Fiction

 
Photo: Stephen Matera
Location: Washington Cascades

The Kneissl Kid:
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The Kneissl Kid - Chapter 2
The second act in the ongoing saga of Buck Avery, maybe the best there ever was.
By VICTOR SMITH

November 6

Who would think a young guy like me could feel so old and stiff? Criminy. Must be the slope of the bank making me tighten up like this. I laid up a couple-three good rocks on the downhill side. You'd think that'd keep me from rolling, let me relax.

Time for coffee. Yes. It's not beer, but it's not bad. I stuff my four blankets back into my duffel and shake off the cold. I make sure all my stuff is pushed up tight under the bridge and out of sight. Then I scrabble around and up the embankment, little stones splashing in the creek below. Which way, the lodge or Sam's? It's 6:30 and on a good day they should both be open. Maybe not the lodge, though.

I set the uni out in front of me and pedal off, my arms flapping to generate warmth, not speed or balance. I don't need to think about balance because I might be the best there ever was. I think I was probably born balancing on something or other, Mom would always say, just sitting there smi...my little monkey on skis, my little Ave, just a lit...til I hear some people say I look like a monkey on the uni. Screw them, I'm thinking. They're all getting up to some kiss-ass little job this morning while I'm up here in Paradise. Who's the little monkey now, huh?

The lights are on at Sam's so I pull up and flip the uni out from underneath me, grabbing it from behind—Buck-style—like I always do. I bring it inside, and take a seat at the booth next to the kitchen door. A harried-looking waitress, introducing herself as Marie, slides onto the bench opposite me in the booth and plops down an order pad. She flips pages over the top until she gets to a blank one.

"So, whaddaya want this early on a cold morning, Hon?" she asks. She looks up from the pad, skewering me with her baby blues, leaning over to one side on her left elbow, chin cupped in her hand. She is maybe thirty, with more lines than dimples, but still cute as a button. I wonder how many kids she's supporting and whether she's got a hubby back home to shake her springs.

Whaddaya got? I ask in return, wondering if a cool answer might get her wondering if there might be something else she'd rather bring me.

"Need a menu?" she asks, digging into an apron pocket. "Got one here somewhere."

Start with some coffee, I say. It not beer, but it's not bad, I'm thinking. I'll be awake enough to order once you get back.

I stretch my muddy legs out on the bench, leaning up against the side wall of the booth, and take stock of the place. There's a NO ADMITTANCE sign above the double swinging doors into the kitchen, and two doors labeled BUCKS and DOES to its right. Just my luck, I'm thinking, my own personal pot to piss in, 'scuse my French. I'll just have to take a picture of this. I may not have a camera, but I've got a pen that works, and words are worth a thousand pictures.

Pictures...there's a double row of framed and autographed pictures along the opposite wall, all with Sam in his greasy apron and a bunch of guys in ski jackets that I figure are famous for something or other. I'd sign mine right across the bottom, kind of to the right and slanted up a bit, making sure not to cover my face or anything. Buck. Buck Avery, the Kneissl Kid.

I decide there's things I need to remember about this place so I pull a napkin out of the dispenser and flatten it out in front of me. I reach into my shirt pocket and pull out my girlie pen. It's a wide-barrel job with a clear plastic case full of baby oil and fake snow that falls lightly when I shake it. And it falls on a buxom babe in a bikini, who holds her upper arms tight to her torso and bends forward at the waist, pressing her little titties together, shivering. When she shivers, they spin around and around. Crack me up. You just gotta love snow.

Marie brings a steaming mug of coffee, a spoon, and a little basket full of creamer and sugar packets.

No cream? I ask, glancing down at the basket.

"Where do you think you are," she asks, "The fucking Moulin Rouge?"

And I am instantly in love. I feel a glow rise up from my unmentionables to the bottom of my chin, where it spreads out across my cheeks like that hot wax Mom used to paste all over her face at night. I go from wondering about a spring-shaking hubby to whether I, myself, might find a squeaky bed somewhere in this town to sweat up this foul-mouthed maiden of the steam table. I think hard for a witty response, but noth...Think, Ave, you know what happens when you get too excited. You know your no...

Not really, I say.

