Berryman couldn?t take his eyes off his hand.
Strong, dark fingers forced in and around the delicate Wedgwood handle. ?Piano player fingers,? Oona Quinn had called them. Trembling now.
A slight smile formed on Thomas Berryman?s lips. ?Punk,? he muttered. ?You punk.?
PART VI
Nashville, July 4
Bert Poole woke up and found he?d slept through the Fourth of July. In fact, it was just turning to night. A cloudy, purplish night.
He stalked around breaking his Martin Luther King lamp as well as plates and cups from the kitchen. He kicked over the brown Naugahyde chair. It was so fitting he thought?after months of planning for Horn, he?d missed it. He?d never be great now?not in any way, shape or form. He went outside looking for a fight.
After a few minutes of walking, he came to a Dobb?s House diner that was open.
He went inside and immediately took up hairy-eye-balling two southern hoods with gold coxcomb haircuts. The hoods were sitting over empty plates and Coke glasses. Merle Haggard was trying to tell their story over the jukebox.
?When a waitress came, Poole ordered a burger with Thousand Island dressing and a milkshake.
?Oh ma-in,? the girl mumbled as she scribbled the order. ?Milkshake! Oh ma-in.?
Poole?s face was warm. His forehead was wet with perspiration.
?Ri-ight,? he laid out his nervous street-person?s accent. ?I come in here for my dinner, ri-ight. My meal, right. And you have to hassle me, ri-ight.?
The waitress put on a little smartypants smile.
??Course most people don?t ordah milkshake,? she said. ?Not at four ay-em in the mornin.?
Poole put his hands over his face and slowly started to laugh. He peeked between trembling fingers at the Westinghouse clock over the counter. It wasn?t night. He hadn?t fucked it all up after all. It was ten after four ay- em.
?Bring me some black coffee, too,? he said to the girl.
July 4th was announced with the usual cotton and hog reports on WKDK. Then the morning disc jockey discharged a string of fire-poppers in his studio. Then he played Johnny Cash and Tammy Wynette singing ?The Star-Spangled Banner.?
It was a red-hot day, and already bright at 7:30 A.M. People were wearing sunglasses like it was noon.
Wearing dark glasses himself, Thomas Berryman sat over a rib-eye and eggs at Gail?s on the Turnpike diner. But Berryman was hungrier for a little countrified bullshit than for diner food.
A young gas-pump jockey named Uncle Smith Tarkanian finally filled the bill. Uncle Smith was no more than twenty-five; he was eating ham for breakfast: two ten-ounce ham steaks with light blue grease spread over the top.
Berryman was saying to himself.
?I?ve been playing those damn cards for about seven years now,? he was saying to Tarkanian. ?Knew a guy who hit six one time.?
Tarkanian chewed ham and drank coffee simultaneously. ?Say it like he won a fifty-thousan?-dollar lot?ry.?
Both men snickered into their food. They were discussing pro football betting cards. The gas man distributed the sheets winners at his station. He was still carrying a few of the cards in his work pants.
?It?s pathetic,? Berryman said. ?There?s this guy I read. Sportswriter. He says he won seventeen thousand. Larry Merchant.?
?Read the man in
? Tarkanian said. ?He?s full of shit.?
?He really is.?
?Has the long hair to prove it. Looks like absolute piss on old men.?
?He?s all of thirty-five.?
?Uh-huh ? Well, I remember this pi-ture of Lyndon Johnson and whatisname, McGovern,? Uncle Smith said. ?Big Ears had a fucking ducktail on ? What?s ?at five winners on the card pay in Hot?lanta? Ten to one??
?Fifteen. You do better parlaying it with a bookie. If they?ll parlay for you.?
?Fifteen ain?t bad,? the young man considered. ?Ain?t bad at all. Card works on a ninety-one percent we-win basis, my man. You should know that. You want another cup of mud there? Mrs. Bo-reen,? Tarkanian shouted for their old-lady waitress, ?get this man here some more of Gail?s heav-en-ly coffee.?
Berryman smiled. He sat at the counter looking at the backs of his hands. The shaking from the night before had passed. He lighted up a cigarillo.
?You know what,? he shook the little cigar at the gas-pump jockey. ?Lyndon is going to go down as one of the great presidents in the United States.?
?Wouldn?t doubt it,? Tarkanian said. He lowered his voice. ?Because pretty soon we?re gonna have a nigger up there. Then a Jew. Then some goddam woman like Miss Gail cookin back there in the kitchen. Bet you.?
