“Rough day?”
“They mostly are.” Six months as small town reporter had done nothing to curb the sickness that required constant self-medication. City council meetings that were neither in a city nor full of much council; public outcries over brick streets instead of cement and city funds going towards catching and neutering feral cats rather than going towards bullets to shoot them or simply to let them freeze to death in the winter; school board meetings that left even the board members bored; local Rotarians wanting their picture taken as they pass checks to representatives of worthy projects like the Arliss Anti-Sex Abstinence Education League (began by the DAR) and the Girl Scouts of America Quilt Against Hunger Campaign; captioned shots of farmer’s markets, the county fair, and Police Chief Dolarhyde posing next to the brand new cruiser he’d use when he set his usual speed traps. And from what was left over from his paltry check after he paid rent on his small room above the antique mall on Market Street, bought the little bit of food he could cook on his hot plate, tobacco and rolling papers, as well as and his bar bill, he knew there wasn’t much else he could say. As the scotch rolled down his throat and soaked in, he heard the voice of twelve year old ER intern who had advised him to stop drinking or “suffer permanent” damage to his liver. But he if he was drinking more, he wasn’t getting more drunk; and Mount Arliss looked less like an agrarian Eden and more like a rejected Tennessee Williams script. So it clearly wasn’t enough.
“What is it you DO again?” Rhonda was fairly certain she’d never asked the man about his job; but she acted forgetful out of habit.
“I’m a reporter,” he replied without much passion. He was certain, however, that no one noticed its absence but him. “I work for The Northwest Prairie Register. “ He finished off his scotch and Rhonda went to pour him another. He watched her methodically refresh the ice, pour the booze, and return. The bulky syllables of his new employer rolled around in his mouth like old razor blades. Prior to his arrival in Mount Arliss, Rafferty had been a moderately successful horseplayer, day drinker, chaser or wannabe bohemian girls with tanning bed memberships, and a reasonably respected Arts & Music hack for a widely read alternative news weekly in Phoenix, The Cactus Mouth Weekly. He’d gone from a barely paid freelance schlep in Pittsburg to having a regular check, a byline, free passes to every concert and most of the clubs, and connections in every art gallery in the East Valley – the ones that mattered anyway. Plus, he was working on a novel. The Book, he called it. He never gave it a title. Just The Book.
Rafferty’s rise from lowly Midwestern Nobody to Phoenician Somebody read to him like destiny. Like kismet. Like one of those stories he read in The New York Times Review of Books – back when they published it – about a novelist’s first book rocketing to the top of the best seller list. Back in Pittsburg, he’d written a particularly good article about a local artist for a local rag called ArtSpunk. A young editor at The Cactus with Midwestern roots and survivor’s guilt read it and hired him over email. All he could see was the Event Horizon of his life. First journalist, then novelist. Like Hemingway. Like Twain. Life Faulkner.
The art scene was horrible. Lots of overpriced crap in response to the flood of people moving to the Valley of the Sun who wanted vanilla art to cover the eggshell white walls of their prefab stuccoed condos. The artists were a lot of horribly inspired copyists who favored faux-turtleneck and Elvis Costello glasses. But he liked the local music scene; and he was on a first name basis with all the bartenders and had a friend that could get him into the Winner’s Circle Club at Turf Paradise.
The bubble burst after the young editor, disgraced after a failed series of investigative articles about pharmaceutical companies using expired medications to drug the public by flushing anti-depressants and other MAOI inhibitors down toilets all over the valley, left Arizona and returned to Ohio to live with his parents. His replacement quickly brushed Rafferty out the door … making the excuse that it was important for her to “make her mark” on the paper and “take it in a new direction.” The truth was that she never forgave him for the time he managed to get her into bed after an awful gallery opening in Glendale – when she conveniently forgot she was a hard line lesbian.
Some people, he decided, didn’t know when to let go of a grudge.
“Oh.” Rhonda smiled. It was one of those smiles people saved for times when they felt the need to act impressed whether they were or not. “That’s the paper that comes in the mail, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I ask you something?” Rhonda leaned forward and rested her ample tits on the bar.
