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  Then I ignored that sorry old fool and held up my cellphone to Pen in a playful reprimand.

  — Yeah … I know, she said, tilting her head to the side, — I forgot to charge the bastard up.

  — But I’m the possessive type, honey, I gotta have you on call, twenty-four/seven.

  She opened a couple of pop-out buttons on my shirt and put her hand inside, rubbin at the hairs on my chest. — Yeah, I know, and I love it.

  — Not as much as me, baby, I told her.

  She raised a sculptured brow. — But you got another woman in your life right now, the one you’re spendin all this time with, she teased. — How’s this Halliday woman then? Bet she was a looker, huh?

  — As she keeps tellin me she was once Miss Arizona.

  — Before they started keepin records, right? Pen laughed and took a big suck on her Pabst.

  I felt somethin rise in me a little and forced it back down, smilin back thinly at Pen. She didn’t mean nuthin by it, cause that gal ain’t got a bad bone in her body. All she was doin was repeatin my own silly jokes back at me. But somehow disrespectin Yolanda just didn’t sound right no more.

  Funny thing was that I guess that I was kinda gettin to like that old gal. The woman had shown me great courtesy and hospitality, but desire, no sir, no way, you have got to be jerkin my wire. Why, Miss Yolanda had at least a good thirty years and a bad eighty pounds on me. Having undergone every plastic surgery procedure known to man, her face was almost paralyzed; the last time I saw something that looked like it, it was perched on the side of Notre-Dame cathedral over in Paris.

  And to my shame, I had said somethin along those lines to Pen after I first met her, set that ol gal up as a figure of fun. I dunno why. Always tryin a little too hard to be a smart-ass, I guess, then regrettin it after when the folks you shit-talk don’t turn out to be so bad after all. But then the static thump of tubby fingers on a microphone head interrupted me from my thoughts.

  Earl was a big and feisty ol boy, always wore those two-button brocade vests of the type JR used to sport, so damn snug you wondered how they stayed fastened, and I never saw him without his big Stetson hat. He was up onstage and he introduced Pen to a great big cheer. Then she got right up there and just blew them all away. I’m darned if that gal couldn’t rock the hell out of a joint. It might have only been a sleazy little dive bar where if somebody left the door open the throatful of heat and dust that followed them in made everybody suck down another cold one quickstyle, but she was headin for bigger things, no doubt about it. But I liked it best when she put down the Gibson and picked up the twelve-string acoustic and set her sweet ass on that stool and sang those soft honey-sugar ballads of hers. They broke this old wreckage’s sorry heart and made me want to set up just one little beer to cry into. But I knew where that would lead and as long as I had her in my arms I sure didn’t need me none of that.

  I loved this dirty little dive so much and the only damn reason was her. I’d first come in to Earl’s six months ago, just after I’d moved to Phoenix, to try and start this damn book on Halliday. It just wasn’t happenin up in that lonely apartment, so I got out for a while and drove around a little, endin up just out of town, in this place. I found it was always better to pretend to write in the corner of some bar rather than in an empty apartment. Sometimes a face or a comment overheard could lay down the bones of a character or a snatched conversation trigger an idea for a plotline. Even though I wasn’t drinkin I still couldn’t break that particular habit.

  I hadn’t been in long when she sat down next to me at the bar and asked me for a cigarette. I told her that I was sorry but I didn’t smoke, and was moved to add that right now I wished more than just about anythin that I did. She laughed and said that maybe I could buy her a drink instead and I was delighted to do so. After takin note that I was passin on the liquor, she looked deep into my eyes and said, ‘Well, you don’t smoke, or drink, but do you …’ and she skipped a beat, took a long drag on the cigarette that Tracey had given her, those big brown eyes full of mischief and asked, ‘… listen to rock n roll?’

  When I told her I most certainly did, she got up on that stage and played me some. I guess I fell in love with her right there and then, and it’s been that way ever since. I started hangin around Earl’s and then another couple of bars she played, and we just began seein each other. Then, when the rent was up on her apartment she just moved her stuff into mine. One night when we was lying on our backs in bed, looking up at the ceilin after just having made love, she said, — You know, I think I’m gettin better, maybe growin up a little. I got a boyfriend who ain’t an asshole.

