Last Chance

It's hot outside. The stifling night air is gritty and slick with sweat, and when the young woman opens the door it pushes in to agitate the cigarette smoke that hangs floating under the light like a drowned man.

“Hey, Marie,” says the barman, and lifts a bottle of bourbon down from the shelf. He pours a glass and sets it down on the bar before Marie even reaches her stool. The door closes, trapping the sweltering air that chaperoned her in.

“Damn heat,” she says, and tips the whisky down her throat, “Bad for business.”

Black fishnets wrestle with the leather of a bar stool. He pours her another drink.

“How's tricks?” he says, all white teeth and deep south smile.

“So so.”

“You see the newspaper?”

“I don't read much.”

“There was another one last night. That's six now.”

“Oh come on Carl, I don't want to hear it. I came here for a drink, not a lecture.”

“I'm just worried for you, is all. We all are.”

She sips at her bourbon and looks away. A red lip print blooms on the rim of her glass. She lights a cigarette to breathe cirrus clouds into the air. Further along, a young man in need of a shave hunches over the bar in a shirt patched with fresh perspiration. He pushes his empty glass forward, upon whose sheer sides continents of froth paint an atlas. Carl switches the empty for a fresh beer and places it in front of him. The napkin clings to its base – even glass sweats in this heat. The man pushes a five-dollar bill along the bar towards Carl with a hand thick and whorled like carved wood. Carl pushes it back without looking at it.

“On the house,” he says.

“Don't be a jerk, Carl, I know you're behind on your payments. I'm paying for this one.”

“You're my best customer, Donnie. Can't I buy you a beer?”

“Everyone's your best customer. That's why you got trouble with your payments.”

“I'll be OK. Mr Menezes gave me another week,” Carl waves his hand nonchalantly, “Things'll pick up.”

“Sure, Carl.”

Donnie shakes his head, pats the crumpled bill on the bar and swallows down a slug of beer. He looks up the bar.

“Hey Marie,” he says through a drawn-out breath, “You know a woman's mind better than I do: what can I get for Jean?”

“Why d'you need to get her something? It her birthday?”

“No, we had a fight.”

“What about?”

“Doesn't matter. The important thing is I'm sorry.”

She looks hard down the bar at him with bourbon-rheumed eyes and lipstick like an open wound.

“Flowers. Every girl likes to get flowers.”

“You sure? She's pretty mad this time. Told me I was on my final warning.”

“Trust me, get her flowers.”

“OK, if you say so. Thanks.”

She returns to her glass, looking down at it as though trying to read the ice-twisted words printed on the napkin beneath. Blonde curls stroke pale cheeks.

“I'd love to get flowers,” she says, confiding in the weeping ice cubes, “Just once.”

“I'd've got you some flowers, if I'd known,” says Carl, wiping the bar. She smiles at him.

“You're sweet, Carl.”

Carl picks up Donnie's five-dollar bill, wipes underneath it and puts it back on the bar. Donnie sighs and looks away, over to where frayed ghosts huddle over shadowed tables. Above his head a lazy fly slices contrails that simmer in the thick atmosphere; perhaps later the ultraviolet glow of the electric ring out back will seduce it to its death. Carl bites at his fingernail. Marie notices.

“Listen, don't worry about me,” she says, “Honestly. If business is good, tonight could be my last night. I'm getting out, I'm finally going to take a shot at being an actress.”

“Sure, Marie,” says Carl, “I hope so.”

“Oh come on, lighten up. I'm going to Hollywood , not Afghanistan. The least you can do is be happy for me.”

“I am, it's just that…well, can't you just wait until they catch this guy?”

“And when will that be, huh? Just…try not to think about it. I mean it, I'm nearly there. I nearly got enough to get to L.A. and rent me a place. I'm so close I can almost taste it, I'm not stopping now. Besides, these looks ain't gonna last forever.”

“Don't say that. You'll still be beautiful in twenty years and you damn well know it.”

She laughs, which makes him laugh. A small wrinkle dances by the corner of her eye. They look at one another, the freckles in their eyes shining iridescent. Then an enormous man with a face like a rockslide steps out of the smoke and asks for a drink, and their laughter gently fades. Marie looks sadly at the door as Carl gives the caveman a bottle of beer. The wrinkle remains by her eye.

“All right, if you got to work, why don't you go work up west tonight?” says Carl, “Just for tonight.”

The chime of the cash register sounds out through the clogged air like a funeral bell.

“Too many damn police up there,” says Marie, still looking away, “That's why.”

“Don't I know that,” the caveman says, “They make me itch all over.”

“Just keep yourself away from them, Mitch,” says Carl, “How you holding up?”

“Oh, you know, man,” says Mitch, “Parole's parole.”

“You got work?”

“A little.”

“Is it straight?”

“A little.”

Mitch grins, discrete peg teeth jutting from his gums like gravestones. Donnie looks up from his beer.

“You know, the mill's always looking for guys,” he says.

“Huh? Even guys like me?”

“Maybe.”

“‘Cause the courts is operatin' this new, uh, ‘three strike system' now, and I figure I must be pushin' about two and three fourths.”

“Steel don't care who works it. I'll put in a word with the foreman for you, if you like.”

