Alabama Chrome E-Book

Mish Cromer

• Herausgeber: Cinnamon Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 316

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

With nothing but a collection of vinyl records without a player, a shoebox of memories, and a lot of secrets, Cassidy is used to being alone. But when his camper-van breaks down in a snowstorm and he is rescued by a kind young woman, Lark, he finds himself working in a small-town bar and becoming part of the community. But with the arrival of an inscrutable new waitress, Reba, Cassidy finds himself unsettled by a sense of recognition. And there are further complications as Brooke Adler, reality TV host and hero of the town's inhabitants, arrives unexpectedly to shoot a new show. Cassidy is drawn into protecting Reba from the ghosts of her past only to discover that his own ghosts are chasing him and that he must find the courage to speak the truth, or risk losing everything, again. A story of family, both given and found, and the long shadow of domestic violence, Alabama Chrome interrogates the masks of the modern world, and what true kindness means.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Epigram

1

2

3

Alabama Chrome

Mish Cromer

Published by Leaf by Leaf 

an imprint of Cinnamon Press 

Meirion House 

Tanygrisiau

Blaenau Ffestiniog 

Gwynedd, LL41 3SU

www.cinnamonpress.com

The right of Mish Cromer to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988. Copyright © 2020 Mish Cromer

Print ISBN: 978-1-78864-913-1

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-78864-919-3

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A CIP record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publishers. This book may not be lent, hired out, resold or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publishers.

Designed and typeset by Cinnamon Press.

Cover design by Adam Craig © Adam Craig.

Cinnamon Press is represented in the UK by Inpress Ltd and in Wales by the Books Council of Wales.

Acknowledgements

My heartfelt thanks go to the following:

Jan Fortune, Rowan Fortune and Adam Craig, at Cinnamon Press, for taking a punt on Alabama Chrome, then putting in so much work, so steadily and smoothly, despite a pandemic and lockdown. Aki Schiltz and the team at The Literary Consultancy. Alex Peake-Tomkinson for your skilful, detailed feedback. Alison Chandler, writer and teacher extraordinaire. Shanti Fricker and Anat Hinkis, for reading, sharing, and cheering me on. The patient and generous friends who found time to read and comment with intelligence and heart: Tracy Harvey, Lindsay Masters, Jenny Olivier, Susan Olivier, Harriet Wheeler, Marianna Weiner. Francis Bainton, for your thoughtful comments and encouragement. Little Molly, my Thursday companion and wise one. What would I do without you and your mama, Melanie Michelson?  To my beloved sisters and brother, Cristina Cromer, Alice Pack-Beresford, Tom Cromer, for the laughs we have and the love you give. 

Tom Frederikse, long ago you built me a safe harbour and have kept the lanterns burning ever since. Your constant support and love mean everything to me. Molly, Casey and Ruby, you are my inspiration. Nothing comes close to the love and respect I have for the three of you. It’s you who remind me that spring comes.

For Tracy Harvey and Jenny Olivier

Epigram

There is no agony like bearing 

an untold story inside you.

Zora Neale Hurston

1

If I don’t make a decision right now it’s going to be done for me, but the last one I made was for shit, and I knew it about five minutes after I left the interstate; this is a lonely road and the snow is squalling up so bad, I swear it’s becoming a blizzard.

I can’t ignore the rough-shod noise of my engine no more and there’s a burned-out smell that brings me out in a cold sweat. I’m nauseous. I want to spit up. Cold is creeping right into me and making me stupid. I got no sense of where I am; I could be a hundred feet from the nearest town or a hundred miles.

Engine spits, drops, kicks back. It spews black smoke then cuts out altogether. I steer the van smooth as I can and let it coast to a standstill at what may or may not be the side of the road; for all I know I’m on the edge of a precipice. Probably am; these backwood mountain roads usually are. If I’m lucky there’ll be trees to break my fall if I go over, but that makes me laugh and I think, Shit, I might be going a little crazy in this cold, because if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s lucky; they’ll have been cleared for timber for sure and over I’ll go, and right there would be your poetic justice.

I reach in back and grab the bedding, wrap it around me and then just sit. I sit, and try to keep my fear in check, while the snow tries to get inside. I can feel wind from all directions, right there inside the van, and I can hear it, sounding like hellcats screaming and howling out there in the nowhere. Every now and again the wind gets ahead of itself and almost lifts the van off of its wheels; it don’t for one single moment stop rocking and banging about in the wind.

