'Not so much anymore.'
He said, 'You learn to live with it.'
And she smiled. 'In a manner of speaking.'
''Maintaining a quality of life,'' Vincent said, quoting the literature again, ''to which you're accustomed.' Only this isn't what I'm accustomed to. Hanging out, not doing anything.'
'Waiting,' Natalie said. 'No, I'm not either.' They sipped their drinks in silence, not a sound coming from anywhere in the house or outside, in that green glare of vegetation in sunlight.
'You want to get out of here?' Vincent said.
It surprised her. 'What do you mean?'
'Take off? Go somewhere?'
Natalie said, 'I suppose we could,' nodding her head.
'Or,' she said after a moment, 'you could get your pills and move in here with me. What do you think?'
Now Vincent was nodding in the same thoughtful way.
'Would we sleep together?''
Natalie took a moment before saying, 'Well, not the first night.''
Chickasaw Charlie Hoke
This time Vernice started in on Charlie while he was making their toddies, what he did every evening Vernice worked days. Charlie said, 'Take a load off your tootsies, honey, and let me wait on you.'
She eased into her La-Z-Boy to sit there as she always did, leaving a space between her round thighs. Vernice was in her forties, younger than Charlie by ten years, a big redhead with the whitest skin Charlie had ever seen on a bare-naked woman. She started in by saying Carlyle, her brother-in-law, hired a family to work his soybeans and now had a job at the Isle of Capri dealing blackjack. It was always someone she knew, the manager of some podunk motel now a pit boss at Bally's. She'd mention the casinos were always looking for help or desperate for it.
Charlie would say to her, 'Honey, I'm not just help.' This time he said, 'Honey, can you see me dealing cards?'
'Carlyle says between tips and wages he can make up to a thousand a week.'
'Those people do that kind of work are ro-bots,' Charlie said, pouring bourbon over crushed ice, adding sugar now, an orange slice and a maraschino cherry. 'Be a waste of what I'm good at.'
'What, talking to people?'
'Talking, referring to my career, sure.'
'You could tend bar.'
Charlie smiled over at her, Vernice in her pink waitress outfit she wore at the Isle of Capri coffee shop. He said to her, 'Can you see me in a little red jacket and bow tie? A grown man my size grinning for tips?' Charlie was six-four and would put his weight at around, oh, two-forty if asked. He had a gut that wasn't too noticeable on his frame. He had a nose he said was his Chickasaw Indian heritage and eyes like a hawk; he'd set the palm of his hand above his eyes and squint to demonstrate. Seeing himself in one of those little red jackets caused Charlie to shake his head.
He said, 'I don't work for tips - ' without thinking, and wanted to grab the words out of the air. Shit. Like a ball you throw to curve low and away and the son of a bitch hangs letter-high on the batter. He stepped over to Vernice with her drink. 'I know what you're thinking, that I don't work, period, but you're too nice a person to hurt my feelings.'
'What you do,' Vernice said, 'is talk.'
'Yes, I do.'
'Tell baseball stories over'n over.'
'Honey, baseball's my life.'
'Oh? And what's it pay now, fifteen years later?'
This didn't sound like his honey speaking. It was now sixteen years since he'd played ball, but he didn't correct her.
Now she said, 'Tell me what I'm getting out of this arrangement?'
He wasn't certain what she meant, but said the first thing in his mind. 'You get me, you get my companionship - '
'I get to hear you talk,' Vernice said, 'is what I get. I get to fix you supper, I get to loan you money . . .'
She paused to think of something else and Charlie said, 'Till I'm back on my feet. I didn't quit that bingo hall 'cause I don't like to work. I told you, how'm I gonna talk to a bunch of old women don't even know who I am? I need the right spot's all. Come on, you know me by now. How long we been together?'
He thought she might say too long, though it'd only been a couple months. No, this time she went right to the point saying, 'I made up my mind. I'd like you out of the house, Charlie, by the end of the week. I can't afford your companionship any longer'n that.'
He thought of a remark he could make if this was one of their usual arguments - Vernice fussing at him for not taking the trash to the dump and his saying, 'Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't notice you broke your leg.' He could say something about her calling this RV in a trailer park on the outskirts of Tunica, Mississippi, the South's Casino Capital, a 'house.' He could say, 'Oh, that's what you call this tin box waiting on the next tornado?' But this wasn't an argument where you could say what you wanted and then take the trash to the dump.
She was giving him a deadline at the worst time, broke and needing a place to live; so he had to be nice. This wasn't hard because he did like Vernice, her usually quiet way, her purewhite body, her housekeeping. He told her one time cleanliness was a rule with the Chickasaws: a woman who didn't keep her house clean was marked, had her arms and legs scratched with dried snake teeth. It was true. He'd give her Indian lore and she'd roll her eyes. Or she'd say he was no more Indian than she was and Charlie would say, 'Then how come they called me Chief all the years I played ball?'
Vernice brought him back to right now saying, 'By week's end, Charlie. I'm sorry.'
He turned to the counter and took time to screw the cap onto the Early Times bottle. He turned back to her saying, 'What if I'm offered a position by then?'
'I love your choice of words, a position.'
'As a celebrity host. What some of us do when we retire.'
'Shake hands with the slot players?'
'Take care of the high rollers, honey, see they're comped to whatever they want.'
'Like girls? You gonna be a pimp, Charlie?'
He let it go by. 'Or I could set up the entertainment, special kinds of events.'
'Well, let's see,' Vernice said, 'Andy Williams is at Harrah's, George Jones at Bally's. One of the Righteous Brothers is opening at Isle of Capri, taking over from that Elvis impersonator.' She said, 'If all ten casinos can get any big-name entertainers they want . . . ? You see my point?'
She must've seen it as a stopper, a question she could ask without even a smarty tone to her voice. Charlie said, 'I got an idea I haven't told you about.' Her or anyone at all while he watched the new hotel going up, from bare iron to stone, with a big goddamn tepee made of concrete rising a good three stories above the entrance. He said, 'You know there's a new one opening next week. They got the sign up now, Tishomingo Lodge and Casino, Tunica, Mississippi.'
It gave Vernice pause. 'You been over there?'
'I'm seeing the fella runs it, Billy Darwin from Atlantic City, young guy. He was running Spade's and the people here waved enough money at him he moved to Tunica. I've seen him around - little guy, has hair like Robert Redford.'
Vernice said, 'Tishomingo, that's Indian.'
'Chickasaw. Tishomingo was the big chief the time they got shipped off to Oklahoma. Follow me now,' Charlie said.
'Where was I raised? In Corinth. And where's Corinth? Clear across the state but only fifteen miles from the
