Judas Horse

Megan is matter-of-fact. “That’s John.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

Megan’s answer encompasses the feminine dilemma, and seems to draw us both together in it.

“It’s what we’ve known since seventh grade,” she says. “Boys are stupid.” A wild laugh escapes me, while Mr. Terminate remains impassive, body language boulderlike and calm, as if he has not just eaten a glass ashtray and spit it out in our faces. He is waiting for an answer, but the question remains — What is the question? Is this some kind of brain-dead buffalo love, or has he made me, in the same way he might have made Steve Crawford for an undercover cop?

The bartender finally sets down the white wine and Salty Dog but waits a moment longer, keeping his hands on the drinks.

“What can I get your friend?” he asks Megan.

“We don’t really know each other,” I explain.

“Well, you should. Two beautiful ladies?”

I introduce myself as Darcy DeGuzman and it rolls right off my tongue. Her name is Megan Tewksbury, and she would like to pay her bill. But the bartender lingers, drawing things out.

“So, Darcy, another beer?”

White, built, maybe forty — he’s giving me a very friendly look. Is he trying to pick me up? It’s my lucky day. His black T-shirt says Does Not Play Well with Others. His lip is pierced, and he sports a bearded braided thing hanging off his chin.

The Darcy part likes it that some oaf is looking at me. I hope he makes a move, just to see what it would be like. This never happens in normal life, when I am Special Agent Ana Grey. Even on a weekend, even at a car wash, looking like everybody else in a tank top and shorts, my first reaction to a guy staring is, What are you up to? Not exactly a turn-on.

Megan: “What do I owe you, Rusty?”

“No worries. I’ll just run a tab.” To me: “What’re you doing here, girlfriend?” “I must have read the guidebook wrong,” I say, flirting.

Rusty grins. “Don’t fret. We get a lot of nice folks stopping in apres the market. Megan has a booth there. She’s a regular. Guess what she’s sellin’?” Megan carries the drinks away. “Nothin’ you’ll ever afford.” “She sells homemade hazelnut brittle!” Rusty shouts. “She’s a nut.” He winks. “Lives on a nut farm, along with some goats and about a hundred cats and dogs. Got a whole thing going where she rescues animals.” “She’s an animal lover?” My head swivels back toward the woman, who is now sitting at a table with the man who ordered the Salty Dog.

“Who is she with?”

“That’s the boyfriend. His name is Julius Emerson Phelps.” Broad-shouldered, six three, hard-built but with enough gut to put him over two hundred pounds. It would be difficult to pinpoint his age. Young girls would find the implication of sexual mastery in his craggy smile and wish for his attention, while men of my grandfather’s generation would resent having to relinquish their grip on the world to a male who still looks young. I make him for a middle-aged farmer with a ponytail; he must be some type of an agro guy, because there’s a flying ear of corn on his cap.

Above the rows of liquor bottles, in a mirrored sign for Becks, I watch Megan Tewksbury drape a possessive arm over Julius’s shoulders. They are talking cheek-to-cheek without really looking at each other, eyes scanning the room. I am surprised to see myself in the mirror — looking happy. My cheeks are flushed from the heat and noise and sexual signals snap-popping off the crowd. I’m feeling all warmed up, looking for a friend. Someone local, who would be a way into the community. Megan? Approachable?

Not while they’re nuzzling. I nip at the mug and observe. The beer is cold, and after a while I realize that it has been going down nicely with the wigged-out nasty metal guitar band coming from the jukebox.

The mirror shows it is Julius Emerson Phelps who has changed the music. He is holding on to both sides of the machine, bent over the glass as if in a trance. The heavy ridges of his face are colored blue by the jukebox lights, a handsome face that has gone to seed. He wears a worn-out denim shirt and blondish hair that, if unloosed, would fall below the shoulders. But here’s what really dates him: an improbable pair of frayed red suspenders only old hippies can pull off.

I choose to steal what you choose to show

And you know I will not apologize

“Anybody know what that is?” I ask in general.

“‘Career of Evil,’” rasps Mr. Terminate, like he’s still got pieces of ashtray stuck in his throat. “Blue Oyster Cult.” “Weren’t they big in the seventies?”

But Mr. Terminate goes stone-cold silent.

I slide off the stool and meander to the jukebox.

“Blue Oyster Cult,” I say. “Weren’t they big in the seventies?” Julius’s eyes are slow coming out of the trance.

“You are way too young to know about Blue Oyster Cult.” “That’s the only song of theirs I recognize.” I smile truthfully.

He straightens up. There’s a silver loop in one ear. I like earrings on men. I like the kind of face that knows you’re looking at it.

He indicates the lighted selections. “One song left. You pick.” “Jackson Browne.”

He approves. I move closer, so now we’re peering over the titles together. The heat of the machine jumps up.

“I like your friend, Megan.”

“Good lady.”

“You come here after the market?”

“She sells her hazelnut brittle. I grow ’em, she sells ’em.” “I just moved to Portland. I haven’t been to the market, but I hear it’s awesome.” “You should go,” Julius says.

We listen to the piano riff at the opening of “Fountain of Sorrow.” The mood shifts, low-key and melancholy.

“Why do you have a flying corn on your hat?”

Reflexively, as if to be sure it’s there, Julius touches the red-and-green ear of corn with wings that adorns the cap.

“DeKalb,” he explains.

“What’s DeKalb?”

“DeKalb, Ohio. Corn-seed capital of the world.”

“What does corn seed have to do with hazelnuts?”

“I was born there,” the big man tells me. “Picked corn when I was in high school, lying on my back on this very uncomfortable contraption, a mattress they put on wheels—” Megan is on her way. She’s had enough of us talking. She slips two fingers in the waistband of Julius’s jeans, sliding him close.

“I was just telling this young lady about Ohio.”

“Is he boring you with his life story?” she asks.

“Yes,” replies Julius, glad for the intrusion.

“Your friend, Rusty, at the bar, he was saying that you rescue animals? At the hazelnut farm?” Julius’s attention snaps back. “Rusty said that?”

“Why not?” says Megan. “It’s true.”

“I’m a total animal person,” I say, boasting. “I once got arrested for getting into a fight with a dude at a shelter who euthanized this cat I was going to adopt. Because I was fifteen minutes late.” “That’s awful. Where are you from, Darcy?” Megan asks kindly.

“Southern California. Don’t ask.”

“Heat, traffic, smog?”

“And the most repressive attitude toward animal rights. We have to fight for every soul.” “Are you in the movement?” she asks.