Time and Chance (25 page)

I turned and saw
Snakebite coming toward me like a single headlight in a black night. In my
face, he pressed the tip of his bony right index finger into my chest. “Out,
now.”

I said, “Hi,
testa
di merda
.”

He looked at me like
he knew what that meant.

I grinned and in case
he didn't I said, “How you like my Italian, shithead?”

He hissed and I could
see the tip of his black tongue peeking through his no lips and his finger
pressed further into my chest.

I said, “Get your
scabby finger off me before I stuff it down your throat.”

Elvis blared from
Wurlitzer:
“One for the money, two for the show.”

“You're dead.”
Snakebite grabbed my shirt.

I jerked his
sunglasses off. Yep, pink.

Looking blinded, he
stepped back and took a quick swipe at me that missed by a foot. I drove a left
to his nose. The blow knocked his cowboy hat to the floor. Blood trickling from
his nostrils, he looked surprised. He flicked his tongue out, tasted his blood,
took a step back, said. “You prick.”

I stepped on his hat.

Looking at his crushed
hat, he seemed in shock.

He stared at me,
“You're dead.” His pink eyes turning red, his right fist lashed out, catching
me on the chin.

Smiling at the
softness of his punch, I drove a left to his jaw followed by a right to his
stomach.

He fell back, folding
over, holding himself.

I noticed two big boys
coming out of the dark recesses toward me and, jumping over the bar like a
trained gorilla, Angelo grabbed me from behind and pushed me toward the outside
exit, all the while sputtering in my ear. “You crazy stronzo … you're gonna get
whacked.”

Passing through a
gauntlet of gawking customers, I winked at T-bone. He ducked. Then I saw
Gillian standing at the exit, holding the door open. I mouthed “where”. She
made a little step that allowed our hips to bump and I felt something being
slipped into my jacket side pocket.

 
Angelo, pushing me up the stairs, yakked all
the way something about cojones being removed.

* * *

Winston started up,
idling, I fumbled in my jacket pocket for whatever Gillian had deposited there
and found my business card I had given her. In the dash lights dim glow, I
flipped it over and on the back saw:

 
Meet me, 3:00, Printer’s Alley sign.

CHAPTER 16

Real Time

11:01:00 P.M. CDT

Peggy, dressed in her Dillards
outfit—chartreuse three piece suit, green high heels— pranced down the stairs
from The Haute Cuisine into Felix The Cat.

The Wurlitzer featured
Martina McBride’s “My Baby Loves Me”.

Peggy marched behind
the bar. She wanted the truth from Angelo. Had Snakebite done something to
Jack.

Angelo knew nothing.

She wanted to know if
Snakebite was upstairs.

He had left a half
hour ago.

Hissing venom, Peggy
shouted “Fuck you” in Angelo's face, threw an ashtray at the back-bar mirror.
Cracked it.

Gillian observed
everything.

* * *

Peggy, driving to her
home in Belle Meade, punched Jack's home number into her cell phone: “Hello, no
one is available to take….” she threw the phone at the windshield.

CHAPTER 17

Jack’s
Time

Winston's top down,
purring south on I-24 toward The Gray Fox, the honeysuckle scents of spring
gushing around a warm Tennessee night, my head cleared. Friday had died, so had
some fetid part of me. Strange ark building night. I remembered the surprised
look on Snakebite's face when I decked him. The shock when I stepped on his hat.
I lit a Salem and felt my jaw. Snakebite had a nice gentle punch, like a rock
star dressed in ladies’ underwear. I felt myself smiling, feeling an easiness
that I had almost forgotten like a stranger traveling through me and it scared
me, but only for a second.

Traffic sparse, I
flipped the radio on, punched to WPLN, and turned the volume up. Mozart's
Violin Concerto Number Three filled the sea of ink that rushed past Winston and
me. I pushed back in the seat as bits and pieces of Gillian's face floated in
my mind. I knew her, even before tonight, I knew her. I pushed the accelerator
gently and the night air tugged my hair. I wondered if maybe … couldn't be.

Then I remembered
Gillian smiling at T-Bone and, in the swirling air, I smelled a lie.

Why do you think she
came on to you like that? She works the world.

“So have I, but she's
there, and I'm going back for her.”

I watched the pavement
rushing under Winston's headlights then I noticed the lie more sharp in
pungency. You know what happens, every time, don't you.

“End-time.”

That's it baby cakes,
built in the human condition, called living.

“How is that?”

The natural order of
things. Get in line.

“Okay, so where do we
go from here?”

Make you a deal.

I imagined my hand was
a pistol but it was as real as Winston's steering wheel. I fumbled with a
recurring nightmare in which a marble headstone read:
Last of a Species, A
Long Time in the Land.
I had a thought, Maybe we're moving on to the next
level of existence. Maybe it's the natural order of things. Move, adapt, or
die.

All in the head.

“Selah.” I dragged
Salem and pressed Winston forward.

* * *

Through my apartment
walls, before I unlocked the front door, my phone sounded like a ten-alarmer.
Entering, the ringing ended and the familiar recorded answer playing, I glanced
and saw that there were twelve prior messages. The greeting message concluded
and I heard the tail end of an expletive-laden from Peggy. I felt a tinge of
guilt for being such a heel, standing Peggy up, but none of this was my idea. I
mean, I had no control over time; and chance, go figure, charlatan at best.
Gag.

