Reverend Foote slowly but steadily poached his parishioners from each of the other churches, proving Laverna’s long-held theory that nothing stuck in Quinn, except for the snow.
The new church was a perfect square, plain, slung low to the ground, much like Reverend Foote himself, whom Laverna had chanced upon at the post office. He was a short man with thick auburn hair carefully parted. He wore brown pleated slacks and a tucked-in button-down shirt that was the worst shade of yellow, faint, like a white shirt completely stained with the sweat of a chain-smoker. She hated him on sight.
Laverna shot the moon for the final time of the night, and the game was over, because she declared it so. She pointed to the Budweiser clock mounted above the door, set fifteen minutes fast.
The Applehaus boys began gulping what was left in their glasses; Laverna had eighty-sixed people in the past for not honoring closing time, or even those who dared to argue, who pointed at their watches to compare them to the Budweiser clock.
Rocky Bailey pushed back his stool and swept up peanut shells. Bert poured the inch and a half left in his pitcher into the glass and considered it carefully; Laverna knew it was warm but didn’t care. Bert was a slow drinker. He was determined to get drunk, but did so at a methodical pace. This was how the unemployed drank at the Dirty Shame. On slow nights, Laverna longed for the distraction of Red Mabel, even though she was partially to blame for the very existence of the insidious Rachel. Red Mabel was her right-hand man, and Laverna always described her as such, and nobody dared argue about the genitalia.
Twenty-seven years ago, it was Red Mabel who drove a crazed Laverna into the mountains, directions to Frank’s cabin gleaned from bar patrons, nebulous and contradictory. Laverna and Red Mabel prided themselves on being adventurous, and pieced together the directions, written on the back of a receipt from the grocery store, a cocktail napkin, and the back of Red Mabel’s hand. They navigated the fire roads and one-lane bridges until they found his cabin. Though the roads had thawed to muddy ruts, the snow still fell lightly. Red Mabel was used to driving in the mountains—she considered herself a huntress, although the local authorities considered her a poacher. When they found the cabin, Frank was outside, stacking firewood. When he heard the truck, he looked up at the arrival, as if he had been expecting them all along, but didn’t stop stacking wood. Laverna made Red Mabel wait in the truck, and she stepped out into the mud, bearing a brand-new boot warmer and a bottle of Black Velvet. She talked her way into his cabin, by pretending she was cold, which was untrue, because she and Red Mabel had drunk nearly a third of the bottle on their journey. Frank and Laverna sat across from each other; the rough pine floor seemed an impossible distance. At least he offered her the couch. He stared at her silently.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” proclaimed Laverna. He made a noise in his throat and looked down at this boots. She continued, unsuccessfully, to make small talk, until they heard gunshots. They emerged from the cabin to see Red Mabel dangling a wild turkey in the air. Unfortunately, it wasn’t wild—it was Frank’s pet. Red Mabel warned Frank that turkeys carried all sorts of diseases, which wasn’t true. Red Mabel warned Frank that Laverna would not leave without a date, which was.
Frank came into town the next month, and took Laverna out to eat at the Bowling Alley, and quietly endured her barrage. To silence her, he took her to bed. They eloped that May, to Winnemucca, Nevada. Laverna drank with elderly showgirls, while Frank gambled on battered machines. “That was a sign,” Laverna would say later. “We put a quarter in a slot machine and Frank broke the handle off.”
The thought of quarters reminded Laverna of closing, and she opened the ancient cash register, pulled a zippered deposit pouch from underneath the counter. She began to stack ones and fives. Only the lesbians paid with larger currency, and they had been absent tonight. Most likely they were singing folk songs in the woods, or playing demolition derby with broken heavy equipment jerry-rigged at the junkyard, something they were known to do.
Chuck Clinkenbeard’s son pushed through the door, the snow blowing in with his entrance. Laverna ignored him and kept counting the cash. He was sixteen, but he had a thin black mustache, and Laverna had served him in the past, especially if it was a slow night and there were no cops in sight. The cops drank at the Bowling Alley, so Laverna often poured for any kid who looked past the point of puberty. She couldn’t remember his first name, but it was too late for last call. All the Clinkenbeards had neatly trimmed mustaches, but no beards, thumbing their noses at their name. She pointed up at the clock and continued counting. Laverna would not be serving this Clinkenbeard tonight.