Time and Chance (34 page)

“Snakebite, look, I'm
sorry, what can I do to make it up?”

“You’s moving to
Memphis, work my new club.”

“How long?’

“We see….” He touched
her breasts, wobbled, “How’s ‘bout a blow job?”

She stood, “You're
drunk as a skunk and you smell like dog shit. Let me give you a massage, hot
bath.”

“No more Carr.”

“Never was never no
Carr, he's a loser, you can bet on it. I ain't never talking to that dude
again. Besides, way you kicked the shit outta him, bet he ain't never gonna be
seen around here again.”

He hissed, flicked his
long black tongue out, reached up and licked her chin. Then he felt her
breasts, tried more, but she said “My friend's visiting.”

“What fucking friend?”

“Snakebite, I'm having
my period.”

“I like lots a blood.”

“Snakebite, let's get
ya a nice hot bath, you stink.”

Very drunk, Snakebite
finished the bottle of rum, phoned the bar and slurred to Angelo that he didn't
want to be disturbed and ended with, “Gillin is still wit’ us.”

Gillian, walking
Snakebite to the bath, stooped to turn on the hot water, heard a thump, turned
and looked. Snakebite lay sprawled out and motionless on the floor.

A half hour later
Snakebite woke up in his bed. Gillian sat in a chair reading a newspaper.

Woozy, Snakebite said,
“What a fuck happened?”

“Snakebite, you don't
remember? You was marvelous.”

He smiled. “Good ain't
I.”

CHAPTER 39

Jack’s Time

On the drive to Felix
The Cat, Sago kept saying, “You sure about this.”

There, we went down
the outside steps and entered The Cat's lounge. Moderately full with patrons,
Angelo, when he saw us, looked like that famous Gillette dog passing razor
blades. At the bar, he wouldn't serve either me or Sago, said, “Be a good idea
if yous two left as in yesterday.”

I said, “Gillian in?”

“I don’ know nutin …
you should leave before something happens.”

I insisted, “Is she
here?”

“Listen Jack, I tol’
you, doan come here no more, know whan I mean, she’s gone, said she doan wanna
talk to you anyway. Jesus Christ, can’t you take a hint.”

I detected lie, went
to the dressing room area. Angelo blocked the door.

“She ain't' here
stronzo, now get out before you get your asstrominy realigned,” he mellowed,
“look, Jack, she's gone, split, period, sentence, paragraph, end of fuckin’
story.”

“I demand to see her.”

Neon walked out of the
dressing area. I asked her,” Is Gillian in there?”

She avoided my eyes.

I said, “What the fuck
is going on?”

She walked away.

Angelo looked over my
shoulder, said, “Please leave, ple—”

First time I ever
heard him say please but it was too late. I felt a bear paw hand on my
shoulder, turned, a guy in black was around six five.

Sago convinced me we
should leave.

CHAPTER 40

Real Time

6:31:05 P.M. CDT

The TV12 6:00 P.M.
news over, Peggy, sweat forming on her forehead, patted the moisture with a
facial tissue and sat at her desk.

Night producer, Tonya,
called, “Peggy.”

“What?”

“Mr. Frazer, line
two.”

She threw a stack of
paper copy on the floor and lit a Parliament. “Tell him to … tell him just a
minute.” She looked at her disheveled self in her desk mirror, threw her hair
brush at the wall, picked up the phone receiver, said, “Whaddaya want?”

Listening to Berry,
studying the cherry polish on the fingernails of her right hand, she glanced
toward Jack's window overlooking the newsroom. The drapes were closed.

Peggy said, “Snakebite
is fine … yes, it went all right, lucky for you.”

She listened some more
then said, “Yes, but not tonight.”

Examining her left hand
nails, “Oh, all right. Just one. Okay. Be up in a minute.”

* * *

Berry's office door
closed, Peggy knocked softly.

Berry called from
inside, “Open sesame.”

She opened the door
and stepped in. The door slammed shut. She turned. A flash of light didn’t
surprised her. “I said not tonight….”

”Relax.” Berry, naked
except for brief lavender shorts, gleamed with sweat. His Pentax camera hanging
from a silver chain around his neck, he locked the door.

Peggy said, “I said
not….”

“Relax.”

Resigned, she said,
“Whoop de doo,” looked Berry over. “You all comfy,” and dumped her purse on his
coffee table.

“Har har har,” he
staggered to her and squeezed her breasts.

She smacked his hands,
“Ouch, damn you, not so hard.”

“Meeting with
Snakebite went okay, huh?”

“Ha, lucky for you.”
Peggy lit a Parliament.

“Alll riiight.” Berry
tiptoed around the bar, presented a plate with two lines of cocaine and, taking
two swizzle stick straws, handed her one and put the other to his nose and
inhaled quickly.

Rolling his eyes,
Berry said, “Whew, how about a cold Manhattan South? Got a whole pitcher in the
fridge.”

“Why not?” Peggy
sniffed.

Berry retrieved a
silver decanter and poured Manhattan South into two long stemmed cocktail
glasses. He belched. “How ‘bout take a couple pictures.”

“Of you?”

“Har har har.”

Berry overflowed a
glass.

She said, “You're
baked,” took her drink, sipped, went to the sofa, sat, crossed her legs, and
let her black leather skirt ride high.

Berry took in the
view, smiled, sipped some Manhattan South, framed up Peggy in his Pentax
viewfinder, and snapped a photo.

Peggy downed her
drink, put her glass on the coffee table, stood, took off her leather vest,
unbuttoned her blouse, and said, “Why not?”

Berry said, “’Ata
girl,” and framed up his viewfinder.

