I tried to look around him at the TV.
“Roxanne Gisel e Logan, look at me.”
I looked at him. I’d had years of “Roxanne Gisel e Logan”. I was conditioned to do what I was told after my ful name was uttered by an authority figure.
“What?” I clipped, total y uppity.
Okay, so I was conditioned to do what I was told, but I was uppity enough to do it with il grace.
He leaned forward and his eyes were bright, so bright, they were fevered, and something about them scared me.
I held my breath and waited for what was coming next.
“You’re at a crossroads, darlin’. You got two paths to go down.”
I stared at him and he continued.
“I was at your crossroads once. I chose the wrong path.
Once you go down, it’s fuckin’ impossible to find your way back.”
I let out my breath, but only to suck another deep one in and hold it.
His beefy hands settled on my knees and he got closer.
“Halfway down my road, a six year old girl wrote me a letter.”
Oh shit. Oh shit.
“No,” I whispered but the word wasn’t audible, I think only my mouth made the form of the word but without sound. My breath caught with something fierce and I knew, pretty soon, I was going to lose al control.
With effort, I sucked air in my nose, keeping the tears at bay.
“She didn’t stop me from losin’ my way, but she stopped me from losin’ myself.”
“Quit talking,” I whispered and I heard the words come out this time but Uncle Tex ignored them.
“Now, I got a chance to return the favor.”
“Please, Uncle Tex, don’t.”
I felt my nostrils quiver.
He stil ignored me.
“This life is made of good turns and bad turns. Few months ago, I did a good turn. I took a bul et for Indy. The last three days, Lee paid me back.”
I closed my eyes.
“Look at me, darlin’ girl.”
I opened my eyes.
“Lee’d put himself in front of a bul et for his brother, make no mistake. Hank was fuckin’ beside himself when he came home to find you gone. I thought he’d tear Denver apart lookin’ for you. Lee nearly had to lock him in his safe room to keep him from comin’ after you.”
“Please, stop.”
“You had your bad turn, Roxie. Open your fuckin’ heart and let Hank be the good.”
We stared at each other awhile. Somehow, I didn’t cry.
Then, I nodded and opened my phone.
With shaking hands, I went to my received cal s, my heart beating, hoping it was Hank.
It wasn’t, it was my friend Annette, from Chicago.
“Annette,” I told Uncle Tex.
His hands left my knees.
“Not Hank?” he asked, openly surprised.
I shook my head.
He got up and sat down beside me.
“He’l cal ,” he said.
*
I lay on the bed in Uncle Tex’s extra bedroom and listened to Joni Mitchel on my MP3 player while I stared at the ceiling. Independence Day was over, Eddie had cal ed again and so had Stevie. I didn’t talk to either of them.
Hank had not cal ed.
Uncle Tex was down at Kumar’s buying stuff to make pigs in a blanket and macaroni and cheese for dinner.
I shut down Joni singing about drinking a case of you because I knew I was just torturing myself. I picked up my cel and cal ed Annette.
Annette had given up web design to open a head shop in Chicago cal ed, appropriately, “Head”. She sold bongs, pipes, incense, blankets with Celtic knots and pictures of Jimi Hendrix printed on them, psychedelic posters, tie-dyed t-shirts and hemp clothing. To her surprise, it was a huge success, most likely because she was a nut the caliber of Tex and it made her store fun to hang out in, just like Fortnum’s. After she got too busy and couldn’t do it anymore, she hired me to run the website. She sold bongs on five continents.
She had curly, ash-blonde hair, milky green eyes and She had curly, ash-blonde hair, milky green eyes and was tal , tal er even than me. She was a good friend. She was nice to Bil y’s face, never letting on that she’d once gotten so angry on my behalf (yes, after my recounting the sledgehammer incident), she threw a yard glass at a wal , smashing it to smithereens.
“Yo, bitch!” she answered on the second ring (nothing to be alarmed about, this was how Annette answered the phone al the time).
“Hey,” I said, quietly.
Then I burst into tears.
Then I told her my story, all of my story.
“Holy fucking Jesus H. Christ,” she said when I was done.
“I know.”
“He hasn’t called? ”
“Annette! Bil y kidnapped me and beat me up. This is not about Hank!”
“Bil y’s probably been whacked and his worthless, dead body is being eaten by red ants on some sand dune in Utah, goddess wil ing. Bil y’s the fucking past, this Hank dude is the future, baby.”
I told you Annette was a nut.
“I’m coming home, as soon as I get my tires fixed,” I said, skirting the issue of Hank.