Things Go On

Nell and José

The dusty hound with his head hanging, tongue at full extension, could not sound alarm. The sidewalk glittered with the white hot of a desert day, and even with his best intention and a lifetime of habit to draw on, it was just too hot to bark. The two women in their city clothes slipped right past the old dog and into the air ‐ conditioned cantina unannounced.

The restaurant was empty, save for the waitress smoking back by the register. She looked up when the women entered, but she did not move.

“Are you open?” asked Cate, the taller of the two blonds.

The waitress, Nell, nodded, but did not gather menus or pick up a tray. Cate and Loretta looked at each other and decided they were on their own. They picked out a table in the window with a view of the bar across the highway that ran through town, and collapsed into the plastic chairs. “My God, this air feels good,” exclaimed Loretta, as she pulled her long hair into a clip she’d dug from her purse. Cate liked the look of that, and did the same. “Let’s get the beers coming.”

They looked back at Nell with raised eyebrows and a smile, but it’d take more than that. “Excuse me? Could we order?” tried Cate.

Nell took up the plastic coated menus, frayed and stained, and with cigarette still between her fingers, walked the length of the empty café to the window seat. She stubbed out the butt into the ashtray on the women’s table, and as it smoldered, drew out her pad and pencil. “Something to drink?” she hissed.

“Definitely. Do you have any draft beer?” asked Loretta.

Nell did not smile. She looked out the window at the neon lights flickering across the road on the Wel-Come-Inn, and forgot for a moment about the day in general, and the order she was taking in particular. The lights had already come on in the bar, and the colors sparkled against the reddening of the sky. Cate and Loretta followed her gaze out the window past the trucks lumbering by, but couldn’t quite catch what Nell had focused on.

“I’ll just have a Corona,” Cate interjected. “With lime, please.”

“That’s fine. Me, too,” said Loretta.

Without looking at the women, Nell slipped the pencil back into her apron pocket and retreated. The kitchen was barely big enough for the cook to turn around in, and certainly too small for the refrigerator, which was situated just out the back door, chained to a post. Nell yanked two Coronas from the bottom shelf and, banging them together in a one-handed carry, delivered the bottles to the table. “No lime,”

she announced. It’s not that she didn’t have it; she just couldn’t be bothered to bring it.

Nell had worked at the cantina for eight years. There was a time she had thought the place might be hers one day, if she played her cards right. As it happened, opportunity came knocking when the old owner was found dead under questionable circumstances. But before Nell could even think through her next step, José, the Mexican teenager who did the dishes, stepped up to call the place his own with money he’d put aside for remittance; so that was that. José kept threatening that as soon as his family could get up from Ocampo, they’d be taking over Nell’s spot and she’d be out of the picture altogether, but months slipped by, no one showed, and things just went on.

“Did they order?” José asked her. “Not yet,” she said.

“Well, get going,” he prodded, and turned the griddle on to warm up. He hadn’t scraped it the night before, and the odd bits of meat that remained sizzled in a stale perfume. He moved the pan of refried beans over a low flame on the stove and stirred. Nell just leaned against the doorsill and watched the women, unmoved. They were laughing and clinking the bottles together in a toast.

“Homos from the city,” she said.

José looked out through the delivery shelf.

“Maybe.”

The evening darkness gathered in the room, dim and lonely. Nell hit the lights, and fluorescence crackled overhead.

“Well, get the order. Even homos have to eat,” he said. “Not here, they don’t,” Nell answered.

José took another look at them. “They’re too feminine. Too pretty.”

“Lipstick Lesbians. That’s what they call that kind”, countered Nell.

“Get the fucking order,” José snapped. He was not cut out to be a boss. He just wanted to go back home, reunite with his girlfriend, lift his child in the air, and grow old with grandchildren at his feet. His fate was not this one, not with Nell. He never wanted to move in with her. Never wanted to stop writing to Lupe and settle for a gabacha twice his age. He pushed the spatula hard into the grease film on the griddle and scraped it clean.

“You should have standards, José. That’s your problem: no standards,” she said.

From the front of the restaurant the women motioned back to Nell for more beers. Out the window the night had blackened the sky a velvety hue, and like the Siren’s song, it drew the regulars to fill the bar stools over at the Wel‐Come-Inn. Nell reached under the counter and turned on the radio. She tuned it from a Spanish station to a country one.

“Que puta,” uttered José.

Nell grabbed more beers and brought them to the women.

“What’ll it be?” she asked with no eye contact.

“Loretta, what are you going to have?” asked Cate.

“Oh, you go ahead,” she answered.

“All right then… I’ll have the rellenos dinner plate, no beans, please; extra rice.”

“That sounds good. Me, too,” said Loretta.

Nell glared down at Loretta. “Beans?”

“No. Extra rice.”

Nell took the menus and left. The women laughed as she retreated, but Nell didn’t look back until she was safely behind the counter. As she ripped the order from her pad and handed it to Jose, he raised his eyebrows and nodded toward the women. Nell turned around just in time to see Loretta kiss Cate on the cheek. They hugged, and raised their bottles in another toast.

