
“Okay.”
Bobby had already started walking back toward his car and Virgil blinked, glancing into the headlights. He took a drink of his beer and started walking. Woodrow pulled off and waved again. Bobby had already gotten in and was sitting behind the wheel lighting a cigarette. The interior light was on and Virgil saw that Bobby had left his door open until Virgil could get around to the other side. He opened the door to the front seat and hesitated, not knowing whether to set the rest of the beer in there or not. But he got on in and set the sack between his feet and closed the door. Bobby closed his door and the light went out.
“You don't mind taking a little ride with me, do you, Virgil?”
He had taken his hat off and it was lying on the seat between them. Bobby seemed to be studying him with something almost like worry on his face.
“Naw. I don't mind. I don't mind at all.”
“Well,” Bobby said softly. “That's good.” And they pulled off.
“You want one of these beers?” Virgil said. He offered the bottle but Bobby just shook his head.
“I better not. Not tonight.”
There was a small green light burning on the radio that was under the
dash but the radio was silent. They drove slowly. He pushed a switch and the red light outside went off. He started picking up a little speed and Virgil sipped his beer. The car was nearly new and it leveled most of the bumps out of the road.
“When'd you get this car?”
“About a month back. I gave my old one to Jake and Harold got his.”
They kept driving and Bobby steered the car with a casual hand. On a long straightaway they encountered dust drifting across the road and through the darkness ahead one single red taillight that was Woodrow. Bobby slowed down.
“What y'all been up to?” he said.
“Nothing. Drinking a beer.”
“I thought you quit.”
Virgil thought about it for a moment.
“Well. Not exactly,” he said. “I try to stay off that whiskey. Hurts my liver to drink it.”
Bobby nodded. The dust was thicker and they were closer to Woodrow now. At an intersection where they could see the red light still moving down the road ahead of them Bobby turned right and got out of the dust. He pushed it up to about forty and left it there.
“I talked to Glen yesterday,” he said.
“I heard you did. I saw your mama at the store today.”
“What was she doing?”
“She just stopped in for a minute. Wanted me to come eat dinner with her.”
Bobby glanced over at him.
“Well? Did you?”
“Naw. I didn't know whether you'd want me to or not.”
“Why do you think I'd care?”
“I don't know.”
Virgil raised the beer bottle and took a long drink from it. Bobby stared at the road.
“Goddamn, Virgil, I don't care for you eating dinner. If it makes her happy. If it makes you happy. If you think I spend my time worrying about that you're wrong.”
Virgil didn't say anything. He guessed he'd finally get around to whatever he had on his mind, but he thought he knew what that was.
“I mean it ain't like we ever have a family dinner or anything,” Bobby said. “Half the time she ends up eating by herself cause I'm off somewhere. She'd probably like to have some company besides me sometime anyway. Or a bunch of old women puttin a quilt together.”
Bobby slowed the car a bit and he seemed to relax. He watched things all around him as he drove, the fence at the side of a pasture, a rabbit frozen in the weeds, the lights of houses far off in the dark.
“You know Frankie Barlow, don't you, Virgil?”
“Yeah, I know him. I ain't seen him in a long time. I used to go over to his place some. Long time ago when he was just a boy. I knew his daddy. It didn't do to cross him.”
“How you know that?”
Virgil took a drink of his beer and looked out the window for a moment, then watched the needle on the speedometer hovering around thirty-five.
“I just do.”
“You ever see anybody who did?”
“Not exactly.”
Bobby smiled at him for a second, like maybe he didn't believe him. “How you know it didn't do to cross him then?”
Virgil crossed his legs and reached for the last cigarette in his pocket. He lit it and rested the beer bottle on his leg.
“I went over there early one day to get some beer. I had some lines out
in the river, that was back when I was still commercial fishin. There was a window there by the side and the old man slept on a cot in there. Somebody come by in the middle of the night, he'd get up and sell em some beer. But he come to the door and let me in that day and there was a big puddle of blood on the floor. I like to stepped in it. Hell, I looked down, knowed what it was, but I asked him what it was and he said it wasn't nothin, just where he had to kill some son of a bitch the night before. Went on and sold me my beer.”
Bobby nodded and the car slowed even more. “I never did know him. That was before my time, I guess. I've known Frankie a long time. Glen used to go over there a lot. I did, too, years ago. Them two never did seem to like each other. Always figured they'd eventually get into it. Both of em bad to fight when they got to drinkin.”
“Puppy told me that Glen was drunk before he ever got over there.”
“They got into it about Jewel, didn't they? Wasn't that what it started over?”
“I think Barlow offered to buy her a drink was all it was.”
“Yeah, I finally got that much out of her,” Bobby said. “She don't like to talk about it much. I reckon she tried to talk him into lettin her drive home but he wouldn't do it. Got mad. Dropped her off then rode around all night long. Have you seen her lately?”
“Not in a while,” Virgil said, and took another drink of his beer. “My car's been tore up and I can't hardly walk over there. Some days I can make it to the store and back. That's about it.”
Bobby looked out his window and turned his head back.
“Glen tell you I had a talk with him?”
Seems like I talked to one of your mistakes yesterday
.