Ceremony of Flies (4 page)

But I don’t.

It’s so much worse, this humiliation, so much worse with those two extra sets of eyes watching.

“How am I supposed to get to Mexico from here?” My voice sounds shaky, like maybe I
am
going to cry. Crying will be the end of me. I’m sure of it. If I cry, there will be no more
Emily
, no more
me
anymore. Emily doesn’t cry. A fly buzzes close to my ear and I swat it away. I hope it doesn’t look like I’m wiping my eye, because I’m not crying.

I am not.

Rex gets out of the car, but he doesn’t go around and grab the gas pump. Maybe this is just some trick to get me out of his car. He cocks his thumb at a doorway off to the side of the Crossroads Bar and Grill.

G
REYHOUND
.

I feel the disappointment transform my face, but I can’t stop it. What did I think was going to happen? Was I so stupid to think we were going to have a big adventure together and be in love like some stupid movie? I wish I had a razor so I could make a cut big enough to make this stupid feeling go away. A cut that would bleed and bleed until everything was out of me.

He looks at me like I’m a child who doesn’t understand the way the world works. The kid and the dog are staring too. Rex takes something out of his pocket, a dirty white business card. He looks at it, traces the raised letters with his thumb, then puts it away.

Fuck you,
Rex
, if that’s even your name.

Fuck you.

“You wanna get something to eat before you go?” He walks around to the back of the car and pops the trunk.

The last thing I am is hungry, but there’s this desperate feeling inside me and I don’t care if I’m pathetic. I feel like once he drives away I’m going to be traveling alone through the land of the dead they talk about in fairy tales, or is that in myths? I feel the dread mounting like a wave. I’ve got one foot in the strange land. I’m a minute away from drowning in emptiness.

“Don’t be scared,” he says as he tucks a long, thin case under his arm and slams the trunk shut.

“I’m not scared of anything,” I say.

But I am.

Barstow

Two thousand years ago, the 41.4 square miles of the western Mojave Desert that came to be known as Barstow was occupied by Indian tribes who lived beside the immense lakes that covered most of the Mojave.

In the late 1800s, Barstow became a mining center when borax was discovered. 

By the 1960s, three major interstate highways intersected Barstow, and sewer and water services were extended to include the whole city.

By 2006 Barstow had a Home Depot.

4

The Crossroads Bar and Grill is way more bar than grill. It’s got neon beer lights and dark paneled walls and it smells like cigars and old beer.

Hank Williams Sr. or Jr. or whichever is the good one is singing:
Why can’t I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart.

When Joey and I used to hang out at that karaoke place in the Village, I used to sing this song. It was his favorite. We slept in the fucking park because I couldn’t find a job and Joey couldn’t work, but we had some good times there. Those nights felt almost like when we were kids again, back before all the bad shit happened.

The Crossroads would look like any other downtrodden country bar, except it’s got a big front window that looks out on the gas pump and a little front counter for selling cigarettes and pine-tree-shaped air fresheners and stuff you would buy at a gas station. Because of the window, the light is all wrong inside the bar. Rusty sunlight filters in through the dirty glass and makes it feel like some weird sort of brown twilight is falling.

The place is okay, I guess. Nobody says anything about me not having any shoes. Other than the bartender, a wiry old dude with long gray hair who looks like he knows his way around a meth lab, there’s only one other guy in the place. He’s a tall black guy with Jeri curls wearing a leather car-coat in spite of the fact that he’s in the middle of the desert. He’s shooting pool by himself.

Rex winks at me and holds his hand up like I shouldn’t follow him.

Whatever.

I watch as he turns on his high-beam grin and saunters over to the guy at the pool table. They say something I can’t hear, then shake hands. I am bored by the time Rex assembles his pool cue and go and sit at the bar.

“What can I get you, young lady?” The bartender looks like he’s sizing me up. I worry that he’s going to ask for my ID. But he doesn’t.

“I’ll have a tequila sunrise.” I don’t really drink anymore, even though I am—
was
—a cocktail waitress, but I always wanted to order one of those. They look really pretty. And it seems like the kind of thing you should drink in the desert when you’re on your way to Mexico.

On the bar there’s a plastic box containing slices of orange and lime and maraschino cherries. They look like they’ve been in that dish for weeks. A couple of flies swoop and dive into the gooey-looking syrup. I really hope a tequila sunrise doesn’t need any fruit.

Before my drink hits the coaster, Rex is sitting next to me at the bar.

“I’ll take a draw. Whatever you got on tap,” he says as he hooks the heels of his boots on the rungs of the stool.

I swivel around to look at him. “I thought you were playing pool.” Some of the cocky seems to have leaked out of him, but he still taps his foot to the music. It seems like he’s forcing it.

“I did.”

“That was fast.”

“Lost.”

“Did you only play—”

“Look, Kitty, I lost, okay. The whole wad. All or nothing. That’s the game I play.”

The bartender puts a beer in front of Rex.

“Can we get something to eat?” Rex asks.

The bartender looks at his watch. “Burgers and chips only. No fries.”

“All right. Two of each.”

The guy takes a stub of a pencil from behind his ear and scribbles on a little curled-up notepad. He points his pencil at my drink, then at Rex’s beer, and scribbles again. “Seventeen fifty.” He looks at Rex.

“Hey, Kitty, would you mind?” He flashes his bright white smile at me. “You know how it goes. You win some, you lose some. It’ll be all right. I’ve got a job that starts tomorrow.”

