“You’re serious?” she said.
“Our friends in the bus say he was hanging around when God created light.”
She was cleaning out the bottom of her paper cup with a spoon. “Local?” she said without looking up.
“I forgot to ask.”
“When did you see the bus crowd?”
“Just a while ago. They weren’t in here?”
“I think I would have noticed.”
“They were parked by the Dumpster in back,” I said.
“Yuck.”
“I asked them to leave us alone,” I said. “They’re not bad kids. Maybe Marvin is a bad fellow, but the kids aren’t.”
“What makes Marvin so bad?”
“Maybe that’s too strong. He threatened me with a board that had a nail in it, but he backed down. He’s probably a pimp and a small-time thief and paperhanger. He’s not what you call mainline.”
“What’s ‘mainline’?”
“A recidivist or psychopath. The kind of fellow other convicts walk around.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’m just saying most people don’t get to choose who they are. It’s a lesson I’ve never learned very well.”
She set her feet on top of mine and tapped them up and down, her eyes bright, her fingers twined in mine. Then she looked toward the entrance, and the light went out of her face. “Don’t turn around. Darrel Vickers and his father just came in.”
“Why are all these people showing up this evening?” I said.
“Welcome to Trinidad on a weekday night.”
I started to turn my head. She whacked my knuckles with her metal spoon. “Did you hear me?”
“That hurt.”
“Start something with the Vickerses and see what I do later.”
“What are they doing now?”
“Headed straight for us. I mean it, Aaron. Don’t say one word to them.”
“Why would I want to talk with the Vickers family?”
Her eyes went out of focus.
Then both the father and son were standing inches from us, Rueben Vickers wearing a smile that was like lipstick painted on a lopsided muskmelon, Darrel fresh-shaved and in a Confederate kepi and a lavender T-shirt scissored off beneath the nipples, his love handles peeking out from his beltless jeans, his coppery hair thick with grease and combed back in ducktails. He rotated his head as though he had a crick in his neck, his eyes rolling around the room.
Mr. Vickers fitted his hand like a clothespin on my shoulder. “How you doin’, boy?” he said.
I looked straight ahead. A fat, sweaty man with tats wrapped around both arms was scraping a stove with a spatula. He wiped his face on his shoulder, simultaneously smelling himself.
Mr. Vickers kneaded my collarbone, his nails dipping into the muscle. “Sorry about what happened at Jude’s place,” he said. “I get my quills up sometimes.”