The cold keeps growing and crawling over me. I have on every piece of clothing I own, but still my belly tightens and shudders, my jaw clenches so rigid it hurts and my body starts a short, hard, tight jerking on the inside that goes on and on; I can’t make it stop. And now I’m thinking strange, stupid thoughts about not being discovered till spring when the snow melts and uncovers my sorry ass and wishing I could tell Mama I love her. Right now, I wish that more than anything else in all the world. I want her to know it. And that I’m sorry.

My mind slips, slides away somewhere on thoughts of sunshine and water; a face smiling. The light around me is dazzling white and I can’t keep my eyes open no more. I shove my hands hard into the pockets of my coat, my shoulders bunched up around my neck so they ache, but I can’t relax and can’t stop my body from shuddering so hard I’m sure I’m about to bite through my tongue. I close my hand around the little box in my pocket and shut my eyes.

A dull thumping fills my head. Maybe it’s outside me somewhere, I can’t tell. Keeps on. Shut. Up. Please just let me, just let me sleep.

Muffled voices come from way off somewhere. I open half an eye, before the bright pierce of white light, a tilt of icy blue, makes me shut it tight again. I wonder if it’s God calling me and think of laughing, but this time I can’t get further than the thought. I can’t seem to make anything work.

Face of an old man is pressed up against the window and I wonder if that’s Him; A girl’s face comes into view and I think, now angels, but they don’t got fur lined hoods so far as I know and this makes me a little more determined to make out what she’s saying. I think it’ll be easier when I’m not so tired, so I turn away and try and ignore these clowns outside banging and thumping away, making out like I should follow the light.

Next thing I know, my fucking window’s been broke and I try and holler at them to get away, that I have a weapon, but the words don’t come and the girl, she’s crawled through the back and she’s unlocking the door and shoving at me and pulling and yelling things in my face and I give up. There’s no fight left in me and, truth be told, it’s been that way longer than I care to remember.

I’m in the cab of a high up truck, heat running, blanket wrapped around me, shivering so hard my teeth rattle and I’m sure I’m about to knock ’em right out. Angel in the fur hood is trying to get me to drink something steaming from a flask and talking up how lucky it is she took this route to work, otherwise who knows how long it would a been before somebody came across me. Old fellow posing as God is driving and tells me his name is Beau and that I’ll be alright now.

‘Lark,’ he says to the girl and I, stupid as I am, feel a lift that she’s a bird and not an angel; a creature like that is something I can believe in. ‘What do you say we take him to my place and see what’s what?’

‘Is Belle about?’ she asks, and the fellow tells her to use his cell phone and give her a call.

It ain’t no time before I’m sitting in his home by a wood burner, spooning some kind of thick soup into my clumsy mouth and trying to make sense of what’s going on. I can’t seem to make my fingers work right and worry I’m going to spill the soup. I put the spoon down and try focusing on whatever might be out of the window; ain’t much to see. The house stands in a clearing, that much I noticed when we pulled in. From here I can see the snowy yard, snow topped fencing, and a big ol’ barn with doors wide enough to take a tractor. A little way down the trees begin again.

The girl, Lark, comes over from the kitchenette and stoops to pour my soup into a big coffee mug. ‘Try it this way, you’re still so frozen it’s bound to be hard to hold anything right now.’ She hands me the mug and I close my hands around it, try not to shudder and lose the lot. ‘You got a name we can call you?’ She smiles.

I think for a moment, trying to get in gear. ‘You can call me Cassidy,’ I tell her. I lean back and close my eyes.

They talk together, real quiet, but I’m too tired to pay any attention anyhow and feel myself drift, before I whap my eyes open, startled by the feel of the mug slipping from my hands. It’s just her, though, the girl, taking it before I drop it, sweet look in her eyes. ‘Okay?’

I nod.

When the old fellow, Beau, is good enough to offer me a bed for the night, I speak up.

‘You don’t have to do that. You don’t even know me.’

He gives me a puzzled smile, gentle. ‘I know you need a bed,’ he says, and he looks right at me until I can’t meet his eye no more.

