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  There were three aisles of shelved stock inside and a wall-to-wall glass-doored refrigerator across the back. Three middle-aged men in faded plaid shirts peered myopically at the labels of imported wines and stocked their shopping carriages with half-gallons of Ballantine’s scotch, Gilbey’s gin, Jim Beam bourbon, and cases of Löwenbräu. An elderly woman with flying white hair and puffiness around the eyes made quick movements, selecting openly a bottle of domestic sherry, using it and a bag of unsalted potato chips to conceal partially the bottle of blackberry brandy she had furtively picked up first and placed at the bottom of her plastic basket. Her lips moved rapidly in silent speech as she went to the registers at the front.

  Three large young men—gray sweatshirts, the sleeves ripped off at the armholes, Hawaiian-print surfing jams, and sneakers with no socks—carried three cases of Budweiser each from the cold room behind the refrigerator. The one in the lead stopped next to the gin. “I’m telling you, shithead, it’s true,” the first said over his shoulder to the one last in line. “You can ask Joanie, don’t believe me, that’s exactly what Patti did. Right after you left, we went down to the cove, and Patti is so fuckin’ drunk she’s got no idea where she is. And Tony says: ‘It’s too cold to go swimming. Too cold for that. Patti, show us your tits.’ And she says: ‘All right then, I will.’ And she did. Took off her sweater and did it. And then Philip says: ‘I don’t believe it. Too dark to see if they’re real.’ And she says: ‘Oh yeah?’ and goes over to him, and says: ‘Give ’em a squeeze, and you’ll see.’ So he does, and says: ‘Fuck, what do I know? They sure feel like real tits to me.’ And she says: ‘For punishment, suck ’em,’ and sticks them way out. And, he’s lying down. He says: ‘How?’ And she kneels down, you know, and then sits on his crotch, and sticks them right in his face, and he’s sucking away, and she’s grinding, and then she stands up, rips down his pants there, and of course he’s as hard as a rock. And she jerked him off. He’s lying there, moaning, ‘Blow me, blow me,’ and she’s pulling away at his dick, and then he comes, all over his stomach, and she puts her hand in it and rubs it into his mouth.”

  “What’d he do?” the second one said.

  “Tried to spit it out,” the first one said. “Making all of these kinds of faces, and Patti puts her top back on and says: ‘Well, I don’t like sluck either. Not in my mouth, at least.’ And she went home.” He shifted the cargo of beer in his hands and resumed the march toward the front. The last one in line said, “Shee-it, those Texans’re tough. She prolly blows horses at home. Should send her to Vietnam. Few broads like her got over there, war’d end tomorrow. Chinks’d drop their guns.”

  Earl went up the aisle between the second and third rows of shelves and found a quart bottle of Cossack vodka on sale for $4.99. He retraced his steps toward the back and went up the last aisle between the fourth row of shelving and the cases of beer and soft drinks stacked high against the wall. He took two six-packs of canned Coca-Cola and headed toward the registers at the front. A tall woman—five nine or so, around thirty-five—in a dark leopard-pattern leotard top, very tight faded jeans, and camel-colored shoes with stubby high heels was in the act of bending over the lower basket of a two-tiered display of liqueurs. She had platinum hair, and she was deeply tanned. The neckline of the leotard plunged to the middle of her cleavage; she had a large costume jewelry brooch of fake diamonds pinned to it there. She had very long legs. Earl stopped and pretended to be interested in various brands of rum. She straightened up without taking anything from the basket when a blocky man in a blue windbreaker, sleeves pushed up, yellowed white polo shirt, and shorts came up behind her with two cases of Miller beer. He was running to paunch, and losing his blondish hair. “You want any, that shit for diabetics?” he said. She shook her head, and preceded him into the checkout lane. Earl followed them toward the register. When he reached the place where she had stood, he could smell a lingering aroma of perfume. It grew stronger as he came up behind the man, who was presenting a twenty-dollar bill. “Don’t worry,” the man said. “It’s not one of those.”

