The Blues & Billie Armstrong 42
THE PICTURE OF CERTAINTY
Previously in The Blues & Billie Armstrong…
But Alice started walking away, and I hurried to catch up. “Come on,” she said. “I think I’d like to find Billie before Hank does.”
I forgot myself and said, “Yeah, me too.”
Down at the end of Parkview, the midway built to its gaudy crescendo.
The Flying Bobs with the big stereo speakers booming out the swampy guitars of Run Through the Jungle by Creedence, and the mighty Zipper towering over the street, riders screaming into the sky. The crowd was thicker here, older teenagers and twenty-somethings milling around, talking fast and loud over the music, sucking on cigarettes. A constant stream of cars crawled by on First Street, and a stream of people poured down the sidewalk, all headed toward the park, the lake, and the Weeping Willow.
Alice wore bell bottom jeans and a wildly colored paisley blouse with puffy sleeves like a musketeer. She had her father’s long legs and marched ahead in determined strides, weaving this way and that, around and through the clumps of slowgoers like a slalom skier, and I struggled to keep that blouse in sight.
The Weeping Willow’s parking lot was choked with cars and motorcycles, some of them run up over curbs and onto the grass and sidewalks. A single lane of traffic crawled around the circular driveway in a futile search for parking, but they were all forced to follow the line around and then back up toward Main Street.
The big picture windows of the cafe allowed a line of sight through to the patio, already swarmed with people. Clearly there was no picnic table reserved for us or anyone else. The cafe itself looked empty, the lights low, the entrance locked, and I didn’t understand why. But Alice knocked on the glass and Billie popped out of a hallway, scampered over, unlocked the door and opened it. “Quick, get in here,” she said. We slipped in and she shut the door behind us. “We’re closed. I mean, look at all the people out there! Molly said close at seven, before it gets out of control and man was she right, no way we could keep up, it’s insane!”
Alice and I sat at one of the tables in the middle of the empty dining area. Outside, the last rays of the sun lit up the backs of the crowd, and all their chatter merged into a murmur as if we were underwater in a fish bowl. I could just make out the occasional announcements coming from the big PA system over in the park, pumping up anticipation for the boat parade, promoting tomorrow’s pancake breakfast, reminding folks this was the last night to enjoy the carnival.
Somewhere in the kitchen KFRC was dialed in on a radio, and Get Ready by Rare Earth played as background music. Billie and Sonny were busy cleaning up, wiping down this and that, putting dishes and supplies away. Then Sonny sent Billie to our table with some leftover hot dogs and a basket of fries. She seemed in fine form, dancing to the music, twirling into the dining area to deliver the food with a trademark Billie Armstrong flourish. Behind the counter, Sonny caught my eye and gave a slight jerk of his head like get a load of that, ain’t she something.
“So, what’s the big surprise?” Alice said.
It turned out Sonny was going to let a few of us up on the roof to watch the parade and the fireworks, just him and Billie and me and Alice, and Nate was supposed to show up, too. “It’s gonna be way cool from up there!” Billie said. “But don’t tell Molly!”
“And don’t fall off!” Sonny shouted from the kitchen, and we all laughed together.
The sun disappeared below the roofline, the shadows spread over the crowd and, inside, the dining room lights glowed warmly on our faces. I was struck with a great sense of relief that Billie would be fine after all. She was moving on. And everything else would eventually work out, too. I would finally get the answers my heart needed about my mother’s death. My father and I would reconnect. Robyn and I would ace the Constitution Test. The Giants would come back to contend in the Western Division.
Then the front door of the cafe clicked open and Hank stepped inside in full dress uniform, PFC Henry L. Timmons, at ease, hands behind his back, feet apart, chin up, chest raised, hard as a granite cliff. The picture of certainty.
In the stunned quiet, I heard the radio crackle and The Four Tops singing It’s All in the Game, a fifties oldie updated in that smooth Motown style—killer bass line, angel harmonies, that top-down cruising main street sound.
Billie emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray loaded with soft drinks. It took me a second to absorb the look on her face as she spotted Hank; was it shock, anger, wonder? Yes, all that and horror. Dread and horror. Her hands went limp and opened like a trap door, the tray crashed to the floor, drink cups toppling, rolling, dark foamy soda bleeding out across the linoleum. She turned and ran back up the hallway by the kitchen.
