Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Jackson
When I finally crossed into the city limits of Lupine, it was just after six p.m. It shouldn't have taken me so long to get there. But once I crossed the state line into Colorado, I found myself starting to dread the final leg of the trip. Instead of taking the most direct highways, I’d found some side roads instead, and distracted myself by taking the scenic route most of the way there.
In Lupine, there was one logical destination I should have gone first: the house where I grew up.
The thing was, though, I couldn’t quite make myself do it.
Not yet anyway. Instead, I drove around the familiar streets of my hometown for a while, marveling at how little seemed to have changed.
Then, when I couldn’t figure out how to put it off any longer, I was just deciding to turn down the main road that led to my dad’s house when a familiar sign just off Main Street caught the corner of my eye.
The cartoonish horned head that announced the Blue Angus Bar made me slow the bike, and at the last minute decide to turn in for a quick beer.
Interestingly, as I prepared to turn into a parking spot, I noticed a row of five motorcycles lined up just outside the front entrance.
I pulled in next to the last one and killed the engine.
A moment later, I was walking through the door, the familiar aroma of popcorn and beer hitting me.
For just a second, it felt like time had collapsed, and I was once again a fifteen year-old kid, hanging out at the pinball machine with a Dr. Pepper while my dad played pool with his buddies in the back.
The pinball machine was still there, as was the pool table, but many of the people around the bar were strangers.
Or at least, I thought they were. Until one of them who I didn’t recognize at first called out to me from behind the bar.
“Jackson Fuckin’ Stone!” he yelled, his voice tinged with disbelief. “Is that really you?”
I turned to look at the man, who was balding and a little overweight. He looked familiar, though, and I frowned at him for a second until I realized who he was.
“Jesus. Greg Rollins?” I laughed.
“The very same,” he nodded. He walked out from behind the bar and stuck out a hand. “How the hell are you, buddy?”
Greg was my age, had graduated high school in the same class as me.
But looking at him now, you would have placed him in his early thirties instead of his late twenties.
He’d put on at least twenty pounds since I’d last seen him, and the muscle he used to have from being on the wrestling team had turned mostly to fat.
Still, the easy grin and wide set of his eyes were unmistakably his.
“Doing okay,” I said vaguely. “You work here?” I nodded toward the bar.
“Not exactly. Mikey Flynn and I bought this place last year,” he grinned. “We’re the proud owners of the Black Angus now.”
“Wow, Mikey Flynn.” I hadn’t thought of him in years. To be fair, though, I hadn’t really thought of anyone in Lupine for years. But that was by design. “How is he?”
“Doin’ great,” Greg nodded. “He and Linda Rodriguez got married. They got three kids now.”
“Three kids? Wow. That’s crazy.” It wasn’t really crazy, I guess. That was what most people did, wasn’t it? Get married and have kids? But in the world I came from, marriage and kids weren’t exactly part of the equation.
“Yeah,” Greg said as he looked toward the front door, where a couple of people were coming in. “You want a beer or something?” he asked then, glancing back at me.
“Sure. I’ll take it at the bar when you’ve got time.
” I left him there so he could greet his new customers, and grabbed a stool at the far end of the bar.
I pulled a cigarette from my shirt pocket and lit it, taking a long drag and letting the tension and fatigue of the day drain away.
A couple minutes later, a cold draft was in front of me, sweating onto the thin napkin under it.
“So, where you been hiding yourself all these years?” Greg asked me when he came back to the bar.
I shrugged. “Here and there. I was in Nam. Since then…” I trailed off, not feeling like continuing. Luckily, Greg didn’t push it.
“Hey, I was sorry to hear about your dad,” he murmured.
I jerked my eyes at him in surprise. But then, I remembered: this was small-town life.
Everyone knew everyone else’s business. It was one of the reasons I’d wanted to leave in the first place, and why I’d put off coming back for so long.
Still, I knew deep down meant what he said, so I tried to let it go.
“Thanks,” I said gruffly.
“That why you’re back?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. Gotta take care of Dad’s garage. For now, at least.” I opened my mouth to say more, but before I could, a loud yell came from the pool tables at the back.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ!” a familiar voice roared. “That you, Stone?”
I turned to see a slightly inebriated Lester Lawson coming toward me, arms outstretched like a bear.
