The Rusty Rear
By Diane Dahlstrom

The blinking arrow on the roadside tavern sign pointed at Dick’s Mustang as if it was begging to give him up.  It was parked in front of a flat roofed windowless building called The Rusty Rear.  I slammed on my brakes and skidded sideways into the parking lot.  My minivan kicked up a dust storm onto a motorcycle gang. Leathered, pierced, and tattooed, they were a grimy looking lot, about a baker’s dozen of them all together.  They were smoking pot and stuffing beers into their saddle bags.  Choking and calling me names, they flipped me off.  I grinned, welcoming the verbal abuse.  It stoked my fire.

I‘d been in a bad way since I got the report back. I don’t know why I was shocked.  It‘s not like I believed his stupid lie about golfing every afternoon.  He wouldn’t know a five iron from a curling iron.  Then there’s the hair dye.  The contacts.  An aftershave that could be used for tear gas. It all started adding up.  That’s why I hired a PI.  A picture’s worth a thousand words even if it does slap you in the puss.  There was no more denying that while I’d been slaving away behind a word processor, making big bucks writing murder mysteries, Dick had been playing Barbie with a young doll. So here I am, at this out-of-the-way dive, spinning donuts in the gravel riling up some motorcycle gang, priming myself for Dick.

After I had my fun, I let off the gas and rolled down the passenger’s side window.  Creeping past the bikers, I mocked their facial gestures and flipped them off back.  One of them, a derelict with a tattoo of a rat on his cheek and a long leg, kicked my door.  I stopped and hoisted my purse off the seat.  It was bulging with a hodgepodge of small weapons. I was up in the air about how to write Dick’s ending, so I just brought along whatever I thought might do the trick.  Anything lying around the house that was meant to protect, slice or exterminate critters, and that could be repurposed to maim and kill, got tossed in my purse.  The pearl handle of my little revolver was peeking out of the top.  I petted it with my index finger.  “Would you like to say ‘Hey’ to my newest best friend?” I said, snickering and snorting.

Rat-face called me a psycho bitch.  I put the pedal to the metal and spun another donut before swerving alongside Dick’s car.  I flung the shifter into park.

I touched up my red lipstick and reorganized my purse so I could zip it up.  I opened my door and literally slid off the seat in my shiny leggings.  Luckily, I landed upright on my stilettos.  The bikers climbed onto their hogs, kick started them, and marked their territory by spinning donuts of their own. Tit for tat. I laughed out loud.  They peeled out onto the highway doing wheelies.  I took a hit off their dust, suctioning it into my mouth like an Electrolux.  It tasted gross, but it was true grit.  Just what the doctor ordered.  I relished it until my lungs spewed it back out.  

I brushed myself off, fluffed my long haired wig, and hid my face behind a pair of purple cat eye sunglasses.  My feet cringed inside the stilettos.  My purse on my shoulder made me lopsided. Then, to add insult to injury, I got a hot flash.  I hobbled over to Dick’s Mustang, leaned against the hood and fanned myself.  When the hot flash passed I approached the orange door and let myself inside.

The Rusty Rear was your typical hullabaloo of shout-talking, crashing pool balls, and tinny jukebox music. It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the dim-lighted smog.  When the curtain lifted, I noticed the pool tables divided the booth side of the room from the bar.

A few workmen, grandma moses and an old coot were sitting at the bar.  Behind it, glowing in a whiter than white tee shirt, was the spitting image of Mr. Clean.  He was giving the bar top a good scrubbing.  The floor and nicked up wooden walls of the place were grimy, but the red formica, beneath the bartender‘s towel, shined.  He was checking me out.  He wasn’t mentally undressing me, though.  He didn’t need to.  My painted on tank top and leggings left nothing to the imagination.  My common sense told me to run while I still could.  The woman who just scared off a motorcycle gang ordered me to flippin’ stay.

The Rusty Rear’s Mr. Clean wasn’t goofy looking like the character on the bottle.  His mouth was a straight line.  His zigzagging eyes were hypnotic and distracted me from my mission at hand. I met his gaze with a gaze of my own then let the squeaky clean-cut, ivory, muscle-bound, scrubber reel me in.  I lost the hobble, gritting my teeth beneath closed curved lips as I painfully walked like a normal person towards him.  I set my purse down on the bar and clambered onto the round barstool.  Like greased lightning, I slid off of it onto the floor.  It was as if Scotty beamed Mr. Clean over to me.  Before I even processed what had happened, he was there helping me up.  I waited for the guffaw to start, but the bartender seemed to be the only one who even noticed I was there.  He wrapped his hard warm hands around my hands and pulled me to my feet.  He reached over the bar and pulled up a clean towel.  He draped the towel over the seat, for traction I supposed, then picked me up by the waist.  “Upsy-daisy,” he said, lifting me onto the stool.

