LICKING WOUNDS THAT’LL NEVER HEAL

I stood under the alcove next to the bar door and lit a grit. My mind ran through it. I’d driven all night and ditched the stolen car, an old tank of a Mercedes, on a fire road a mile or so from here. Nobody was gonna find it for a while, especially with the storm coming. I was 250 miles from the canyon I left Ellis, bleeding out on the cold dirt with his ball sack blown off. That was sloppy, the kind of hot-headed decision that gets you caught, but I wanted him to suffer. I figured the coyotes and buzzards will have his bones picked clean long before some hunter stumbles across his dumb country ass.

I knew stopping here was a risk, but I needed a new ride, some food, some rest. I had a long drive ahead of me. I also needed a fucking drink. I took a drag off my Camel wide. I picked my backpack from the ground and shouldered it…forty grand in cash and a pound of freshly pressed Oxy 10s safely inside. I reached down and patted my old man’s Smith and Wesson .357 safely tucked between my jeans and t-shirt, hidden by my flannel. I was glad to have it back. I was glad to have my drugs back, too. Ellis’s cash was a bonus. Fucking Ellis had it coming. He boosted my stash, my daddy’s gun, and my woman, but who did he steal that forty large from? Just another fucking problem for later.

I scanned the parking lot, watched the logging road while I smoked down my grit. The handful of trucks in the snow-covered dirt lot before noon meant it was just old boys, regulars getting started for the day, drinking off the shakes, taming the spiders and snakes they woke up to, making it a safe time when people were too hungover to fight or give much of a shit that a stranger was invading their home away from home.

I spied the truck I’d boost—a 1980s model F-150 4x4, I knew I could get it started with my Leatherman tool. I had two stolen California plates with counterfeit tags in my pack. I’d put them on down the road, call my guy with the VIN, and he’d do his magic with the California DMV and put the truck in the name on my fake CA driver’s license. Having a connection like him was what separated guys like me from hacks and posers like Ellis.

I watched the road. A semi-truck loaded with logs rumbled down the road in low gear, kicking up slush and mud and gravel. Only one truck in the time it took to smoke a Camel wide. This’ll do…no state trooper will be patrolling these back roads.

I took the final drag of my smoke and crushed the butt under my boot into the frozen gravel lot. I pushed the heavy door open and stepped through. My eyes struggled adjusting to the transition from the soft glare of mountain snow to cigarette smoke and a dank room, lit in the glow of red and green and blue neon beer signs. I knew this was the most dangerous time, that brief instant where you couldn’t see if your judgement had failed you and you fucking walked into a place that you might not walk out of.

Once inside, I nodded to the bartender, making brief eye contact. I scanned the room, wondering if I’d need to pull the hand cannon. There were seven people sitting at the small square bar—three old timers with boilermakers going, a 40-something booze hound probably hiding from his wife or boss or both, and two old broads looking over some holiday catalogue. They all looked up at me as I walked in. The old boys and the two women stopped talking for a beat. I didn’t acknowledge any of them as I made way to the far side of the bar and took the stool closest to the fire door.

“What’ll it be?” the barmaid asked.

I looked at the taps—Olympia country.

“Draft Olympia and a Jack back,” I said.

“You got it,” she said.

The regulars resumed mumbling to each other or staring bleary eyed into their drinks. I relaxed. I’d been in scores of watering holes like this over the years. Shitty little joints in rural one-street towns, or “social clubs” in small city neighborhoods where gentrification was still a few gay bashings or a couple hipster stompings away. There was a way to handle yourself in such places, a delicate dance between being non-threating but menacing enough people wouldn’t want to fuck with you. Booze always made the dance trickier.

The barmaid, who looked to be fifty but was probably thirty, set down my drinks. She had a nice rack under her tight tank top that read, “Drunk Lives Matter,” a fashion choice that ignored the wintery weather and showed off her last best asset. I noticed she had a fading blackeye partially hidden under last night’s makeup. Life is a bitch in places like this.

“Thanks…” I said with the warmest smile I could muster.

I smelled onions mingled with the cigarette smoke.

“You got a kitchen?” I asked before she wandered off.

“We got burgers and fries and wings,” she said, smiling back.

“Can I get a cheeseburger and fries? Been driving all night.”

“You got it, hun,” she said before turning and walking into the back.

When she called me “hun,” I felt the energy in the room shift. Fuck. Little shit like that can set the regulars off in a place like this. Damn, shouldn’t have smiled at her.

