Celine

TWENTY-ONE

In Red Lodge they decided that they needed more than marshmallows to fuel a research session. Pete knew that if there had been cotton candy it would have rounded things out for Celine. Instead, they were enticed by fourteen Harleys parked along a hitch rail outside a log building called Billy’s Crab Shack. The crabs would be very far from their native habitat, but the bikes looked right at home. They were mostly black, three were fully chopped, and four had death skeletons painted on the tanks: two Grim Reapers were in flagrante delicto with buxom naked babes, one skeleton was shooting up, and the last held binocs and looked like he was bird-watching. They pulled in next to the bikes.

Celine was excited. Pete could tell because she unwrapped two sticks of Juicy Fruit. “Look, Pete,” she said between chews. “The Boy Scouts are in town.” As an artist steeped in the iconography of death who often used skulls and bones, she cast an aficionado’s critical eye over the airbrushed art shimmering on the Harleys. “Not anatomically correct,” she said.

“The skeletons or the girls?”

“I would say both. Do you think they really have crabs?”

“I hope not,” he said simply.

They got out. The clouds were scudding fast and the day was warming and for a moment they were in full sun. Celine stopped on the sidewalk and let the sun soak in for a minute and then they pushed through the batwing doors. It was not like in the movies where every head turned. The bikers were too engaged with the business at hand. Six were shoulder to shoulder at the long bar, which was probably built to accommodate fifteen normally sized humans, three were playing darts under a lobster pot hanging from the ceiling, two were at a pool table in back with two thin biker babes, and three were hoisting one of their leather-vested girls onto a small table where she began to dance to “Free Bird” on the jukebox. Every one had Sons of Silence colors on the back of his leather jacket. A thin-faced local with a gray ponytail was drawing draft beer behind the bar, and a pretty young girl served fish-and-chips in baskets to the dart players. She wore a blue checked short dress with frills at the sleeves, white sneakers, an apron, and she moved with the flitting, hesitant grace of a springbok in a lion pen.

Every head didn’t swivel, but every eye did glance at the posh elderly tourists who came through the front door; the eyes, registering neither threat nor opportunity, went back to the party. Celine made a head count in an instant and tallied it against the motorcycles out front. All males accounted for, no one in the bathroom. It was habit. She also saw that she and Pete made about as much of an impression as two flies. Well. But. She would have to ask one of the men what the skeleton was doing with the binoculars.

The place was an odd mix of family lunch spot and bar. The round tables were covered in red checkered vinyl tablecloths and bottles of hot sauce and ketchup, there were fishing nets and lobster buoys and boat hooks on the walls, and Foster’s Ale and Budweiser neon blinking in the window. Celine wrinkled her nose. It didn’t smell of stale beer like a frat basement, at least, but she thought several of the nice bikers could really use a bath.

The bartender waved them to one of the tables. Celine chose the one closest to the dart players. Thankfully the music was not so loud as to kill the possibility of conversation. Two bearded Sons holding beer mugs watched the third brother throw. One was saying to the other, “Yeah, I went to J.R.’s funeral in Denver. The chaplain stood up in front of two thousand One Percenters, I shit you not, said, ‘Every day I thank Gawd that today I haven’t killed anyone, or maimed anyone, or robbed anyone—and then I get out of bed!’”

Laughter. Celine gestured to the round patches of their colors—an eagle spread-winged over a Latin phrase in cursive.

“Donec Mors Non Separat, Pete. Pretty much the same as the wedding vow, Donec mors nos separaverit. Till death do us part. Something like Semper fi is less… marital, don’t you think?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t mention it.”

“Humph.”

They watched the waitress arrange three baskets on the table by the dart board. She waved at Celine. The bearded bikers smiled and thanked her. She fled. Not fast enough. The tallest, clean-shaven, with a long ponytail and bare arms and spiderweb tattoos at the elbows, reached out with the hand holding the dart and pinched the hem of her dress. He was lightning fast and it stopped her cold. She took another step against the pressure as if not willing to register the grab and Celine saw the cotton stretch flat against her thigh and stomach.

“Not so fast, girl. I said: Did you have salsa?”

The girl spun around. She was flushed under her freckles. “I didn’t hear you, sorry. There’s hot sauce on the table, sir.”

Spiderwebs cracked a grin. Two gold teeth flashed. He looked her up and down, sheathed in her twisted dress. He held the hem up between his fingers as if he were pinching a butterfly. Her leg was now exposed to the upper thigh. Celine could see the flower pattern on her underwear. “Sir,” he growled. “That makes me feel almost old. Hot sauce ain’t salsa.” He didn’t let go and the girl panicked. Celine could see it in her eyes. She muttered, “Sorry. I think we have some in the kitchen.” Celine could read her lips, and the girl’s hands went nervously to her hips where she tried to smooth down her tangled dress.

Pete saw his wife’s breathing become labored. She pursed her lips. He had carried in the oxygen condenser over his shoulder just in case, and now he turned it on and handed her the tubing. She was annoyed, but her eyes were big the way they were when they were looking for oxygen, and reluctantly she took the cannula and hooked it over her ears. She took two breaths, unhooked the tube, and stood up. Pete did not entreat her to sit back down. Nope, not in his job description. He simply turned the condenser off.