  I quickly quipped, — Just add alcohol, honey, but grinnin at her through the darkness, I was thinkin, maybe it’s ol Raymond Wilson Butler here who’s the one that’s getting better. Cause sure as shit there ain’t gonna be anymore alcohol.

  I was researchin the Halliday book and bangin out my screenplay of Big Noise, which took up a lot of time, but I liked to go out with Pen when she played. Some of those bars were rough dives, and although she could look after herself, I guess I worried about all sorts of things, from guys hittin on her to perverts and stalkers.

  But that night she was sittin alongside me in the Land Cruiser, a little tired after the gig, maybe a little drunk after the six Pabsts and four Jack and Cokes she’d had. (I couldn’t help countin, I’m conditioned to do this now.) She said to me, — You know, if I came home with a guy like this before, I’d be all tough and bitter. Now I can be exactly as I like, in that I don’t have to think about it.

  We went to bed and slept in each other’s arms. We would wait till the mornin before making love.

  The next day Pen headed out to the bookstore, while I got back to Big Noise, and pretended I was a real writer. I wrote me a long list of what the problems with my first draft were. The main one, and I guess what most of the others kept comin back to, was Julia, my hard-assed Texan matriarch. Yeah, my agent Martha Crossley was right. She was thinner than a wet piece of newspaper. Problem was, I just didn’t know who she was. At first I thought of her as based on my own momma, then a twisted version of Jill, and at one stage I even considered that she just might be Martha. Every time I clicked on my laptop though, I had the feelin that I was making this thing worse instead of better. I sat until my head throbbed, then went to the DVD and watched Ditchwater Creek for the hundredth time.

  I realized that it was almost lunchtime and I’d achieved nothin. I tried to call Pen to meet for some lunch but her cellphone was off again, so I called in at the store. We went to a pretty gross place in the mall, where minimum-wage kids dispensed poison to the other storeworkers and housewives present. It was good to see her comin toward me, that wild mane of hair fightin to get free from the black velvet band it was tied in, and those bangles, bracelets and rings danglin from her wrists, fingers and ears. I needed to talk to somebody, and there was nobody like her.

  — You’re being too hard on yourself, honey; finish the Halliday book first, then go back to Big Noise, she implored me as we ate our club sandwiches. — Your head’s all over the place. Take the advice you always give me: one thing at a time, huh?

  — I guess so, I smiled, — at least if I knock out another chapter on that this afternoon, I’ll feel that the day won’t be wasted. Maybe I’ll land that big-buck car commercial shoot, I laughed, givin up on the shit I was eatin and pushin my paper plate aside, — then at least I’d have some money and I’d have to work to the discipline of a damned schedule. Then again, hogs might just fly over the state of Texas.

  Pen winked at me and made some kinda clickin noise. — You’ll get it, baby. I got a feelin about this one.

  — Like you had that feelin about that Majestic Reptiles video I didn’t get?

  — You were number two, honey, she grinned. — You’re gettin closer all the time.

  — As close as I’m gonna get, you mean. I’m always shortlisted; the dirty ol bridesmaid who’s been round the block once too often to
ever get the goddamn gig.

  She stood up, and brushed some crumbs from her jeans. — Well, I gotta leave my sweet little bridesmaid and get back to work, and she bent over and kissed me, then as she went, pulled out the back of my collar and tupped down the ice she’d left in her drink.

  — What the f—I yelled, then laughed as it melted down my spine and the crack of my ass.

  — You know I’m a bitch, she smiled, blowing me a kiss as she scampered across the mall, her heels clickin on the polished granite floor, — but I love you!

  I got up and walked out to the parkin lot, my back and ass bone dry in the bakin heat by the time I got inside the Land Cruiser. I went home and did what I suspected would be the only writing I ever could: a straight hack job on my Glen Halliday book, transcribed from the tapes I’d made talking to Yolanda.

  The next day I was back out to the Halliday Ranch, or the Marston Ranch as I should have probably started callin it. It seemed ol Glen was only an occasional tenant, sleepin off his hangovers: hangin his head in between shoots and hustlin for cash. I started to imagine his life with Yolanda as more like my later life with Jill; all slammed doors and long silences, punctuated by drunken, yellin rows with a sad ‘where did we go wrong’ lament in postscript.