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I appreciate your kindness.’ I’m overcome with shame that I might cry in front of these strangers.

The next day, me and Beau make a trip to the local mechanics. We drive up a single-track from his home, leaving the creek, and woods behind us. Cab of his truck is warm and quiet. He don’t ask too many questions, just gives out a little here and there.

‘Look up there to your right. See that cottonwood?’

It’s a beauty, real tall, and I think how it might look in summertime.

‘I ain’t never seen one that big,’ I say, and I see him crinkle at the edges of his eyes.

‘We entered it for Champion Trees of Kentucky a while back,’ he says. ‘Got ourselves a special mention.’

I don’t ask what that is, and it don’t matter on account of he’s pointing out Main Street and showing me where his lady, Belle, has her beauty parlour.

‘That’s it right there with the pink and green awning, next to what used to be our local newspaper. But that’s gone now you young people get all your news online or from the TV.’

‘That’s too bad, I guess,’ I say, thinking that’s what he means.

‘Well, I’m not averse to progress, and that’s a fact, but it does seem a shame that every time something closes, more folks move away, aside from your old fool diehards like myself, of course.’ He does a rumble deep in his chest I understand to be his laugh, but sobers pretty quick and says, ‘But don’t get Belle started on that. Her pet project is…’ he breaks off to check his mirror and pull across to the other side of the road and eases in at the kerbside next to High Beam Auto Repairs and Diagnostics.

‘Now, let’s see if we can’t get you back on the road and on your way.’ I guess I’ll never know what Belle’s pet project is.

I get in front of him and hold open the heavy plastic curtain hanging over the open doorway and he goes in ahead of me. The floor is cement and oil, dirty rags and tools. Up on the wall, an old tube style TV is hanging out, tuned in to KYTV and turned up loud, trailing one of them reality shows Mama used to give the finger: Brooke Adler’s Random Acts of Kindness. There’s a music radio station on too and the sound of a blow torch working hard. Whole place smells good and familiar to me.

Somebody’s legs are sticking out from under a tow truck, greasy blue overalls and work boots are all I can see of him.

‘Is that you under there?’ Beau asks, bending to look. ‘Fellow here might have some work for you.’

Mechanic shoves a foot, comes rolling out on the dolly and sits up, reaching a hand out to Beau, who grabs it and pulls.

‘Well who the hell else is it going to be, Beau? You think there’s ever going to be enough work in this town for me to hire help?’

I get that feeling of surprise that makes me want to kick myself; Mama’d be shaking her head at me right about now. ‘I raised you better’n that,’ she’d tell me. ‘Never assume, it makes an ass out of u and me.’ I got so tired of that old joke I stopped hearing it, which tells you something maybe about how long it takes me to learn a thing. Or not.

Anyhow, the mechanic ain’t a fella at all, but a woman about my age maybe, thirty some and real tall and rangy, backwoods to the core; she got that pale-eyed, cagey look but it disappears the minute she smiles, which she does just about every time something comes out of her mouth, just not at me.

‘Hey,’ she says, leaning back against the truck and wiping her hands down her pants legs. ‘You must be the guy Lark pulled out of the snow. Lucky she came by.’ She turns her look on Beau again. ‘Did you ever see anything like it? Lark says her mama’n daddy remember an ice storm one spring to rival it, killed every last sprout they’d planted, but never saw a snowstorm like this in all their years farming.’

‘I can’t say I ever have,’ Beau tells her. ‘And damage to spring crops is going to be bad.’ He turns and puts a hand on my shoulder, and I flinch before I can think and that old fellow, he just squeezes and lets go with a pat, like he’s quieting a horse. ‘Cassidy, Evangeline here is our local doctor of all things to do with engines, like her daddy before her, and if she can’t get your van back on the road, it’s not going to happen.’

‘Lark says you’ll need your van towed?’

I nod, but I’m unsure of what I need, and I’m concerned that towing is just the tip of this iceberg; I think again about the noise and smell and swallow hard.

Evangeline is looking at me, suspicious and I would say, unfriendly. ‘Let’s get something straight, right off the bat. I do not run a good-will service here. Unlike everybody else in this damn town. I’m not towing no van for charity, you got it?’