“Sure.”
“You’re the quietest guy I’ve ever seen.”
“Ok.”
“I mean,” she smiled, exposing a pair of sharp eye teeth and a cragged line of teeth that looked like they could chew diamonds. “Usually when guys come in here and drink like they do…”
“Uh-huh.”
“…not that I care,” she hedged. “How much a man drinks is nobody’s business…”
“Yep.”
“… I mean, that’s what it means to live in America…” Rhonda shifted uncomfortably and unconsciously referred to the giant angry eagle splayed across her chest.
Rafferty smiled and waited in silence for the question, but he could tell from Rhonda’s body language that she had gotten as close to asking as she was comfortable with getting.
“You don’t say much.”
“I talk when I have something to say,” he said.
“Oh.” She nodded like it made sense to her. Then he saw his moment and took it.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” she smiled.
“Isn’t the mayor married to the owner’s daughter?”
“Sure. One of them. Deanne.”
“He ever come in here?”
“Uh… no. Not really. I mean, he usually drinks closer to home. Doesn’t like to announce the relationship, you know? For the more religious people.”
“Sure. Has he ever come in here and talked to Jacob Hassbach?”
Rhonda started acting shifty. She stepped away from the bar and started looking towards the door, like she was hoping that somebody would wander and give her something else to do. No one did. “I don’t… think so.”
“’Cause I heard that he was in here once and Jacob Hassbach and he had words.”
Rhonda face was blank. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I also heard that this Hassbach guy said he was going to run against Mayor Bates in the next election.”
“Oh yeah?”
Rafferty decided to change tactics. “You’re big fan of the NRA, huh?”
“Of course.” Rhonda straightened her back and pushed out her tits like she was trying to stand at attention. “We like our 2nd Amendment rights around here.”
“Sure, sure,” Rafferty went on. “Hassbach was in the NRA, right?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“Wasn’t he also in the local chapter of John Birch Society?” Rafferty downed the rest of his scotch and set the glass down on the bar.
She shrugged again and didn’t move to refill his glass. “I think so.”
“I heard he was the president of the chapter.”
Rhonda kept looking around. “I guess.”
“Such a tragedy for a guy like that to die because of a hunting accident, right? I mean, that’s what I heard. He was hunting with Don Breeble and Chief Dolarhyde and he died because of… a misfire?”
She shrugged. “Accidents happen.”
“But three guys, all of whom are gun experts?”
“Accidents happen.”
“Aren’t Don Breeble and Dolarhyde old friends?”
“A LOT of people here are old friends with A LOT of people.”
“Uh-huh. But aren’t they also friends with Mayor Bates?”
“Sure.”
“And it doesn’t strike you as odd?”
“Accident…” Rhonda began.
“…happen.” Rafferty finished.
“Yeah.”
Rafferty was about to take another tact when the door opened. In walked Don Breeble and two other men. Breeble wasn’t as large a man as Rafferty expected; but he carried himself like a big man. The two men with him walked half a step behind him, like they were bodyguards. Rhonda hurried down to the end of the bar to take their orders.
“Better not run too fast there, darling,” Breeble barked. “You’re likely to take somebody’s eye out.” He laughed at his own joke and the two men laughed with him. Rhonda’s face turned red, but she laughed, too. Breeble and the two men looked down the bar at Rafferty. Rafferty chose not to look at them, but left a couple of bucks on the bar for Rhonda and left.
FUCK, he thought. He had nothing. Nothing to show his editor that might convince him there was a story there; nothing that might deliver him from writing about church chili cook offs and budget meetings. His midget murder conspiracy was the only thing that kept him from exercising his 2nd Amendment rights and blowing his own head off. He knew there was something to it. If he could get somebody to talk to him that would actually go on the record. But he couldn’t get anybody to say anything. A real writer would get somebody to say something, he thought. A real reporter could. A real writer could do this and write that fucking Book, too. But I’m not any of those. Fuck me.
Living Broke: Short Stories