  The cashier was a woman just shy of forty. She wore a short black wig with ringlets that framed her face, and a pink smock with “Chuckie’s Discount” embroidered in red over her left breast. She accepted the money and snorted, ringing up the sale. “It’s fifties now,” she said, tapping a notice taped to the glass partition on the other side of the register. “I guess they’re movin’ up inna world.” She glanced sidelong at the woman in the leotard. “Like lots of us’d like, and some already did.” The woman did not say anything. She stared into the middle distance, and licked her bottom lip once.

  The man chuckled and accepted his change. “Good thing for you, I guess,” he said, “they didn’t start two months ago.” He picked up his beer, and the woman went ahead of him toward the exit, her buttocks swaying smoothly under the denim. She used her right hand to brush the hair from her right temple, tossing her head back as she did so. She gave the blocky man half a smile, her eyelids lowered, as he followed her out through the door.

  “You, ah,” the cashier said to Earl, “you want me to ring that stuff up, sir?”

  Earl took a deep breath and put the bottle and the two six-packs on the counter. He shook his head as he pulled out his wallet. “Fine lookin’ woman,” he said.

  “Best advertisement Revlon ever had,” the cashier said, running her forefinger down a flip-card list of prices. She rang up the price of the vodka, and added $3.29 for the Coke. “Eight twenny-eight,” she said.

  “Revlon?” he said.

  She nodded. “The perfume,” she said. “She douses herself. Must pour it on over her head.”

  “I kind of liked it,” he said. “I thought it smelled nice. Sort of spicy.” He separated one bill from a respectable wad in his wallet and handed it to the cashier.

  “Hell,” she said, “I used to like it myself. Wore the stuff all of the time. But that was before she started coming in here every week, absolutely reeking of it. Now I wouldn’t wear the damned poison. I dumped all of mine down the toilet. Right after the rest of my life.” She rested the bill on edge on the buttons of the top row of the register. “Course the fact that the guy she comes in here with now, happens to be my ex-husband—well, that might have something to do with it.” She peered at the bill. “Hey,” she said.

  “Your ex-husband?” he said.

  “You deaf or something, mister?” she said, offering the bill back to him. “I can’t take this.”

  “You used to be married, that guy?”

  She sighed. “I swear,” she said, “you got wax in your ears. You oughta go to the doctor. Yeah, I used to be married, that guy. We got what they call ‘divorce’ in this state. ‘Providence, and these Plantations.’ You come from some other planet or something, you never heard of divorce? You should live in Italy. But what I’m talking about now, though, is this.” She waved the fifty under his nose. “This’s what I’m talking about, all right? I can’t take this, for your stuff. You got something smaller, that’s fine. Or something bigger, a hundred—also fine. But no fifties no way now, in Chuckie’s—we eighty-sixed them ’fore Memorial Day. Hell, we didn’t even take twennies, till almost the Fourth of July. Counterfeit, you know? Like ‘No good’? Like ‘Dunno where you got this, ma’am’—you take it to the bank—‘but the Treasury didn’t print it and we sure don’t want it here.’ And you say: ‘Do I do?’ And they look at you, and they just sort of shrug, and they tell you that that’s your decision. Paper your spare room, if you got enough, or use them for toilet paper.”

  “Well, now it’s fifties they’re passing,” she said. “So it’s fifties now, we’re not taking. And bad’s I got burned, the first part of May, at least I’m glad it was twennies. Cost me, I hadda give Chuckie a hundred and eighty, taken right out of my pay. And Al and Lucy, and Chuckie himself, they all got nailed pretty bad too. Those bastards got into us a good thousand bucks, before the bank tipped us off. So, you got something smaller, if you
wanna buy this stuff?”

  “Oh,” he said, fumbling for his wallet again. “I didn’t know. Lemme see here. My boss always pays me, he pays me in cash. He just paid me that one last night. But maybe I got here …” He pulled out a number of one-dollar bills that had been wadded up and then smoothed out. He began to count them out. “Nine,” he finished. He pushed them toward her. “That oughta do it,” he said.

  She picked up the soiled bills and raised her eyebrows. “How long you had these items?” she said. “Your mother at your confirmation?”

