“Hey, Eli.” Jessica pulled out a twenty. “What do you say? Nine-ball, race to three?”
“It’s your loot,” Eli hopped down and matched the bet.
Jessica took both their bills and stuffed them into a corner pocket. “All right, let’s go.”
Another Michael Jackson song kicking it on the juke box.
Eli, ever the gentleman, gave Jessica the break.
***
For the next half hour, Jessica dominated the table. Up two racks in the first fifteen minutes. Might have even sealed the deal with a straight run, but for an unfortunate scratch on the eight that put Eli behind the nine. The atmosphere grew more lively. Eli talking trash, Chaucer calling out the play-by-play from the stands. The two men kicked up some dust over who would buy the next round, settled by the flip of a coin. Ten dollar side bet.
And try as she might, Jessica had to admit she was having a good time.
It was enough to make a girl satisfied with nothing but orange soda.
By the end of the third game, Eli realized he was outgunned. Resorting to guerrilla tactics, he parked himself alongside Jessica as she set up her shot on the nine.
“You really think you can make that without scratching?” he asked.
Jessica chalked her tip. “If I get an itch, I’ll let you know.”
She bent over, lining up her sights.
Eli crouched down, face positioned alongside hers. “Top-left spin? Really?”
“You think I’m going to fall to pieces just because you blow in my ear?”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“No,” Jessica replied, relaxing her body as she sent the cue ball downstream to pocket the nine. She straightened, face to face with Eli. “It’s just that when it comes your game, blow is the only word comes to mind.”
From the bleachers, Chaucer raised his bottle. “We have a winner.”
Eli shook his head, trudged over and slapped a twenty into Chaucer’s outstretched hand.
Jessica dug her winnings from the corner pocket.
“You’re seventeen.” Eli flipped down a seat and collapsed under the weight of his disgrace. He pulled out a pair of aqua-blue poker chips and began to shuffle them between his fingers. “To think, when I was seventeen…”
As though on cue, Eli and Chaucer began to harmonize Frank Sinatra.
Harmonize loudly.
“You are both extremely pathetic,” Jessica informed them, rubbing her eyes.
When she looked up, Dinah was standing by her side.
Jessica’s expression rightly matching those of every man in the bar.
At some point since their last encounter, Dinah had transformed into a cat.
Or, at the very least, the centerfold approximation of one.
Her torso was stitched up in a black vinyl corset, laces crisscrossing from her bellybutton on up, giving her breasts significant heft. White, fishnet stockings, complete with black, knee-high boots. Matching gloves that stretched to her elbows, topped with white cotton fringe. A thin, elastic band clung around her neck, dark-sequined mask hanging between her bare shoulder blades.
Topped with a headband sporting two pert, kitten ears.
“Hey, boys, my eyes are up here,” she informed them, pointing with a pair of black press-on nails. She gave Jessica a kiss on the cheek.
Beneath the cheap perfume, Jessica caught the maddening whiff of gin martinis.
“Yes, of course,” Eli said. “That’s what that costume really brings out. Your eyes.”
Dinah took a sip of her beer, licked her lips. “Scientists still haven’t found a name for their color.”
“What’s the story with the outfit?” Chaucer asked.
“Take Back The Night march?” Jessica asked.
“No.” Dinah twirled her tail a few times. “Got a new bar opening downtown, and they’re going for a masquerade theme… and as far as what the hell goes, how is it we’ve all ended up in the same damn place again?”
“Small world,” Chaucer mused.
“Good enough,” Dinah agreed, and leaped onto the riser with feline grace. “So what’s the score?”
“Jessica’s cleared my balls clean off the table,” Eli confessed. He nudged Chaucer. “Why don’t you have a go? Gain back our honor?”
“I ain’t the one bet against her,” Chaucer said, taking hold of Eli’s cue stick. He lifted himself up with a stifled groan. Made his way to Jessica’s side, and began chalking up. “And don’t think I’m going to let you lift a dime off me.”