Marie walks away without taking my order, but I don't need to be out of here fast anyway, at least not today. I shake a packet of creamer and rip the top off roughly with my teeth, glancing up to see if Marie might be watching, which she is not. I hold it up over my coffee, tapping it, watching the off-white powder spread out across the blackness. I stir it slowly until I realize that Marie is again sliding in the booth across from me.

"Here," she says, as she pushes the menu across at me. "Eggs, hash, pancakes, bacon, sausage, toast, three kinds of cereal, biscuits, gravy, and sticky buns. Your call." I order scrambled eggs and white toast, thinking I'll save a little money this morning.

"Refill?" she asks.

Oh, yeah. I say. It's not beer but it's not bad. Marie leans hard right and slides out of the booth, leaving behind a lingering scent of some perfume I can't name. But then, I can't name any of them.

I wave to Sam behind the counter and he nods back. I yell over, gesturing at the wall of pictures with my thumb, Those guys have these same pictures at home with your name on them?

"Yeah," he says, "And Santy Claus is coming to town."

Not for a month or so, I say, winking large, as Marie brings back the carafe of coffee. She pours and I leer, wishing the buttons on her shirt faced the other way this morning.

"Your eggs'll be right up," she says.

I leave a tip that will definitely make her remember me, but most people seem to do that anyway. I pocket my pen and add the napkin to the roll in my pocket, carefully securing it with my rubber bands. I pull the uni out from under the table and wheel it to the door.

See you soon, I say, waving to Sam.

"Not if I see you sooner," he responds with an exaggerated wink. I straddle the uni and head back toward the bridge, my arms churning up more speed in the briskness of the cool morning air. I pass a line of houses, The Mortar and Pestle Pharmacy—which I instantly dub the Mortar and Pestilence, turning it over and over and over...Ave, Ave?...my mind until I see the little sign sticking out in the middle of the next block. Hedwig's.


Buck, Buck Avery, I say, sticking out my right hand at belly level toward the old lady. Shake, spear, kick in the rear. The impulse is always there, right below the surface ever since junior high school. But instead I just take her hand as it comes my way and, bowing slightly at the waist, bring it up for a kiss on the back of her bony knuckles. Pleased to meet you, I say.

Hedwig's looks just fine. The sign fronts a two-story frame house sheathed in roofing shingles, with bleary-looking plastic stapled over the windows. Two afterthought dormers stick out of the roof, shingled in more modern stock. I look around the foyer as if it were expansive.

"I keep it just the way it was when Mr. Pbrofonski passed away." she says. And I can see that, looking through the open door to the cluttered sitting room. "Ten dollars a night, week in advance," she continues.

I'll take it, I say, digging deep into my pocket for my larger bills.

"There's two other young gentlemen sharing Number One, you'll be in Three," she says, re-counting my crumpled wad of fives and tens. "No girls in the room and no food."

No food? I ask.

"I hate the rats," she says, "I can't touch them. Mr. Pbrofonski always took care of them."

Rats? I ask.

"Rats," she says, "Just don't bring in any food and you'll be fine. The bathroom's down the hall and to the right, first door."

I follow Hedwig upstairs and down the dark hallway to the door with the perky, little mouse holding a "3" that looks like it's made of Swiss cheese. The door creaks as she opens it, exposing a dingy, curtained window illuminating a single bed, dresser, nightstand, and a half-dozen pegs sticking out of cowboy-and-Indian wallpaper. A ragged throw rug is tacked to the floor, covering a hole, maybe somebody's bad carpentry or something.

"This was Billy's room before he left for the Army.” she says, bustling about, straightening, sweeping at dust with the back of her hand so that I can't ask anything about him. "Mr. Pbrofonski thought it was better for us to rent it out."

Well, I say, I'll keep it nice. I can always move into another room when he comes home to visit. I can usually tell when it's better not to ask questions.

I stand here after Hedwig's abrupt and snuffling departure, thinking that this will be just right until I find a job and move into a bigger pad, something I can really call my own. Downstairs I hear the civilized sound of a toilet flushing and I realize that I can probably count on one hand the times I've trickled in a real toilet since I left Uti...Come on, Ave, is this really important? Should you be wasting your time on stupid, little things li...I smell cabbage cooking.

I skip happily down the stairs two at a time and hear Hedwig acknowledge my cheery wave from the doorway: "Too much noise!" I grab my uni from the umbrella stand in the foyer and head back for the bridge.

