From A Dead Sleep Page 12

  The loudmouth’s cigarette smoke played games with Sean’s weary eyes, but he wasn’t going to complain about it. Someone had punched in some Ted Nugent on the retro jukebox near the entrance and the rhythm of the song “Stranglehold” accompanied the smooth, crisp flow of Sean’s ownership of the table. When he sunk the game-ender in a corner pocket, he earned a smatter of applause from one of the young couple. He wasn’t sure which.

  “Son of a bitch!” the loudmouth shouted.

  The smirk and the stylin’ were dwindling. The Miami Hurricane had dissipated, and Sean chuckled as two crisp twenties were added to his coffer. The only thing that would have made the moment better was if Roy Hughes from The Winston Beacon was there and forced to document the victory. Forty bucks wasn’t anything to do an end zone dance over, but at that very moment in Sean’s life, it was a small fortune—enough for the last gas fill-up he’d need to get him the rest of the way to his destination.

  The loudmouth pulled his partner aside and seemed to be consulting with him in the corner of the room. The reflective material of his jacket danced under the dim rays of a couple of dome lights above as he angrily pleaded with Curly about something. Sean figured he was trying to borrow more money from his quiet friend to continue on. His instincts told him to walk away, urging him not to ruin a good thing, but he was caught up in the moment of an impressed group of peers and the sensation of rare success. He held a chalk block up to the tip of his cue stick and ground it loudly, signaling that he was game if his adversary was. The bartender brought him a fresh beer. He nodded to her in acknowledgment but forked over no money, opting to settle up later. He could sense annoyance in her conduct, but he didn’t care.

  When her boyfriend retreated to the restroom, Sean caught the young girl from the table flash him an approving smile. She was trim with long, blonde hair and blue eyes, and she was a real beauty. She was in a different league than her boyfriend and the town itself, in Sean’s opinion. Her brief gaze reminded him of the looks he used to get when he played football back in high school. Back then, it wasn’t so much that he was handsome, because he wasn’t, but there was a brand that came with being a winner that got people to take notice, and more importantly take him seriously.

  “One hundred dollars!” he heard the loudmouth shout from across the room, as if he were placing a bid on an auction item.

  The sharp proposal yanked Sean from his haze of nostalgic daydreaming and dragged him back into the realm of current day reality. He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand at attention. Those words were not at all what he was expecting to hear. He’d even doubted there’d be another game, but the loudmouth had somehow convinced his reluctant cohort to pool their money together for one last hurrah. He felt every eye in the bar bearing down on him. The reasoned approach would have been to walk away forty ahead and not risk losing the remainder of his cash. He knew this and he thought of the devastating loss to Moses Jones that, though still fresh in his mind from two days ago, seemed like ancient history.

  His gaze wandered to the cute blonde whose eyes looked electric and seemed to be urging him to accept. He dug into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, thumbing through the bills and adding the amount to his earlier winnings. His thumb rubbed the irritated spot on the back of his head.

  “I only got ninety-eight dollars,” he dryly replied to the loudmouth and his friend.

  “Yo, my man’s only got ninety-eight dollars!” he sung out like a court jester trying to create a spectacle for a royal audience, raising his arms and tilting his head to the side with a grin.

  Scorn could be read in Sean’s eyes as he glared at the obnoxious sideshow being put on by the jive-talking clown, sure he was ridiculing him.

  “Don’t you worry, brah,” he added as he self-assuredly stepped up close to Sean. He patted the palm of his lanky hand on Sean’s bloated chest and continued in softer, more precise tone. “We’ll make that work.”

  The guy’s cigarette was dangling dangerously close to Sean’s face and the potency of the smoke and the condescending pat drew his blood to a boil.

  Sean grabbed the loudmouth’s insulting hand and twisted his wrist at a sharp angle. An intense, almost sadistic grin forged across his mouth as he took delight in watching the loudmouth’s face contort in pain and his cigarette drop to the floor from his open jaw.

  Across the room, the bouncer’s eyebrow arched and he was on his feet in no time.