  Yolanda greeted me with another pitcher of her homemade lemonade, and as I stepped into the cool house it sure did feel good to get some respite from the furnace outside. I immediately noticed that she seemed unsteady on her feet. Her eyes were red and she’d discarded the swimsuit for a red tank top and white pants. Although it was nice and cool here, there were beads of sweat on her face and her breathin seemed mighty labored. — This is Sparky, she explained, pointin at a stuffed cat on her window ledge. I hadn’t seen this one before. I had gotten used to old Esmeralda, but this was a mangy, mean-looking sonofabitch. — I brought him up to see you.

  — Nice, I said, looking at that pouncin cat. It was as stiff as Esmeralda, but it didn’t seem nearly as placid. Then I spied a small stuffed dog, some sort of terrier, standing guard outside a restroom.—That’s Paul, she told me, — after Paul McCartney of the Beatles.

  Paul looked a feisty lil ol sonofabitch. The glimmer in his glass eye and his full set of exposed teeth made me feel happy that his little butt was stuffed. — Humphrey do these?

  — No, I did these ones by myself, she told me, moving across to her cocktail cabinet where she mixed herself a gin and tonic. — I wasn’t formally trained of course, but very few practicing taxidermists are. I picked lots up through helping Humphrey. Then, when I married Dennis, I kept it up, she wheezed, as she lowered herself into a chair and bade me to do the same. I did, and placed my tape recorder on the small table by her side. — He was a big hunter, an NRA man, and he got me stuffing and mounting his prey. I did a bunch for him, but I got rid of them all after he left. She pursed her lips. — I found it disagreeable to have wild creatures killed for sport. I preferred to work on the ones I loved, as a tribute, so I’d remember them for all time.

  She explained to me that the two cats and the small stuffed dog were old pets of hers. Ditto the two lovebirds in a bamboo cage she pointed out to me, hangin over the entrance to the kitchen. — I couldn’t let them go, you see. I loved them so much, she said, the recall makin her a little distressed. — I was embarrassed to show you them. Do you think I’m a crazy woman, Raymond Wilson Butler?

  Funny, but it didn’t really bother me none. — No, not at all. I can see why you do it. Some people have their pets buried or cremated. You’ve got their remains there, to remind you of them.

  She seemed not to hear me. — I still talk to them, Raymond, she contended, still lookin right on at me, — and I swear that there are times when I can even hear them talking to me. Does that sound strange?

  — Not at all, ma’am, I told her. — I reckon that sometimes we just gotta take comfort where we can, I smiled, stretchin over and laying my hand lightly on the soft, white flesh of her arm. I could tell she was more than a little drunk, and sure enough that bottle of gin by the cocktail cabinet looked far from full.

  I guess some folks might have found it a little weird, but the woman was just lonely. Way I see it was she had the money and the skill and it was a hobby that gave her pleasure; something that she had shared with Humphrey, the real love of her life, and it probably made her feel a little closer to him. Yolanda struck me as just another eccentric flutterin harmlessly in the twilight, doing what helped make her feel good. This state was full of em, ol boys and girls, brains sizzled in the heat, slowly crumblin into more desert dust.

  Miss Arizona.

  I thought about Dennis. If Nice Guy Humphrey was husband number one and Dirty Larry number three that must have made him number two. — What happened to Dennis?

  — Oh, that was one that I did end myself. She shook her head and looked almost accusingly at me. — Right after he broke my jaw.

  For some reason I sort of assumed that ol Dennis was another drunk, and one of the worst kind. — So Dennis was violent in drink?

  — No, the weird thing was that he seldom, if ever, took a drink. Didn’t need it to be a complete bastard. With that goofy smile and his churchgoing, sober ways, you’d’ve thought that butter wouldn’t have melted in his asshole, she slurred, the liquor now visibly taking effect on her.

  I shot a tight smile back at her.

