But Jeff let the remark pass and walked toward the men’s room. He stopped at the end of the bar, as though seeing Lucas for the first time.
“What do you think you’re doing, Lucas?” he asked.
“I work here. I’m taking a break. What’s it to you, Jeff?”
Jeff grinned, his face oily in the reflected glow of the bar’s lacquered pine paneling, the curly brown locks on the back of his neck stirring in the breeze from the electric fan. “It’s nothing to me. Come on back to the table. We still have champagne and cake left,” he said.
Three minutes later Leland and his friend were gone from the bar.
But not far enough.
Jeff had gone back out on the screen porch and rejoined his party. Then his attention strayed. He stood at the screen, his hands on his hips, watching Leland and his friend walk between the parked cars toward their yellow convertible. Jeff rubbed the sweat off his chest on the flat of his hand, his fingers kneading it idly in his palm. A lump of cartilage flexed in his jaw.
He followed the two men into the gravel parking lot. He hooked one finger under the middle-aged man’s arm and turned him in a slow pirouette toward him.
“I called you a queen in there, sir. I shouldn’t have done that,” Jeff said.
“I’ve answered to worse,” the man replied, unconsciously feeling the wet spot on his sleeve where Jeff had touched him.
“What’s your name, sir?”
“Mike.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mike. You like cake, Mike?”
“I’m on a diet. You eat it for me.”
“How about the icing? I mean, when you eat it with ice cream, what do you think about when you stick it in your mouth with a spoon?”
“I was in the navy, kid. I’ve heard it all. So have a happy birthday.”
“I’ve really tried to go the extra mile, but I think you’re laughing at me, Mike. I really do.”
“Not on your life, kid. You got a hard-on you could break walnuts with. I hope you get rid of it for your birthday. But it’s not gonna happen on me.”
“See, you’re talking down to people. You pick up young guys to go down on you, then you insult people you don’t know. You probably pissed on the toilet seat, too. Don’t walk away from me. I’m talking to you … Mike?… Listen to me now … Here, see how this feels,” Jeff said, and spun the man who called himself Mike back toward him and buried his fist in his stomach.
Mike fell to his knees, his mouth strangling for air. Jeff grabbed his hair in both hands and drove his head into a door panel, again and again, then wiped his hands on his shirt as though his skin glowed with an obscene presence.
The man named Mike was on his hands and knees now and accidentally touched the tip of Jeff’s shoe. Jeff kicked him in the mouth, gashing his lips against his teeth, convulsing his face with shock.
Jeff’s friends pushed and cajoled and held him, circling him so he couldn’t get at the weeping man on the ground. Then he broke free from them, his arms flailing at the air.
“All right, all right! I’m cool! It’s not me got the problem! This guy came on to me at the bar!” he said.
“Jeff, honey, you’re right. Everybody saw that. But the cops are gonna be here. Come back inside. He’s just a queer,” a girl said.
Jeff walked unsteadily toward the state road, his shirt pulled out of his slacks, his body etched with car lights as though it were razored out of scorched metal.
“Jeff, get away from the road!” someone yelled.
He stopped, as though finally accepting the cautionary words of his friends. But he wasn’t thinking about his friends now, nor of the road or the trucks that roared by him in a suck of air brakes and a swirl of beer cups and diesel fumes. He stared stupidly at the maroon ’49 Mercury, its hood and doors overpainted with rippling blue and red flames, the grille like chromed teeth, that had just pulled into the parking lot.
The sole occupant, Esmeralda Ramirez, cut the engine and got out and stared at him across the top of the roof. She wore an organdy dress and earrings and makeup, and the car’s interior light seemed to bathe her cleavage with both shadow and the flesh tones of a painting.
“Why are you here?” Jeff said.
“I brought you a present. You look terrible. What have you done?” she said.