Chapter 27

I caught myself starting to laugh. I mean laugh? I’d been screwed over by everybody in sight and I wanted to laugh. Why? Because of the impossible incongruity of it all. I was more than certain that the lot of them wanted to be nice to me. But their condescending gift giving, privilege granting efforts were so insulting that it was laughable! Hence my impulse, my irresistible impulse to laugh. Such of course would be followed by the equally strong urge to cry. Well, it was what it was. Yes indeed.

Creature of habit that I was, I found myself doing the same thing I’d been doing when last I was employed. I was in Tucson. Poindexter’s, a sawdust joint with a nice bar and a piss poor grill, catered to wannabe cowboys. On Friday and Saturday nights there was live music, all Country Western of course—I was still in Arizona—and the hoofers worked off a whole lot of calories trying to out shine each other.

My shift was five in the Morning to noon. Mostly clean up and fill up: cleaning up the place and filling up the vending machines and the beer taps. Poindexter’s opened at noon for lunch and the early bar flies, and closed uniformly at one in the morning seven days a week. Like the HH in Phoenix I had a small room in the back which suited me just fine.

I spent most of my time either sleeping or working. Oh, and thinking about my ex-family. I wasn’t overly sentimental about it, them. I did miss Aunt Delia, the rest of them not so much; I hoped she was all right. I wonder what they’d told her about my reason for cutting country.

I’d made the decision to pick up the pieces of my life and get on with things. Forty-eight years old and starting over—again!

My lawyer had been able to get me a change of venue per my parole: I could move to anywhere I wanted in the state and I’d be okay. An added benefit as a result of her efforts was that I would have finished my parole after one more year of keeping my nose clean. Of course I did ask that she keep my whereabouts on the quiet.

Tucson was a nice town. It was a hundred miles away from my erstwhile family. I had no illusions about that though, my brother could find me if he really wanted to: money talks as they say. But, I was more than confident that he wouldn’t bother. And for more than a year I was right; and then, I wasn’t.

“How did you find out where he was?” said Stacey.

“Just went and asked his probation officer, the old one, to check for me. I wasn’t sure about doing it. I mean my erstwhile brother clearly doesn’t want to be found. But, like you, I really need to talk to the guy,” said Ronald.

“You think he’ll listen,” she said. He shrugged.

“It’s been a year. Oh, and I also found out that he’s not on parole anymore. He can go anywhere that suits him now. But, he is still in state, in Tucson. I have to think he’s missing Jenna, and maybe Aunt Delia if no one else,” he said. “That might be why he hasn’t moved all that far.”

“A year? Has it been that long?” she said. She went pensive on him. “We’ll need to be bearing gifts or ideas or something other than our good looks to get him to give us a sympathetic hearing.”

“Well, Jenna did postpone her wedding until he can be found. And, James sure didn’t like that much, but he has hung in there waiting for her to get her act together,” he said. “When our David hears about that maybe he’ll come around, walk her down the aisle and cut us a tiny bit of slack. I mean we gotta try.” She nodded.

“I guess, but Ron, I’m just so afraid,” she said. “Anyway, when are you planning for us to go there? I mean it is a hundred miles away.”

“Next weekend, I have that doctor’s appointment on Monday, and some business to take care of during the week. But after that...

“I’ll be offering him a job again too. I’ll let him write his own ticket this time. After all he’s been through; setting limits seems like a real loser. I just hope he doesn’t ask for you to divorce me and remarry him. I’d rather he ask for half the kingdom if you get my drift,” he said.

“After all I’ve done to him, I sincerely doubt that he’ll be asking me to come back to him,” she said.

“Don’t be so sure. He likely won’t ask, but it’s what he wants; I know it,” he said. She snickered.

“Yeah right!” she said.

Well, it was Friday night and Poindexter’s was crowded and busy. Tucson, I’d figured, was made to order for me; it was far away from them. But, as it turned out, not far away enough.

I’d taken a seat at the end of the bar to watch the action on the dance floor. A dozen couples were hoofing it. They were one of the couples, my ex-wife and my ex-brother. So, they’d found me. They hadn’t seen me yet. I could’ve just gotten the hell out of there and moved again. But, I decided not to. I’d talk to them, and send the message that I just didn’t want them to bother me anymore. I wondered if they knew the truth about Jenna and me. I figured it was six to five and pick ‘em that they did. Well, I’d soon know.

The song ended and they headed for the table they’d set up shop at. I signaled LeAnn, the floor girl delivering drinks to the populace to come over.

“Whatcha got, David? Need another one of those?” she said, pointing to my beer.

“No, but deliver another round of whatever they’re having to them over there,” I said, “on me.” She gave me a look and went to do my bidding.

I sat and watched as LeAnn delivered my offering. Stacey’s head snapped around to spot me when LeAnn nodded in my direction. Her expression was at first a small smile then a question. My ex-brother was already out of his seat and coming toward me.

“Can I assume that we’re not persona non grata, I mean you buying us those Martinis?” he said.

“What are you here for, Ronald?” I said, not answering his question. “Having fun I hope.” Okay, I was being snide.

“Oh, the dancing,” he said. He seemed to realize that the image of him melded tight to my ex-wife’s body might have been kind of in my face. “No, no, no. We were just killing time. I liked the song is all. Really.”

“Yeah, whatever. But why are you here, and her. I can’t believe you came all this way just rub my nose in it. And what part of I never wanted to see your ugly face again was hard to understand,” I said.”

“David, nobody’s rubbing your nose in it. My God we’re not. But, anyway, to answer your question, we came for a couple of reasons; but would you be okay with joining us so we could talk. I mean at our table over there,” he said. I looked over to where my ex-wife was watching us closely.

“Okay, for a minute or two, I guess,” I said. Well, I was curious about his couple of reasons. Also, I needed to know if they knew that which they shouldn’t know about.

I grabbed my beer and for him to lead the way. I could see Stacey sag back in her seat in tentative relief if that would’ve been the way to say it.

He took his seat next to her and motioned me to sit as well. For some reason I felt strange, not mad or upset necessarily, but strange that he was sitting next to her instead of me. It seemed unnatural in spite of all of the time since the break up and my time in prison and all of it. I decided to say so.

“You know, and you’re going to think this is odd, but you sitting next to my wife, my ex-wife, and me over here feels strange. Weird huh, I mean given everything,” I said. He changed his position slightly in response to my words. I smiled inwardly. “So?” I said.

He looked meaningfully at his wife. “David ... we didn’t mean...” he said.

“Never mind. I know you two don’t give a rat’s ass about me in those kinds of ways, so again, so?” I said.

“David you’re wrong about how we feel about you, and it is good to see you. Really good to see you, really,” she said. I shrugged in my seat.

“Yeah right, like there’s any chance of that being the truth,” I said, and then I smiled. “But you look good, Stacey, very pretty.” She flushed.

“Thank you. You looked good too,” she said. I didn’t snicker, well, maybe a little.

“So, ex-brother, a couple of reasons?” I said, looking back at the man and almost sneering.

“Yes,” he said. “But, if I may.” I waited for him to go on. It was my silent signal for him to do so.

“Okay, can I ask why you just disappeared from the radar, what, more than a year ago?” he said.

I decided to not mince words, to be up front about my reason for cutting country.