  Something flared in her eyes. — Put me off sobriety for good, she spat bitterly, movin to the glass and fillin it up. — Ironically, I met him through Humphrey, she smiled, instantly becomin more whimsical at the recall. — Dennis Andersen was one of his best clients. He seemed a perfect gentleman, and I guess to the outside world, that’s exactly what he was. Then I found out he’d had two previous wives, one in Albuquerque, one right here in Phoenix, that he’d left looking like busted fruit with nothing more than a pile of hospital bills.

  Unfortunately, this recollection sparked off another diatribe. The problem with this was that Yolanda was now more inebriated than I’d seen her before. She was growin mighty shrill while talking about Dennis, wailing like a tomcat in heat and highly resistant to my attempts to steer the conversation back to Glen Halliday. I started to wonder just how well they knew each other. Guess I was thinkin again about Jill and me: lovers for years, strangers at the end. And how when the love goes the stranger is the only damn thing you can ever recall.

  I made my excuses and prepared to embark on that long and lonely drive back into Phoenix. It was then that Yolanda went kinda weird on me. Pulling herself up out of that old chair, she teetered toward me. — Please stay a little while longer, Raymond, she begged, — I really like talking to you …

  She took a stumble forward and I had to catch her and steady her or I swear to God her ol blubbery beauty queen butt would have ended up on those cold tiles. — Hey, come on, Yolanda, you just had a little too much sauce and you’re a little tired, I smiled, tryin to make light of things. — Maybe you should lie down. I can all come back tomorrow now, y’hear?

  Her face was now rodeo-assed red and her big, watery eyes not much far from the same as she looked up at me and pleaded, — You’ll bring a tape of your girlfriend singing and playing her songs?

  — Sure, if that’s what you want.

  — I’d like that, she said, as she steadied herself. — It’s so good that the both of you have a talent. A talent can never be allowed to go to waste …

  — Well, we’re both tryin, I guess. I smiled at her and made my excuses and left.

  By the time I got on to the road it had gotten plenty dark, which I didn’t mind. Just drivin in that silent night, sometimes I could feel the past fadin in my synapses, and blowin through me, like a howling ghost across that desert. It made me want to stop, so I got out for a while, just to look up at that silver moon. It settled my brain, and made me focus back on the things that were important to me; Pen, my work and specifically the Big Noise screenplay and the Halliday book, in that order. The key to it was that it had to be a book about
Halliday, not about an old gal with four husbands, sitting out in exile in the middle of nowhere.

  When I got to the apartment, Pen was waitin up. I was tired but she wasn’t and that gal wouldn’t say no. Then afterwards, my head was buzzin and she was soon fast asleep. — You’d best check the messages … she said as she fell into a slumber, — gonna miss you, boy bridesmaid … or is it bride …?

  I looked at her, tried to shake her awake. She just turned around, eyes still shut, mouth a little open and murmured, — The voicemail … you gotta check it …

  I did. To my delight and astonishment, Martha had called from LA, telling me that I’d been offered the car commercial I was being touted for! It paid big bucks, and for three weeks’ work – one recce, one filming, one post-production – it would keep me on the Halliday book for around six more months. On the downside I guess it meant that the next draft of Big Noise would have to wait just that little longer again, but nobody, least of all my agent, was holdin their breath for that one.

  I thought about ol Glen Halliday, who would have laughed in their faces and talked about the integrity of the artist to some post-grads in Austin or Chapel Hill for two hundred bucks, his gas, and a couple of nights’ free minibar at the local Holiday Inn. Or so I thought. More likely he got Yolanda to supplement things by writin him out a check. I sure wasn’t going to turn into that version of Halliday. Pen worked long hours at that bookstore during the day and the gigs in those shitty bars at night and I was determined I wasn’t going to be no kept man. And this was as near as damnit a six-figure check for three weeks’ work. I wasn’t even gonna debate with myself the possibility that I might say no.

  I couldn’t sleep, so I sat up and looked at my notes on Halliday. Just who in hell’s name was this sonofabitch? A Texan who loved Texas but hated what it had become: a place where Ivy Leaguers and religious nuts could wave the flag and we’d fall in behind it and fight pointless wars for their oil. Or perhaps he was just another scumbag hypocrite who used people, women, for what he could get out of them; an insecure actress whose head he fucked more than her pussy and a crazy heartbroken ol gal sitting on a gold mine in the desert.