Jessica watched with a wary eye as her aunt curled up next to Eli. “Quit while you’re ahead.”
“That’s right.”
Jessica took the chalk out of Chaucer’s hands and moved to the end of the table.
She parked her ass on the edge, prepping the cue. Watched a weighted shuffle slide past, knocking an opposing team off the table. Ensuing cries of anger and jubilation filled the room, while the jukebox gave Michael Jackson another chance to serenade from beyond the grave.
Jessica turned around, lowered herself to the table.
Knees bent, shaft moving steadily along her bridge hand.
She glanced up, caught sight of Dinah laughing, throwing a vinyl clad arm around Eli Messner.
Jessica tensed her fingers, and let it fly.
Caught the bottom half of the cue ball, sending it a good foot in the air. Soaring over the rack, hitting the felt with a deafening bounce before clattering uselessly to the floor.
Rolled half way across the room before Jessica was able to recover it.
***
“Let me get this…”
Jessica tore her eyes from the Eli, who was playfully tugging at Dinah’s tail. “Huh?”
Chaucer passed Casper his MasterCard. “Too late.”
The oversized clock over the bar made it ten till eleven. Between their drinks and table time, God only knew what their tab had come to. The crowd had thinned slightly. Transients off in search of hard liquor or a more illicit high. Regulars stuck to the bar like flypaper. Jukebox mercifully giving in to the more mellow sounds of Aretha Franklin and Sam Cooke.
Eli and Dinah had been caught up in an unspoken, perpetual drinking contest.
Meanwhile, Jessica and Chaucer had followed their race to three with another to five.
Jessica had lost the first race by one rack. The second by five.
“Been reading the papers?” Chaucer asked.
“No…” Jessica absently toyed with a steel ashtray. “Not lately.”
“Just the online stuff, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Caper returned with the printout.
“Miss the locals and you miss a lot,” Chaucer said, scribbling out the tip and total. Made it official with a sloppy signature.
Casper took a look at his haul and grinned. Reached up above his head and tugged on the bell, giving it a good seven rings. “What are y’all up to for the rest of this evening?”
“Got an opening downtown!” Dinah announced, shuffling up to the bar, arm in arm with Eli. “That new place, The Cardinal, downtown…” She placed a casual hand on Eli’s chest. “You coming or not?”
Eli seemed to have a hell of a way of holding his liquor. Sober enough to weigh his options, at least. “I really should get Jessica home.”
“We can drop her off on the way.”
“You can drop me off on the way,” Jessica echoed sullenly.
Chaucer raised his hand. “If you like, I can go ahead and take care of that… I’m not sure how much you two have had to drink, but the less detours you have to make tonight, the better.”
“That OK, Jess?” Dinah asked.
And Jessica was once again stuck being seventeen. “Yeah. Sounds good.”
A blanket of wet summer smells greeted them as they stepped outside. The rain was coming down in a light mist, rainbows fading in and out of streetlights.
They all gathered beneath the green and white awning
.
“Where you guys parked?” Chaucer asked.
“Across the way,” Eli said, motioning to the parking lot of a closed funeral home.
“Me too,” Chaucer replied, offering Jessica his copy of the Observer. “For your hair.”
“My hair’s invincible… Let’s just do this.”
The group forded the street, leaping over brimming potholes.
Chaucer dug into his pocket, realized he’d left his keys at the bar.
He handed Jessica his newspaper and darted back across the street.
Dinah and Eli began discussing directions, all communications impaired by rain and cheap beer. Jessica halfheartedly covered her head with the limp newspaper. Watched them talk circles. She was about to suggest that Eli drive so she could take the Mustang back to the apartment, when something caught her eye.
Jessica took a few sodden steps. Stood by the trunk of Dinah’s car, peering into the dark.
At the edge of the parking lot sat a compact, late model Toyota.
Engine off. Lights out.
Wipers inexplicably activated, sliding back and forth in wide swaths along the windshield.
Jessica watched, mesmerized.
She took another step.
The driver’s door opened.