‘Now look here, Ev,’ Beau starts in, ‘least you can do is get that sucker off the side of the road. It’s a hazard to all and as far as I can make out,’ he turns to look at me then and says, ‘it’s your home, am I right?’ I nod and look at the doorway. ‘If we don’t move it soon, someone else will and Cassidy here will lose anything he owns.’

‘Well, I can’t bring it here,’ Evangeline tells him, grudging. ‘I don’t have the space. Unless you’re good for the money,’ she says at me.

Something sparks then, inside me, fires up for a second and I look right back at her. Hard ass, I think, but truth be told I kind of admire her straight talk.

‘Do I look like a body who has any money?’ I ask her then, and she raises an eyebrow at me. First time, right there, that her smile is at me.

‘Levi’s looking for help,’ she says and I’m struck by a thought that leaves me feeling empty; I’m now a man with nothing better to do, no call on his time nor company; it don’t make no difference to nobody if I put up in a broken down mountain town and take a job.

‘Levi’s always looking for help,’ Beau cuts in.

‘What kind of help?’ I ask and the mechanic, she gets that look that tells me I ain’t no better than I am, who the hell am I to be picky?

‘Bar work. Does it matter? It pays.’

And I think, well, she’s right. Does anything matter? I put my hand in my pocket and tap, tap, my finger on the little box.

Beau offers me a ride to Levi’s, but I’m done being inside of things for now.

‘I’ll stretch my legs,’ I tell him. ‘Get a feel for the place.’

Evangeline snorts. ‘Looking for the bright lights?’ she asks and lowers herself onto the dolly again; she sure is salty.

Outside, Beau points the way we came, and tries to talk me out of walking.

‘Forecast says clear,’ he tells me. ‘But it’s real cold and about to get colder. You don’t want to be doing yourself another bad turn in the cold now, do you?’ But there’s something in his manner, unhurried, kind, like he won’t take it bad if I make up my own mind.

I set out on foot to get to know the place. It’s an old habit I have from a child.

When Mama and me came again to a new place, I’d roam about getting a feel for it, barefoot if I could, until I could find my way about in the dark if I cared to.

The auto shop is lonely on its own, just outside town, and the walk is further than I imagined. I get to wondering if I didn’t miss the turn in the road. There ain’t no kerbside, which is usual in these parts, so I walk along the paved road, keeping my ears sharp for oncoming vehicles.

Beau weren’t wrong; it is cold. And what began as a clear, pretty day, is fast clouding up and I’m starting to miss the winter sun that was. I pull the collar of my jacket closer around my neck.

A movement snags at the corner of my eye and right away lifts my spirit a little; I always did like to pace myself alongside a woodpecker. I like the way they fly; dipping and rising and getting ahead, then waiting. It’s a friendly sort of game, trying to see if you can catch up while it waits at the next tree, or electricity pole. When I was a boy, I liked to think they was showing me the way and I let myself think that right now.

I keep walking, striding long to get my blood going. I can hear the crunch of my feet on grit, but the snow, still laying out over everything, seems to muffle most other sounds excepting for the one or two that are sharper to my ear than they might otherwise be; silence and birdsong, calling and answering each other, and just for a moment the world good and clean. If I could just stay right here, with nothing but the birds and the trees to contend with, and this cold, sharp air that numbs everything, I might be okay.

The woodpecker gives up on me and starts pulling at loose bark, getting at something good to eat. I stop to watch him for a moment before the cold slides up my legs and presses at the bones behind my ears.

About a half hour after I leave Beau, the road widens and the trees thin out, and I find myself coming out into the open, the tarmac road widening out and sloping away towards a long, low row of square, flat-fronted stores and buildings. There’s a white striped painted crossroad, but only one of the crossings seems to take you anyplace. The other leads you straight into a big old pine-mulched bed of shrubs, weighed down with snow.

The square, brick, building on the corner, white paint peeling off of it everywhere you look, has a patchwork of bright painted murals telling you to LOVE where you LIVE historic Horse Neck Creek don’t drink and drive, y’all! Aside from that, there’s not a whole lot else to see.

I look about for the striped awning Beau showed me before and follow his directions to Levi’s Bar and Grill.

It stands in a dirty old parking lot, set back from the kerbside, with overfilled dumpsters and oil spills and who knows what else staining the paving. The whole place looks tired-er than me and just as used to it.