Alice scrambled to her feet and went after her, leaping over the mess.
“We’re closed,” Sonny said, coming out from behind the counter. He walked slowly, deliberately, stepped past Hank and locked the cafe door.
“I just wanted talk to Billie,” Hank said. He seemed momentarily caught off guard by Sonny’s approach. For a second I thought he might’ve come to apologize, and I wished desperately that he would, imagined him hat in hand, eyes welling, asking forgiveness.
“She don’t wanna talk to you right now,” Sonny said.
“She told you that?” Now the two men stood face-to-face.
“Lucky for you, that’s all she told me.”
Hank looked at the linoleum and a hint of a cocky smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Well then, how about a beer while I’m here?”
Sonny paused, a little surprised at Hank’s brashness. “You’re under age.”
“Aw, give a fellow soldier a break.”
“That uniform don’t make you a soldier in my book.”
Hank didn’t acknowledge the insult. “It’s okay, the cops around here don’t mind,” he said.
“I know who your father is.”
“Yeah. He knows you too.”
Alone at the table, hot dog and fries forgotten, I watched it all like a television show, wondering if the two men might come to blows. Sonny was a big dude, a biker, a combat vet, what Grandma Junia would call a rough customer. You knew just looking at him that he knew how to fight, even with a bum leg and a paper hat. I played it out in my head. They take it outside to the Weeping Willow parking lot. Sonny knocks Hank to the ground with a right cross, then straddles his midsection, holding his head up to beat him some more, like some movie sheriff gone feral.
But Alice emerged from the hallway, scowling at Hank.
“What’s wrong with her?” Hank said, jerking his head toward the hallway Billie had disappeared into.
From my seat at the table, I was the only one who could see her lurking in the shadows halfway down the hall. Listening, cowering.
Alice stared at Hank with a hard look of disbelief. “What the hell do you care?”
“Hey, it’s my last night in town,” he said. As if that implied an obvious set of obligations on our part. “I gotta be in the parade, but we’re having a party at Trey’s later and…”
“You want to invite Billie to another party at Trey’s?” Alice said. “Man, you have some nerve.”
“Why not?” Hank said, pretending he didn’t understand where all the tension was coming from. But underneath, a hint of caution in his tone.
Alice shook her head. “She told me what happened the last time, Hank.”
“Told you what?” he said, like a challenge. “She was so out of it that night, I bet she doesn’t remember a thing.”
“She remembers.”
He hesitated for what looked like a worried moment, but then he actually grinned. “So what? I never heard her say no.”
Which I knew was a lie.
“She was practically unconscious!” Alice said.
“So? We all had a little too much to drink, got a little carried away, big fucking deal. She was having a good ole time till you showed up and freaked her out. Running her down the street like that.”
“Are you for real? She was having a good time? Wow.”
Hank shrugged. “Whatever.”
“We could tell someone, you know.”
“Yeah? Who you gonna tell? Nobody in this town’s gonna believe her.”
I stood up. My mouth was probably halfway open. I intended to speak. I intended to tell everything. To bear witness.
Sonny stepped over to the door, unlocked it and held it open. “We’re closed,” he said again and he gave Hank a look like go now if you know what’s good for you.
With the door held open, the crowd noise spiked louder and sharper. A Harley Davidson roared in the parking lot. Car horns honked. The smell of exhaust floated in.
Hank smiled, turned to go out the door. “Party starts after the fireworks,” he said, pointing eyes at Alice. “And, oh by the way, tell her we want our grandpa’s flag back.”
Sonny closed the door behind him, locked it again.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” Alice said to no one. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”
Billie hurried out with dishtowels, kneeled and began to clean up the mess. “I’m sorry,” she said, like she’d done something wrong. Her hands shook and Alice kneeled to help. Everything Is Beautiful by Ray Stevens started up on KFRC, that corny intro of kids singing “Jesus loves the little children.” Sonny went to the kitchen, snapped off the radio, returned with a mop.
Luckily, no one attempted to explain the situation to me. Maybe they assumed I knew or would see it as a run of the mill boy-girl spat, maybe they didn’t consider me at all. I was still of that age where adults and even older teens sometimes ignored my presence, assuming the troublesome details of their grownup lives were beyond my comprehension.
“The parade is about to start,” I said, and sat down.
The Blues & Billie Armstrong is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance of the fictional characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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