15

Cutshaw had roared through the town of Bly and come upon a seedy roadside tavern six miles beyond. There he stopped. Soaking wet, he went inside and sat at a cramped little booth at the rear. Within half an hour he was drunk. Around him, boisterous laughter drowned in the hard-rock music from a jukebox. A motorcycle gang held control of the tavern, filling it with shouts and murmured obscenities, with worn black leather jackets, the words “The Chain Gang” emblazoned on their backs. Some slouched at the bar. Some danced, matted hair and dirty fingernails jerking through the cigarette haze in the dimness of the wood-paneled room. Cutshaw did not notice. He lifted a shot glass to his lips and gulped its contents, a finger of Scotch; he grimaced and chased it with a gulp of beer, and then stared blearily at the five full shot glasses aligned on the rough wooden table in front of him. He looked up as the waitress walked by. She was young. “Hey, hold it!” Cutshaw reached out and took her hand; he could feel a simple wedding band. “How about another Scotch?” he asked slurrily.

The girl’s smile brought a wholesome brightness into her face.

“Sir, there’s five right there in front of you,” she said with good humor. Disengaging her hand, she moved on toward the bar. Cutshaw looked down at the table, disconsolate. “I wanted six, “ he murmured thickly.

Two cyclists leaning at the bar were darting glances at the astronaut. One slurped his beer and stared. His face was thick with a stubble of beard and he wore large-lensed yellow glasses. “It’s him, Rob,” he said. “I know it’s him.”

“You’re nuts,” drawled the other cyclist. He wore an open leather vest over a short-sleeved T-shirt that showed off his enormous muscular arms. He had degenerate good looks and thick blond hair pomaded into waves. Arrogance smirked out of his eyes. Stenciled on the front of his T-shirt were the words “I Love To Fuck.” He was the leader of the gang. “You’re seein’ things, Jerry.”

“Up yours. I’ve seen his picture in the papers.”

“Since when have you ever read a paper?”

“Okay! TV!”

The waitress came up to the service bar. “Two beers, two bourbon rocks,” she ordered. She glanced at the cyclists nervously. The gang was not local, and she felt a disquiet at their presence.

“Look at him!” said Jerry. “Look at his face! That’s him! The astronaut!

The one who lost his marbles!”

The waitress turned her head to look at Cutshaw.

“What’s he doin’ in a dump like this?” Rob demanded.

“Oh, who the fuck knows,” Jerry answered. “But it’s him. I swear it! I’m positive!”

“Yeah? For how much?”

“For a beer.”

“And a blow job from either your old lady or mine.” Rob was grinning.

Jerry rubbed at his chin as he glanced toward Cutshaw again. Then he downed his drink and said, “Okay.”

The two cyclists wove through the crowd to Cutshaw and stood by the table looking him over. The astronaut was lifting a shot glass when he saw them. He paused, eying one and then the other.

“Yes?” he said.

“What’s your name, mac?” asked Rob.

“Rumpelstiltskin.”

Rob snatched the shot glass away from Cutshaw and looked sideways at Jerry. “Wise ass,” he said.

As if oblivious, Cutshaw picked up another shot glass. Again the cyclist snatched it away from him, this time roughly. “I said, what’s your name?” An ugly menace had crept into his voice.

“My maiden name or married?” Cutshaw looked past the two cyclists and called out, “Waitress!”

Jerry made a sudden move, pulling back a fold of Cutshaw’s cardigan to disclose the initials “U.S.M.C.” stitched above the chest pocket of his fatigues. He pointed in triumph. “See? U.S.M.C-that’s Marines!”

“No, no, no, my dear boy,” drawled Cutshaw. “That’s Unbridled Sex for the Masses Club.”

Rob tossed the contents of a shot glass into Cutshaw’s face.

“It is something I’ve said?” asked the astronaut mildly, licking out his tongue for a taste of the Scotch.

The waitress appeared. “Yes?” she asked Cutshaw. She was frowning, puzzling over his identity. She noticed the wetness on his face and darted an apprehensive look at the cyclists.