  He grinned and tried to look sheepish. “I’m not very good about money,” he said. “I buy something, I always use the biggest bill I got, ’cause it’s easier’n counting out singles. Then I get the change, and I stick it in my pocket till I get home and change my pants and I just put it in my wallet.”

  She rang the drawer open and gave him his change. “You, ah,” he said. “I’m looking, the Beachmont Motel?”

  “It’s downah road,” she said, jerking her head to indicate the direction. “You should’ve followed those three lugs with the beer—that’s where they were going. Goddamned kids. Hiding out in college so they maybe miss the draft. Which they seem to think gives them the right, just roll right over everybody. Call a cop on those kids, they start whining right away: ‘I’m gonna be in ’Nam next year.’ Bullshit is what I say. They’ll figure out another wrinkle. Wish my kid was like that.” She paused. “Or,” she said, “four-five years ago, you could’ve followed your showgirl. She used to spend lots of time there. Most of it on her back. But now that she’s married, the owner, lady of leisure and all, she never goes near the damned place.”

  “That guy with her, he’s the owner?” Earl said.

  “Yup,” the cashier said, extending her left hand to receive the purchases of one of the middle-aged men who had finished his deliberations. “Good old Jimmy Battles. Looks as soft as a bowl fulla custard, but meaner’n snakes when he’s pissed. And the closest thing to a jackhammer I ever saw in bed.” She glanced back at Earl. “You’re thinking of staying, staying at Jimmy’s, I’d change my mind, I was you. I know that joint on the inside and out. There’s not a bed in it, ’ll fit you.” She snickered. “ ’Less he cuts you down to size, like he does everybody else. Or has his beefboys do it.”

  “I can take care of myself all right,” Earl said, picking up his goods.

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s too bad. Jimmy don’t like guys like you. Takes care of them himself.”

  3

  The Beachmont Motel was a two-story cinder-block building shaped like a splayed V and set on a narrow, paved lot carved out of a small hillside (it was destroyed by fire two weeks after Labor Day in 1986; the fire chief in Lafayette told reporters the fire was one of “suspicious origin,” with “clear evidence of the use of accelerants,” and the office of the attorney general conducted an investigation; no charges were brought). It was painted sea green. It had a flat roof that overhung the cement balcony walkway giving access to the rooms on the upper floor. The roof was supported by wrought-iron grillwork, and the walkway was enclosed by waist-high wrought-iron fencing. All of the ironwork was painted white. The doors of the rooms and the frames of the picture windows fronting on the parking lot were painted pale turquoise. At the northeasterly corner there was a dark blue Dempster Dumpster. There were two brown and chromium ice machines, one at the crook of the V on each floor. The sign at the edge of the road was mounted on an orange trailer and fringed with light bulbs; black movable letters advertised “34 AIR-COND RMS, SOME W/DINETTES. TV. FREE COFFEE. VACANCY, $10.00S. $14 DBL.” Off to the southeast of the V was a square green cinder-block building with a sign on the door that said “OFFICE.” It had a small porch under the roof overhand on the front. There were two green metal lawn chairs on the porch, and a spindly white metal table with a glass top between them. There was a can of Miller beer on the table next to the chair nearest the door.

  Earl parked the Dodge alongside a charcoal gray Lincoln Continental in front of the office. There were six other vehicles in the lot: a carmine Firebird Trans Am, a black Camaro, a neon green Dodge Charger, a black Plymouth Road Runner with oversized tires, a GMC four-wheel-drive truck with oversized, off-the-road cleated tires that gave it two feet of ground clearance, and a silver Honda motorcycle. The door to the fourth room to his left on the first floor was open; a four-wheeled cart equipped with a brown laundry bag on the front, festooned with large plastic bottles of spray cleaners, stood beside it. He could hear a man and a woman arguing inside the room.