I started playing the
messages.

Peggy: “Jack, where
are you?

Berry: “Jack, what the
fuck happened on tonight's weather! Call me immediately.”

Peggy: “Jack, you
there, pick up.”

Galbo: “Carr, call
me.”

Berry: “Carr, call me
immediately.”

That last sounded
ominous and I didn't want to think what had happened.

The remaining messages
were simply large clicks and I assumed they were from a collection agency.

I erased them and went
to my kitchenette, poured a tall glass of milk, put two tablespoons of honey in
(Aunt Jane's Biblical recipe for desert survival) and downed it. The edge off,
I stripped, got the shower up to near steam and stepped in.

CHAPTER 18

Real Time

11:30:20 P.M. CDT

Hunkered down, Peggy,
chartreuse suit coat dragging on the floor, entered her Belle Meade home and
went to the sunken den. The premiere party revelers cheered and pointed to a
large red and white banner that proclaimed:
TV12 C&Weather with Peggy Moore.

Stella started the
video recorder. The giant TV screens, either side of the bar, played back
Peggy's 10:00 P.M. weather cast. When the tape showed Peggy walking off the
weather set, everybody, including Buddy One Take, fell down laughing.

Peggy screamed and
threw a bottle of Jack Daniels through one of the TV screens. She ordered
everybody out and went to her bedroom. Stella followed.

CHAPTER 19

Jack’s
Time

Shampooed, lathered,
rinsed, I allowed the hot water to run over my head for who knows. Then, hot
turned to cold, I dried, brushed my teeth, and the phone began ringing. The
ring had a pointed shrillness to it that I didn't hear and the message volume
had been muted.

I dressed in a tan
polo shirt, Wranglers, brown deck shoes, and headed back to downtown Nashville,
not sure what I might find hanging around in the murky darkness. Maybe
Snakebite with a couple of his goons, worse yet, Peggy. I didn’t care, I was
sure I should be going.

CHAPTER 20

Real Time

3:01:30 AM. CDT

Chuck and Snakebite
gone to The Pink Poodle, Gillian entered a bathroom stall in the Kitten's
dressing room, put a finger down her throat, and gagged loudly.

In a minute she came
out and told Neon she couldn't go with her to The Pink Poodle to meet Snakebite
and Chuck. She felt woozy, something had gotten to her. She asked Neon to tell
Snakebite she was sorry. Maybe one of the other Kittens could go.

Neon said, “You keep
doing this and Snakebite is gonna get really pissed.”

“Whaddaya want me ta
do, go puke in ‘at Chuck guy's face.”

CHAPTER 21

Jack’s
Time

After a quick shave on
the way to downtown, I downshifted to second gear and turned the corner of
Third Street onto Church. There it was, the Printer's Alley marquee.

I stopped at the curb
and, the street quiet, a breaking bottle cut the thick night air. A phlegm-filled
laugh echoed from someplace.

Shifting through
Winston's gears, I headed east on Church. Cruising in the right lane, 25 mph,
impressionist-looking street lights lined down the vacant boulevard stirred
loneliness and I was struck by the strange silence of this night. Then, out of
nowhere, I noticed a single headlight approaching from the rear. A foot from my
rear bumper, the headlight disappeared and I waited for a shotgun blast. In a
second I noticed a motorcycle to my left. I glanced: Gillian—no helmet, white T-shirt,
jeans—motioned to follow her.

“Hell you say, is this
a movie or what?”

Downshifting to
second, speeding off, I followed, thinking this might be my last night on the
planet … or a second chance.

* * *

Gillian leading the
way north on I-24, leaning left then right, long hair trailing in the wind,
racing in and out of sparse traffic, at the I-65 split she stayed with I-24.
Off the interstate at US-431, White’s Creek Pike, about five miles, then right
onto a single lane Macadam road, over railroad tracks, I could only smile.

After another couple
miles, her brake light flickered on, off, then stayed on as she slowed and
turned right.

I stopped and saw, in
her headlight's beam, that a driveway she had pulled into was grass covered.
She stopped and shut off her bike.

I pulled beside a
rusty mailbox, read
Miller Road #26
with a faded
K
showing
through newer paint with stick on letters stuck over the paint—
G.P. Heinz
.
Who’s G. P. Heinz? I turned into the drive and my headlights revealed a small
one storey bungalow approximately fifty feet back from the road.

I watched her take
something out of a saddlebag then walk toward me. The something was a strap purse
which she slung over her left shoulder.

Not sure where I was,
what was up, I said, “You always drive that fast?”

“Only when I'm being
pursued. Just park on the grass,” she walked toward the house.

I pulled onto the
front yard. Winston's headlights illuminated three steps to a front porch and a
swing beside which Gillian waited. I shut Winston down, got out, went to her
and said, “This your place?”

Going up the steps,
she said, “Long story.”

“Who’s G. P. Heinz?”

“Later.”

* * *

In a small kitchen,
she dropped her purse on the table, and flipping lights on and off, took me on
a tour. The house, on one floor, had two modest rooms in front—kitchen to the
left, living room to the right. Down a short hall, past a small bedroom, a
bathroom and, and at the end of the hall a larger bedroom, the tour ended.

Except for a CD player
in the kitchen, I hadn't noticed any other 21st century gadgets—phone, TV,
computer—so I said, “No television?”

She looked down at me,
“Did you want to see something?”

What can you say?