“Thank you, Mr. Cle--”

“Gene.  The name’s Gene.”

“Thanks Gene.”

“You’re welcome, Miss…?”

Giving out my real name didn’t seem prudent.  I went with the first thing that came to mind.  “Missy,” I said.  “You can call me Missy.”

His raised eyebrow told me he wasn‘t buying it.  I was a good fiction writer, but sucked at lying.  He nodded, acknowledging that who I really was was really my own business.    Whistling, he walked around to the other side of the bar.  “Okay…Missy…what‘ll it be?”

“Ummm…let me see,” I said, losing my train of thought.  I looked over my shoulder for Dick. A girlish cackle, slicing through the din, drew my wandering eye to its owner.  She was sitting in a booth alongside her lover, my husband.  Her hair was black and pink and looked like it had been trimmed with a hatchet.  Her hands and arms were snakes squirming all over Dick as he sat there with a grin pasted to his old face.  My stomach wrenched.  I needed something stiff.  Something to steady my nerves.  I looked at Mr. Clean.  “I’ll have a Trigger Finger Special, please.”

He gave his wide head a little puppy shake.  “A who?”

“On second thought, make it a Widow Maker.”

“A Widow Maker it is, Missy.”

I put my purse on my lap and unzipped it.  Carefully wedging my hand through the arsenal inside it, I found my wallet. When Mr. Clean came back with my drink, I handed him a ten.  “Put your money away…Missy,” he said.  “It‘s on the house.  We owe you.”

“It‘s not the house‘s fault I bit the dust.”

“Our barstools can be lethal.”

“So can my pants.”

Chuckling, he nodded and studied my face.  “So what‘s up with the getup?”

“What?  You don’t believe I’m a ho?”

He leaned over resting his forearms on the bar.  Cheek to cheek, a hint of aftershave tickled my nose. His breath tickled my ear.  I took a swig of my drink.  It was warm and tingly going down.  “I know who you are and what you’re up to,” he said.

He winked at me, and went back to whistling and strong arming the red formica.

The concoction inside me turned into acid reflux.  I spit it into my napkin.  I couldn’t believe I was busted and I hadn’t even done anything yet.  I could feel myself turning gray.  I took another swig.  This one stayed put.  I relaxed, collected my thoughts, and realized that unless Mr. Clean was a mind-reader there was no way in hell that he could know about my plan to kill Dick.  “So, you think you know me, eh.”

He leaned in towards me.  “I’ve read all your books.  I‘m your biggest fan,” he whispered.

We were two peas in a pod of drinking and merriment.  “You don’t have to whisper, Gene.  Nobody’s listening.”

“I am,” he said, starry eyed.

“I can’t believe you recognized me.”

“I’ve been to all your book signings.  I know what you look like.  Your costume doesn‘t really hide much, you know.”

“So, what am I up to?”

“You’re here, undercover so to speak, researching your next novel.  The drink.  The garb.  My guess is: it’s about a serial killer hooker who kills off her married customers.  Your title: The Widow Maker.”

His insight was eerie.  I liked that.  I laughed.  “Good guess.”

“May I suggest that you make the bartender your hero.  He‘s a good guy, you know.”  

Mr. Clean’s lightheartedness was putting a damper on my urge to kill Dick.  I never disillusioned myself with thinking I’d actually get away with it.  I figured the satisfaction I’d get from snuffing the old ass would be an even trade-off for “life” in prison.  It’s amazing how different things look when they’re not coated in anger.  At this point, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was worth it.  An eye for an eye.  What good does it do?    Does it really make you feel better?  Or is it all about just making you feel something different.  Something other than feeling alone and unwanted, for instance.  In a very short time Mr. Clean made me feel something I hadn’t felt in years--alive.  Maybe revenge was better off left to karma--I looked over at Dick and the girl--or maybe not.

They were out on the dance flooring dirty dancing.  It was like they were stuck together at the torsos with Velcro.  I would’ve been embarrassed for him if I didn’t have a jackhammer pounding against the wall of my chest. “Those two ought to get a room, if you ask me.” Mr. Clean said, unwittingly pushing the jackhammer to its limit.

A wave of lightheadedness washed over me.  I drifted out-of-body.  Like a fly on the wall, I watched myself reach into my purse and curl my fingers around the cool pearl handle of my revolver.  ‘Let’s just get it done and over with,’ I heard myself think.  ‘A gun would be quicker, more effective at a distance than my other weapons.’  