“What did I tell you.”

Cate and Loretta

Highway 50 runs through three time zones, carving the country more or less straight across the middle. Cate and Loretta packed up the ancient DeSoto, the one they had recently shared as teenagers, and 

traveled that road when they left San Francisco bound for St. Louis, and their parents’ funeral. Cate was the younger sister, and in charge of the fun. Loretta, being the older, kept the maps and the timetable and, from time to time, a reminder of the somber tone the journey demanded. As the miles rolled beneath their wheels, the impact of their parents’ death took on new meaning, and they began to rejoice.

“I’m dying for real food. No more snack‐packs… something hot,” said Loretta as she straightened up a bit behind the wheel. “What’s coming up?”

Cate unfolded the map to consult.

“Do it right… you’re wrecking the folds…” said Loretta.

“Will you relax about the map? Okay, it looks like we’ll hit Fallon not too long after we cross into Nevada. Let’s try to get that far, and call it quits for the day,” said Cate.

Loretta turned off the radio, which kept drifting to a Spanish station anyway, and rolled down the window. “Did you think this day would ever come?” she asked.

“No, I did not. Those two were too mean to die,” answered Cate.

“What do you think they left us? The house, some insurance, hopefully, maybe some savings or investments…” wondered Loretta aloud.

“Everything but the Caddy. Too bad about the Caddy,” said Cate. They turned to each other and burst out laughing.

“Oh, my God, it’s sick to laugh. Stop it,” said Loretta.

“No, I wanted that car. You’d have thought he’d see a horse trailer coming. The horse lived, though. Good for the horse.”

“I’m glad no one can hear us. This is twisted… we should be serious,” said Loretta.

“I am serious. Seriously relieved to know they’re gone. San Francisco wasn’t far enough,” said Cate as she turned the radio back on and tried to locate the Spanish station. “They can’t get us now, Loretta. We’re free.”

As the last heat of the afternoon rolled in waves ahead of them down the two-­‐ lane blacktop, the women pulled into town. “There. The little Mexican place,” said Cate. “At least they’ll have cold beer.”

A scroungy mutt stood sentry at the door as they walked past. “Hey, pup,” said Cate. The old dog raised his head for a moment, then let it fall back between his paws.

“Don’t pet him, for God’s sake,” warned Loretta.

The women entered the restaurant, but it was dark after the blinding sun, and they weren’t sure if the place was ready yet for business. “Are you open?” called Cate to the waitress in the shadows back by

the register. It looked like she nodded, and though they weren’t really sure, they sat down at the window table.

“My God, this air feels good,” exclaimed Loretta, pulling her hair back into a clip. Cate did the same.

“Do you have any draft beer?” asked Loretta, more by way of longing for one, than thinking she’d get it.

Cate gave Loretta a look of exasperation. “I’ll just have a Corona. With lime, please,” she interjected. But the waitress, dressed in a limp pink uniform with a nameplate on her shoulder that read “Nell,” wasn’t listening. She had drifted off somewhere, lost in a gaze out the window. When she finally retreated to the kitchen, it was all Cate could do not to laugh. “Old Nell has been out in the Nevada sun too long.”

Nell returned with the Coronas, no lime, and was gone.

“Okay. Get that bottle up. To the future. We never look back again.” The women clinked the frosty bottles to seal their fate. Loretta looked out the window to a world without her personal brand of despair. There were people across the highway that were simply going about their usual day, stopping for a cold one at their usual spot. Ordinary and uneventful. They’d go in, holler to their friends, laugh, and while away the hours before heading home to the wife, kids, and TV. Sweet, unscarred. Like regular life.

“Looks nice over there,” said Loretta.
“Yeah…” answered Cate. “That’s us now. They’re looking back thinking how happy we are, dinking our beers without a care in the world. We get to be that now.”

“Check out that guy, the one outside, leaning against the wall. Do you suppose he’s waiting for his date?” asked Loretta. “He’s the kinda guy that gets the prettiest girl in town. The Rodeo queen.”

“He’s too good‐looking to wait for long,” said Cate.

“Maybe he sees us, hoping we’ll come over,” smiled Loretta. “He is looking over here…”

“Do you want to?” prodded Cate with a light in her eyes.

“What are you going to do, jump him while I wait in the car? Should I look the other way and pretend nothing’s happening, like Mom?” snapped Loretta. “I was kidding, for God’s sake.”

Cate wrapped her arm over Loretta’s shoulder and gave her a peck on the cheek. “I’m kidding, too, Loretta. I’m only kidding. Though he is a whole lot better looking than Dad, I think I’ll pass.” It was grim, but suddenly funny. The women burst out laughing and hugged. The relief kept hitting them in waves.