“You're a good guy, Donnie.”

“You tell Jean that.”

Mitch laughs and claps Donnie firmly on the back with his slab of a hand.

“Really, man, thanks. I appreciate it.”

“You know it all depends on my foreman. It's not a promise or anything.”

“I know, but all I need's a chance. I won't mess up, neither. Not this time. Can't afford to.”

“I know. You'll do fine.”

Mitch leans a hawser forearm on the bar and swigs from his bottle. Donnie listens to the game commentary crackling out of the old radio, nursing his beer. Marie still looks towards the door. She lifts her glass to her lips as though she were kissing a child's forehead; amber liquid trickles over too-vivid lips.

“It's now or never for the Pumas, deep into the fourth quarter,” chuckles the radio.

“Damn Pumas,” says Donnie, shaking his head, “If Glascoe don't turn things around for next week's game, he's out. Gone. Pfft.”

“Not a minute too soon, neither,” says Mitch.

“You like baseball, Marie?” says Carl. “You going to start following the Dodgers when you get out on that West Coast?”

She turns back distractedly.

“I…no, I don't much care for it.”

“Oh, I didn't…hey, we can turn it off if you like. You know, if it's bothering you at all.”

Carl fusses at the dial on the radio. It hisses at him in protest.

“No, it's fine, leave it,” she says, “I just don't much care for it, is all.”

“Are you OK?” he asks. Marie doesn't answer. Above them a drowsy ceiling fan moves the sultry air from one end of the bar to the other. Mitch frowns and turns his head to look at Marie, as slow as the rotating of the wooden blades above.

“You should listen to Carl, missy,” he says, “What he said before. This guy out there, what he's doin' to girls like you, it ain't right.”

“I'll be fine,” she says, “Will everyone stop worrying?”

“This last one, he sliced her neck right up. Said so in the paper. Sliced her from here to here. You know that?”

“Well I didn't, but I sure as hell do now.”

“No need to scare her, Mitch,” says Carl.

“Oh man, I'm sorry. I didn't mean nothin' by it. Hell, I was just tryin' to warn her, is all.”

“I know,” she says quietly, and runs her fingers through her hair. “Forget about it. Hey Carl, pour me another, will you?”

He does. She gulps half of it down in one go, then slams the glass on the bar, sits up proud and turns to face the men. Droplets of bourbon spatter the bar.

“You,” she says to Mitch, jabbing a slender finger at him in mock anger, “You go home and get some sleep so's you're sober when you see this foreman tomorrow, and you, Donnie Pearson, you go buy some flowers for your wife or so help me God I'll take a belt to your sorry hide myself.”

“Hoo hoo, yes ma'am!” says Mitch. Carl laughs. Donnie smiles and drains his glass.

“And as for you,” she says to Carl, “Well, you can just…you…”

Her voice dwindles in the syrupy air, leaving only the cloying scent of whisky hanging by her lips.

“What?” he says.

“Oh, nothing. I don't know. You should just…keep on being you, I guess.”

She sinks back down on her stool.

“Strike one,” says the radio. Mitch and Donnie snap their attention back to the set, Marie's scolding immediately forgotten. She cups her drink in her hands like a child.

“Don't go,” Carl says quietly. Scarlet fingernails tap on glass. She sighs.

“I have to.”

“What if you don't come back?”

“If I'm not here tomorrow night, look out for me in the movies.”

“I meant what if this guy—”

“I know what you meant.”

Carl shakes his head, eyes closed.

“Come back later, then,” he says.

“Why?”

“So I know you're safe.”

“Don't be silly.”

“All right then, come back later so I can take you to a late movie.”

“I got to work.”

“Not even when you finish? I…we might never see you again after tonight.”

“Well…I suppose maybe I could.”

“I'd like that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I'd like that too.”

“Strike two,” comes the plastic voice from the radio, “All you Pumas out there better cross your fingers and hope that Gonzalez sends this one off into the bleachers.”

“Come on Gonzalez,” says Donnie. He tucks his hair behind his ears.

“Come on old man,” says Mitch, “Swing this one for us and you can retire happy.”

“It won't be the same without you here,” says Carl. “When you've gone to Hollywood , I mean.”

“I'll write you,” says Marie.

“You say that, but you'll be too busy being a star. I know how it goes.”

She doesn't answer. Carl crosses his arms and tilts his head forward. He looks earnestly up at her.

“Marie,” he says, “Come on, take the night off. I'll close up early, we'll go get something to eat, then we'll take in that movie. You'll be safe, and it'll be fun. Last chance, what do you say?”

“Here comes the pitch,” says the radio. Mitch and Donnie tense, glasses halfway between bar and lips, breaths caught in expectant mouths. Marie leans forward, her breasts perching on the bar like two lovebirds, and kisses Carl softly on the lips.

“Let's see what happens.”

He stands limp behind the bar, his body hanging from his head like damp washing on a line. Marie turns quickly away, avoiding Carl's eyes, and gathers up her purse. Tinny white-noise cheering splutters from the radio; Donnie and Mitch look at each other, eyes wide, mouths agape. Carl doesn't hear what the commentator says. Marie bites her lip, slithers off her stool and walks out of the door. She looks like a setting sun.