There ain’t no windows, and the metal door must be a security service put up after the bailiffs come in. I take a moment to wonder if Beau and Evangeline was messing with me; Levi’s long dead and gone and nobody’s home; nobody’s looking for help. But fixed above the flat roof is a red, neon sign, fizzing a little every now and then and telling me this here is Levi’s and there’s an arrow swooping down towards the beat-up metal door to emphasise the point.

Now I wouldn’t put it past that salty car mechanic to mess with a stranger for her own type of fun, but I can’t think it of Beau, so I pull at the door and it opens easy enough into a storm lobby papered all over with flyers telling about hardwood for sale, a deal on a four by four with trailer, and an All U Can Eat Pit Barbecue long since passed.

Tacked up onto the glass in the saloon door is a piece of paper reading: Last day to sign up for this month’s grocery run is the 21st, that’s THIS COMING THURSDAY folks! Sorry! NO exceptions! Thanks for helping us make this happen! Lark and Belle x. Somebody has drawn a little smiley face and heart next to their names.

Inside tells a whole different story to the sorry tale outside in the parking lot. It’s a big, dark, barroom, but lit nice, with green and red coloured glass shades. It’s longer than it is wide with framed photos over the walls of folks having wholesome, country-style fun and there’s a signed photo of what looks like it might be the inside of this very bar, with a band playing at one end.

I stand real still, enjoying the warm and slowly notice the signs of life; quiet sounds of busy; clatter of dishes, bottles in crates being moved about and music—radio maybe—coming up the back stairs.

As you might expect, there’s a long, dark-wood bar, beat and scuffed up, running all along the back wall, fronted by—ain’t no surprises here—slat-backed, padded leatherette bar stools swivelled towards a wall-hung TV over in the corner. I soon see it ain’t the only one in here; there’s numbers of them. They’re all over the damn place.

I call out towards the sounds of bottles being moved about and after a couple more hollers, a hefty fella in a green Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky t-shirt rolls through the doorway, behind the bar, and wipes his top lip with the back of his hand.

‘…do for you?’ he says, swallowing the front part of his sentence, and for a moment there I forget what I’m doing here. Or maybe I’m having second thoughts.

Levi tells me he has an opening for evening bar work, which suits me fine, and while he explains how the place works and how much he pays, I try and work out how long it’ll take me to earn enough to get my van fixed and move on. I give up after a minute, on account of how Levi calculates what he pays; they got minimum wage here in Kentucky, but, he says, as though I might start reading him my rights, the law says he don’t need to pay it if there’s tips involved.

‘I’ll have you working the bar and you’re in control, see?’ he says. ‘It’ll incentivise you—you know what that means? It’ll incentivise you to be decent to my customers.’

An older woman, beech-nut coloured hair done up like she’s going someplace, straightens from over the other side of the bar where she’s been setting up a microphone and messing with some tables and chairs.

‘The law says,’ she calls out, in a friendly voice. ‘The law says that if your employees don’t make minimum wage with their tips, the employer—that would be you, Levi, honey—the employer needs to make it up.’

She makes her way across the barroom and puts her hand out and I take it in mine. In that instant, I realise I haven’t touched another person’s skin in months and it pricks at me, almost makes me dizzy. I take my hand back, stroking at it with my other one.

She talks with her hands, and her wrists, loaded as they are with silver and turquoise bracelets, make a fine, jingle-ringing while her hands are non-stop coaxing and shaping the air about her; it’s like she’s sketching the pictures of what she’s saying.

‘I don’t know you,’ she says to me, as though this is a thing of wonder. She looks me over, head to toe and back again and smiles. ‘I’m Belle and if you have any questions or suggestions, you just come on over and talk to me.’

She’s tall, a big woman, almost looks me right in the eye and it’s a real seeing look she gives; I look away. So, this is Belle.

‘Is this here your place too, ma’am?’ I ask.

‘Mercy, no!’ She laughs, and I get a flash of a couple gold teeth. ‘I have the beauty parlour on Main, that’s my baby. But I’m here a good deal of the time, just like everybody else. Levi’s is the front porch of our town.’

That makes me smile and she smiles right back. ‘Now before you head out, come and help me move these tables and tell me a little something about yourself.’ She’s turned and walking back to her arrangement.

