Glory Page 6

  RENEE

  It was almost one o’clock when Glory grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me behind the bar. “Out here!” she whispered, and we ran past the beer cooler, out a back door, and onto the deck.

  We stood near the wall beside a barbecue and Glory lit a cigarette. I struggled to get my hoodie over my head without strangling myself. “Is this normal?”

  “What? No, it’s backward.”

  “Not my shirt—the night.”

  She shrugged. “It’s how it is. Well, tonight’s a good night, I guess. No fights so far, no blood, no ambulance. No jealous girlfriends, no knives, no trucks smashed up in the ditch, yet. So yeah, it’s a good night. But it’s not always like this. Last week the kitchen caught fire.”

  “Really?”

  “It wasn’t so bad. They put it out fast, but kept the place shut down. No chips for a whole night!” I watched her to see if she was joking. She sucked at her cigarette and spit tobacco out at the wind. “Yeah, it’s a funny place, but it’s homey.”

  “But what are we doing here?”

  “We’re hiding.”

  “Yes, I caught that, but who are we hiding from?”

  “From all those jerks waiting out front to give us a ride. If you look you’ll see at least three trucks and maybe a car. Bill’s is the biggest truck. He’ll give up in a minute or two and the rest will follow.”

  “Don’t we want a ride, though?”

  “Not with those drunks.”

  I leaned against the wall. Maybe we were the drunks. My head was spinning.

  She finished her cigarette, said, “Listen,” and held up her hand. A truck started up and impatiently revved its engine. Then it rumbled off. In quick succession two more ignitions lit, then revved, then rolled off, getting quieter in the distance.

  “Alright then. Shall we?” She held out her elbow like a gentleman. I took it and followed her off the deck and into the forest behind the pub. The willows grew thick near the shore and the lake sounded loud and wet—the wind was coming up. She steered us onto a path.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, after some time walking.

  “To the Cabaret. It’s just like the pub but it’s got a fancy name.”

  “Won’t all those men be there, too?”

  “Of course they will.”

  “But won’t they be mad?”

  “Who cares? They wait until I get there and then the party starts again.” We walked on in silence, bumping hips, stumbling occasionally. Ahead, I could just make out the jetty at Cottonwood Beach. I had passed it so many times in daylight, wishing I was one of the people lazing about in their swimsuits, so casual and self-contained. Now the jetty looked slick and secret, like a meeting place for lovers looking to keep things quiet.

  We walked awhile in silence, then Glory said, “I didn’t tell the truth back there.” Her voice startled a nervous laugh from me. I stopped when she didn’t join in. “I never fucked Smokey. I just said I did. I don’t know why. Once we went back behind the pub after closing and he held me around the waist and cried. I let him. He kneeled with his fat face in my waist and I could smell his greasy hair. Then I drove him home in his truck and parked it beside his shop. I don’t even know why he was crying. He’d fallen asleep in the passenger seat, so I just left him there and walked home. I never fucked him. Everyone thinks I did, but I didn’t. He was just a soft, sloppy old man with a beauty boat, until that boat washed up in Whitefish Bay half-full of water and rotting fish, and no Smokey. No one knows what happened to him and nobody talks about him anymore.”

  We stood there breathing.

  “I wish I knew what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything.” She took me by the arm again and led me toward the dirty lights of town. “Just watch your feet.”

  I stopped after a moment. “Glory, listen. I’ve got to go. I can’t be out here, I’ve got a baby at home and he hasn’t eaten.” Unease had built to panic, despite the booze, and I wanted to run.

  “What are you talking about? Isn’t your man at home?”

  “Yes, my ‘man’ is at home, but he hasn’t got boobs, has he?”

  “You tell me.” Glory laughed.

  “I’m serious. I need to go back.”

  “You can go back, but I wouldn’t wanna walk through these woods if I didn’t know the way.” She dropped my arm.

  “Don’t do that! Glory, show me the way!”

  “Can’t. I’ve got a date.”

  “With who?”

  “Whom.”

  “What?”