  Sean wasn’t deterred. He pulled the loudmouth in even closer to where their foreheads were nearly locked together like combating bighorn sheep. The room was silent other than a twangy country song now blaring from the jukebox.

  With his concentrated glare burning a cauterized hole right through his challenger, Sean said, “Rack ’em.”

  When he released the loudmouth’s wrist, the bouncer’s composure returned. His hawkish eye remained on Sean, but he lowered himself back down to his stool.

  “Okay, okay, brah. There’s no need for none of that,” the loudmouth backpedaled as he shook his wrist and straightened his body. “We’re all playahs here.” He traded glances with his friend before retrieving the triangle from the wall.

  Across the room, the kid returning to his chair from the restroom whistled at the drama of the night’s unfolding entertainment and the promise of a new contest. His girlfriend’s exuberant smile eclipsed her face, brandishing an appetite for the rise in stakes. One of the truckers, wearing a straight-billed baseball cap and filthy windbreaker that might have been gray, watched curiously from his barstool with his thin arms crossed in front of his chest.

  Despite the pressure, Sean felt good. The loudmouth’s games hadn’t impressed. He was a mediocre player at best. After insisting that Curly lay the bills on the cocktail table alongside his, Sean was feeling even better.

  He chalked the edges of his cue, giving it a few extra turns, which left a plume of fine blue powder hovering in the light of the three-bulb billiard lamp that hung from above. The coated wood of the base of the stick felt like a natural extension of his hand. He gripped it tightly and paced over to the far end of the table. He kept an eye on the loudmouth’s placement of the balls in the triangle, making sure the front ball was on the table dot and the formation was at a straight angle. It looked clean. He felt the warmth of the bulbs above as he leaned over the table and worked on his cue ball placement. He rarely centered the ball. He liked to come at it a bit from the left. His eyes narrowed as he lined up a shot with the ball out about a foot from the edge nearest him.

  If he hadn’t been completely focused on preparing to break, Sean might have noticed the fleeting exchange of mischievous, smug glances between his opponent and his quiet, curly-haired investor. It was the kind of transaction that suggested that this wasn’t the first time the two had conned some bar-room stranger into an innocent wager contested along the top of a pool table. It was the kind that suggested that they all too well understood the psychology of luring a hapless victim into a false sense of confidence by throwing the first two games before raising the stakes and schooling the poor casualty. It was the kind that suggested they understood how a little trash talk could provoke a competitive spirit and dull better judgment.

  With his fingers guiding his aim dead center at the cue ball, Sean bobbed his stick in and out a few times before holding his breath and unloading with a wicked release.

  A split-second was all it took for him to realize that something hadn’t quite gone right. As if some unseen force had nudged his shoulder at the exact moment of contact, he didn’t hit the cue ball square. Still, the sharp crack of the break sounded like a string of firecrackers igniting. Balls bounced fiercely off every edge, colliding and spreading out along the table.

  He watched intently with his eyes blitzing the trajectory of every movement on the table. His pulse accelerated when he spotted the eight-ball crisscross the cue ball at a speed far too brisk for comfort. As if he were watching his own heart being yanked from his chest, the eight-bal
l dropped into a corner pocket with a dull thud while the cue ball proceeded at a more gradual pace toward the opposite corner of the table. The hole there suddenly appeared much larger than it was—a gaping abyss affirming its dominance by drawing in the ball with magnetic pull.

  A gasp could be heard from somewhere behind Sean, and nearly every occupant of the room found themselves steadily drawn into a loose huddle around the table to witness the epilogue of the shot. The ball was slowing, as was the world around Sean, who felt paralyzed and powerless. Its fate let it dangle on the edge of the pocket for a moment before it disappeared, the sight of which commanded complete silence from every stunned witness.

  “Holy fuck!” the loudmouth screamed exuberantly with bulging eyes behind his aqua-visors and his spread-open hands holding an imaginary sphere in front of his face. He exploded into high-pitched, hideous laughter.

