Hammerhead Ranch Motel

28

The day that City and Country left Alabama for Florida, they didn’t know they were going until they were already driving.

Friday, nine A.M., City began her shift at Piggly Wiggly on register eighteen, ringing up an economy box of candy corn, off-brand hair spray and ninety-nine-cent false eyelashes. Back at the apartment, Country put on her uniform and nametag and walked out the front door. On Monday, Country’s Pinto had blown a gasket, whatever that meant. The mechanic had put the Pinto on the lift, wiped his brow with a greasy rag and undertaken the highly technical diagnostic procedure of trying to guess the maximum amount Country would agree to pay. The figure was way off, and the Pinto had sat ever since in a sea of disabled, gutted cars and free-range dogs behind Big A1’s Garage and Beverage at the county line on State Road 67. When their boss, Mrs. Frigola, learned that Country depended on City for transportation, she staggered their shifts an hour, and Country was forced to buy a fifteen-dollar banana bike with a loose chain at Crimson Tide Pawn. For the third day, Country climbed on the high-handlebar child’s bike and pedaled off for work four miles away. The first two days, Country arrived at the supermarket sticky, tired and late. Frigola said if it happened again, she was fired.

Ten A.M., City rang up a sack of pork rinds and checked her watch, then the front door. No Country. She looked over at Frigola, who was watching the door with a blend of rage and delight.

Ten-forty A.M., City saw Country through the front window of the Piggly Wiggly, drenched, walking a banana bike dragging a broken chain, forty minutes late. Country leaned the bike against the shopping carts and walked through the automatic door. Frigola waited until she was well inside and loudly fired her in front of everyone.

City bit her lip. She prayed: Country, don’t say anything. Don’t hit her, and definitely don’t cry.

Country didn’t. She just turned and walked out. City stopped ringing up items mid-customer and ran after her.

Frigola yelled, “You leave and you’re fired, too!” but City never looked back.

Ten P.M., City and Country were peeling the labels off their fourth beers at The Hole in the Wall, a dive on the far side of town from campus favored for the eighty-five-cent longnecks. City’s Torino was two hundred yards down the road from the bar, where it also had broken down. All in all, not a good week for the girls. As the house band mangled “Brown Sugar,” City and Country resigned themselves to the most constructive course of action. Unwind, maybe get a little wild, and put the day’s events behind them. Get a good night’s sleep and start checking the classifieds.

The bar was bare bones. Every surface was wood and had been gouged and regouged with large knives. There weren’t any windows, just thick wire mesh and roll-down shutters. In the men’s room, the urinal was a long trough along one wall filled with ice and disinfectant cakes, and the sink was a large rounded trough on the other wall. There was a sign above it: “This is a sink!”

It was a loud crowd and City and Country had to shout to talk. The crowd was almost all locals, but there was a table against the side wall with two frat boys and a sorority chick who’d decided to go slumming. From the trio’s plurality of affections, it was clear neither of the guys was the woman’s steady, but both wanted in her pants. It was also clear that Sorority Sister was a damn fine juggler, holding both their interest without committal. City nudged Country and pointed. One of the guys was looking their way, then both were looking. Soon they were waving City and Country over.

The guys didn’t look too shabby, kinda young and adorable-Andrew McCarthy types-and City winked at Country and they stood up.

City and Country counted ten empty longnecks and the dregs of five pink poodle drinks as they arrived at the table. The frat brothers stood and held out chairs as City and Country sat down, but Sorority Sister’s body language said the fur was standing up on her back.

The sister was an eye-catching Marilyn Monroe blonde with a name straight from the heart of Dixie -Billie Joe Bob (“Bo”). She was five-six with a string of add-a-beads, a cute little Valerie Bertinelli nose, big tits showcased in a tight pink sweater. But in the end, she was a peroxide-and-pancake makeup beauty, whereas City and Country were the Real McCoys, and everyone at the table knew it.

Five minutes into the conversation. “So you girls work at Piggly Wiggly…” said Billie Joe, and she let a snicker escape. “That’s just lovely. How bucolic.”

The men were overcome with beer-chuckles and grinned at Billie Joe.

City smiled, too, as she noticed the three triangles of the Delta Delta Delta sorority on the woman’s sweater.

“I heard a good joke,” said City. “If you can’t get a date, tri-Delta.”

The guys broke up laughing even harder this time and turned to the unamused Billie Joe, and the guys’ expressions retreated to serious.

The band rolled into “Born on the Bayou,” and the guy on the left shouted, “I love this song!” He started to ask City to dance, but Billie Joe clamped onto him and nuzzled into his neck. Before she knew it, the other guy had taken Country’s hand and headed for the dance floor. One of the juggling balls had just fallen.

When that guy got back from the dance floor and sat down, Billie Joe put a hand on his thigh under the table-and the other guy popped up and asked City to dance. It went on this way for hours; Billie Joe could keep a grip on either one she wanted, but not both. A game of sexual brinksmanship, the old bird-in-the-hand dilemma, and the longer it went on, the more Billie Joe knew she risked losing both.

