Tishomingo Blues

But then the one with the stained beard said, 'Where's the nigger at?'

Tonto looked at him and said, 'He left. He went to fuck your wife.'

Hector could see the guy with the beard was about to go crazy, but Arlen stopped him, took the hand reaching for the pistol and twisted it behind him the way cops know how to do it, and that was the end of the visit. Arlen said one word to them before they marched off with the one still on the edge of being crazy. He said, 'Tomorrow.'

Hector looked at Tonto. 'Tomorrow okay with you?'

22

A FEW MINUTES PAST SIX the next morning, Sunday, the big day, Anne left Robert's suite to go down the hall sleepy-eyed to get in her own bed.

The one-Oh, shit-Jerry was in.

Jerry snoring away, the sound, that drone, coming from the bedroom. It stopped Anne in her slides as she entered the suite and got her thinking, Quick, where were you?

But first she'd have to know what time Jerry got back. Now she was saying things to herself like, Are you out of your mind? You actually believed he'd sleep in a fucking tent? She should never have listened to Robert with that baby, it's cool, nothing to worry about. 'You don't want him walking in on us, we do it in my bed.' Anne saying, 'But if he comes back and I'm not in my bed-' Robert saying, 'Come on, baby, have us a quickie and call it a night.' Except that Robert was a slowpoke making love, kept slow-poking till they both fell asleep for almost six hours.

Fooling around could have its hair-raising moments, especially cheating on a gangster, and she'd tell herself it wasn't worth it. But then Robert would give her the look and she'd give him the look and they'd be back fooling around again. She slipped into the king-size bed next to Jerry to lie there waiting for him to wake up.

The phone rang at eight, the phone on Jerry's side of the bed.

Anne reached across him, stretching, for a moment her face close to his, lifted the receiver before it rang again and laid it back in its cradle. Slipping back across Jerry she came to his face, his eyes, inches away, open, looking at her. She kissed him on the mouth, a peck, and rolled back onto her pillow.

'Who was that?'

'I've no idea.'

'Why'd you hang up?'

'It's too early to talk.'

She waited, hoping that fucking phone would not ring.

'Where were you?'

Here we go.

'Where was I? When?'

'All fuckin night.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'I come back, you're not here.'

'What time was it?'

'What's the difference-you weren't fuckin here.'

'Jerry. What time was it?'

'Twelve, twelve-thirty.'

Anne said, 'Yeah…?' taking her time, and said, 'I was out on the balcony,' adding a note of surprise to her voice. 'I fell asleep on the lounge. You didn't see me? Yeah, I came in and looked at the clock. It was one-thirty, you were asleep…' She said, 'I knew you weren't gonna spend the night in that tent.'

'You were out on the balcony.'

'Yeah, I can't believe you didn't see me.'

There was a silence, Jerry lying there with nothing more to say. But now she was home free and couldn't let it go.

'Where did you think I was?'

Walter Kirkbride had started to get dressed with every intention of slipping out of the tent early, unobserved, before the women in camp were out there cooking breakfast. And he would have, if he hadn't looked over at little Traci turning onto her side on the cot, the little sweetie pulling the blanket with her to show him her bare white bummy. It lured Walter out of his longjohns to express his love. And then had to rest.

While he was getting dressed the second time little Traci lit into him in a pouty way, moaning about being mostly all alone yesterday, and having to wear that dumb hoopskirt.

'I walk around here, everybody looks at me.'

'Well, sure they do, you're cute as a bug. Aren't you my little Barbie?' He'd call her that in the trailer and she'd call him Ken, only in her countrified way it would come out sounding like 'Kin.'

'Those fat women'd ask me who're my people. Where was I from. Do I want to help them make johnnycake. What was I suppose to say? I told 'em I had to go to the bathroom. But you try to get in one of those little shithouses with a hoopskirt on. You have to lift it up in front real high and go in sideways. But then you're in there the skirt takes up all the room. What I did was get up on the seat and squat over it to pee.'

Walter was pulling his boots, straining, trying to hurry. That, and hearing her talking about peeing, gave him the urge.

'I went in that store where they have all the little statues of famous generals and stuff? I have all kinds of ashtrays with Confederate flags on 'em, so I bought a plate I thought might be used as one, had Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson on it, and the flag, of course. I use to have a G-string with a Confederate flag on it guys liked a lot when I was dancing go-go. They'd salute it. I was only fourteen but already had my tits.'

Walter stood at the back of the tent relieving himself, feeling calmer as the flow hit the sand, not making a sound.

'Sweetie, you get dressed, put on your bluejeans. We may leave here in a hurry.'

'You mean it?'

'I think today's gonna be different than any reenactment I've ever been to.' He would approach it carefully, alert, keeping on the front of his mind what the colored fella Robert had said. Where you want to be when Arlen goes down? Seeing it more as a warning than a decision he had to make. Robert telling him to stay out of it and he wouldn't get hurt. Keep to one side and maybe this Robert would come see him after about doing business. It seemed all he had to do was stay alert and not get too near to Arlen.

'After,' Traci said, 'can we get something to eat?'

'Anything you want.'

'You know who Arlen sent with my supper I would never've eaten anyway? All that pork fat? Even if he hadn't spilt it on the ground? Newton Hoon, the stinkiest man I ever met in my life. He'd try to come in my trailer? I said, `You filled a tub with wash powder and soaked in it all day I still wouldn't let you in.' '

Walter, getting into his wool coat, said, 'That's my girl.'

'I couldn't buy anything for supper, I didn't have no money with me and you didn't give me none. I was lucky I stopped to talk to this lady down a ways smoking a cigarette? She'd snuck in some Stouffer's frozen dinners, only defrosted, the Chicken and Vegetables Pasta Bake, threw 'em in a pot and pretended she was cooking. It was good, too. She talked funny. She said she'd been stuck in a hard life, but believed her redeemer was about to cometh.'

'A religious woman,' Walter said, strapping on his sword. He picked up his hat and a voice came from outside the tent.

' Walter, goddamn it, you coming?'

He opened the tent flap a few inches to see Arlen's dirty look, one that seemed imprinted on the man's features.

'What's wrong?'