  “With whom have you got a date, is correct.”

  “What do you care about grammar!”

  “Now I know what you think of me.” She was gone in the dark.

  “Wait a minute, I didn’t mean it, Glory…” I stumbled, reaching for her. A lighter zipped, then flared, and she was visible sucking at the filter of a cigarette. She inhaled and let her thumb off the tab. The light disappeared.

  “Sit down, mama. Don’t stress yourself out.”

  I sat down next to her on a rock, shaky and sick.

  “You just don’t know what to think, do you? Here, I’ll tell you what I see and then you tell me if I’m wrong.” She patted my arm. “You move up here with your sweetheart and your baby. You think it’s gonna be a better life—fresh start, perfect. But. You get up here and there’s one grocery store. One cop shop. One liquor store and no Starbucks. You start to get scared. Then your hubby goes to work, and it’s just you and the baby, and what the hell are you supposed to do with your mind?”

  I sucked in air and held it. Tears stung my eyes.

  Glory patted my arm. “Don’t worry. It’s like that for almost everyone. That’s why I gave mine up—couldn’t do it, didn’t want to try. I know what they say about me, but I don’t care. It’s tough shit, being a mom. It’s inconsistent with my desires.”

  I laughed through tears. “You don’t make sense. You’re all shit and what the fuck and then whom and inconsistent with my desires.” I sniffed and wiped my nose on my sleeve. “I don’t know what I’m doing here, Glory.”

  “You want me to tell you that, too?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the first person I’ve talked to since the fall.”

  “Really? That’s a long time.”

  “Well, not quite. I guess I talk to Danny and Thomas. And the gas station attendant.” I could smell the lakeshore. “Where are we? What does this place look like in daylight?”

  “Not much. There’s a runoff drain lets out around here somewhere, so there’s garbage and weeds. That’s what you smell—that and secret love affairs. People come down here to fuck.”

  “Here? Yuck.”

  “Don’t be so high and mighty—not every love affair is roses and sunshine. Some are stuck with chip bags and mud.”

  I laughed, but something struck me. “Glory, where’s your baby?”

  “She’s not a baby anymore. She’s ten.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  “Fine. You wanna know? I gave her away right after she was born. It was the best thing. For everyone. Fuck. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “How is it best for everyone? I mean, I can see it’s good for you because you don’t want to be a mom and you’ve got your career, but how did you get pregnant in the first place? Who was the dad? Someone you know, I guess…” I petered out.

  “Oh, fuck off. You’re gonna judge me just like everyone else. Go ahead. Judge! It’s not like I haven’t heard it before. Let me list everything they call me: whore, for one. Witch, bitch, selfish, fucked up, drunk, unfit, selfish. Oh, I said that already? How about Jezebel? How about slut? How about everyone’s worst nightmare. Fucksake. It’s not like I killed anyone. I made a lot of people happy, in fact.”

  I shook my head. “How?”

  “You wouldn’t understand. Never mind. Let’s get out of here.” She stood, but she didn’t go anywhere. I could see her outline, now that my eyes were used to the dark. She sto
od with her hands loose at her side, her head down. “You don’t get to choose who you’re going to be, here. You can try, but it’s not up to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can say you’re anything you want, but it’s others who decide for you.” She clapped her hands.

  I looked around. “Where’s Crystal? Did you tell me already?”

  Her voice lost its smile. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

  I mumbled an apology.

  “Never mind. She’s just mad at me. She went home. But who needs her? The whole night is ahead of us!”

  I stood and let her lead me up from the woods. I was thinking about what she’d said, feeling it out, because it sounded significant to me, especially after the day and night I’d had. I was drunk, I knew, but—what if you made what other people might think was a selfish decision, and it was actually the best decision for everyone? I wanted to live in the space around that thought for a while. I started to feel my way toward an idea.