The alcohol kept coming-more longnecks and poodle drinks-everyone getting seriously bent. Billie Joe leaned over the table to Country. “Want a taste of this? It’s really good.” As she leaned, she whispered “bitch” and dumped the whole pink drink square in Country’s chest.

Everyone was on their feet, suddenly awake. “I’m such a klutz,” said Billie Joe. The guys were grabbing napkins from nearby tables. Billie Joe smirked at Country.

Then things took an unexpected turn. In the chaos, both frat boys were soon leading City and Country to the dance floor as the band began “Long Cool Woman” by the Hollies. Billie Joe was aghast-all the juggling balls had hit the floor.

“…Saturday night I was downtown, working for the FBI…”

Both couples had their arms around each other’s neck. Back at the table, Billie Joe found an unfinished beer and drained it, grabbed her purse and got up.

On the dance floor, Country broke off from her date. Under the influence, she closed her eyes and did a sexy grind in the middle of the floor. She threw her hips in synch with the music and ran her hands slowly down the outside of her legs.

“…Suddenly we heard a siren, and everybody starting to run-jumpin’ up across the table when I heard somebody shootin’ a gun…”

Space cleared around Country and everyone else’s dancing slowed. The floor was in dim red light, and Country now started running her hands up the inside of her thighs. Her hips gyrated in a slow circle to the song’s chorus. Her eyes were still closed but her full lips had opened wide and hungry. One of the Andrew McCarthys took a step back and said, “God damn!” Even the band was distracted.

Then, just as her hands reached the tops of her thighs-in perfect time with the tempo change in the last verse-Country’s arms shot up over her head, and she began shaking her shoulders and hips like a go-go dancer.

With that signal, everyone else joined in and danced their heads off.

“…I told her don’t get scared cause you’re gonna be spared-I’d rather be forgivin’ if I wanna spend a livin’ with a long cool woman in a black dress…”

At the end of the number, everyone on the floor cheered and clapped for themselves. City and Country pecked the men on the cheeks and excused themselves for the ladies’ room, giggling along the way like schoolgirls.

Inside, they examined themselves in the mirror to see how hammered they looked. Everything was checking out fine when they heard a weird noise coming from one of the stalls.

City and Country looked at each other puzzled and then back at the stall. Some kind of chaos inside, bumping around, then cursing. A leather bag hit the floor and the contents of a woman’s purse scattered under the stall door and onto the tiles of the restroom: lipstick, hairbrush, dispenser of contraceptive foam, car keys, cocaine vial.

More cursing.

The stall door opened and Billie Joe started to reach down for her belongings. When she saw City and Country, she stopped and stood up straight. She held a small lacquer tray and a steak knife she had gotten from the short-order kitchen, to chop at a Peruvian pebble. Her jeans were around her ankles and panties at her knees. Powder all over her nose and smeared on her left cheek. She was wreckage.

City and Country were stunned silent, but Billie Joe looked at them and yelled, “Youuuuu!”-accusation, verdict and sentence all in one syllable. She pointed the steak knife at them and charged, except her clothes were still around her legs and she was only able to manage a ridiculous waddle. City and Country had to hold each other up they were laughing so hard. Then Billie Joe ran out of steam and toppled forward on her face.

City and Country fell into hysterics. They resisted looking back at Billie Joe because it would only bust them up again; their sides were aching and they were having trouble getting air.

City finally looked back and her face changed. “Wait! What the hell is this!” A deep purple pool was spreading out from under Billie Joe. Country leaned forward and saw the tip of the steak knife sticking out the back of Billie Joe’s neck.

“Jesus!”

She flipped Billie Joe over, pulled the bloody knife out of her throat and flung it aside. When the blade came out, the severed jugular squirted all over Country, and she grabbed the woman’s neck trying to stop the bleeding. The more life leaked out of Billie Joe, the harder Country squeezed.

It was no use; blood was still getting out, and it was over in seconds.

Country stood and saw blood on her hands and wiped them on her jeans.

City was jumping up and down. “Oh my God! We’re dead!”

“What are you talking about?” shouted Country.

The pair did a quick once-around the restroom. Knife with bloody fingerprints under a toilet, more bloody fingerprints on the bruises on Billie Joe’s neck, and blood all over Country.

She began to shake. “We didn’t do anything!”

“Listen to me!” said City. “This is Alabama -I know about separate justice. She’s some rich bitch and we’re poor trash.”

“We didn’t do anything!”

City looked at the door and pointed. “Lock it!”

Country ran for the dead bolt and turned it fast, and City started scooping the contents back into Billie Joe’s purse.

“What are you doing?” asked Country.

“We gotta get outta the state. There’s some money here.”

“Neither of us has a car.”

“She does,” said City, holding up the set of keys with an Alfa Romeo fob. “There can’t be more than one Spider outside in the lot. Let’s just hope the guys didn’t drive.”

There was a pounding on the door, a woman’s voice. “I gotta pee!”

City opened the door fast and both of them knocked over the waiting woman as they ran out. They turned down a side hallway, away from the dance floor, and burst out the plywood back door and into the parking lot.