Darlene and me was alone once that I can recollect. Roy sent me ahead when he was gonna be late and told me to get Darlene to wait on him. He handed me a bunch a silly flowers to give her that made me look the fool. When she come out to the parking lot grinning and posing, she looked right through me like I won’t here.
“He be along shortly,” I say like Roy told me to, and I hold out the stupid flowers. She still acts like she don’t see me. She turns her skinny neck and looks round for Roy.
When her eyes decide to find me, she says, “Oh, it’s you—Millie.”
“What you call me?” I get a pinch in my neck and a twitch in my eye.
“Millie, Millie, quite the filly…”
Her lips are slippery and painted outside the lines.
“The way you suck up to Roy and wait in his shadows—Millie—you’d think you was his whore. Or a wannabe whore. That what you hope for—Millie?”
She come close. Pressed her high titties against my chest. Tried to get me to step back outta my spot. I stay put and blow stinky breath at her till she stepped back and give me my space.
When it’s me and him, I ask, “What is it bout that girl, Roy?”
“Don’t know” is what he says, being truthful.
I think Darlene sunk a fat hook in Roy’s puny heart, and he don’t wanna shake it out.
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Before long, we stand outside the Midnight Club every night straight for a week, Roy waiting on Darlene. It costs to be inside, plus Roy don’t wanna see Darlene with another man. So he waits, runs his fingers through his hair, slouches his wiry body against the poplar tree with his cigarette danglin from full lips, the brim of his hat hidin his eyes. He checks his breath and rubs his front teeth with his stained fingernail to get the film off. He’s charged with electricity even standing still. When Darlene comes out the door, Roy says, “Be gone, Billy.”
“But we gotta make a run tonight. Get the car loaded. You forget?”
“You do it. You know the way. Git.”
I don’t know who this Roy is, leaving the business for me to do myself when he never done that before.
What I do know is that when I come by his trailer mornings, he’s not home but Sadie is. She comes quiet to the door and holds her round tummy. She says, “Roy ain’t here, Billy,” and bout takes my breath away. She don’t say a word to me since she was eight years old, shy, and traipsing home singing. I don’t know how to act when she say my name, so I do the usual. Spit a long stream of tobacky juice and look off into the woods before I walk away. I stand behind the oak tree and wanna go back to her door, step inside, and stay, but I can’t find a reason.
When, after a rainy spell, I come upon a mess of chanterelles by some ash trees, I pick em for Sadie. Leave em in a poke on her trailer step, knock, and run away. Don’t think she’d eat em if she knew they was from me, even if she loves chanterelles. I bring her ripe persimmons and a mess a black walnuts, too.
One time I knock and don’t run away. “Hey, Sadie. Let me know if you need something fixed. I’m kinda handy.”
She closed the door on me like I thought she would.
Another time I say, “Hey, Sadie. Can I wash my hands at your sink?” even though they won’t dirtier than usual.
She said, “Water tap on the side,” and closed the door.
I can tell we working up to a conversation, and that’s a good thing. Another good thing is Sadie’s bruises go away and her pretty comes back.
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Roy’s crazy about Darlene. He’s under a spell like I never seen before. He works hard for this girl. Tries to do right things. The second week they together, he got her that gold flower necklace she asked for. And little slivers of underwear smaller than snot rags. And I don’t count the boxes of chocolate-covered cherries wrapped in gold paper he gets. I wonder if Darlene knows the rules. For his money, Roy wants it all.
Roy spends nights down an alley, up the stairs, at Darlene’s place. A place I don’t go. They stay all night and sometimes all day while I do double chores at the still. When I collect money for the shine, I hand over the roll a dough to Roy, him walkin Darlene to the Midnight Club. He don’t count it. Just stuffs it in his pocket. But Darlene’s eyes get big as quarters, watchin him stuff the wad in his pocket. She fools Roy, but she don’t fool me. I’m ashamed for him. Roy never settled for chickenshit before.
When Roy’s busy with Darlene for bout three weeks, the business hits a snag. The ATF snoop like they sometimes do, and sales slow. Suppliers get scared. Buyers back off. By myself, I can’t do right, and money stops for a bit. I tell Roy. Darlene hears. Nobody’s happy. That’s when danger joins trouble.
Darlene gets itchy to move on to somebody else now that her money pot dried up. She don’t run cross the parking lot and jump into Roy’s arms. She don’t wrap her freckled legs round his middle and squeal like a pig, him twirling her round and round like a fool gone loco. She don’t stand close to him or put her elbows on the table to catch the words coming outta Roy’s mouth. Now, she makes him wait after the club closes. Finds more reasons to make him wait than the desert got sand.
I can tell he gets itchy, too. Keeps score. Counts Darlene’s sins. Plans her punishment.
The old Roy’s back. Sadie’s time off is done.
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I find out on a foggy Sunday morning, the last one in September. I stand in my kitchen, drinkin coffee and lookin out the window. Here comes Roy, weaving cross my yard. His clothes are bloody and torn. He turns in circles in the clearing, arms wide, drunk. He falls to his knees, puts his head in his hands, and calls out my name.
I step down into the yard.
“Where that blood come from?” I say, calm-like.
Roy takes his time. Sucks air in deep and fills his chest. On the exhale, he whispers, “Darlene.”
At that one word, I shoulda bolted. Shoulda walked off into those foggy woods and left Roy by his sorry self. But truth is, I never bolt from any evil Roy lays at my feet.
I stay calm. Step closer. Watch Roy keen from side to side on his knees, eyes squeezed shut, pained face turned toward the blind sky.
“Where she at?”
He whimpers like a little boy.
“Her place?”
Roy nods, sucks in his bottom lip, closes his eyes tight.
A warm flutter come to my belly when the mighty Roy Tupkin gets on his knees. One of them special flutters cause Roy needs me.
“Where you wanna take her?”
Roy puts his hands flat on the spongy soil, fingers spread wide, and the weight of his body presses em into the wet ground. His spine arches, and his hair hangs limp round his pasty face. Cross the ten paces what separates us, he reeks of weakness. He retches between his hands.
“That shale holler?”
Roy struggles and stands, drained and broken.
“I get my hat.”
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