Ghouls

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Squidd McGuffy’s stank oddly of a zoo or a stable; he would have thought they had animals on the premises, from the smell. The dank place was a pit, literally; it had been built several feet below the street. Inside, two leather-jacketed bikers played darts at the corner, while two more shot-gunned beers to see who could belch more creatively. But the establishment as a whole was devoted to six Brunswick billiards tables, around which congregated a mess of local “skel”—dropouts, punks, rednecks, and not-very-petite high school girls who must be below drinking age. Foul language was not scarce here, and there seemed no great abundance of intellectual discourse. Pretty, blue-jeaned girls wearing pewter skull rings watched in awe as tattooed boyfriends calmly dropped impossible two- and three-ball shots.

Kurt stepped down the short stairs, wondering if he’d ever get back out in one piece. What a dive, he thought. I’ll bet they shoot sex loops in the back room. He thanked God he’d brought his off-duty gun, for all the good it would do against these behemoths. Up front, a tall man with slicked-back hair and a pencil-line mustache leaned against the bar—he glanced quickly and suspiciously to the door, as if expecting a raid. The man had “the eye”; he’d made Kurt as police with one look. Another man disappeared into the back with a tray of sandwiches.

This was ridiculous. A goddamned pool hall. Why had Nancy Willard insisted they meet in this forsaken hole in the ground? Anonymity, of course, a place where they wouldn’t likely be seen by someone they knew. But why? Why the secrecy? Perhaps she was going to make a play for him. Yeah, sure, he thought. Next joke. It all went back to the phone call. I’d like to talk to you about something, she’d said. You may be quite interested.

A breary figure at the bar turned and waved.

Glen Rodz.

What the…but Kurt didn’t waste time finishing the thought. He pulled up the stool next to Glen.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Glen asked.

Kurt wasn’t sure how to respond. Had Nancy Willard intended for Glen to be here, too? Or was it just coincidence? “The Anvil’s beginning to give me Freudian nightmares; every time I look at a bottle of beer, I’m forced to think of tits. Thought I’d try a new place for a change. And to think I’ve been missing out on this all these years.”

“Yeah. Class joint.”

They both turned at a strange sound. Behind them, two bikers appeared to be urinating into empty beer cans.

“And a discerning clientele,” Kurt added. “I’m surprised they let me in without my tie.” Then he noticed the circlet of empty bottles arranged before Glen. “You always get a load on before work?”

“Willard gave me the night off,” Glen revealed. “With pay. Couldn’t tell you why, though. With all the shit that’s been going on, you’d think he’d want me working round the clock.”

Glen didn’t have to say much to let on that he was in the bag, or at least getting there. His eyes were dark and very bloodshot, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

“You gonna tell me what’s bothering you?” Kurt said.

Glen frowned. He began slowly, so as not to let his words smear. “There’s this girl I know,” he said. “This girl I’ve been seeing for a while. And—”

The barkeep set two beers down, and at the same time a brief commotion rose from what must’ve been the back room. Men were shouting, then came a loud thud, a quick clang of metal, and a sound like pots hitting the floor. Glen and Kurt seemed to be the only ones who’d noticed.

“Sounds like they got a gorilla back there,” Glen said.

Kurt began to think he might be dreaming again. This place was getting weirder by the minute. “You were saying something about a girl?”

Glen paused, staring into the bottom of his beer. “It’s, uh…it’s not the sort of thing I’d want getting around.”

“Jesus Christ, Glen. We’ve been friends for twenty goddamned years. You ought to trust me enough by now to know I’m not going to run off and tell your business to the CIA.”

Glen smiled. The contrast with his eyes was not pleasant. “I know, sorry. I’m just a little off the ball right now. Too much drinking, too much thinking.”

“So tell me about the girl.”

Glen was staring ahead into the mirror on the bar wall. He didn’t seem pleased by what he saw. “I love her,” he said.

“You love her, that’s good. So why are you sitting here depressed as shit and drinking yourself into the outer limits?”

“Fuck. It’s…awkward. She’s a little older than me, and a lot smarter, but that’s never seemed to make any difference. All that matters is that I know her real well. And, and—”

“Oh, I get it,” Kurt said. “She dumped you. Well, let me tell you something. No girl’s worth hitting the skids for, I don’t care who she is.”

Glen smiled again, brittlely. “I’m not on the skids yet,” he said. “And, no, she didn’t dump me. I know she will soon—I’d bet money on it—but that’s not the point. Shit, I’ve been dumped before, plenty of times. Things are gray for a little while, a little low, but you always pull out of it eventually, you always ride it out. Sometimes I think men were put on earth just to be shit on by women. It goes with the territory. Women, goddamn women, they’re all devils on the inside, but you love them just the same.

“Your enthusiasm is illuminating,” Kurt said. But that was unfair. The beer was obviously swaying Glen way off the post. “If she didn’t dump you,” Kurt said, “then what’s wrong?”

“I’m in a bind. I don’t know what to do.”

“About what, exactly?”

“What I need to know,” Glen said, “is how do you tell a girl you love that she needs to see a psychiatrist?”

Now Kurt was totally thrown. “That’s tough, I gotta admit. But what makes you think she needs that kind of help?”

“I love this girl, I know her inside and out. I can’t tell you who she is—you’ll just have to take my word for it. She’s probably the most rational person I’ve ever met, and she’s very, very smart… And this morning she told me the nuttiest thing I ever heard in my life.”

“Well, what? What did she tell you?”

Suddenly Glen looked as though he were staring a thousand yards into the distance. “Something crazy,” he said. “Something impossible. And the worst part of it is I’m beginning to believe it myself.”

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