  CHORUS

  Jim Swannell, deck chair, Chance Bay

  I’d been brushing the low trailhead near Pope Mountain one of the first decent days this spring when I seen her with the baby in the pack hiking up toward the lookout. I’ll tell you now, I followed her, but I don’t feel bad about it—I seen her eyes the last time she stopped in for tea with me and the missus. Bruises, they were. Dark brown bruises for eyes, with no hope in them at all.

  I trailed ’em up to the top and then I hailed her. Didn’t want to startle her but I did all the same. She got all shifty but stayed polite. I stood with her there, and breathed in the morning. Perfect day. We could see clear out to Southside across the lake. I says, nice day for it, and she nods some. Pushes her hair behind her ear. I can’t say why I told her all I did, except I could see she was struggling. Like a moose in sink mud—she was all agangle in it, stuck, like she couldn’t tell why the dirt was suddenly swallowing her when yesterday it was solid.

  Listen, I says to her. The walls close in after a while. I says, that cabin was good for Roy and Catherine, but it’s mighty small for a growing family. It’s good to get out after a long winter. Not the worst winter, but it probably felt that way to her. The first is always the worst.

  I told her the bay’s been called a lot of things over the years, Hard Luck Bay and Bad Luck Bay and Home Place Bay, and now they just call it Northside. But you know what it used to be—used to call it Chance Bay. For Roy Chance. The French down at Dog Creek called him chanseux because he was—had the best spot on the lake.

  She kept polite, like you should be to an old coot, but I needed to tell her something. I says, listen, wife of Danny Chance, it’s a choose-yer-own-adventure world. I read those choose-yer-own-adventure books for kids where you get a number of different choices for an ending. If you pick right, you get a happy ending right off, but if you don’t, you pick over and over again until you get it right. I never expect to get it right the first time. I guess I have the right to choose again. Every day you choose. You choose your pants and shirt, you choose the trail you’ll take, and you choose your own moral way, every single day. And I’m not saying it’s always got to be the high road, neither. Look here, I says to her, this trail brought us up to a view, but if we took this path every day we wouldn’t notice the view anymore. Most times we’re just getting for getting’s sake. Today we’re stopping to take a look. And that counts for something.

  She stays quiet for a bit and we listened to the birds and the baby snoozed in the pack, but I could see her thinking. She’s shaking some, trying not to cry, and I don’t know what to do, dammit. Didn’t mean to make her cry. But she’s got fortitude. She pulls herself together and, just like I said nothing at all, she says, who built this trail. Well, that pleased me. I got to tell her I did. I followed a deer trail and brushed it out, so I’d have somewhere to walk and think. I says, I didn’t know others would get so much pleasure out of it or I’d have done it years ago.

  She thanks me, for what, I don’t know—the trail, the conversation—but she’s done, I can tell you that. She shrugs her pack more comfy, bids me good morning, and off she goes, back down into the mud bog of her mind.

  RENEE

  It was past time to go home: my breasts were swollen under my T-shirt, so taut they didn’t jiggle despite my bra being in my pocket. I pretended the sick feeling in my gut was due to mixing alcohol—I’d had beer, a cooler, some yellow drink Glory gave me, and now I found myself with a gin and tonic in one hand and a rum and Coke in the other. I wasn’t sure if either was mine, but I knew, if I was honest with myself, that the nausea was at least partly guilt.

  The inside of the Cabaret was more dank, more smoky, and more full of propped-up drinkers than the pub. Music pumped from speakers stacked on either side of a glassed-in booth, where a man with headphones and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth alternately groped a control board and a number of women stuffed into the booth with him. The music felt so thick I imagined I could see it, a grey, pulsing aura surrounding each person, but I knew the smoke was from burning tobacco and the haze was due to fatigue. Thomas had allowed only two-hour stretches of sleep between feeds last night, and the thought of him made me need to throw up. I beelined for the washroom. Glory didn’t seem to notice.

