Installment #15
Chapter 26
26
“The look on his face,” Vern said, laughing, “I mean, I think he really liked me. So when I stuck him with my fork, I tell you, that was some look. He looked like I just popped his balloon or jerked the head off his favorite G.I. Joe.”
Vern, face frozen in an exaggerated grin, waited for Geri to laugh. She was sitting on the couch and after a pause, looked up from her magazine at Vern, mugging for her benefit.
“You got a little something there in your teeth,” she said.
The smile dropped from Vern’s face and he began working his tongue behind his pursed lips.
“It’s chicken-fried steak.”
“Good for you, Vern,” Geri said. “There’s some floss in the bathroom. In the medicine cabinet.”
Vern started off down the hallway to the bathroom. Geri remembered The Doll Room and the carnage of his grandmother’s precious dolls. Did she leave the door open? Vern’s going to freak. Then she caught herself—who gives a rats ass if Vern, of all people, pitches a hissy fit? It’s Vern, big deal.
She heard the medicine cabinet squeak open then squeak shut before Vern came walking back down the hall. Now she was a tad disappointed Vern hadn’t seen the room.
He planted himself in front of the oval mirror above the fireplace, watching himself floss. Geri yanked a strand from the floss dispenser, then returned to the couch.
“Hey, how’s your tooth? Or, you know, the space where it was?” Vern said. “You’re swellings gone way down.”
“Better,” Geri said, not flossing but rather tying the floss into a string of tiny knots.
“That’s good,” Vern said. “When you first told me what you did, popping that tooth out and all, I thought, man, that’s crazy. Frigging nuts, you know? I mean, I still think that but I get it. You have my respect, lady. You do what must be done. Tooth hurts, rip it out. Boyfriend is lame, rip his heart out. Just leave him behind.”
“Walt wasn’t lame. And I didn’t rip his heart out.”
Vern sucked his teeth and tugged the strand of floss from his mouth.
“You didn’t, huh?” he said, pausing to gnaw with little rabbit chews on something he’d dislodged from his teeth. “Well, whatever. You got rid of him. Until he showed up here anyway.”
“Vern, can you fetch me an aspirin. It’s in the medicine cabinet,” Geri said. “In the bathroom.”
Vern snapped shut the floss dispenser and moved over to Geri on the couch.
“You okay?”
“My jaw hurts. A little.”
“I thought you said it was better?”
“It was. Until you mentioned it.”
“I’m sorry,” Vern said.
He brushed her red bangs around her forehead before turning and making his way down the hallway to the bathroom.
Geri listened to the medicine cabinet opening then closing. He sat hoping Vern would see The Doll Room mess this time. When she heard Vern’s footsteps coming back down the hall, she cussed silently.
“Here you go,” Vern said. “Need a glass of water or anything?”
Geri nodded. Vern headed into the kitchen, talking louder as we went.
“Anyway, I sure led your old boyfriend around by the short hairs today. Wasn’t nothing to it. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. Doesn’t have a clue which end is up around here. He thinks you’re dead all right. He bought it all, like a fire sale. Fire sale…um, sorry about that. No pun intended, I swear. It is kinda funny, though, ain’t it?”
“That wasn’t a pun,” Geri said, hollering back at him.
Vern came back into the living room with a glass of water.
“Whatever. I’m a funny guy sometimes, aren’t I? Hey, for what it’s worth, he was real torn up at your grave. I don’t know what all went on with you two or what you felt about him. Or didn’t feel about him. But it’s obvious he cared for you. Deeply.”
Vern handed the glass of water to Geri.
“But I’m sure you had your reasons for cutting him loose the way you did.”
Vern went back to the mirror to check his hair, all the while keeping an eye on Geri’s reflection. He thought he looked pretty good and was trying to read her face, see if she was of the same mind.
“You know what, Vern? I just remembered—aspirin is a bitch on my stomach. I got some Tylenol in my purse. Could you get it for me?”
Geri rattled the bottle of aspirin at him. “Tylenol’s in my purse.”
“Where’s your purse?”
“The Doll Room.”
This trip down the hall Vern’s footsteps went quickly before halting abruptly. The house was silent for a moment. Then came an odd noise. Geri had once heard that when you kill a deer it lets out a silent scream and she thought that was probably similar to the noise she heard coming out of Vern. She covered her mouth to stifle her laughter.
“No. No. Fuck no!”
Vern was yelling down the hallway. Geri went to the mouth of the hallway but didn’t dare move down it. She saw that Vern had disappeared into the disarray of The Doll Room.
“Oh yeah,” Geri yelled down the hall, “some stuff fell down in there.”
“Fell down?” Vern said, his head popping out through the doorway into the hall. “Fell down? My gramma’s dolls are destroyed. The room is a mess. What did you do? And why did you do whatever it was you did?”
“Why? Why, Vern? Because you stole my money, you jackass. That’s how the world works. You take something of mine, I take something of yours. It’s called balance, Vern. You find it throughout nature. The Chinese call it yin-yang. I call it motherfucking payback.”
It took her by surprise how quickly Vern charged down the hall. He was on her in an instant, one hand pushing her breast, the other clenching her throat. He backed her up to the fireplace, full-force and wild-eyed. Geri was choking but refused to blink.
“My money, you weak fuck,” she gasped.
Her knee came up hard and quick into Vern’s balls. She expected him to let go but instead, he dragged her down with him as he crumpled to the floor. She managed to pry his weakened fingers from her throat.
“Vern, this ain’t love,” she said, standing. She picked up the glass of water from the coffee table and drank. She rubbed her sore, red neck.
“Balance, Vern. Balance.”
Vern climbed to his feet.
“I got to get out of here. Before I do something I shouldn’t. I do love you, Geri. There, it’s been said. I love you.”
Vern rubbed his crotch.
“But if you ever touch another thing of my Gramma’s, I will kill you.”
Vern surprised Geri again when he managed to walk out the door. Stronger men had received lesser kicks from her and been down for hours. She thought he almost looked triumphant except for the crouching and the limping and whimpering.
Geri watched through the screen door as Vern eased himself behind the wheel of his Lincoln, breathing hard and wiping the tears from his eyes. Geri laughed.
“I wonder what Walt’s doing right this second?” she said aloud.
* * * * *
Walt was driving down Main Street when he saw the sign. He noticed it out of the corner of his eye as he rolled by it. He drove around the block and pulled up to the curb in front of the sign.
It hung off the front of a three-story limestone building and read “Falstaff.” The beer sign was dingy and the red lettering had worn off in places. When he was a child it seemed to Walt that this sign had hung out front of every beer joint and tavern in Tulsa. But at some point all the signs had disappeared. It had been years since he had seen one.
Walt glanced at his watch. Too early for a beer? Or too late to drink and still make it to Diane’s? Walt sensed that tonight once the drinking started it wasn’t going to stop for quite some time. Not after all this.
Under the Falstaff sign, the doorway to the establishment was recessed and dark even in the afternoon sun. Walt could barely make out the small letters over the door: Puritan Billiard Parlor. A pool hall. Walt made a mental note of the place for later.
He looked up and down Main Street before pulling away from the curb, the Falstaff sign growing smaller in his rearview mirror as he made his way toward Diane’s house.