  “Well,” the man said, “it’s very fuckin’ simple. It’s not hard to understand. It’s almost five o’fuckin’ clock, and you’re not fuckin’ done. You’re supposed to get in here, and get the fuckin’ work done by three o’fuckin’ clock, and you didn’t fuckin’ do it. As fuckin’ usual. Now I don’t have to fuckin’ tell you, why this’s important. The best we got in this place is a short season, all right? And this is the fuckin’ season, which so far sucks, and we got to have stuff ready. We got to scratch for bucks. And the way we fuckin’ scratch for bucks is we do our fuckin’ work. Now I look at it this way, and you don’t? Well, fuck me, then—and you can fuckin’ quit. I bet I can find someone that’ll take your fuckin’ job, and be fuckin’ grateful to get two-five-oh an hour, in this godforsaken hole.”

  The woman’s voice was half plaintive and half angry. The volume increased and the pitch rose as she spoke. “Mister Battaglia,” she said. “I don’t rent these rooms, these goddamned … animals. I don’t bring the beer in here, and throw empties all around. I don’t throw up in the bathrooms, onna walls and onna floors. I don’t shit in the bathtubs. I don’t pull the curtains down and break the goddamned springs, so they won’t go up again and you have to take them down and roll them up. Isn’t me, that falls asleep, eating pizza, I’m in bed. And then rolls around in it and stains the goddamned sheets. You know why there’s no chairs in Twelve? Because the bastards broke them. I guess they threw them out the windows—they’re out the back, back parking lot. You know why there’s no blankets, in the laundry room? Because last night they ruined four, least they looked like that to me. You wanna let these cannibals in? Fine. Go and take their money. But don’t expect me, make it like, they never were in here. I can’t do it. Nobody can. They tear the place apart.”

  The man in the white polo shirt and shorts emerged from the room. He paused at the door and pointed his right forefinger back into the room. “All right,” he said, “all right. You made your fuckin’ point. Now I will make my point, again, and what you should do is listen. It’s a short season here, and it isn’t being that good a season, and when it’s over, it’s gonna be over. So, as a result of which, I’m gonna keep this place running, we all got to dig in, and work. You got me? Because if we don’t do that, you, or me, or anybody else, pretty soon I’m gonna have to close the fuckin’ place, and you’re gonna be up shit’s creek without a paddle, down the McDonald’s in Westerly, up to your hogans in grease. All right? And that means I oughta have most of these rooms, all these rooms, ready to rent by two. And the rest of them by three. Because that’s when people come around and start renting the rooms. Okay? Early afternoon. They get where they’re going, they wanna stop, rent a room, change their clothes and go the beach, bake their asses off. Not at four. Not at five. Two. Two in the afternoon. And I don’t care, you think of their morals, or what they do makes you sick. They pay me the money, they get the damned room. Maybe looks like a pigpen when they get out, but when they go in, it is clean. Okay?”

  Earl walked over to the office porch and sat down in the chair farthest from the can of beer. He clasped his hands over his belt buckle. The blocky man hit the cleaning cart with the heel of his right hand and stomped his way to the porch. He collapsed into the vacant chair and picked up the beer can in his left hand. He drank deeply and wiped his mouth with the back of his right hand. He put the beer can down. He clasped his hands at his waist. He stared at Earl. “Ye
ah,” he said, “the Vermont guy.”

  Earl extended his hand. “Earl Beale,” he said.

  The blocky man ignored the hand. “Yeah,” he said, “so you’re finally here. I finally get to meet you. I thought it was you when I saw you. You put on some weight, right? Since you quit playing ball? Put on a few pounds, you got out of the can? And also: you’re late.”

  “Saw me,” Earl said.

  “Saw you scoping Maria, the packie,” the man said. “Thinking: ‘Jeez, what a nice ass she’s got.’ ”

  “Oh,” Earl said. He put his hands on the arms of the chair and crossed his legs at the knees. “Yeah, that was me. And she does.”

  “Better’n that,” the man said with satisfaction. “That, my friend, is a perfect ass. When that broad come down the assembly line, God’s going through the parts bin there, and He fishes into it and comes up with it, and says: ‘Jeez, a perfect ass. Don’t see many of these things, these days. Well, easy come.’ And slapped it on her.”

  “Yeah,” Earl said.

  “So,” the man said, “I’m Battles. You’re Beale. And you’re late. You gonna give me, the courtesy an explanation? Or’re you like everybody else these days, I practically got to kiss their ass for them before they’ll get to work.”