From out of the Toyota’s cramped confines, there stepped a monster.
He couldn’t have been more than six-two, nothing worth losing any sleep over. But to actually witness this man extract himself from the car was like watching a spider emerge from its home. Legs stretching out. Arms reaching, blindly searching for a handhold. Body unfolding, the specter of a clown from some abandoned circus act, slowly rising from behind the door. Still rising, extending upwards until Jessica thought there couldn’t possibly be anymore left of him to reveal.
He remained where he was. Watching her through the rain, his face a pale, smeared thumbprint.
Jessica felt her feet meld with the ground as the giant slammed his door shut and began walking towards her. Long legs that hit the ground with unsteady intensity. Arms stiff, a warped puppet. Grey slacks coming into focus along with a blue windbreaker, dark hair pressed flat against an oblong skull.
It’s him, Jessica realized dully, reaching back to grab hold of the Mustang’s taillight.
Angry Jonny.
The figure drew closer, arm raised in a limp, disjointed greeting. “Hey, there, Jessica Kincaid.”
His gurgling tenor sent Jessica hurtling back to graduation day.
Standing behind the bleachers, the last time she’d seen vice principal Davenport.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jessica heard Dinah lash out.
Davenport stood fast, tottering uneasily under his own height. Thick lips split in a broad grin that failed to touch his unfocused, bloodshot eyes. Unfazed by the rain. Mud-caked penny loafers dirtying the cuffs of his wrinkled pants.
Jessica’s muscles seized. No longer afraid, just furious at the mere sight of him. “So you’re alive after all.”
“You called my bluff, Jessica,” Davenport slurred. “Got yourself good and shit-canned from the paper, how great for you.”
“Are you following me?”
“I’ll tell you what… Round two, Jessica. How about that? A second chance. Born again, you can start over. We can all just… start over.”
Jessica thought she heard Eli from somewhere far away: who the fuck is this?
“It’s nothing,” Jessica called back over her shoulder. “Let’s just get out of here.”
“Uh-uh.” Dinah stepped up to her niece’s side. “I’m not going anywhere, I’m not letting this piece of shit get away with this!”
“Dinah, he’s drunk, don’t –”
“Round two, you got that?” Davenport sneered, spit dangling from his lower lip. “How about if I go ahead and make it known that you two don’t actually live in the Brookside school district?”
Dinah took a step back.
“That’s right!” Davenport proclaimed. “I talked to Carlton Walsh, Dinah. Your ex-boyfriend? He told all about how he’s been letting you use his address for all of Jessica’s school business. But now, I know where you live. Other fucking side of town, that’s where you live. How’s that sound, Jessica? You can go ahead and spend your Senior year at Washington High, in that stink hole with the rest of the blacks, how you like that?”
No, Jessica didn’t like that.
But she didn’t like Davenport just a little bit more.
“I’d like to see you get out of my face, Clarence,” Jessica spat, voice echoing in her own head.
Davenport blinked, as though he’d never heard his own name. “What?”
“I’d like to see you get back in your car, and go home. I’d like you to pop open a few more cold ones and scream at the walls, because they are the only ones who’ll listen. I’d like you to curl up in bed, all by your lonesome, and think about this… you’re looking at a woman who will die before she lets you have your way. Now, be honest with me… How do you like that?”
“Oh, Jessica…” He shook his head, voice rumbling. “You have no idea what I can do to you…”
Dinah took a hold of Jessica’s shoulder, steadying herself. “I’m not playing, you drunk son of a bitch, you leave us alone –”
“Alone, fine!” Davenport interrupted. “You can come clean right now, no playing –”
“All right, pal…” Eli stepped in, planting a hand against Davenport’s chest. Skin and bones shrink-wrapped in his cheap suit. “Turn around right now and get back in your car. Right now, I ain’t playing either. Do it now.”
“Done playing with you,” Davenport muttered, gaze soaring easily over Eli’s head, drilling into Jessica’s eyes. “Done playing with you…” He took a lunging step forward. “You BITCH!”