* * *

After several
snapshots of Peggy in various stages of stripping, Berry patted her bare
bottom, said, “How ‘bout put it right here.” He smacked the desk top. “Come on,
put it right up here on that polished mahogany.”

Peggy sat on the desk.

 
“Tha's a girl. Feels good don't it. Real
mahogany.” He probed her with his finger and tongue.

She tucked her knees
up to her chin and forced a thin smile.

“Hole it, tha’s it.”
He snapped a picture. “One more. Spread them legs.”

Peggy did, he snapped,
then she slid off the desk, got her cocktail glass from the coffee table, and
walked to the bar. “I need another drink.”

Berry ambled over and
began playing with her breasts.

Peggy poured, sipped,
lit a cigarette, blew smoke in the air and said, “I been thinking, I want my
own prime time show.”

Berry belched.

Peggy smeared some
Manhattan South on Berry, led him to the sofa, pushed him back, he sat and she
knelt between his legs.

Ten minutes later,
Berry stretched out on the floor, Peggy went into his bathroom and called out,
“How soon could we start my new prime time show?”

Berry stood, ambled to
his window, and surveyed the night lights of Nashville.

CHAPTER 41

Jack’s
Time

After being escorted
from The Cat, I dropped Sago off at TV12, drove to The Green Onion, immediately
went to the pay phone and called Felix The Cat. Angelo answered and I said,
“Goddamn it Angelo, let me talk to Gillian.”

He said, “Listen Carr,
doan call here no more, know whan I mean … and don't do nutin stupid and come
in here again looking for her, for your personal health information forget her,
do yourself a favor, like I said, move to Seattle.”

“This is bullshit,
Angelo.”

He hung up.

It's like you get your
nose up to a display window and inside it looks all pretty and nice. Then
somebody breaks the glass and you see it's all a painted picture. Nothing is
real.

* * *

Back at my apartment,
I mixed a drink, sat on my sofa and called information. No Gillian Phoenix
listed.

Then I went to
contemplating time and chance. Twenty minutes through time, chance took over.

 
I drove out to the farm, looked around,
nothing. Doors locked, I sat on the front porch swing and smoked a Salem. Then
I had an idea, I still had my business card that she had written that first
note to me on, I had thrown it in the glove compartment. I got it, looked:

Meet me, 3:30,
Printer’s Alley sign.

I looked at it for a
good second, grabbed a pen and wrote below her note:

Hi, call me
anytime.

I put it in her
mailbox.

* * *

Driving back to my
apartment, I was thinking, time in a bottle, dust on a plain, Pope Gregory can
drop ten days, I can't drop one.

At my apartment, I
made a drink and with one eye on the phone, was thinking, real time and
reality, size and shape, distance and depth, the mind demanding order but there
is no order. And don't tell me what reality is because nobody knows what it is.
Fifty Ph.D.s dancing on the head of a pin don't know what it is. And nobody
knows which fork is which and through it all, time and chance has proved two
things to me—real time is fickle and chance is a pimp.

* * *

Sometime later, time
merging into one long stream of what you did yesterday seeming like it was a
year ago and tomorrow is a dream, sitting on my deck, staring at the parking
lot, hot and humid, I kept thinking, time in front of you, waste a year here,
spot one there, think you can make that one up, figuring you'll do it tomorrow
then tomorrow is yesterday and you didn't get the part.

The muck memories of
waste stuck in my throat. Nothing was what I had thought it would be. I needed
to vomit. But I couldn't.

* * *

Arguing with
Blancpain, time in a bottle, the phone rang. I almost fell off the deck getting
to it.

Sago wanted to fill me
in on S-Stuff. I told him I didn't want to hear words right now. I was working
on other stuff.

I pressed off, on,
off, on … after a dozen offs, I thought, nobody to call … I pressed Felix The
Cat's lounge number. Angelo answered, I said, “Hey
paisano
….”

He hung up.

* * *

The sun long ago set,
it felt like noon, and I had been trying to get hold of the Vatican, ask them
if they could grease through a Gregory for me, told them I wanted to drop a few
years, at least one, whatever I had in the bank, promised I'd switch to
Catholic, go to confession, mass … make everything up on the second pass.

Ain't no second
pass, Bozo. Ain't' no heaven, ain't no hell, just a place in the lovely sun …
for you and for me. Ain't so bad, I'm your buddy.

A little after I don’t
know, I had to get out. I drove to The Green Onion and I swear I saw Jay
Speaker at the bar, drinking a Mai Tai, smiling like he had finally found that
place.

Dry land low, came
from someone and, thinking I'd join Jay, I saw that it wasn't Jay.

I had a drink and Pete
asked me if I wanted to play. I said sure. Playing something close to “Piano
Man”, I didn't give a thought to a long hairy snake chewing at my hands. The
base man, olive-green suit, white bowler hat, a wide grin on his face, grunted
and passed little bangers like he was loving it all. Snarled in a trial separation,
not talking to Blancpain, I swear (reality being what it is) I saw Jay again
sitting at the bar. He smiled at me and The Petes rocked The Green Onion with “The
Closer You Get”.

* * *

Time around The Green
Onion turning fuzzy, I left and returned to my apartment. Needing to talk to
someone, I poured a drink and proceeded to talk to the walls as in that stupid
song. That led to a serious discussion with Monday about Monday's freaky
personality. In particular, Monday, agitated, was terrified of a sure death
just about a few minutes away. I tried to reason with Monday: “It's senseless,
terminal and all, thrashing about. We all have to go. Don't ask me why, that's
just the way it is. But some, like you, get a definite end-date while others
have to suck around a slobbering pile of flabby anticipation. At least, Monday,
you know.”