Chapter 3: Sleepless

The dirt road curved out over blind turns, each holding some hidden trailer or dilapidated home tucked away behind the trees like guarded fortresses aged and forgotten in their self-imposed isolation. Pine trees grew one on top of the other crowding out the sun and leaving the weaker to fall and rot in the tangle of weeds and ivy that made much of the woods impassable. On the edges, near the road, honeysuckle vines climbed decaying logs and held back the eroding red clay that shined with patches of shale under beds of pine straw. Small birds flicked away twigs and scuffled about as the truck drove by stirring up a fine mist of dirt that shimmered in the last of the sun like fog.

He pulled his truck alongside Nathan's trailer and hit the horn a few times before lighting a cigarette and working at his knuckles which were still swollen to twice their regular size and impossible to hide. When he looked up Nathan stood in the doorway, a silhouette in the darkness behind him, dressed in boxers and a t-shirt squinting into the half-dawn light.

"What the hell are you doing in my yard with that truck? Your gonna ruin the grass."

"What yard?"

Nathan motioned in a way that took in not just his yard but everything John had passed since turning off the main road.

"Get dressed. I'm gonna buy you a beer."

Nathan looked into the sky as if seeking an answer, then back at the truck, and disappeared into the trailer. He pounded the horn a few more times before Nathan came out holding his shoes and climbed into the truck.

"Took you long enough."

"Fuck you."

Nathan leaned sideways putting on his shoes trying not to hit his head on the dashboard as the truck finished its lap around the yard hitting every sinkhole along the way. Nathan grunted his disapproval and put his shoe on the seat to finishing tying the lace.

"Gimme a smoke."

Jack grabbed the pack of cigarettes from the dashboard and tossed them at Nathan with purposefully bad aim.

"A light, too."

"I wish you would just start smoking so that you'd come prepared."

Jack handed him the lighter. Nathan lit his cigarette and took a few drags making no attempt to conceal his examination.

"What happened?"

He motioned to Jack's hand with his chin.

"I got in a fight."

"Yeah?"

He watched Jack's face, but his expression did not change.

"Really?"

Jack clenched his fist without looking from the road. Fire shot through his forearm.

"With who?"

"I don't know."

The truck pulled onto the main road and lurched forward when the tires left the dirt and hit the asphalt. A gust of wind knocked an ash from Nathan's cigarette that blew into his eye and he cussed under his breath and rubbed his palm into the socket. He looked up and blinked hard to clear the tears.

"Well, are you gonna tell me what happened or not?"

"I was having a cup of coffee and this guy shoved me, so we fought."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"For no reason?"

"He said I was looking at his daughter."

Nathan turned his head and watched the buildings as they passed in the darkness. He could tell that Jack was upset and tried to think of what to say.

"Are you in trouble?"

"No. I don't think they called the cops. I don't think they'd be looking for me. It wasn't that big of a deal."

Nathan looked over at his hand again. He flicked the cigarette out the window.

"He must have been a little guy."

They drove through town and up Myrtle Street, which tapered out in rough patches flanked by great homes wrapped in porches of Victorian fretwork that fell into deeper degrees of disrepair the further out they drove. At one time this was the better end of town, but over the years the families moved to the east or further still leaving the houses to fall into the ground or be divided into apartments. During the day, factory sounds filled the air and trains passed behind a wall of trees just behind them.

Jimmy's place was on the west side and across the river. The bar had no sign. Once it was a general store, and heavy sheets of metal covered holes where gas pumps stood after that, and when the door was closed and cars were not parked in front, it was indistinguishable from the other condemned shacks that lined the road. They pulled the truck to the side of the building and sat.

"Don't go startin any more fights. I ain't in the mood for that tonight."

Jack reached out the window and popped the door from the outside.

"Hell. I can't even make a damn fist."

They entered through the open cage door and took seats at the bar. It was dark and grimy. The concrete floor was sticky and littered with cigarette butts and spent matches that were swept away only once a week. Fluorescent tubes hung from the ceiling on chains providing the only light so that everyone within looked jaundiced and sick. The walls remained undecorated because none of the liquor distributors felt inclined to send Jimmy the neon signs and clocks that adorned other fine drinking establishments.