Randy and Marcy

The magic that makes one place hit and another miss is quicksilver. There’s no pinning it down. But if you wanted to find out who just lost his job or who was hiring, who’d gone blond and who’d cut it short (big mistake), or who was hiding a shiner under too much make-up, the Wel‐Come-Inn was your place. More than a few had announced their intent to wed there, and dozens more had described in slurs and sneers how it had all gone wrong. The cars and
pick‐ups, well coated in Nevada sand, turned off Interstate 50 in a sigh of relief. It was a temple of the midnight confession. Fallon had little, but it had the Wel-Come-Inn.

Earl was sole owner and operator of the establishment now that Ruth had packed it up for the casinos of Las Vegas. They used to go there together, play the blackjack tables and soak up the free booze that somebody else was pouring. The excursions would start in high spirits and end in a quiet ride home. There was that one time, but it was so long ago, the clatter of the coin drop was too faint to hear anymore. Fine. Good riddance to her. Now Earl ran his place with a greater sense of pride. It was his to do with as he pleased. Nothing about the bar had actually changed since Ruth was gone, no improvements per se, but that it could and no one was there to tell him different put a smile on Earl’s face. He got to tell a new story now: how he’d lost Ruth in a card game and come out the winner.

The two‐story brick building housed the bar downstairs and living quarters above. In fact, Earl spent so little time upstairs; he’d been known to make a little pocket change renting his bedroom out by the hour. It became the unspoken perk of his special friends. If things were moving in a certain direction and it was indelicate for a couple to go home together, there was a key tucked under the gin bottle, there for the taking. One was expected to
leave cash in its place, of course, and clean sheets when the visit was done.

Young and better looking than the rest of them, Randy had used the gin key on more than one occasion. Once upon a time, in the days before Ruth cut out and made the arrangement available, he’d had to make do behind the wheel of his Chevy El Camino, though that had never been an impediment to his need. The gin key, though, did offer the cover of solid walls where the El Camino had only the grimy glass windows to ward off prying eyes. But the car had quit on him last week anyway, and in a pissed-off minute, Randy had set it aflame with his Bic and an oily rag stuck up under the seat.

On this night as Randy leaned against the wall outside the Wel-Come-Inn beneath the flickering neon, he wasn’t dwelling on that particular moment of questionable judgment. He was twitching beneath his snug fitting Wrangler jeans at the thought of Marcy Ripken.

The tinkling of glass and smack of beer bottles hitting the bar with the force of exasperation drifted out to the sidewalk where he stood. Man, it was hot, and Randy coulda used a Bud, but his thirst for escape trumped the heat. Marcy wasn’t outta school yet and was already well familiar with the gin key. But she had that same ache in her gut to remap her circumstance, same as Randy, and they decided to do it before they could come up with another reason why not.

Across the street he could see Nell in the Mexican’s place looking straight back across the highway at him. He squirmed, and looked down the asphalt for Marcy. He didn’t have anything to feel guilty for. It wasn’t his responsibility to take care of every unexpected turn of events that took Nell by surprise. The old owner of the Mexican place was a prick, and no one was sorry to see him die anyway, not even his widow. She especially. That the beaner ended up with the restaurant instead of Nell was not something he could fix. Nell hadn’t thought things through, and he was done with it – wouldn’t take the plan another step. The old guy never put Nell’s name on the deed like he’d promised her – what fool would think he would – and getting him out of the picture did nothing but let the Mexican in. Nell had dreams of grandeur, but she’d been a sucker just like him. That restaurant was never going to be hers; she’d never be more than the one slinging the combo plates; rice and beans on the side. The sour stench from the

whole mess put a pall over their arrangement, and Randy moved on. That the Mexican was sharing her bed now was just proof positive. He didn’t owe her a thing. Other way around by a long shot. Fuck it. He was out.

The Dog

I don’t know why the old dog, after years of attending his post outside his now‐dead master’s restaurant door, decided to cross the highway for the very first time just then. Maybe it was just a damn hot day, and he was looking for a cool spot. But just as Marcy came gunning to the bar with her eye on Randy in those Wrangers leaning back on the wall, the old boy stepped out and raised his nose in the air to take a sniff.

Loretta, keen after years of watching, waiting for the next bad thing, saw it first. “The dog…” she screamed, and dropping her fork into the rice, ran out to stop it.

“Jesus…” said Cate, and with Nell close behind, pushed through the door after her.

Randy saw it next and without thinking, as was so often the case, acted fast. Marcy got her wits about her just as the frenzy erupted on the blacktop in front of her over-heated tires, and yanked her daddy’s car hard into the cantina and oblivion. In the wake of raining glass lay Loretta and Cate.

As the weeks passed, the crowd at the Wel-Come‐Inn began to hear the ordinary drumbeat of their lives again, and discussion of the events across the street waned. Randy got a quart of latex from Ace’s Helpful Hardware and painted the damaged front of the restaurant a yellow vaguely reminiscent of the shade it once had been. Nell leaned against the door smoking her cigarette, watching him paint. When José called her back to work she winked at Randy, flicked the butt onto the highway, and banged the door shut behind her. The old dog dropped his head between his paws, too hot to bark.

The End