I casually lean the uni against the guardrail and step over the embankment and back under the bridge. My stuff is all where I left it, ready for a new home under a roof this time. I gather it up into my duffel and drag it out next to the guardrail. I drag out my skis, boots, and poles and I lay them next to the duffel and the uni. I know I can do it this time.

I throw the strap of the duffel over my left shoulder and swing it around so its bulk lays against the small of my back. I tie together the inner laces of my ski boots and drape them around my neck. I take my skis and set them upright, leaning against the guardrail. I hold my ski poles in my left hand and straddle the uni, holding my position with the poles. I get my balance with both feet on the pedals and snatch the Kneissls with my right hand, swinging them up and over my shoulder, pedaling off before the skis even leave the ground. I am flying.

Several cars beep as I pedal down the street toward my new home, children craning around to watch me out the back windows. A man on the sidewalk raises a hand to wave as I pass; I would generally slap him five going by, but my hands are full at the moment. Squirrels scamper out of my way, cats race up trees, and a police car slows. I would wave, but my hands are full at the moment. The patrol car passes me and stops just up the street, waiting for me to go by again. But I stop at Hedwig's before I reach the cruiser, tossing the skis and pulling the uni out from under myself, Buck-style.

I carry my stuff upstairs in two trips after trying to do it in one. "Too much noise," Hedwig yells from the kitchen. I bring up my skis and the uni on my second trip. I close the door and spin through 360 degrees, surveying the cramped surroundings of my new home. It's time to unpack.

I start sorting through my stuff, setting it up around the room, and it feels like the first time in months; it is the first time in months. My four blankets come out first and go limp on the bed. I stand the uni up against the dresser, then change my mind and hang it on the wall from a peg sticking out of an Indian's eye. I take my ski boots—stiff buckle boots of fine Italian leather, with inner boots laced in parachute cord—and hang them from a peg beside the uni. I hang my ski poles by the straps on the same peg. My skis, my classic Kneissl Red Stars, go up on the wall horizontally, across the top of four pegs, looking like a million bucks.

I paw down further into my duffel and pull out two pair of tattered Levis, three tee shirts, another wool shirt just like the one I'm wearing, two pair of underwear that clearly need washing, a Swiss Army knife, five socks, a long scarf, a mitten, two dog-eared notebooks, a hash pipe that hasn't seen a match since Marcy State, a knit watch cap, a sweater, two packs of Luckies, my pocket watch, an oversize Mason jar full of coins wrapped up in the sweater, six pencils and a spare pen bunched together inside a dozen rubber bands, a twice-read copy of On The Road, a fork, another sweater, two pair of holed waffle-weave longjohns, another hat, a condom that's lain around longer than the hash pipe, another tee shirt, a Huntington Pass brochure, my wad of paper napkins wrapped with rubber bands, five sugar packets, an empty film container that still smells like hash after almost a year, sunglasses in two pieces, another pack of Luckies, and a lighter with about twenty wraps of duct tape around it that will come in handy when I decide to fix the glasses. I carefully arrange the clothes in the three drawers of the dresser and set out my other stuff in good order on top of the nightstand and dresser.

Life is good, I'm thinking. I pick up the Huntington Pass brochure, lay back across the bed, and look at a picture of the spiderwork of trails laid out across the face of the bowl. "Biggest vertical drop in the East!" "Over 400 acres of snowmaking." "Night skiing." "Complimentary cocktail with three-day packages." I close my eyes and link my fingers behind my head, elbows out like I do sometimes when I ride the uni. I think about my early years coming up, the first pair of used Kneissls my Daddy bought me when my voice was changing, and the way they turned me into a legend before I was eighteen. Jumps, bumps, freezing my tongue to the safety bar, screaming straightline down the middle of Tamarac through clots of terror-stricken beginners, my first kiss on the lift while night-skiing. All this finally coming together into a new life, complete with a new home to call my own. Now all I need is a job.


"And what brings you to Huntington, Mister...Let's see, Mr. Buck?" she asks.