  He was the only one speaking or making any noise, jumping sloppily up and down as if he was attached to a large spring that had just been freed from a giant, tin box. The rest of the onlookers had trained their attention on the face of the man who’d defied astonishing odds to actually lose a game of eight-ball on the opening break.

  Sean’s legs wobbled under him as if the floor beneath him was opening up. He placed a hand on the edge of the table to stabilize himself. His stomach turned, and he feared he was about to puke up the beers he’d just downed. Pondering the meaning behind whatever kind of sick, divine intervention had just repaid him for a past act or thought, he found himself hostage to his own lifeless gaze that panned the room. The expressions on the faces of the young couple nearly mirrored each other. Both displayed a mixture of awe and sympathy. The trucker with the hat was shaking his head in disbelief, probably just thankful that it wasn’t him for whom the bad luck had befallen. Curly almost looked frightened, taking a few steps back with his head lowered submissively as if he were half expecting Sean to implode into a nervous breakdown. The bartender was visibly agitated, most likely due to a hunch that the adrift loner hadn’t bothered to factor in his bar tab before placing the lost wager.

  “I’ve never seen nothin’ like that, brah!” the loudmouth chortled as he delivered a firm, jovial slap to the back of Sean’s shoulder. “I mean . . . I mean . . . I don’t even think I’ve heard of something like that! I’ve seen a cue ball go in on the break. I’ve seen the eight go in on the break. But both?! Holy fuck!”

  Curly placed a hand on the loudmouth’s shoulder like a parent redirecting their child in a less dangerous path, but he was swatted away.

  “You know what? You know what?” the loudmouth badgered. “I’ve gotta call my bro. He ain’t gonna believe this shit!”

  While he dug into his pocket to retrieve a cellphone, Sean stewed, barely able to see straight. He’d already made it clear to the gleeful punk that he didn’t like being touched. He liked losing even less. But beyond personal space issues and his competitive nature, he had just lost every cent in his pocket, in the middle of nowhere, nearly 700 miles from where he needed to be. And the worst thing about it was that he’d done it to himself . . . again.

  A few more seconds went by before Sean heard the music of the jukebox again; he homed in on his surroundings. He turned to the small cocktail table beside him where his bottle of beer sat. He wanted to crawl down as deep into its throat as he could and let the demons erase his thoughts and worries. But beside the bottle, he also saw the pot of well-worn tens and twenties curled up tightly, and newfound clarity spared him from collapsing over into the abyss.

  He stole a glimpse at the bouncer whose face played host to half a smirk and half a grimace, unifying the collage of post-game attitudes that composed the bar’s patronage. Sean’s eyes went back to the money, then to the door. The loudmouth was preoccupied with his phone, but he could sense Curly beside him, waiting for Sean’s large body to move aside so he could collect the winnings.

  No one in the bar knew who Sean was. The bartender hadn’t ID’d him. He never laid down a credit card or wrote a check. No one would have passed his car on the way in. It was still at the other end of the lot, parked in the dark. To them he was a belch in the wind. He stood his ground, keeping his body between Curly and the table while pretending he wasn’t aware of his presence. He looked for security cameras along the walls and ceiling. He saw none. He looked at the money again, then the bouncer, then the door. He could hear the loudmouth still behind him, jiving away on his phone in homie street-slang. He felt Curly step in closer.

  Sean positioned his pool stick so he could hold it with both hands, horizontally in front of him. When he saw the bouncer hold his mug of coffee to his lips, it was then or never. In a flash, he spun around to face Curly and lunged forward, using both arms to drive the stick against his chest and shove him violently backwards.

  Sean didn’t look at his casualty’s face, but he could only imagine the pain wrenched across it as the swell of his back was driven into the edge of the pool table. Sean released the stick with his right hand and launched a colossal round-house punch square into the unsuspecting loudmouth’s face, nearly impaling his own cellphone through his glasses. When he spun again, he barely noticed Curly’s writhing body on the floor as he quickly grabbed the wad of cash and shoved it deep into his pocket on his way to the door.

