Tilting the Balance

From a lot of women, such lyrics would have scandalized him. Somehow they seemed to suit this Mary. On thirty seconds’ acquaintance, she reminded him of Sal, the brassy waitress with whom, among many others, the Lizards had cooped him up in a church in Fiat, Indiana. Her hair was midnight black instead of Sal’s peroxided yellow, and they didn’t look like each other, either, but he thought he saw in Mary a lot of the same take-it-or-leave-it toughness Sal had shown.

He still wished he’d laid Sal-especially considering the way everything else had turned out. It could have happened, but he’d figured Barbara was waiting for him, so he’d stayed good. Shows how much I know, he thought bitterly.

“Here you go, pal.” Mary set knife and fork and a plate in front of him: falling-off-the-bone chicken in thick gravy, with dumplings and carrots. The smell alone was enough to put ten pounds on him.

He tasted. The taste was better than the smell. He hadn’t thought it could be. He made a wordless, full-mouth noise of bliss.

“Glad you like it,” Mary said, sounding amused. A moment later she added, “Listen, it’s about dinnertime, and like I said, we ain’t exactly packed. You mind if I bring out a plate and join you?”

“Please,” he said. “Why should I mind? This is your place and your terrific food-” He thought he was going to say more, but took another bite instead.

“Be right with you, then.” She went back to get some stew of her own. Jens twisted his head to watch the way she walked. Like a woman, he thought: what a surprise. Her long gray wool skirt didn’t show much of her legs, but she had nice ankles. He wondered if she was older or younger than he. Close, either way.

She came back with not only a plate, but two glass beer mugs filled with a deep amber fluid. “You look like you could use one of these,” she said as she sat down across the table from him. “Just homebrew, but it’s not bad. Joe Simpson who makes it, he used to work down at the Coors brewery in Golden, so he knows what he’s doin’.”

Jens gulped at the beer. It wasn’t Coors-he’d drunk that in Denver-but it was a long way from bad. “Oh, Lord,” he said ecstatically. “Will you marry me?”

She paused with a forkful of dumpling halfway to her mouth, gave him a long, appraising stare. He felt himself turning red; he’d just meant it for a joke. But maybe Mary liked what she saw. With a slightly wintry smile, she answered, “I dunno, but I’ll tell you this right now-it’s the best damn offer I had today, and that’s a fact. Hell, if you was to tempt me with a cigarette, who knows what I might up and do?”

“I wish I could,” he said, regretfully for two different reasons. “I haven’t seen one in months.”

“Yeah, me neither.” She let out a long, mournful sigh. “Don’t even know why I bothered to ask. If you had smokes, I’d’ve smelled ’em on you minute you walked in.” She took another bite, then said, “Mind if I ask you what your name is?”

He told her, and discovered in turn, that her last name was Cooley. Black Irish, he thought. That fit; her eyes were very, very blue and her skin even fairer than his, transparent white rather than pink.

She might not have been able to smell tobacco smoke on him, but he was sure she could smell sweat-getting the bike here from Denver had been work, no two ways about it. It didn’t worry him the way it would have a year before. He could smell her, too, and it was amazing how fast you got used to bodies that weren’t as clean as they might have been. If most everybody needed a bath, things evened out.

He finished the stew, scraped up gravy with his fork until the plate was damn near clean again. He didn’t want to up and leave; he felt full and happy and more nearly homey than he had since, he’d found out he didn’t really have a home any more. To give himself an excuse to stay a while longer, he pointed to the mug and said, “Could I have another one of those, please? That one hit the spot, but it didn’t quite fill it up.”

“Sure thing, pal. I’ll get me one, too.” She headed for the back room again. This time, Jens thought she might have noticed him eyeing her as she walked; but if she’ had she didn’t let on. She soon came back with the beer.

“Thanks,” he said as she sat down once more. The scritch of the chair legs on the bricks of the cafe floor was almost the only sound. Jens asked, “How do you keep this place open with no customers?”

“What do you mean, no customers? You’re here, aren’t you?” Her face was full of impudent amusement. “But yeah, it’s pretty quiet at dinnertime. Supper, now, folks come for supper. And I reckon the Army would shoot me if I closed up shop; I feed a lot of their people goin’ in and out of Denver. But then, you said you’re one of them, right?”

“Yeah.” Jens took another pull at his beer. He eyed her over the top of the mug. “Bet you have to keep a shotgun by the till to keep some of the Army guys from getting too friendly.”