Even as Eli rammed his fist into Davenport’s gut, the vice principal’s heft sent them both careening against Jessica. She fell flat against the Mustang, crush of their combined weight robbing her lungs of air. Eyes filling with rain. Blurry images coming in muddied, incoherent snapshots. Davenport’s hands trawling for her face with large, ropey hands. Rusted paint scraping against her cheek. Eli going to town on Davenport’s ribcage. Dinah caught up in the mix, fists pounding ineffectively against the vice-principal’s face.
A stream of water found its way into Jessica’s mouth, down her throat.
Just as she began to gasp for air, the pressure lifted from her body.
She rolled off the Mustang, feet planted firmly on the ground. Doubled over, arm spread out over the trunk.
Jessica straightened with one last, burning gasp to find Eli on the ground.
Dinah grabbing hold of his arms, black boots struggling to gain traction as she pulled him up.
Chaucer Braswell, holding Davenport in a headlock. Bared teeth grinding against his captive’s ear, yelling for him to Cool it, goddamn it!
“Cool it, right now, or I will SNAP your neck!”
Jessica called out the garbled vowels that made up Chaucer’s name.
He looked up, whites of his eyes gleaming against his skin.
Wet with the rain, Davenport managed to slip out of his death grip. Twisting his body an ungainly three-sixty, he sent an elbow right into the aging detective’s abdomen.
Chaucer let out a nauseated grunt, reached for something to hold onto.
Jessica lurched forward, wrapped her arms beneath his, fingers linked along his chest.
The parking lot lit up with the glare of headlights.
Davenport was back behind the wheel of his car, engine bellowing. He pealed out with a water-logged screech that sent his car fishtailing. Front bumper coming within three feet of Chaucer’s outstretched legs. The side door smashed up against Dinah’s tail light. Sparks flew from the undercarriage as the Toyota bounced off the curb, swerved onto the shimmering streets, speeding south.
Somewhere in the middle of their rumble, it had finally stopped raining.
Chaucer and Jessica slowly rose from their crouch.
Eli was already upright. Batting Dinah’s concerned hands away, pointing towards Jessica.
“You all right, baby?” Dinah asked, clopping over.
From across the street, Casper came running.
“What the hell?” His cellphone was already unsheathed, at the ready. “Everyone all right? Jessica, Blondie? Chaucer?”
“Everything’s good,” Jessica gasped. She glanced down the street, lungs aching something awful. “He’s gone. Ain’t coming back, everything’s fine.”
“You want me to call the police?”
“No,” Dinah said, leaning back against the car. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Dinah…” Chaucer caught his breath, wiping the rain from his face. “Listen, with every minute that passes, that guy’s speeding away to –”
“We know who he is,” Jessica told him, inexplicably lucid. “Clarence Davenport. This ain’t the first time we’ve had trouble with him.”
“Then you’d damn well better call the police.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t feel like talking to the cops tonight,” Dinah snapped.
“Hey, if they don’t want to,” Eli panted, rubbing the early makings of a bruise on his left cheek. “Why not wait ‘till tomorrow?”
“If you know this man, know his name,” Chaucer managed… “And if the son of a bitch is drunk as his breath seems to indicate, that’s half your battle, right there.”
“Man’s right,” Casper agreed. “I’m not saying this won’t hold up in court if you wait and file a report in the morning. But if he’s arrested under the influence, he’s going to have reckless endangerment and possibly an attempted hit and run on his list of offences. And you can be sure he’ll cop a plea at the preliminary. You can be damn sure.”
“Yeah, well…” Dinah sniffed, crossing her arms. “I’m standing here in a goddamn cat costume. Dressed like a Goddamn child on Halloween, and I’m not talking to the cops like this. I’m going downtown, and I’m having a drink. I’m going to wake up tomorrow, hungover, but happy. And then I’m going to the cops.”
Chaucer put a hand on Jessica’s shoulder.
Jessica looked across the street. A fair amount of people had gathered outside. Witnesses.