“One Scotch and two spittoons, love,” Cutshaw ordered. “Fill the

spittoons with caterpillar blood. It’s for our friends here. Maybe they’ll—”

Jerry grabbed Cutshaw’s fatigue shirt, jerked him up and forward and savagely cuffed his face.

The waitress looked alarmed. “Hey, cut that out!” she cried.

“You mean this?” Rob said to her, smirking. He quickly reached a hand beneath her dress and squeezed her buttocks. She whirled around with a cry and knocked his arm away. The cyclist grabbed her wrist and pressed his body against hers. Moaning with exaggerated, mocking eroticism, he backed her into the end of the booth divider. “Much better.” He grinned. “Better position.”

The waitress grimaced in pain and loathing. She pushed at his chest.

“Oh, my God, get away!”

Cutshaw lurched to his feet. “Cut that out!” he said, moving to help her. Jerry shoved him back down in the booth so that Cutshaw’s head struck against the wall. “Jesus Christ,” he moaned. He was dazed.

“Move it, baby,” said Rob, leering. Light gleamed from a silver cap on his tooth and he undulated forcefully back and forth.

“I’m pregnant! Get away from me!” cried out the waitress. “Stop pressing! Stop it! Please! You’re hurting me!”

Jerry ripped Cutshaw’s dog tag from his neck. He examined it quickly, then called to Rob: “Hey, it’s him! It’s really him! I got his dog tag, Rob! It’s him!”

Rob looked over at Jerry, amazed. He reached for the dog tag. The waitress wriggled away.

“You’re kidding!” Rob grunted, examining the dog tag. He looked down at Cutshaw. The astronaut was holding his head. “I can’t believe it!” Rob moved a few steps to the jukebox. He pulled out the plug. In the sudden silence there were groans and complaints.

“Hey, quiet! Quiet!” Rob stood up on a chair. “Hey, guess what we got here! A goddam celebrity, folks! A chicken, wigged-out astronaut!” There was a mixed reaction from the crowd. Rob pointed to the booth where Cutshaw was pinned in his seat by Jerry. “That there is Captain Billy Cutshaw, gang!”

The crowd was incredulous, gleeful. A few of the cyclists applauded. One drawled, “Big fuckin’ deal.”

Rob stepped down and went back to the booth, where he and Jerry jerked the astronaut to his feet. “Yeah, I know,” muttered Cutshaw, his eyes half closed. “Resistance is useless. My friends have confessed.”

“Wanna join our club?” Rob grinned.

“Fuck you.”

Rob’s grin curled away to a sneer. He could not identify what he hated about the astronaut; he felt it as a pain when he breathed. He cuffed him viciously with the back of his hand and Cutshaw’s head snapped back. “Okay,” Cutshaw muttered. “Don’t fuck you.” Rob grabbed him by the front of his fatigues and then dragged him to the center of the room, where most of the cyclists gathered around them. One of the couples continued dancing even though there was no music.

Rob snapped his fingers at Jerry. “Beer!”

“One beer comin’ up,” retorted Jerry. He went to the bar to fetch it.

“Beer,” he told the barkeep, a man in his sixties who owned the tavern. He filled up a stein and as he set it on the bar he flicked a glance toward a telephone on a wall outside the rest rooms. Jerry followed his gaze and shook his head at the bartender. “Uh-uh,” he warned him. “Don’t fuck with the party.” He picked up the stein and took it to Rob.

The cyclists were gathered around in a circle, murmuring, chuckling, throwing questions at Cutshaw: “Wha’dja do, lose your nerve?” “Hey, whadda they feed you in the nut house?” “Where’s your keeper?” “You got any grass?” Cutshaw stood meekly, with his head bowed down. He did not answer.

Rob took the beer from Jerry. He flourished it around, and then loudly announced, “First we baptize the chicken mother!” An ugly tension, an unmotivated spite masquerading as playfulness, moved through the crowd like a malevolent sheepdog, touching them, nuzzling, herding them together. “Now I wanna hear a countdown!” shouted Rob. “Let me hear it!

Ten!” he began. The cyclists joined in with him, shouting, their eyes bright as they counted down to “One!” And then Rob added “Zero!” and slowly poured the contents of the stein over Cutshaw’s head. Rob grinned. He said, “Everything A-O.K. there, fuckup?”