“Holy shit,” I murmured. “Les Lawson. This is turning into fuckin’ old home week.”
Lester ‘Lawless’ Lawson had been my best buddy in high school. He and I had gotten into more goddamn trouble in four years than most guys managed to scare up in an entire lifetime.
“You’re still alive, Lawless?” I joked as he closed the gap between us and pounded me on the back.
“Alive and kickin’, Stone. How the fuck are you?” Les’s voice boomed through the bar, always just a little too loud.
“That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question,” I replied mildly. “Doin’ all right. You?”
“Fuckin’ A!” Les hooted. A few of the other customers glanced over toward us in annoyance. “Just doin’ my best to keep the ladies of Lupine satisfied.”
I had to laugh. In high school, Les and I had definitely done our share of deflowering Lupine’s most eligible virgins. Apparently the years hadn’t changed him much on that count.
“Hey,” he said then, punching me in the shoulder. “Let me buy you a drink, for old time’s sake. Greg!” he hollered. “Set us up with a couple of shots of whiskey!”
We each slammed back a shot, and then Les had Greg pour us a couple more.
For a little while, it almost felt normal to be back in town again.
Thankfully, Les didn’t ask me too many questions, and I didn’t offer any information about where I’d been the past few years or what I’d been doing.
We mostly just shot the shit, as Les told me what various high school classmates had been doing since we’d all graduated, which of the girls were still hot, who was still in town, and who’d moved away.
“Hey, Richie Steinbrenner and Jeff Holman are back there playing pool,” he told me then. “You should go say hi. They’d be happy to see you.”
So the two of us took our beers and headed to the back of the bar.
Sure enough, Rich and Jeff were back there, looking a few years older but probably not much wiser.
Turned out, both of them had been in Nam as well, as tattoos on their forearms and biceps made clear.
We bonded briefly over our time in the war with subdued laughs and knowing glances, but didn’t say too much more about it.
There was a brotherhood, a bitter one, among Vietnam vets.
A closeness that came from shared horror, and the understanding that we all shared the same nightmares.
I shot some pool and talked shit with the three of them for a few hours, each of us taking turns buying rounds of beer.
Eventually, I realized Les was slurring his words more than before, and struggling a little to stay upright as he took aim with his cue.
It was going on eleven o’clock or so by then, and the long day on the road plus the beer meant I was getting pretty tired.
I told Les he looked like he'd had a few too many, and asked if he wanted me to drive his car home for him. That’s when I found out that he had come on one of the bikes outside, as had Jeff and Rich.
Les was in no shape to drive, especially not a two-wheeled vehicle.
And I didn’t want to risk having a drunk, unstable guy on the back of my motorcycle.
So, I went to the bar and asked Greg if I could borrow his car for a bit to take Les home.
He handed me the keys, I settled the bill, and then I persuaded Les to leave his bike at the Angus overnight and pick it up in the morning.
When I finally managed to get Les into the passenger seat of Greg’s car, I asked him where he lived.
“You know where I live, dude,” he laughed. “Same place as always. Four-fifteen Pine.”
Huh. “That right? Still?”
“Yeah.” Les leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. “Me and Roxy. Dad died a while back. The two of us’re sharing the house now. For a while anyway.” He opened his mouth in a gargantuan yawn.
Wow. Roxy. Hadn’t thought of her for years.
Hell, last time I saw her, she was what, sixteen?
She was just starting to really come into her own by then, and just hot enough that it felt kind of awkward noticing that my best buddy’s sister had nice tits and a killer ass.
I spent the last couple of years of high school trying to ignore her, but more than one girl I took in the back seat of my car had been just a substitute for Roxy Lawson when I couldn’t get the itch for her out of my mind.
I put Greg’s keys in the ignition and cranked the car to life. As I drove to the house on Pine Street that I’d been to well over a hundred times before, I mulled over the realization that if Roxy was living with her brother, she wasn’t yet married.
I wondered how she’d changed, and what she’d been doing all these years since I’d left.
When I arrived at Les’s house and pulled up to the curb, a pale-colored Ford sedan was sitting in the darkened driveway. Through the living room window, a light shone brightly, revealing the shadow of a figure as it crossed the room. Roxy.
It looked like I was about to find out.