Buck, Buck Avery, I say to the woman behind the desk. She is short and perky-looking, with cropped dark hair and glasses perched on top of her head. Her name is Mrs. Kistler, according to the cheap, plastic name tag pinned askew just above her left tittie. She wears a thick ski sweater and stretch pants with heel stirrups disappearing into a pair of very sexy-looking, high-heeled boots that I can see each time I peek under the modesty panel.

Actually, it's writing, I say, But I've got some free time. You got a job, I got the skills. I can teach anybody to ski, even a crippled-up moron. But I never got certified or nothing. I stare deeply into her eyes, leaning forward across the desk to appear interested.

"I'm sorry, Mr. um, Avery, is it?" she says, "We don't have any openings right now."

You can call me Buck, Ma'am, I say, trying to make her feel more at ease in the company of a legend. I know how hard it can be.

Well, there's plenty of other things I can do until an instructor job opens up, I add, giving her a good opportunity.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Buck, but we have filled all our positions for the season," says Mrs. Kistler.

It's just Buck, I say, correcting her gently so as not to antagonize her. Mr. Buck runs a drug store back home in East Utica. I used to work for him back in, oh, March of 196...sick, Ave, is that what you want her to think? When there’s something important that you want, you have to foc...cause we had to, like, count out all those little pills, and all. She rolls her eyes, probably has some kind of grit or something in one of them. I'll take anything that comes with a season's pass.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Avery, but we have nothing available," she insists.

Okay, then, I say, Guess it's time to speak with your supervisor. This always seems to work for me.

"I'm sorry, but I handle all personnel decisions for Mr. Barnacre and I don't think you want to talk to him right now."

I decide to push the issue. I'll wait for Mr. Barnacre, if you don't mind, I say. I settle comfortably into my chair and cross my legs like a civilized person.

"I can call Mr. Barnacre, if you'd like," she says, "But here's what he'll tell you. Your hair is too long for Huntington and you have a beard. There are no men with beards working at Huntington and none with hair past their ears or collar. That's what Mr. Barna...Christ, Ave, you know you have to think these things thr...who you are when he hires you."

Well, Jesum Crow, I'm thinking. He's got no right. That's discrimination, and this is 1979. That's discrimination, I say, You can't get away with this in 1979.

"And your clothing is not in keeping with the image Mr. Barnacre seeks to project," she continues. "I'm afraid we have nothing for you."

Whaddaya mean, I ask. All your lifties, snowmakers, and garbage tossers have crew cuts and have to salute this guy?

"I'm sorry, Mr. B...Mr. Avery," she says, looking down at my application, "I have things to do."

Well, Mrs. K...K...Kistler, I say, leaning in, leering wide-eyed and tongue-length from the nametag on her left tittie, Is it too much to ask to sit in your bar and have a goddam beer, 'scuse my French, or do I need a stupid-looking haircut first?

"I'm sorry, Mr. Avery. You'll have to leave."


So, there's other bars in town. And I've got good, dependable transportation. On the uni, everything's in balance. I don't even have to think about anything, because I'm maybe the best there ever was. I spin down across the bridge and onto Main Street where I pass Hedwig's and head for the Troubadour. There are three cars in the parking lot, probably about right for a late Thursday afternoon before the season starts. I'm still upset, but I know that'll change with the first beer going down. I pop my feet off the pedals and dismount, Buck-style, right in front of the stairs to the porch. I swing the uni up under my arm and walk on in.

I take a stool next to a tired-looking woman at least ten years my senior who seems like she's been here for a while. I order a Utica Club and light up a Lucky. I look over to find she is staring at me, not something I was necessarily looking for.

"You new in town?" she slurs, eyelids hiding the upper half of her iris on either side, "Or do you just look different today?"

I look her over pretty carefully, the pause being a fairly cool way to set myself up for the likes of her anyway. Then I glance away and take a long drag on the Lucky. I slowly turn her way with a whole lot of nonchalance and blow out a perfect smoke ring. I look up at the ceiling as the smoke ring begins its rise, losing its identity in the cloud above, when a little bubble of mucous—as best I can figure—drops out of my nose and down my windpipe. A strangled cough bursts out just as I raise my glass of UC to further extend the pregnancy of the pause, blowing foam across the bar and startling the woman back a little closer to sobriety. I slam the glass back down on the bar, hacking and pounding my chest. She gets into the act, patting my back until the snot is expelled and my lungs stop their heaving.