The middle-aged drunk across from me on the stool by the front door took a sip of his Jack and Coke and looked at me hard. Here we go.

“Where you headed anyways,” he asked loudly across the bar.

Everyone stopped drinking and looked at me. I gave him my best “I might be friendly, or I might tear your head off and shit down your throat” look.

“Picking up a new motor for a dozer in Spokane. Had to drop a load of tractor parts off outside of Seattle first,” I said flatly.

In truth, I was headed to Portland. That’s where she was. That’s where Ellis was headed when I caught up with his punk ass. That’s where I’d finish this…I just wasn’t sure how yet.

I noticed his puffed-up chest deflated a little.

“Roads gonna be bad over the pass,” he finally said.

“Yep. Need a little grub and a couple of these to fortify myself for that ride…then I’ll be on my way,” I said, lifting my Jack.

He nodded and turned back to his drink. Mission accomplished.

A few minutes later, the barmaid brought out my burger and fries and set them down.

“You want ketchup?” she asked.

“Nah. This’ll do. Thanks.”

I ate and listened to the conversation competing with the pop country station playing some godawful noise in the background.

“Winter is going to drag on this year…” one of the old ladies said to the room.

“She hit you pretty good last week. We should put you two in a cage and charge admission…” one of the old boys said to the barmaid.

“Yeah, the bitch gave me a goddamn shinner but I tore her tits off…” she replied.

Laughs, then…

“Earl Miller’s boy died over in Bremerton…Cancer…” the other old guy said, changing the subject yet again.

It went on like that while I chewed the greasy burger.

I’d heard similar stories told by double-fisted drinkers, mumbled in different regional dialects by different old timers, loose women, and hard men marking time by drowning it. I knew these conversations were simply the veneer covering the myriad reasons these people were in a bar before noon every day. I didn’t belong here, but that was just an accident of birth. The ink on my skin was just as faded as theirs, my scars simply came from different bar fights, car wrecks, self-inflicted fuck ups, and familial transgressions. I wasn’t different, not really. I just happened to be passing through; I just happened to be running from killing someone on my way to…what? Get her back? Kill her, too? Fuck if I knew.

I had to figure it out. There were no good or easy answers, either. I knew my girl, Carley, was behind Ellis robbing me…that Morgan Wallen looking, wannabe player was too damn stupid to conjure it himself. She’d made me a cuck, humiliated me with him. Then she pissed all over my manhood by helping the idiot rip me off. She deserved the same justice old Ellis got. But in truth, she broke my fucking heart. I knew with Ellis gone, with the cash and drugs, I could get her back. But at what price? My dignity? Looking over my shoulder all the time for the next Ellis who’d charm her away from my old ass? And offing her…fuck…Either way I was gonna end up in some bar like this, just like these mopes, licking wounds that’ll never heal.

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I finished my burger and drinks and waved the barmaid over. I noticed a little blood spattered on the cuff of my flannel shirt and covered it with my hand. Shit. Need to wash that out.

“Double shot of Jack for the road,” I said.

I rolled up my cuffs and pushed them to my elbows.

She nodded, reached down and grabbed the bottle from the well and poured it into my glass. I raised the glass in a small salute and downed it. I stood and pulled a fifty from my roll and put it under the empty whiskey glass, the angel’s share coating the bottom giving President Grant an amber tint.

“Better hit the road before that storm comes,” I said.

She glanced at the fifty under the glass and grinned

“Thanks, hun!”

More glares from the fat drunk but he didn’t say shit. I nodded, walked out, and scanned the parking lot for onlookers. The lot was a ghost town, so I headed for the old Ford truck. The storm had just started, snow falling, the skies growing battleship gray. The truck wasn’t even locked. I pulled down the sun visor and the keys fell into my lap. Stupid fucking hicks. Taped to the dashboard was a photo of the fat guy from the bar, his woman, and a couple little girls. Karma is a bitch sometimes. I yanked the photo off, rolled down the window and tossed it into the snow.

As I pulled off onto the trucking road, I took a deep breath and blew it out. I’d made my decision. I pressed in the ashtray lighter and pulled the soft pack from my breast pocket and shook out a dart. The button popped out, and I touched the glowing orange end to my smoke. I took a deep drag, blew it out and muttered, “Justice is a few hours away, bitch.” Now I just had to make it without getting stopped.