Faye.2

Quite some time back in June, I posted about an N3 character I call Faye. Back then, I said a lot of nebulous stuff, but she has taken on the scale of life. Below excerpted, Faye first appears. N3 is about Chet and a girl called Lostine:

“My eyes kept going to the mass of chrome ankle chain the dancer up on the bar flashed above open-toed, soot-black stiletto heels - her toenails painted maybe dark blue?  - her unmistakable hammer toes knobly as a Greyhound’s…

…Bizarrely, the midnight-haired woman who had been letting people look up his skirt on top of the bar stepped close to me. She set her tall, blood red drink on top of the extinguisher cabinet. She was slender. She didn’t touch me right away. She asked my name. She got close and let me hear her voice clearly. She had a nice voice – smooth and purring - like a singer’s – practiced – but with a twang. I didn’t tell her my name. What I really, viscerally wanted to do right then was bolt the hell out of there, but there was nowhere for me to go.

Like I said, the tall gothic was practiced. She crowded into me. A head taller than I, it was easy for her to slide her right hand down around behind me. As if to count my change, slick-fast, she dipped her right hand down into my right hip pocket. Count my change wasn’t what she did.

 I let go of my beer. I flinched sharply away from her. I dropped straight down, almost to my knees, then exploded back up into her face. Her drink flew, and throwing her hands up protectively, she gave out a frightened “Oh!” She tried to break away, but I clamped onto her elbow. It was thin and solid. But I had been working construction. She couldn’t move. The strangeness of that moment! The tall woman in black shreds had been aggressive. Now I was. I yanked her toward me, and like I was big Red Riding Hood, I said with grim threat in my voice, “What big heels you have on!”

But she smelled so good!

I saw her wince. “I know I deserve that,” she said. I liked that she squirmed in my grip. I decided to jack her around. I pinched harder and demanded,

“Tell me what your driver’s license says your name is, sister, and I’ll let you live.”

She cowered. She smelled lusciously of vanilla. But she was, I thought, pursing her black, patent-leather lips rather too sensuously. I’d heard about pain – how there was a type that found it erotic.

Timidly, she said “Faye.”

“Spell it.”

Listening to her spell her name sucked the anger completely out of me. I’d seen the same spelling on my ex-father-in-law’s Union Card. When I and his daughter’d divorced, he’d been really decent to me. My ex-wife had younger brothers, still at home. The clutch on my van was worn out. It was winter. I was broke. Faye had let me stay at his place for a couple of days and use his heated garage to work on my clutch. I didn’t know what I was doing. One of my ex-brothers-in-law even coached me with, “The pilot bearing is a major cause of clutch chatter.” Faye – at Fife, that benevolent name worked on me like a password.

“Good answer,” I said. “What was that you were drinking, Faye?”

She told me. She flashed her bright white teeth rather, I thought, like a gnashing bat I’d seen do once – just as close-up. I could tell her too perfect smile had had cost her. She was skilled. Fife was a dive and nobody cared what we did, but for some reason, I couldn’t just hit her in the face and get it over with.

 I had already forgotten what she’d called her drink before it flew. I described the drink to the bartender who squirted something into a tall glass with one hand and poured my beer with the other. I glanced back at Faye; like a date she was re-touching her make-up, waiting for me, but I wasn’t going to be her baby tonight.  

I handed her the tall glass and asked how her arm felt. She said it’d probably bruise.

“Is that a wig?” I asked, then recklessly added, “You’re really pretty hot.”

Her dark eyes bored into mine. She leaned into me and asked, “Would you like me more as a blonde?”

“Funereal looks good on you. But Faye,” I added, “you really oughtta stay off the bar. Downplay your feet entirely.” On re-think, I tossed her another plus: “You’re on the right track with those clusters of chrome ankle chain though. Sort of like you’re serving-up your legs pre-tamed - on a platter.”

I was critiquing like a fashionista scouting for talent. As if we were both women, I was talking off the top of my head about style element but, fact was, her attention was a relief. Gay guys had always liked me. Actually, I liked them back – just for the vibe of interacting with somebody smiling at me that joyously. But Faye wasn’t smiling. I watched what she did with her hands. She picked up her drink. With her left she clutched her purse. Maybe she’d stay polite. I relaxed.

 I didn’t believe in giving people shit. I loved passing out give-away, candy compliments when I could; my little way of warming the chill of outer-space that eventually touches everybody – that had touched me from the mosh-pit. So I told her that her legs didn’t look like a man’s. She smiled demurely and looked down almost as if to say “aw shucks,” but then told me what more than one woman had, “You’re sweet.”

…and I was clinging to a guy in drag.

I looked at Faye’s slender hands, the dark blue painted nails. I studied her dark eyes – the perfect exaggeration of her make-up made it impossible to know what she actually looked like. She was trying so hard to be wanted. Never in my life had I tried to be wanted. It just happened to me.

 It felt good to be wanted – even by Faye. I was boat-guy decked-out in my brood shirt – a worn-out blue chambray - a washed-out pair of light blue, elastic-waisted cotton pants and white court Nikes…I asked Faye casual questions. I wasn’t playing with her raw emotions or probing for soft spots. I was just trying to be company and learn a little. Faye said she came to the Fife Truck Stop about once a week. I told her she belonged on the dance floor instead of the bar, but for Faye, it was pretty cut-and-dried. She said,

“Following her act, I’m the Jolly Green Giant. If had that figure…”

I knew exactly who she meant.

Instant I grinned and asked, “You’re not already a man-eater?” I realized the false, patronizing way it clashed with what I’d said about her feet. But she didn’t take offense. She looked down. Her eyes on her hands, she asked softly,

“Why are you even talking to me, Chet?”

Internally, I gulped. She was so daring! Her emotions were right at the surface.

Then she looked suddenly up and tractor-beamed me. I hadn’t seen her smile in ten minutes. But she was waiting for an answer. She sipped her blood-red drink. She waited. Back when I was making her squirm in pain, I’d thought I was pretty on top of it, pretty smart. I thought I could just manipulate her. Her patience and inscrutability now made me realize she wasn’t afraid of anything. I completely stopped wanting to jack her around. Something shouted to me that what mattered most to me mattered to her – well, not exactly - but from back in grade school, I just started telling her about the truth. I started at the centerfield fence. Faye let me go on a few minutes and, “That’s my competition’s name?” she cut in, “Lostine?”

I nodded. Why would Faye stay patient? I rushed on with my story. I blabbered. When I heard her say - pretty much mumbled it to herself - “God, I wish you were my type,” I wanted to push her away, so I asked her if she ever killed anybody. She just looked at me and blinked. I hadn’t even told George about Garry and Rand. I could tell by the way her eyes stayed on mine, Faye was listening real close. Right there in the Fife bar, I forced myself to time-trip Faye with me back into Coffin Marsh. I lead Faye back with me to when I was twelve, when I had to stalk Rand that final black swamp night and slash his throat and his hot blood pump-pump-pumped all over into my face until he died. Telling murder so completely, I felt myself tensing up. It wasn’t the telling of killing of a whole, tall, human man that upset me…

…that’s right when, from over my shoulder in the direction of the dance floor, something yanked Faye’s attention beyond me. Urgently, she leaned into me and whispered, “Chet! Put your hand on my ass! Do it now!”