I look at Levi, wondering if we’re done.

‘I know better than to get in her way,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you back here tomorrow night, 5pm. Don’t let me down.’ He rumbles on while he rolls out back and I heft a few tables about for Belle, relieved that her questions about where I’m from and what I’m doing here are easily satisfied by a few general answers.

Heading up from the basement to start my first bar shift, I see the girl, Lark, in the kitchen, scraping food off of a way high stack of dishes and getting to work on them with her bare hands. Steam is clouding up from the sink in front of her. It’s hot and the whole cramped-up room is full of noise: radio blaring, machines working and that never-ending TV—there’s one in Levi’s office, hollering accusations out of the open door. I guess she can’t hear that I’ve stopped on my way upstairs.

She’s got her back to me and two things make me stay and look a little longer. She’s pulled her sunshine-coloured hair into a top-knot while she works, so I can see right away that she keeps secrets under there; one, she’s got herself the shortest buzz-cut I ever seen on a girl, right up to the tops of her ears, dark, like her eyebrows. And two, there’s a tattoo curling, delicate and twining up the nape of her neck and behind her ear. I get the strongest urge to get up a little closer and see what it is; words maybe? Flowers on a vine?

She turns to pull a plastic tub full of dirty dishes towards her and the moment she sees me her face breaks into a big, wide smile. A dark flush climbs her throat and spreads out across her cheeks. She looks clean scrubbed.

‘Hey, there,’ she says and wipes the sweat from her top lip with the back of her hand. ‘I didn’t see you there.’ Her voice carries across the noise, strong and cheerful, but her dark eyes never land for long on mine.

She looks around me, behind me, above my head, catches my eye for a beat—all the while smiling—but then she’s back to looking about the place for whatever it is distracting or troubling her. I look over my shoulder, but ain’t nobody about but us.

‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her, realising at last that I’m making her uncomfortable and I turn to leave.

‘How are you getting on?’ Her arms, which she was holding a little wide of her body, hands flexed open and dripping sudsy water, relax somewhat. She takes a step my way.

I nod and give her a bit of a smile. ‘I thought you taught elementary school,’ I say, and—bam—feel stupid right away; I sound like I’m accusing her of something.

‘I do,’ she says. Then she pulls her mouth to one side like she’s thinking what to say or how to say it. It brings out a dimple. It disappears the minute she relaxes her mouth, but I saw it for sure and it makes her look less troubled.

‘You know…’ she tells me after a moment, ‘most teachers I know work at least one extra job.’

Somehow that gives me a discouraged feeling, I can’t say why. Might be because she’s got schooling and me, I don’t, but here we both are in the same boat? I don’t know. So much for The American Dream.

‘I help out on my mama and daddy’s farm too, you know,’ she says, and I nod and try and picture her there, but I don’t know what kind of farm it is.

You can see she works hard, though. From them hands all calloused that she plunges bare skinned right into heated water, to the solid kind of way she holds herself. You can see it.

And for all she’s a little bitty thing barely comes up to my shoulder, the way she stands there in them rubber kitchen clogs, feet planted, shoulders back, arms held away from her body, if a strong wind came, it don’t look like she’d blow over.

2

Well, it weren’t what I’d had in mind for myself, that’s for sure, but I don’t need no body to tell me there are worse places I could have found myself, all things considered. And the truth of the matter is, when I left home in Mama’s old camper van, with nothing for company but a six-foot-wide collection of vinyl records, once owned by somebody she called ‘your daddy,’ the only thing I was thinking was, drive.

TV is permanently on in here and over the past year I been working Levi’s bar, it’s got so I hardly hear it, despite he likes it up loud. He says it gives the place ambience, which is the longest word ever came out of his mouth, I can tell you. I ain’t even certain he knows what it means—kills a mood if you want to know the truth, with all them weather reports blurting out and that never-ending Brooke Adler with her Random Acts of Kindness and getting folks to call in and tell her where the do-gooders are now.

But Levi, he don’t like the bar to be in silence which, being empty best part of the day it would be. Or so I’m told. Closing my eyes at night is not something I rush into and even when I try it, sleep don’t come easy to me, so it suits me just fine that Levi likes to have me on nights. He’s old school; thinks that me being a guy adds security to the place.

