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.