The bar, however, lent a strange formality to the dismal surroundings so that on first impression the room seemed under renovation as if something better were to come. It was salvaged--or stolen depending on who you ask--from one of the fine hotels that sprung up in small southern cities with the addition of railway lines. When the trains stopped, they were torn down and now exist as pictures in courthouse lobbies or on the walls of chain restaurants. The bar was square and made with twenty-foot lengths of mahogany cut with beveled arm rests. The corners were decorated with round brass caps and copper piping lined the bottom held by elaborate finials to form a footrest. Columns held another ring of dark wood overhead with places for glassware that were now unused, and behind the counter metal ice chests and a utility tub connected to a garden hose were visible. The stools were stainless steel, some with bent legs that would not hold a sober man upright, and several had cushions that were ripped and repaired with duct tape.

Jimmy crossed the bar and spread his massive hands out before him on the counter. He was a caricature of a big southern black man and everyone loved him in part because of this. It was not a fact that he missed, and he played the part every chance that he got.

"Get me about ten beers, and Jack here's payin."

Jack tilted on his seat and pulled out his wallet.

"I said I would buy you one beer, you ingrate."

He managed a few bills out of his wallet, half holding it in his palm, and placed them on the bar.

"Looks like you'll be drinkin left handed tonight," Jimmy said reaching into the ice cooler and pulling out two bottles that he popped open with a metal ring that hung around his neck. "I didn't take you for the fightin' type, Jack."

"I told him he was too small to be fightin."

Nathan took a swig and smiled through his closed lips that shined wetly.

Jimmy grinned and looked down at Jack's hand before moving back to the other side of the bar and the interrupted conversation held in whispers with an old man bent over a tumbler of something brown.

Jack smoothed his hands over his face and rubbed his eyes, pissed at how much his hand hurt. He pulled an ashtray in front of him, situated his beer and lighter, and leaned forward on his elbows.

"Were you lookin at her?"

"No."

Jack lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, staring into the bar.

"Hell. Yeah, I guess I was. But not the way he said."

He looked sidelong at Nathan and then back at the bar.

"She just made me sad. That's all. I just hate that sometimes people never have a chance."

He took a sip from his bottle and then pushed it back and forth in the condensation, stretching it out and making a shallow pool on the bar.

"Well," he looked over at Jack, "did you hurt him much?"

"I guess." He let out a desperate chuckle and flicked some ash away. "I didn't knock him out or anything. I kicked him a few times in the stomach."

They both sat hunched over their drinks watching Jimmy with the old man across the bar. In the back corner a table of men were yelling and laughing. They were playing cards and each hand brought an explosion of argument that was only partially for show. One of the men threw down his cards and headed toward the bar shouting back at the others as he walked.

"Hey, Nate."

The man slapped Nathan on the shoulder. He pushed in between them with his back to Jack and leaned over the bar. He smelled of sweat and his shirt had a dark stain where it had pressed against his chair.

"Jimmy, gimme three," he said. "How you been, Nate?"

The man looked sideways at Jack and gave him a sneer. His fingers were knurled. Scars stood out in dull white lines across his arms and his eyes were sunken and cruel. The whites turned red around dark centers that showed no emotion.

"I been all right. What you up to?"

"Not shit, man. Not shit. Come play some cards with us. I haven't seen you around for a while. I want to talk to you."

Nathan looked over his shoulder at the group of men.

"I'll be back there in a minute."

Jimmy placed three beers on the counter and popped them with his opener. The man laid some cash on the bar and gathered the beers by the neck in one hand. He turned toward Jack and stared at him for a second before laughing and yelling back to his friends that his debt was paid in full.

"You wanna play some cards, Jack?" He motioned back toward the table.

"No. You go ahead. Will you be all right if I take off?"

"Yeah. Don't worry about it. I know the guy in the corner. He'll give me a ride."

"Just don't ride with the one who got the beer."

"Franklin. Hell no. He's an asshole. I grew up down the street from him. He just sits around waitin to go back to jail. I thought he was still in county."

Nathan smiled and headed over to the table. Franklin pulled a chair next to him and grinned. His teeth yellow in the light.

