“Who is he?” Laverna topped off her drink with a maraschino cherry, just because it seemed like a flirtatious object. She hadn’t flirted in years, except for tips. But knowing that her daughter was back in town, Laverna was determined to trap him as soon as possible.
“Never seen him before,” said Tabby. “He’s cute, though. You’d better stake your claim.” Tabby pulled the fresh pint glasses from the dishwasher. She put a hot pint glass in front of Bert and poured the remnants of a pitcher into it. The beer was so cold that it cracked, the pint glass exploding, and the beer ran down the bar and into Bert’s lap. Tabby apologized profusely, and Bert said nothing, which was typical. He moved his barstool over and let the beer drip onto the floor. Bert wasn’t one of Laverna’s favorite customers, so instead of handing him her rag, Laverna returned to Jim Number Three.
Jim Number Three flinched when Laverna threw the bar rag past his head. One of the silver miners was on the verge of vomiting, as the rag landed on the floor near the card game. The silver miners cursed when the tallest one unleashed three kings.
“You lose,” said the tallest woman. “All of you.” She tapped powder out of her boots with a beer bottle, flipped over the pile of cards that were out of play.
The vomiting began, and Laverna called for the pail of sand, kept behind the bar.
“TABBY!”
Tabby struggled to carry the metal pail, and Jim Number Three ducked when she nearly hit him in the side of the face.
“I try to keep this place respectable,” said Laverna. Jim Number Three nodded.
The miners were silent as Tabby grabbed a handful of sand, sprinkled it across the mess on the floor. They knew they had done wrong.
“Welcome to Quinn,” Laverna said, and raised her greyhound. Jim Number Three lifted his pint glass in return, seemingly unfazed by the body fluids on the floor. Usually, it was blood. Laverna wondered if her luck had changed, if this new man might be a gift worth keeping. It was her birthday after all.
Sawdust
Jake and Misty made pies in seventh-grade home economics as the snow fell softly outside. The teacher, an impossibly old woman named Mrs. Hansen, never let them work together; Jake was always paired with the least competent student, because Jake could make a flawless pie crust. It seemed that the teacher would appreciate his talent, but instead she seethed with jealousy.
Misty was known for giving blow jobs in the back of the school bus. Jake was always her go-between when they went on field trips, a fearless pimp, proud of her bobbing head and blue mascara. He was the one who always packed the blanket, shielded Misty and the football player from the bus driver. Misty was the bossy one; she made the other kids switch seats, but everybody watched that motion, that flurry in the backseat of the school bus, the blanket moving up and down. Misty had a reputation that she swung around like a favorite purse.
The blow job that Misty had given Sixty-Four on a trip to Glacier National Park had become mythical, and now he wouldn’t leave her alone, as the pies browned in the long row of ovens. He wanted a repeat performance, without an audience of mouth-breathing football players. It was a small school, but the football players were indistinguishable: all were Applehauses or Petersens or Clinkenbeards. It was much easier to pick out members of the herd by the numbers on their jerseys, which they wore to school every day.
Jake watched now as Sixty-Four begged Misty for a date, a real date. She threatened him with a rolling pin. He walked away and spit tobacco into the garbage can, and cursed loud enough for everyone to hear.
Now the other football players in the class were glaring at Misty, and Sixty-Four grabbed his crotch and pointed at her. She spit at him and was sent to the principal’s office by old Mrs. Hansen, always quick to pounce on unladylike behavior.
Jake didn’t see Misty again until the last period of the day. Last period was shop, and they were making toolboxes, metal bent and folded with the press that Jake could never master. He put an edge in the metal press so many times that the paint scraped from it, and it was now just shiny tin, its edges curling hopelessly. The football players had finished their toolboxes on the very first day, and the shop teacher, who was also the football coach, had asked them to supervise while he went to the teachers’ lounge. After five minutes, they began to gather around him. Sixty-Four was the first to step forward.
“Fucking faggot,” he said. “You can’t do anything right.” He slapped Jake’s hand away from the metal press.
“I’m trying,” said Jake. The metal piece was beyond repair. “I’m not good at this sort of thing.”
Thirty-Seven mocked Jake’s high-pitched voice but added a lisp that Jake was certain did not exist. He had once asked Misty for confirmation of this.
“You’re gonna make him cry,” said Sixty-Four.
“No,” said Jake. “This isn’t anything to cry about.”