Not that I know of.
Not around here, Buster said.
Guthrie drank from his glass and looked at him. What’d you do, lose some weight? I didn’t recognize you.
Hell yeah. How’s it look on me?
It looks good.
I just got out of detox. I lost some weight in there.
How was that?
Detox?
Yeah.
It was all right. Except once I got sobered up I was depressed as hell. Crying all the time. Doctor give me some anti-depression pills. Then I was okay. Except I couldn’t shit.
Guthrie grinned and shook his head. Hell of a deal.
It’s a hell of a deal, Tom. You can’t live if you can’t shit. Can you?
I don’t believe so.
No. So then he give me some laxatives. Cleaned me out thorough. That’ll make you lose some weight, let me tell you. Only I couldn’t keep up with it. All the time I was in there I eat like a horse but I kept shittin like a full growed elephant. Buster laughed. He was missing teeth on the upper left side of his mouth.
Sounds like a radical cure to me, Guthrie said.
Oh, you don’t want to do it every day, Buster said.
They both drank. Guthrie looked back into the other room. Judy was laughing about something with the people at the table. A big curly-haired man was there now too.
Where’s your partner? Guthrie said. I don’t see him anywhere.
Who?
Terrel.
Oh, hell. Didn’t you hear about that?
No.
Well hell. Terrel he was coming into town yesterday morning driving in his truck on the north side of town there and that little spotted bitch dog of Smythe’s run out in the street in front of him. Terrel feared he run over it. So he slowed down and opened the door and leant out to look behind him and be goddamned if he didn’t fall out of the truck right out in the street. The truck went on without him and runt into Helen Shattuck’s backyard privacy fence. They took him to the hospital, thinking he’d had a cardiac arrest. When he come to he had to tell what it was. Fell out of the truck, all it was. On account of he’s overweight and got to leaning out too far. Overbalanced hisself, I guess. Dumped out on his head right there on Hoag Street.
Guthrie shook his head, grinning. How bad was he hurt?
Oh, he’s all right. Give him a good headache is all.
Did he hit the dog?
Nah. Hell. The dog wasn’t even involved. The dog skedaddled. You reckon there’s a lesson there?
I wouldn’t be surprised, Guthrie said.
My mama use to say it’s a lesson in everything you do if you just have eyes to see it, Buster said.
I believe that, Guthrie said. Your mama was a smart woman.
Yes sir, she was, Buster said. She’s been dead now twenty-seven years.
Guthrie lit a cigarette and offered the pack to Buster. Buster took one and inspected it and put the filter end in his mouth. They smoked and drank for a while. Monroe brought Guthrie another beer and brought a beer and a shot for Buster. Take it out of that, Guthrie said. Buster nodded thanks to him and picked up the little glass and threw the shot back and immediately afterward bent over and had a long drink of beer.
As he was finishing it Judy came up from the back room. She stopped behind Guthrie and tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned around she said, I thought you’d be at the party at Maggie Jones’s house.
I was. I didn’t see you there.
I get enough of school at school, she said. It’s just the teachers. The same old talk.
Well, Guthrie said, you’re looking good.
Why, thank you. She turned completely around in front of him, making a little dance. She had on a low-cut white top and tight blue jeans and boots fashioned from soft red leather. The tightness of the top she was wearing made smooth pretty mounds of her breasts.
Can I buy you a drink?
I came over to buy you one, she said.
You can buy the next one, Guthrie said.
All right. I won’t forget.
Monroe brought her a rum and Coke and handed it to her and she tasted it and stirred it with the straw and tasted it again.
You want to sit down? Guthrie said.