‘Cassidy!’ he’s hollering at me from other side of the entire room and that’s some length. ‘I see that suggestions box is spilling its guts again. See that you deal with it, like I pay you to do.’

He’s away and through the door that leads down to the kitchen before I finish telling him I’m on it, but he still manages to holler back, ‘Then get on it!’

He’s okay though, Levi, and don’t fuss about things that help me out, like paying me cash in hand. I push the suggestions box out of the way; I don’t need to read Evangeline’s complaints about the wrong pork rinds just now and ain’t much I can do about it anyhow, on account of they closed the local Walmart months ago; she’s gon have to make do with generic rinds to go with her beer, just like eve’body else.

I settle back into my usual spot behind the bar, with the way-high mirror running right along the length of it to my left and look about the place for who’s in tonight. It’s a good spot; I see folks come in before they see me.

The door opens and Belle comes in with Beau, arm linked in his and they’re laughing, Belle swatting at him and makin like she’s gon walk right back out again. Beau, always the gentleman, pulls out a bar stool for her, before he sets himself down in his usual corner seat.

‘Look at you like a long-handled broom, propped up there in the corner,’ Belle says, arranging herself, then her hair.

This is not a new observation from Belle, but it always makes someone laugh and I don’t grudge her that. Lark’s right on their heels and shoots me as sweet a smile as always and I’m glad to see it, but for just a twist of a second I’m spooked by the softening it sets off in me and miss the moment to smile back at her.

‘Hey, Lark.’ I’m already reaching for a glass and shovelling ice into it but I ask her just the same. ‘Vodka cranberry?’

‘Hey, Cassidy, start me a tab, would you? I’m meeting Evangeline.’ She hops up onto a barstool next to Belle, who’s giving Beau the long, low-down on something that’s evidently bothering her and makes a big old sigh before looking up at the screen above the bar.

‘If Ev don’t get here soon, she’s going to miss tonight’s Random Act of Kindness.’ I roll my eyes at her and she laughs, flushes pink.

‘What? It’s fun. I love that it’s about the kind things people do and and,’ she stops while I turn the volume up a little on the sound system as the bar fills with a more rowdy crowd. ‘I love it because Brooke Adler…’ she stops so suddenly I look close at her to see if she’s okay. ‘She grew up around here, you know.’

She give a look then, hopeful almost, like a child and for the first time since knowing her, I think I see something I never knew till now; Lark has dreams and they’re bigger than her daddy’s farm and teaching fourth grade at Horse Neck Creek Elementary school. I get a pull of melancholy and almost say, this is it, honey, but I don’t have the heart and anyhow, what do I know? Maybe this ain’t it for Lark.

When Evangeline finally arrives, smelling of marijuana smoke and axle grease, Lark does like always and says, ‘What’s the news?’

This kind of gives me a smile on account of there ain’t none, mostly. Folks come and go, get drunk, stay sober, fight and fuss, but ain’t much of anything you’d call news; this here’s a nothing happening kind of town.

‘How are you, hon?’ Belle breaks off from talking to Beau and turns to Ev. ‘Did you get my message about the theme for our next Porch Lies?’

‘Lord have mercy, you people don’t have a single heart between the bunch of you; give a woman a moment to catch her breath, will you?’ Ev says, fussing and scooching stools about till she got em just the way she wants them. ‘Cassidy?’

‘What can I get you, Ev?’ I ask, like she don’t always have the same thing every time she come in this place.

‘Fame and fortune? A little respect?’

I push a bottle of Kentucky Ale over her side of the bar and don’t bother with a glass. She settles good on the barstool and takes a long drink.

Right about now is when Evangeline will say something about there ain’t never any news anyhow and settle into her own personal commentary on Random Acts of Kindness as it plays above her head, but if she do or don’t, I miss it tonight because the new waitress has just come on for her shift and she’s causing a bit of excitement around here, that’s for sure.

First off, she don’t talk unless it’s something to do with the job. Second, everybody’s wanting to know how she coaxes the kind of tips she’s getting, out of even the meanest-fisted old farmers and some of your less imaginative folks are wondering if she’s turning tricks out back. People sure talk ugly when they see something they want, but can’t figure out how to get it.