Heroes by Ray Robertson Page B

Supergirl costume pins, and then bites on the forearm and refuses to be detached from, the stocky woman in the Daniel Boone coonskin hat, cheekless leather chaps, and pink thong. The bartender asks, “Another round for you and slugger here, Rev?” and a vodka on the rocks and Jack Daniels arrive though both are, at the moment, not yet needed.
    â€œTo repeat,” Warren said. “Brothers or sisters?”
    Bayle didn’t answer.
    Warren finished his drink. “Don’t worry, you always get a second chance with all the really important questions.”
    Bayle looked up from his own drink. “Really?”
    â€œMaybe. I don’t know. I just made that up.”
    A little before eleven Bayle suggested they cut out for somewhere else, having remembered Davidson saying that was when he usually dropped by Larry’s. Bayle felt a little guilty for having turned down cold the old man’s afternoon invitation for a drink later at the bar and then showing up there just a few hours later. “Any other places around here worth checking out?” Bayle said.
    â€œNo need,” Warren said. “Ample refreshments back at myplace. Vehicle’s in the lot out back. Just let me settle up my tab with Jake, what?”
    Paying Warren as little notice as he did anyone else in the bar, Jake, the bartender, presented Warren with a white slip of paper which Warren only perfunctorily scanned over before hastily initialling and handing back. Warren turned to Bayle beside him at the bar. “Are we off, then?” he said.
    But in the three or four minutes it took them to leave the air-conditioned bar and make their way through the parking lot’s maze of mostly pickups red, white, and blue and reach Warren’s red Ford Ranger, they both decided it was pretty late and to call it an evening and promised to get together again before Bayle left town the next week. Warren sat inside his truck but didn’t turn on the ignition, both hands hanging loose over the wheel, staring straight ahead at Kellog Avenue and the blue neon of the Bunton Grocery store across the road. Bayle stood beside Warren’s driver’s side window.
    â€œBake sale at nine a.m. for the Christian Women for the Restoration of Capital Punishment Fund,” Warren said. “Counselling at eleven.” Bayle didn’t know whether to say he was sorry or simulate some sort of interest. Instead, he watched with Warren the traffic on Kellog roll by through the evening muck of warm black damp.
    â€œIt wouldn’t be so bad, you know — the counselling, I mean,” Warren volunteered. “It’s just that... I mean, everybody carries around their own pain, God knows I know that. And talking about it can sometimes help, I know that too. It’s just that, well, it’s just that’s it’s, well ...
so fucking boring.
I mean, if there was something I could really sink my teeth into, just one person I could really reach, one person I could really help ....”
    Whoosh,
a passing automobile on Kellog. The air conditioner sticking out of the side of the cinder block cement wall of Larry’s hummed and dripped. The “B” in the Bunton Grocery sign across the street flickered and buzzed. As if with reluctance, Warren started up the truck, put it into gear, and slowly backed out of his parking space. He stuck his head out the window.
    â€œI say, Peter,” he said. “Kept meaning to ask you all night: What’s all this slugger business Jake referred to?”
    For a second or two Bayle honestly didn’t know what Warren was talking about. Then, remembering the evening before with Davidson, “Oh, that,” he said. “Just had too much to drink and took a swing at some guy when I was here with Harry last time.”
    â€œBecause?”
    â€œBecause?”
    â€œBecause why?” Warren said, head still hanging out.
    â€œNothing. Because nothing. Hey, listen,