Well, Criminy, I'm thinking. So much for nonchalance. I wipe the tears out of my eyes and sit here, chest heaving, my voice box useless for the moment.

Thnks, I say, or at least I try to, I dn't knw wht jst hppnd.

"Well, Hon, I don't think I've ever seen a man move like that before," she says, eyelids back where they belong for the moment.

Jesum, I say, Something went down the wrong way, I guess.

"And I've never seen a man's tongue stick out that far before, either," she continues, eyes now bright with interest and anticipation. She turns 90 degrees on the stool to face me directly, knees poking against the side of my thigh. "You okay?"

I get my first complete view of her at this point. She has ten, maybe twelve years on me, and a lot of those years had to be pretty rough, from the looks of it. Her face is lined, but still kind of childlike and sincere. She has the skinny body and legs of a chain-smoking alcoholic, but she is wearing a sweater that clings to her magnificent chest like Saran Wrap. The hair on her head is a henna red that doesn't look like it came with the original package, but her feet are stuffed into stiletto pumps that look like she's had them on all her life.

Well, I'm thinking, this is complicated. I'm still not sure she isn't one of the hookers Huntington is famous for, but I get the impression she's too drunk to be doing business either way.

Think so, I say, finally getting control of my breathing, looking to see what's left in my beer glass.

"Hon, how'd you like to buy a lady a drink?" she asks, eyeing my cigarettes.

What are you drinking, I ask, a little worried that she might be looking to swipe my new pack of Luckies.

"What are you buying?" she asks.

I'm drinking UC, you can have whatever you want, I say, pulling the Luckies over to a safer spot on the bar. My mind's eye crawls into my pocket to see if I have anything but singles left. I decide to offer her one cigarette to keep her from stealing all of them.

"Thanks, Hon," she says, taking one and tamping it against the bar. "I gave them up quite a while ago. They started scaring me. I never light them anymore, but I still love the way they feel between my fingers like this."

She brings the cigarette up next to her cheek, wrist cocked back, eyes boring into mine. She wiggles a little mambo move with her shoulders and winks large, just like I do. "I'm pretty hot, smokin' or not, don't you think?" she says.

Oh, yeah, I say, looking away and dragging long on my Lucky. I point it over at her glass and raise my eyebrows, blowing smoke up and away from her this time.

"I believe I will have another Manhattan," she purrs, tapping invisible ash.

I signal the bartender and repeat the smoky gesture toward her glass, immediately wondering if this repeat of nonchalance might put me into another fit of some kind. He takes it and mixes the cocktail quickly and without comment, like he's done it before, and I'm sure he has. He sets it in front of her and counts out three singles from the little pile in front of me.

"Where's home, Hon?" she asks, and I wonder if she means immediate home with a squeaky bed involved, or where I was actually born. I'm so taken with the fact that I now have an actual home again that I just have to tell her a nice story.

I'm kind of between things right now, I say, I'm renting a little house down the street until I find something bigger to buy. I've got my eyes on thi...see what you're doing, Ave? Just why are you talking to this woman? She's not what I'd call your type, and I can't imagine why you would need to impress her with your little sto...recently, I say, within walking distance, which is a priority for me.

"Married?" she asks.

No, you? I ask.

"Was," she answers, drawing long on the unlit Lucky.

Kids? I ask, pretty sure I know the answer.

"County took them," she answers, verifying my assumption, and adding some real flavor.

See them much? I ask, the only thing that comes to mind at the moment.

"County's back in Montana," she answers, taking half the Manhattan in a gulp. "But that's just as well."

So she tells me about waking up drunk after coming in late after being out making big money one night. She went to bed, had a smoke to wind down, and there was a fire, I guess. She says something about how they had to go back in after getting her out because she forgot to tell them the kids were in bed. Well, I'm thinking, now I'm safe. This should drop her into a deep hole of depression that's too narrow for the both of us to crawl into, hopefully.

But she spins my way again and rubs her knees back and forth against my leg, reaching over in front of me, rubbing against my shoulder as she squashes her Lucky in the ashtray, just like it was lit or something. I signal for another beer and notice that she's staring at me again.

Well, the best defense is a good offense, they say. So I figure I'll just scare her away. I turn toward her and knock knees a couple of times getting one of mine in between hers. This ought to do it.