  In a washroom stall, I leaned against the metal door and contemplated the toilet. I had to pee but there was no seat. I also thought I might puke, but there was no way I was going to kneel on the wet floor. Hair and foam floated past my feet in the black, oily slick around the base of the toilet. I placed my feet on drier spots and waited for the bile to subside. After a minute, I managed to roll up my yoga pants and squat over the toilet with my hands braced on the sides of the stall, whose walls were strangely high. I worried my butt would show, and the women lined up outside by the counter, who were yelling in one another’s ears and passing a joint, would laugh. I waited to pee, trying to relax enough to let it flow, but not so much that I’d release my grip on the walls and fall in the toilet. The stall next door banged open and a woman fell to her knees inside it. She leaned back on her haunches, shimmied a packet out of her tight white jeans and lay out a line of cocaine on a dry spot on the floor. I gaped as she plugged one nostril and leaned forward, the curtain of her hair closing around her.

  Finally, my bladder released. When I emerged from the stall, I found the bathroom empty. There was a hole in the vanity where a sink should have been, but someone had kindly written directions on the mirror to spit on your hands and wipe them on your pants. I could barely see myself through the black ink that marked the mirror with advice: They call us cokc-sukers but that’s all they want! Annie John is a ho and a bad lay! Glory you cunt you better watch ur back!!!

  Out on the dance floor, Glory danced with a woman to a song with the refrain “Honk honky tonk woman.” I moved in close to her, trying to lay a claim, but she danced on, oblivious to me, a little smile on her lips, her eyelids at half-mast. A man danced near her who was at least a foot taller than everyone else. He stared at my breasts with approval. I closed my eyes to shut him out and let the music move me. It was so rare and good to feel okay inside my head with my eyes closed; I felt invisible and free, and far away.

  I felt hands on my waist and automatically swayed toward the warm palms tight on my hips. I opened my eyes and saw the tall man staring intently at me, rubbing his hands up my sides and back down to rest on the bones of my hips. My instinct was to recoil—I’d thought he was Glory, but when he saw that fear flicker in my eyes, he gripped me tighter, leaned in, and yelled in my ear. I couldn’t understand what he’d said, so I shook my head and furrowed my brow at him.

  “You move like water!” he shouted. He took his hands from my hips and placed them on either side of my face. His lips brushed my ear and I could smell his body. Panic welled in me. He yelled in my ear: “You are such a sexy dancer!”

  I wasn’t. I knew how I looked in yoga pants and a soiled T-shirt. I’d had men come on to me before, but even
as my heart raced and I pulled away, I was falling for it. His hot hands cupped my face in a way Danny never did. It wasn’t a thing Danny would do, and until now, it wasn’t something I’d known I’d like. The man looked directly into my eyes, and even though I knew he was on the make, I smiled a new smile, a Glory half-smile, a sideways smirk, looking right back into his eyes with confidence born out of his attention.

  “There’s a party after.” He pulled me close by the damp back of my neck. I couldn’t get over his being so casual with my body; no stranger had ever drawn me near like this. “You should come. You’re coming with me.” He smiled at me and his long lashes flapped over dark eyes. Someone smacked my bum. I whipped around and it was Glory, her arm around a dark-skinned woman in white pants.

  She leaned in. “You’re not falling for this, are you?”

  “No.” I blushed, dancing out of her reach. I looked back at the man, who was miming something vigorous and mysterious at the DJ. Glory pulled my hand.

  “Not him,” she said, right in my ear. She was serious. “Don’t. You’ll regret it.”

  Alarm zinged through my chest. I looked back at the tall man, his skinny legs swathed in tight black acid-washed jeans, the lights from the booth flashing purple and white.

  “Glory.” I turned, but she was gone and the man had a hand on my wrist. I shook my arm hard and slipped his grip. The crowd jumped up and down to a new song. I pushed through them. The room changed—the walls seemed farther apart and bodies heaved and throbbed in the corners. I shoved my way through the dancers, into the hall, and this, too, seemed different—it stretched long and white before me. I didn’t remember coming in this way. Two women with red lips reared up suddenly, very near. I pressed myself against the wall, squeezed past their bare arms and midriffs, and ran. A big man stood with his arms crossed, staring out a glass door. He turned when he heard my slapping feet and panting breath.