With my free hand, I watched myself guzzle the rest of my drink.  The buzz gave this surreal me the courage I needed to commit murder. Revved up, I slapped the glass down onto the bar.  It shattered.  A shard cut my finger.  I felt no pain, just the warmth from the blood oozing out. 

Mr. Clean reached under the bar and whipped out a first aid kit.  He took my finger.  Like a magician with a bag of tricks he did his magic.  He dabbed the blood off my finger with a cotton ball then wrapped a bandage around my wound.  His quick movements snapped me out of my delirium. My brain fog dissipated.  His gentle touch drew out the venomous intent inside me.  He kissed my finger to make it to make it better. I let go of the gun and freed that hand from my purse.   “No more Widow Makers, for you,” he said, jokingly.  

I looked again at the old man hopping around the dance floor like his thing was caught in a vice grip.  What was I thinking, I thought.  The man I had planned on being with forever was no more.  You can’t murder somebody that’s already dead.

“Okay, Gene, scratch the Widow Maker,” I said, grinning at the moaning spectacle on the dance floor.  “How about a Dirty Dog?”

Seeing what I saw, Gene slapped the red formica bar top and roared.  “You‘re a riot, you know that?”

“You’re not so boring yourself,” I said.

“Does that mean the bartender gets to be the hero in your novel.”

“You got it.”

“And the hero gets the girl?”

“He gets her, alright.”

“My shift is just about over.  Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

“Only if we can blow this pop stand.”

“There’s a nice coffee house in town.  We can talk shop.”

“Shop?”

“Murder mysteries.  You write them.  I read them.  We got a lot in common you and me.”

While I waited for Mr. Clean to finish up his work, I took off my shoes and excused myself to the restroom to lose the make-up and the wig. Footloose and stiletto-free I made my way across the room with ease.  Dick and the girl were back at their booth.  Just for the hell of it, and because old habits die hard, I took the scenic route.  The girl was slurping her drink through a straw.  He was sitting there like a slouched bag of wind.  I locked him into my sight as I passed by.  If looks could maim, the grim maimer would be stretching him like silly putty about right then.  But instead of writhing with torn ligaments, he was batting his eyes.  And it wasn‘t at me, either.  I’ve seen that look before.  The cigarette smoke was drying out his contacts.  He didn’t see me.  What else is new?  I took a deep breath and told the devil yanking my chain to take a hike.

In the restroom, I said goodbye to the glasses and wig before tossing them into the waste can.  I washed my face.  Looking in the mirror, I took a moment to study the fine lines mapping out another phase of my life.   I smiled at the person behind the smiling eyes.  Age is a gift if you like being alive.

Rummaging through my purse, I found my comb caught between a jackknife and a taser.  I pulled it out and plunked the purse on the floor.  I was primping my hair, making a mental note about freshening up my highlights, when Dick’s girlfriend traipsed through the door.  She was singing. 

My better judgment told me to pack up and leave.  But the girl was a fast urinater.  I had barely begun debating the issue with the little horned creature, reclining on my shoulder, when the stall door popped open.  Out she came, wiggling and wobbling.  She accidentally kicked my purse as she approached the sink.  A canister of Mace rolled out. She plucked it up with her black glittery talons and handed it to me.  “Sorry about that, Ma’am.”  She was one of those people that talked in your face.

“Thanks,” I said, wiping the saliva spray off my cheek.

“If I were you, I’d use it,” she whispered, even though we were the only ones in the room. 

“Say what?”

“Your breath spray.  You could use a shot,” she said, wrinkling her nose.  

My nice little revolver popped into mind.  You could use a shot, yourself, is what I wanted to say.  But the devil came up with a plan I could live with.  “This isn’t breath spray, my dear.”  Looking into her vacant stare I could see she wasn’t a contact wearer.  My guess was she knew nothing about them.  I’m not a murderer, I realized once and for all. I don’t even feel vengeful anymore.   I’m a just a descent woman who could sure use a good laugh.  “It’s contact lubricant, my dear.”

“How’s it work?” she asked, taking the bait.

“I just spray it into my eyes when my contacts dry out.  It works great,” I told her.

“Could I borrow it?  My boyfriend’s contacts are driving him bonkers.”

I gave her instructions on how to use it, took it off safety (just to be on the safe side), and then handed it to her.  “Be his heroine, honey.  Surprise him with a quick fix.

Her eyes grew wide with the anticipation.  “Thanks, Ma’am!”

“You’re so very welcome, sweetie.”

I followed her out and watched her finger caressing the red trigger.  A split second before Dick looked at her, he saw me for the last time.