What the fuck do I care whether this dickhead is going to be financially solvent in the long run? I’m the one with the problem. I don’t need this nickel-and-dime shit. “You want
me
to pay for this?”

He winks.

Fucking hell.

I twirl around on the chair so no one can see and raise up my shirt. I readjust the bungee cord because it’s seriously not working like a belt is supposed to. I unzip the little pouch I wear around my waist and take out the credit card. J
UDITH
F
ORD
. Ugh, I am so not a Judith. I rearrange everything so nothing looks bulgy and twirl back around and hold out the card. I think about whether I’d be pushing my luck to ask for a cash advance. I don’t ask. There’s got to be an ATM somewhere in this town.

The bartender takes the credit card and walks off into the back to do whatever and I think of whispering to Rex that he should call me Judith. I don’t because he’ll probably still call me Kitty anyway.

“What job do you have in L.A.?” I ask to cover up the sounds of Johnny Cash coming over the speakers singing:
We’re in the jailhouse now...
I do not appreciate the universe fucking with me like that.

He puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a business card, probably the same one he looked at outside. He shoves it in my hand.

The card has worn edges and is gray where it’s been creased. J
ACK
L
ORD
.
I read it and that name sounds like somebody I should know but I can’t place it.

“That’s right.” Rex grins like he’s just guessed the number of jelly beans in a jar. “Jack Lord. Detective Steve McGarrett. Whoo! Whoo!”

The guy at the pool table shakes his head like Rex is an idiot or a drunk or something.

“I was in Tipper’s up in Truman. That’s just outside Memphis and I was winning at pool like I
usually
do.” He raises his eyebrow for emphasis. “And there sat Jack Lord Mr.
Hawaii 5-0
himself. So I walked up and introduced myself and one thing leads to another and we’re having a good old time. And then he gives me that card and says if I’m ever in L.A., I should stop by and say hey. It was a sign. Like a gift from the Lord. Get it? The
Lord
sent me a sign.”

I’m still not quite sure who Jack Lord is but I say, “Cool,” and hand the card back. “But what’s your job in L.A.?” I ask again, because I am pretty sure he didn’t answer the question even though he acts like he did.

“I’m an actor. Actors gotta act.” He grins his crooked grin and reaches in his pocket and pulls out his keys. He balances the gold charm on the bar and rubs its head.

It’s a fucking Oscar statuette, I realize. “You’ve got a part in a movie or something?”

I’d buy that. He looks like he stepped out of some 1950s period piece about greasers. And of course he has those white teeth. He would be more movie-star handsome without the scar over his eye and the crooked nose, but not everyone gets to be the leading man.

“Relationships, Kitty. It’s all about relationships.” A flicker of annoyance flashes across Rex’s face. “Jack Lord said to look him up when I came to town. That’s like money in the bank.”

“That’s it?”

“What?”

“Based on that little interaction, you packed up and took off for L.A.?”

“Yeah.”

“Holy fucking Christ, seriously?”

He must be joking, but I can see by the earnest look on his face that he is not. Fucking tragedy, if ever there was one.

“I’d like it better if you didn’t cuss like that. The Lord don’t like for folks to take his name in vain.”

“What?” I take a sip of my tequila sunrise. It tastes just like gasoline mixed with orange juice. “All right, sorry. No
cussing
. But that is about the stupidest, most ill-conceived plan I’ve ever heard in my life. Do you even have a place to stay? A plan B in case this acting gig doesn’t pan out? Tell me you’ve got money. Oh wait no. You just lost it all. Seems like you ought to be the one cussing.”

Rex looks at me like I just kicked his puppy.

I roll the edge of a cocktail napkin around a little red stir stick so I don’t have to look at him. Maybe I was kind of harsh. But the truth hurts. That is one fucked-up preteen-girl plan he’s got going on. If he wasn’t a dude and kind of on the old side, he’d end up on the streets giving blow jobs for crack money.

I look toward the door that the bartender disappeared through. What’s taking so long?

“You know what your problem is, Kitty? You’re afraid to dream. That’s why you’re all choked up inside and it spills out angry.”

Heat rises up in me. I can feel my cheeks getting red. “That is total bullshit.” I cover my mouth like I’m pantomiming and let it fall away so he knows he can’t tell me what the fuck to say. “I’ve got a dream. But more importantly, I’ve got a plan. The plan is the thing. If you don’t have one, you go off half-cocked and end up in jail or something.”

I know this is true. Before I came up with the plan to get my ass to Vegas and find a decent singing gig, I was dangerously close to being in that situation myself. No way am I going to jail. And I sure as hell am not going to pick the option Joey chose. In New York they only know me as
female accomplice
. They don’t even have a description. In Vegas no one has a clue. Going to Vegas was a great plan.

Until it wasn’t.

Fuck.

I toss the straw and napkin at the trash can behind the bar. I miss. A whole bunch of flies swarm up into the brown hazy fake twilight air of the bar. I can’t hear them buzz but I feel it inside my head like a vibration.

I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m taking the short bus to Mexico and I don’t even have any shoes. If ever two losers are in the same boat, it’s us.

Rex unhooks his heels from his stool and puts his feet on the floor like he’s going to leave.

“Those burgers are taking a long time, aren’t they?” I put my hand on his arm. I don’t know why. I don’t want him to go, I guess.

“You in a hurry?” he asks.

I shake my head.