  The coffee mug had fallen from the bouncer’s hand and spilled its brown warmth across the bar. His stool overturned and crashed to the floor as he leapt to his feet.

  Sean heard a snarling, incoherent scream from the bartender as the bouncer charged at him. He wasn’t going to make it out the door without a confrontation, and he’d known this before he’d even dropped Curly. As the bouncer rounded the corner of the bar, Sean held the pool stick in both hands and choked down on it like a baseball bat. The bouncer saw it coming and raised his forearms in front of his face. Sean went lower, sending a devastating swing across the exposed upper chest of the stocky man. A sickening crack could be heard as the stick snapped in half. Sean knew he had gotten him good and watched him drop to the floor, but the guy still had some fight left in him. Sean suddenly felt the bouncer’s thick forearms clamped around his ankle like the teeth of a bear trap. An anchor, weighing Sean down and keeping him from escaping.

  “Get off!” Sean roared before grabbing a wooden barstool and smashing it across the bouncer’s back and shoulder.

  The stool splintered at its base, and Sean felt the bouncer’s grip loosen. He yanked his leg free and was halfway out the front door before he turned to the cute blonde girl inside whose mouth had dropped open wide. He flashed her a parting wink.

  He then fled into the darkness with his legs moving as quickly as his overweight frame would allow. He wheezed in the cool, night air, not looking back until he had practically made it to his car. Even from his distance, he could see the outside bar door propped open by someone whose head appeared to be swinging in multiple directions.

  He knew they’d spot him once the dome-light in his car came on, but he was far enough away for it not to matter. He jammed his hand deep in his pocket to grab his keys, and seconds later, one of them was turning in his ignition. The engine cranked, and the obnoxious sputtering of the shot muffler ripped through the night. He popped the car it into drive, keeping the headlights off so as not to illuminate his license plate. The old Nova flew across the parking lot as the engine roared with exuberance. In the rearview mirror, he thought he saw someone running across the parking lot. Seconds later, he noticed faint brake lights facing away from the entrance of the bar.

  Fearing that someone might be trying to follow him now that streetlamps had given away his position, Sean turned on his headlights and took the on-ramp heading west back on to the interstate. Once he was convinced he could no longer be seen from the exit, he slowed down to a near stop before crossing through the high grass in the median and onto the east-bound lane. This was easy with such sparse traffic headed in either direction. He sped up and crossed the off-ramp bridge of the town he’d just left,
wondering if any of the cars headed in the other direction were looking for him. He paid attention to his speedometer, making sure he wasn’t over the limit. Someone back at the Cuckoo’s Nest would surely call the cops or the highway patrol, and he wasn’t going to get pulled over long enough for them to put two and two together.

  He straightened his legs and pried the wad of cash out of his tight pocket. He held it up to the dashboard lights and counted it while his thighs hugged the steering wheel. Nearly two hundred dollars. He howled at his rare victory, as anarchistic as it was.

  Fifteen miles down the road, he spotted a low-lying motel sign along an off-ramp. With the neon-pink vacancy light flickering on and off under the promise of a $25 room, he decided to invest some of his new cash in a decent night’s sleep before another long day of travel. The place looked like a dump from the outside, but the unlit parking lot located in the back away from the interstate and frontage road was an asset. It was highly unlikely that anyone from the bar could have identified his car in the first place, but there was nothing wrong with a little extra caution.

  Once inside his musty room, Sean took a long shower that drifted between hot and cold water on its own terms. By 12:30 a.m., he was sacked out in his boxers between a springy, queen-sized mattress and a multicolored bedspread that reeked of a smell he couldn’t identify.

  As he lay there alone feeling a little too warm, listening to outside traffic and watching passing headlights glide across the dingy wall opposite the window, he briefly drifted back to that memory of when he was seven and got lost in the forest while looking for Bigfoot. The memory had somehow fluctuated into something different, however. It no longer ended with Sean’s uncle finding him freezing and alone in the forest. It ended with Sean finding Bigfoot and kicking his hairy ass.