Spiderwebs had balled the hem of the girl’s dress into his fist, and she made to twist away. His free hand darted to her open button-collar in a fluid, practiced gesture. He hooked two fingers, covered the little gold crucifix that hung on a thin chain in the notch between her breasts, and he pulled just enough so that she had to take a stumbling half step to him. She looked wild, like a horse in a burning barn.

“Where we going? I ain’t in no hurry. Let’s talk about condiments. Sauce and the like. You got sauce, I bet. Hot, too.”

Celine took one last deep breath and slipped between two wooden chairs. She reached up and tapped Spiderwebs on his shoulder. He jumped. “Fuck!” He let go of the girl and wheeled around, fists up, and didn’t see anything until he looked down.

“Fuck was that?” he said. Across the fingers of one fist, one letter to a digit, was a big blue “FUCK”; across the other “OFF.”

“That’s very clever,” Celine said. “Fingers that make words. Remind me to tell you my tattooed-penis joke.”

The waitress took a second to register that she was free, and she gaped at Celine and shot across the floor to the swinging doors that led to the kitchen. Pete saw heads turn now. The Sons at the bar swiveled on their stools. The dancing girl on the table frowned. She had unbuttoned her vest and she was naked underneath.

Without breaking the man’s stare, Celine reached for a plastic bottle on the table beside her and held it up. “Salsa,” she said. “I guess no one noticed.” Spiderwebs unclenched a fist and took the bottle. He blinked. He had zero idea of what to make of this little old lady. Celine could see he was trying to summon his warrior’s rage but it had fled him in his confusion. Well, she could bring it back.

“That wasn’t very polite,” she said. “Do you always grab young women by the dress? Or hair, maybe? Maybe the only way you can ever get them to pay attention?”

The man’s mouth closed and his face hardened. His black eyes went opaque. Just like shutters clapping shut, she thought. He was a very tough customer. One of his buddies unplugged the jukebox.

“Granny,” he said. “I strongly suggest you sit the fuck back down. That’s me being merciful. Big-time.” Celine took three steps back. The 26 lay beneath her jacket under her ribs. If she had to draw down on the man, she didn’t want to be within his reach. She gauged the distance. She looked around the strange Montana crab shack. Half of the bikers were grinning.

“That’s right,” said Spiderwebs. “Back off. Be a good granny.” And he grinned, flashing the awful gold teeth.

“I think you should apologize,” she said. “To the girl. You can do it to me. I will represent my gender.” Celine straightened. She looked straight at the man, her eyes very serious, completely devoid of fear. She was very regal.

The space in the bar went taut. Pete heard a faucet behind the bar turn off, heard water dribble in a metal sink. He smelled now the full brew of sweat, unwashed clothes, beer, a lit cigar.

Spiderwebs licked his dry lips. Slowly, as if in a trance, he slipped something out of his leathers pocket—a clip knife, five-inch blade—and he thumbed it open. No hurry, almost savoring the practiced movements. Celine understood that the man was very dangerous.

“Granny,” he murmured, “do you want to die? I can help you with that.”

The faces of the men watching went to stone. No more big smiles. It was the anticipation of serious blood, or the fact that in three minutes they might all be running from a murder beef in Montana. That would take some fast tactical maneuvering. They were watching and listening with an intensity that was as ferocious as their death’s-heads.

Celine did not break his gaze. She licked her own dry lips. Everyone in the bar saw the gesture, tried to read it. “Young man,” she said finally, very clear, “I am already dead.”

The words hit the assembled watchers like a gust. It was the Samurai creed. The Legionnaires’. Their own. It hit them with a force of recognition: It was uttered with conviction, with simplicity, and with a total lack of fear. In every warrior’s heart is an absolute respect for simple courage, and every Son saw it in the woman, and it cut through even Spiderwebs’s trance. The knife no longer looked at home in his hand. Celine thought he could go either way.

“Just a minute,” she said. Her high cheeks had gone hollow and her eyes were shiny. She held to the back of a chair and breathed. Nobody moved. She nodded to Pete. He switched on the little condenser and handed her the cannula, which she pressed to her nose. She breathed for a full minute, handed it back.

She looked around the room. “I strongly suggest you boys quit smoking while you still have the best of life ahead of you.”

It was like letting air from an overinflated tire. Bikers all around the room let out a breath, shook their shaggy heads, murmured “Fuck was that?” One or two laughed, awkwardly, but nobody was having fun anymore. The bearded elder touched Spiderwebs on the shoulder and he folded his knife and jerked his head like he was clearing it from a dream. Pete heard somebody say they better saddle up if they were going to make it to Big Timber for happy hour. A giant man with a chevron patch, the sergeant at arms, paid the tab. One by one the Sons of Silence filed out. The jukebox was mute. In the suspended stillness left by their absence Celine and Pa heard the cough and roar of fourteen Harleys thundering to life.