I begin to think this might be a bad idea when I see the bartender roll his eyes toward the ceiling. But I know this is a bad idea when she squeezes my knee real tight and stares into my eyes. I reach for my beer, nearly knocking it over with the back of my hand. She squeezes again. I drain the beer and pull my watch out of my pocket.

Uh, oh, I say, holding the watch up, I've got to be getting on home.

"Not just yet, Hon," she says, gripping my knee tighter, patting it with her free hand. "I don't know who you are. My name's Andrea."

Buck, Buck Avery, I say, feeling the knee lock tighten as she probably thinks about rhyme and motion.

"Pleased to meet you," she says. "Can you give me a ride home?"

Nope, I say, I don't have my car up here yet.

"Wanna walk?" she asks, and I get a wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach. I weigh the possibilities and decide that this is an entanglement I might not want to get involved in this quickly. I mean, I've only been in town a day and, with my entire life stretching out in front of me, I don't have to beh...Ave, that's much better, now. You're starting to thi...into bed with some aging babe's got kids in Montana. Strong, skinny legs, though, Bet she can ski.

Sure, I say, my out-of-nowhere answer startling me, scaring me, arousing me. I unlock my knee and slide off the stool, grabbing the uni leaning up against the mahogany.

"What's that?" she asks, eyeing the simple contraption, grabbing my shoulder for balance.

It's a uni, I reply, It's short for unicycle. And it strikes me that I don't really have to clarify that, but then it strikes me that I probably do. We walk out the front door and down the steps.

"You ride that?" she asks, her face all puckered up with liquor and disbelief.

Sure do, I say. Watch.

I lay it out in front of me and set my left foot in place, then I roll it under and pedal off down the sidewalk. I go about twenty feet or so, do a 180, and start back toward her. I stop in front of her and grab the front of the saddle with my right hand. Holding it tight to my crotch, I jump it up and down three or four times like a pogo stick, to show her that I'm maybe the best there ever was, anywhere.

"Whoa," she says, "Don't that hurt your dick?"

Balancing here in front of her, I'm taken totally off guard by the question and have nothing to say. So I nonchalantly reach back to grab the saddle, to dismount Buck-style. Again, nonchalance gets the better of me because I guess I'm having a bad night. My heel catches a crack as it goes back to take my weight, throwing me off balance and forcing my other leg out to break my fall. The uni flies forward, bouncing into the street as I jump backwards to regain my balance.

No, I say, kind of sheepishly, Never seems to be a problem.

We walk—actually, she walks and I ride—to the end of Main Street where we take a left in front of Momma's, which is closed. She tells me all about Montana as I circle around her to keep upright at this slow pace. It sounds like a nice place, except for the social services people and one particular ex-husband. I tell her about my novel, which is all bundled up in a rubber-banded wad against my chest at the moment. Andrea is all bundled up in a big coat against the growing cold, but I can still see the outline of her chest in the fall of the fabric. We walk another block toward the creek that turns Brookhaven Place into a dead-end and Andrea motions toward the third house from the little cul-de-sac.

"My place," she says, "at least the room at the head of the stairs, anyway." We come up the driveway and I hop off the uni, Buck-style. She laughs.

"You want to leave that out here, Hon?" she asks.

No, I say. Where I go, it goes. I feel cool and in charge, kind of like a cowboy, saying it. Must be my new wallpaper.

She takes out a key and opens the door to a room that is the size of mine but much nicer. There are no streetlights glaring through the curtains, and the walls are painted a comfortable beige, not blazing with gunfire and flaming arrows. She opens her coat and I feel something getting stirred up in the bottom of my cup, if you know what I mean.

"Want a drink?" she asks.

You got a bar here? I ask. She pulls a half-full bottle of Peppermint Schnapps from her dresser drawer and holds it up at eye level. It's not beer, but it's not bad, I'm thinking.

"I only have one glass," she says, rummaging in the second drawer, coming up with a pint stolen from the Klondike.

That's okay, the bottle's glass, I say, wondering if this makes any sense at all to a drunk. She coughs and laughs, though. Andrea pours herself a hefty dollop and hands me the bottle.

"Cheers," she says, and takes the dose in a chain of swallows. I upend the bottle, which glugs five times.

