When the Saints Read Free

over and crosses his forearms on the bar. “That guy who left just before Carl came in here wearing a leather jacket that belongs to a friend of mine whose truck was busted into. He must have ripped the tabs off and scuffed it up a little, but it’s the same one.” He glances down at my cleavage. “Asshole paid me with a hundred-dollar bill, which means he just sold something, and he said his name is Dave. Course, when I pretended the phone was for Dave, he didn’t react until I said it twice, and after that he knew I was on to him. Know how I know?”
    I shrug.
    “Because buddy left right then with a third of beer in his bottle whereas the previous two he drained to the last drop just like you and every other loser in this dump.” He takes a mintfrom the glass dish next to the register and pops it in his mouth. “I notice everything.”
    “I saw the hundred he paid you with,” I say. “I also saw the two fifties in his wallet and the driver’s licence that says his last name is Graves. And for the record, I’m no loser, and I don’t appreciate you making assumptions based on
my
last name.”
    He bites down loudly into the mint. Then a smile creeps into his lips as he reaches out and tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear. “Okay then.”
    T HAT NIGHT I WRAP MY LEGS AROUND W EST AND ONCE he’s done and snoring I lie awake and walk through each room of our house again in my mind. I can’t imagine what would make Daddy leave the place to rot. He used to brag that his father built it with his own hands, which wasn’t even true, but he seemed to believe it.
    After Grandpa Jack fell drunk in the river and drowned the year I was born, Daddy talked him up like he was the Messiah when really he was a demented alcoholic tyrant who used to beat Daddy with this black horse statue that sat on the mantle. Once, we were riding in our old station wagon and passed a black horse grazing in a field. Daddy started rubbing the left side of his head with the palm of his hand and pressed his boot down on the gas pedal so hard that all the trees slurred together outside the windows. My baby brother Jackie started screaming and Daddy slammed on the brakes, wrenched the car to the side of the roadand told Ma she had ten seconds to shut the little bastard up. He pushed in the cigarette lighter as she jumped out and hauled Jackie from his car seat. The lighter popped and Daddy held it up where she could see it as she stood on the side of the highway cooing in Jackie’s ear. Then Daddy turned around and stared at Bird and me as he pressed the burning end to the passenger seat, melting a hole where Ma’s head had been. I grabbed onto Bird so tight my fingernails made little red half moons in his arm.
    W EST MUMBLES A STRING OF WORDS IN HIS SLEEP. I TRY to make out what he’s saying. Something about drywall and getting a good deal. Last night when we got back to his place, he told me he’d been waiting a long time for a woman like me to walk into his bar. I asked what he meant by that and he said someone with half a brain. I don’t recall saying anything brilliant. Except maybe when I suggested he’d get more women in there if he made a rule that customers have to wear pants that fit. “Just try it for one week,” I said. “Put up a big sign: NOW WITH FEWER SWEATY CRACKS.”
    My eyes are still open and sore when the sun comes up, so I slip out the door and walk down to the river. I manage to find my old spot between the blueberry bushes and the Space Invaders arcade console. I can’t believe that thing’s still here, lying on its stomach like a beached whale. The neon colours have leached and all the wiring’s been gutted, leaving just the box frame. I always wondered how it wound up here. Maybe some kids heisted it,dragged it down here to bash it up for the quarters. Quarters were a hot ticket back in the day because Doreen who worked the corner store used to sell single cigarettes to kids for twenty-five cents. She loved