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 he came into a bar I was in one  night and she took a stool. I noticed the tight
jeans, the long brown hair, the pretty red blouse. A woman like her, you have to
notice. That's what you're sitting in there for.
I noticed that she looked around to see who was in the bar. There weren't many
people in there. It was early yet. So I began to wonder about her. A good-looking
woman, alone in the early evening in a sort of redneck bar. I guess she felt me
watching her. She turned to look at me and she smiled for several seconds, and
then she leaned over and spoke to the bartender who soon brought her a beer.
I'd been out of things for a while. I was having trouble with my wife. One of the
things that was wrong was that I was spending too many nights away from home, and
it was causing fights that were hard for me to win. It's hard to win when you
don't have right on your side. It's hard to win when you know that your own
fucking up is causing the problem.
Boys from work, some friends I was supposed to meet, they hadn't shown up. I had
a table to myself because it was more comfortable than a stool. A basketball game
was on, with the sound off, lots of guys jumping around, other people like me
watching it. I looked at the bar and tried to see  the woman's face in the mirror
behind the bottles. She didn't look old. Sometimes at first glance the bodies
look young, but the faces, on closer examination, are not. This one didn't look
old.
I sat there without watching what was going on the television screen. I didn't
know why I didn't just get up and go home. I could see them all in the living
room, sitting in front of the television without me. My wife would be in the bed
asleep when I went in, probably, if she wasn't sitting up waiting on me. There
were times when I couldn't stand to stay there. Leaving the house like I did made
it hard on everybody. I knew the kids asked her where I went and why I went. I
didn't know what she told them. I didn't want to think about what she told them.
I knew if I let up they would stop asking after a while. I knew that would be as
bad as anything.
She kept sitting there, looked around a little, smoking a cigarette. After a
while she got down off her barstool and went to the jukebox and dug some change
out of her pocket. Her jeans were so tight she had trouble getting the money out,
like she'd been melted and poured into them. I watched her. She leaned over the
panel of bright lights and set her beer down and held the cigarette between the
fingers of her left hand, moving her head a little to what was already playing.
And she turned around and looked straight at me and asked me what I liked. I
smiled, told her to play E19.
"What's that?" she said, through the music. I picked up my beer and went over to
her. That was the start of it. She smiled when she looked down and saw that it
was Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck on "People Get Ready." I stood beside her and
pulled some quarters from my own pocket. I could smell the light fragrance of
her, and I pointed to some other good ones. She took the quarters that I handed
her and told me how sweet I was. Her face was happy and animated, and I could
feel us making a connection already. All I had to  do was be halfway cool, maybe
not tell any stupid jokes, ask her about herself, and let her tell me about
herself, since self is everybody's favorite subject and they'll think you're a
brilliant conversationalist if you get them started talking on that. We played
Journey and Guns N' Roses and Randy Travis and Joan Baez and Sam Cooke. Then I
told her to come on and sit with me.
More people came in but I didn't notice them. I kept ahead of her drinking-wise
so that I could keep paying, and after three I looked around and saw that the bar
was full of people. I didn't tell her that I was married and she didn't ask. She
kept talking to me, leaning over toward me. Pushing one strand of her long brown
hair back to the side. She worked in a factory somewhere in town at a desk and a
computer and she had moved here recently, she said. We got closer and she put her
hand on my arm. We laughed and drank and listened to the music.
Later I asked her if she wanted to go for a ride and she said yes. I had some
beer iced down in the trunk. They got a crazy law in this country. You can't go
in a store and buy cold beer; you can only buy it hot. So you have to get a
cooler and keep it in the car. You have to always be thinking ahead. We left
together, her arm holding onto my arm, her leg brushing mine, people I knew
watching.
She sat close to me in the car, her hands touching me. We left town and went out
into the country and rolled the windows down. She dug in her purse and held up a
twisted length of grass in a pink paper and I nodded and smiled. After that the
music never sounded better. We rode nearly to the end of the country and I stopped
on a bridge and got us another beer out of the trunk and she sat in the car while
I stood near the rear fender taking a leak. The night was clear, all the stars
out, summer on its way. I got back in the car and she was all over me, hands,
mouth, I don't know how long it went on right in the middle of the bridge.
Finally I pulled away and told her that we had to go someplace else. She asked me
if I knew of such a place. I said yes I did.
It wasn't too far from there, up a winding old road with gravel, an old house
place with just the chimney sticking up among the stars when we pulled up. I
pushed the lights off. Everything was slow and clear because of the grass. When I
killed  the motor I could hear everything. Bullfrogs sounding in a pond down in
the woods. Whippoorwills calling in the trees. The sound of cars somewhere, far
off. She came to me and I held her and she put my hands on the places they wanted
to be. When I kissed her she went back on the seat and pulled me down on top of
her. She was more than eager. She seemed desperate. And I was the same way.
She was tight, so much that it hurt both of us for a while. I even asked her if
she was a virgin but she said no. She was smooth and fine and her skin was silky
and warm under my hands. Then a car drove up. I saw the lights in the tops of the
trees, raised up and saw two headlights coming slowly around a curve. We had to
try and find our underwear in the floorboard and our pants and the car kept
coming while we jerked things on and then it stopped and just sat there with its
lights shining on us. I had one sock on and no shirt. I don't know what she had
on.
"I thought you said this place was safe," she said.
"I thought it was. Hell. I don't know who this is."
The car sat there. I went ahead and put on my shirt and pants.
"Shit," I said. I cranked the car and turned it around and pulled up beside
whoever it was. The car kept sitting there. I couldn't see anybody inside. It was
like nobody was driving it. Then we went on past and out of sight.
She didn't say anything for a while. I stopped a mile or two down the road and
got us another beer from the trunk. I handed her one and she took it silently.
Owls were hooting out there in the dark beside the road. She opened the beer, lit
a cigarette, and just sat drinking and blowing smoke out the window.
Finally she said: "Next time we'll get us a room."
Right, I thought. Next time. Nah. There wouldn't be a next time.
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