Jimmy nodded at the beer in front of him and Jack shook his head no. He placed a few more dollars on the bar and walked back out to his truck.

Outside he could smell the smoke in his clothes mingled with the sour scent of stale beer. As he drove down the gravel road to his trailer the headlights refracted off the chunks of silica in the rock. He used to own a small house in a suburb of Atlanta. It was a nice house. Older. Surrounded by live oaks with two porches and a decent yard. The neighbors were not too close, but he knew them. An occasional invitation to a cookout, watch a Braves game, drink some beer. He sold it when he quit. A young couple lived there now with a baby.

The trailer was at least ten years old although he wasn't sure and sat on a clearing with two others that the owner had been unable to rent. He stood in the kitchen with his back against the counter tracing patterns in the linoleum floor with his eyes. Diamonds inside squares. Burn marks in the shape of bugs that never moved and dark patches where rips had filled with dirt that would never come clean. He opened the refrigerator and looked in. He closed it again. The avocado-colored machine kicked on with a squeal from beneath and rocked a little under its own strain. Every time it started sounded like it would be the last. He went into the living room and sat on the couch, motionless. His hands folded on his lap as he listened to the sound of his breathing.

He thought of her sitting next to him. Little hands warm and soft around his waist and her head pressed against his chest. Blue eyes, sad and deep. Her nose noble and long with a crooked place in the middle that looked like his so that people would sometimes think they were related. The way her lower lip stuck out just a little more than the top, and her perfect skin that never needed makeup. Hair the color of wheat lightened by the sun to a soft gold that she pressed back away from her face behind her ears. Her right ear pierced at the top with a little hoop earring that caught loose hairs. A butterfly tattoo below her left hip. The smell of her breath like milk as she slept with her hand made into a tiny fist on his chest. Skin damp with night sweat that held gossamer strands of hair against her forehead.

He kicked the table in front of him and hunched over, elbows on his knees and his head squeezed between his fists.

The first time they were alone she sat on his bed in the dorm room. Broken little soul quietly unraveling herself in stories. Her voice a whisper that sung him to sleep since before he could remember. One night they drove the long back road to the upper campus while all were asleep, her face a silhouette in the steel gray light, and she told him that she loved him. That she would die if they could not be together. She cried. She cried because it was true. She was with him every day for two years. Nights spent hidden under covers after curfew. When morning came, they would have breakfast before he walked her to class. Her hand fit perfectly in his, and a year passed before he could no longer feel it in his sleep.

He sat back in the couch exhausted and stared at the ugly brown paneling on the walls. He got up and pulled a book from the shelf and went to his room.

The room was small, made smaller by the queen size bed that was one of the few items he kept when he sold off his house at a yard sale. The bed, a desk, and his books. What little else he had in the trailer was cheap and purchased at thrift stores from necessity. He lay in his bed reading unable to sleep. When he read he didn't feel everything drifting away. The words made the world bearable and for a time all that seemed transitory and fleeting would pause and become real and he could imagine a beauty that was not his alone. Things without witness never were and much of his life faded away, lost alone in his memory which was meaningless. In the years since college, he had spent endless days writing but couldn't see anything in his words than evidence that what he had felt was gone and he became distrustful of his ability to bare witness to himself. The lines of dead men offered assurance that what he had seen had been seen before and hope that what he had lost did not cease to exist.

He watched the clock for several minutes before draping his legs over the side of the bed. He walked to the window and pulled open a hole in the blinds. The trees at the edge of the wood line stood separate in heavy outline from those behind illuminated in a pale haze from the gaslights. He felt like he needed to get out but had nowhere to go. He paced around the room and then to the kitchen where he pulled open a few cupboards before grabbing a bag of chips. He stood at the sink looking out the window as he ate. The woods were still, and the faint sound of hidden bugs worked its way around the windowpanes. When he was young and camping with his father the night sounds were so loud that he couldn't sleep and in the morning he would rise to the light fire with dew covered wood that cracked and hissed while birds came awake and sang their plans to each other. At times he tried to remember what he thought on those mornings, but it was impossible. He placed the chips back in the cupboard and went to bed.