"Hey, Hon," she says, "That's all I got."

Hey, Babe, I reply, I'll buy you two more.

She holds out the glass and I pour in another four fingers of syrupy clearness. I finish off the bottle and toss it into the wastebasket, which tips over and rolls.

I prefer a fireplace, but I use whatever's handy, I say, though I'm pretty sure this one doesn't make any sense to her at all.

Andrea downs half the glass and saunters over, throwing her skinny arms around my neck, slopping Schnapps down the back of my shirt.

Hey, that's going to get sticky, I say.

"Hon," she says, "That ain't the only thing." She plants her syrupy and sweet-stinking lips over mine and snakes out a playful tongue, carelessly setting the glass on the dresser. My own tongue finds this pleasurable enough, but quickly finds that she is missing a molar and an upper right eyetooth. Andrea has apparently learned that people don't see these things when sitting to her left, the side I must have been on. I begin to get a little nervous when she starts groping and reaches for my butt, wiggling her fingers in under my belt. But I begin unbuttoning her blouse, figuring second base is a pretty good hit for your first time up in a game like this. Then I hear a zip and feel a hand inside my pants.

"Oh...my...God," she exclaims, her mouth pulling back from mine, her eyes opening wide. She drops to the bed, her fingers a blur as she struggles to unbuckle my belt. I stand here in a growing panic, looking down to see that her roots are growing out in gray and that her arms flap with waddles as she works. I pull back just as she bites fiercely into my belt, snarling like that famous lion at the Utica zoo. The belt snakes out, its end snapping through belt loops like machine-gun fire as she rears back. She grabs a handful of shirt and bites at my waistband, groping around with her other han...Ave, you weren't raised in a barn, were you? Do you know that you left the front door ope...enormous unmentionable flops free.

"Oh...my...fucking...heart!" she says, her eyes practically bulging out of her head, "Where did your Momma hide you all my life?"

I am now very agitated, my face is burning, and I feel ready to run right past second base and off the field. This is turning into a game I'd rather not be part of. She grabs and I spin quickly away from her, my unmentionable flopping over across my right thi...I never! Ave. You have to leave right now, this very mi...

"...in there? Whoa, Sweet Jesus!" she yells, reaching around me from behind with both hands now, biting at my butt right through my Levis. I take a deep breath and bump her backwards so she loses her balance, falling over into a heap in the middle of the floor. I fold myself back into my pants and buckle my belt.

Andrea doesn't even try to get up. She sits there beginning to cry. I reach down to help her up, but she pushes me away without a word. I stand here, speechless myself, as she turns from me and adjusts herself back into her bra. She is trembling in a different way now, more heaving than vibration. She looks over her shoulder at me and her eyes are kind of glazed over, with a streak of tears winding around her cheek and down along a vein on her twisted neck. She boosts herself to get up and falls back again, the Schnapps beginning to mix with everything else she's been drinking. I grab her around the waist and hoist her to standing, her back against my stomach. She quakes in silent sobs, bent forward as I hold her close.

"It's just...it's just," she says between sobs, "I can't..."

I turn her around and she buries her face in my shoulder, continuing to quake and shudder. I can see that I have entered a very different world since walking up those stairs on my second night here in this town, and I'm about ready to head back down to something that feels a little more like reality.

She finally looks up at my face, her own stained with tears and cheap make-up heading chinward, dripping onto my shirt. She looks into my eyes for a moment, then drops her arms and turns away.

"I'm sorry," she sobs, "I'm just really sorry."

It's my fault, I answer, rubbing her bony back, It's something I shouldn't have started in the first place.

"No," she says, "I started it and it's my fault you think I'm a just a no-good whore now."

I stroke her graying hair and tell her that I shouldn't have treated her with such disrespect in the bar, giving her the wrong message like I must have done. She has gone from looking red-hot and dangerous to dead-drunk and vulnerable, and I think I like her better heading downhill like this.

I pick up my trench to go. I shove in my left arm and turn around to get it over my shoulder, seeing her looking at me again.

"Don't leave me," she says. "Stay here tonight, I swear to God I won't touch you. I'm just...just."

I drop the trench in a heap on the floor and hold her, swaying, feeling her breathing slowly return to normal.

Next: Chapter 3


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