Home: Part 23

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Expect nothing, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for a while.

August 1974

 
We were an hour or so south of Flomation, just before dawn. The moon was full, bright; two long stretches of orange clouds were like a diving bird's wings on what I could see of the horizon. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open as Mitchell steered with one hand. 

"You fucked up," Mitchell said. "And you almost got us fucked up. They take that stuff seriously up there, you know."

Things hadn't ended well in Marianne's. After we'd started playing pool, Mitchel went to the bar for beer and came back with four bottles and two women. "Camille and Rhonda," he said. He handed a bottle to me and set the other three on the round table near one corner of the pool table. "Camille said she wanted to meet you. She said she's been admiring how you handle that cue stick."

I shook my head and drank my beer. Camille was short, blonde, and wore her slight pudginess honestly.

"He talks you up something good," Camille said to me. Rhonda had settled on a chair at the table and was dangling a cigarette between two fingers of her left hand. 

"He talks about everything pretty well," I said.

"Want to play teams?"

"He does!" Mitchell said. "Rack them!"

We played for hours. When I could no longer see the tip of my cue clearly, I stepped away from the table and let the three of them continue. "Let's dance," Camille said when she, too, had had enough.

"Not my strong suit," I said.

"Yeah, Mitchell says you have a bad leg."

"More or less," I said.

"Come one. I've danced with worse."

Sitting in the truck with the full moon setting over Mitchell's shoulder, I tried to recall something after the dancing, but I could come up with only some loud voices and Camille yelling, "Get away from. Just get away!" Then Mitchell was behind me and guiding me toward the parking lot.

"You know I don't drink," I said. "You know that."

"Don't blame me for this. Look, what happened? The two of you seemed to be fine together. The next thing I know, you've got Camille's brothers looking to cause you some serious damage."

"I'm not sure of the details."

"Rhonda told me you said Camille was fat. Right to her face, you said that."

I wasn't surprised More than once in my life I'd made fun of people, hit them where I knew it would hurt. "I need to sleep," I said to Mitchell. "Just for a while, okay? Let me know if you want me to drive."