A short story
by Jack Mauro
Last Week: Lucius secured a loan, Baron found his fourth empire, and Brice Lawhorn Sr. tasted lust.
August arrives and wraps itself around Knoxville like a steaming turban.
So we quickly repair to the faux French provincial interior of the Jockey Club, where temperature is always and affluently steady. The only perspiration ever appearing within its rarefied ambiance is short-lived, and restricted to the receiving of a bill.
For forty-five minutes Baron Dunn and Lucius Temple have been toasting lemonade, one another, cars, the posteriors of women, money and cake. A glorious dinner has been consumed by the new partners; glasses of port and exquisite cognac adorn the table like a forest of drunken crystal. Beneath the tipsy celebration, Dunn is nonetheless aware that a small but crucial point regarding their deal has not yet been clarified.
Ah, but Lucius knows. He knows Dunn's anxiety, as he already knows by heart the towns in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama in which Luscious will soon debut. It would not be appropriate, though, to coldly set his partner's mind at ease on this occasion. He will do it his way. Subtly, hiply. He raises a glass.
"I give you, my brother, once more: the successes of Baron Dunn. Who rightly and proudly puts his name on each fine business."
Hear, hear. "Successes" is uttered with several more esses than it contains, but no matter. Dunn hears the allusion to his unvoiced concern, and drinks with gusto.
Lucius reaches—perhaps subconsciously—for a darker brandy. "I give you, my brother, the brothers who have come before me: Amos, Famous. Ellington, Duke. Basie, Count. Regal men, all." They drink again. Dunn's rather bloodshot eyes are fixed with admiration and thrilled expectancy on the face of Lucius.
"So I give you, my brother: Baron Luscious. In pink neon around the whole damn South, six months of every year." Dunn is as delighted as a small boy given a new and bloodthirsty video game, and the eyes of Lucius twinkle like mirror balls.
"Drink up, y'all."
Junior Lawhorn watches the stars and wipes his nose. He has been watching the stars for the greater part of two days now, having been better enabled to appreciate these marvels through the capsules and powders in the plastic pouch within the large bag of Arby's food at his feet. The galaxy, at least as depicted in the Knoxville planetarium, is cool. The galaxy speaks to him.
If any would doubt that galactic voices discourse only on majestically stellar affairs, it must be noted that, in being heard by Junior, they say not a word about his smell.
Junior reclines, his legs splayed out before him as though to trip the world. He is in his mind bullying the small and thusly vulnerable planet of Pluto when he is aware of a rustling of linen by his side. Middle-aged, suit linen.
"Forget it, man. Not for free, anyway."
His father sighs wearily, and hits him very hard in the side with his elbow.
"We're going to have a little talk, Junior."
Somehow, through a thought process more arcane and complex than the simulated paths of the heavens above him, Junior, currently at the nadir of the subterranean existence he arrogantly shuffles through, broke, with a venal system ferrying more in the way of narcotics than hemoglobin, aboriginal in personal hygiene, takes this declaration from his father to mean that he will get his car keys back.
He is mistaken.
Three days later. Best Carmichael is misting his fern. Which accepts his ministrations with the condescension a mighty life form bestows upon a weaker.
He is feeling giddy. He must be, for he hears himself singing the pop hit duet of Ricky Martin and L'il Kim. The extraordinary success of Lucius Temple's undertaking climbed so rapidly as to make that gentleman's modest loan a matter of no consideration, despite the feverish tenacity of Lawhorn in revealing it as an unsubstantiated risk. The risk was gone before Brice sat down with the paperwork, and all of AmSouth knows it. Tweak, Mr. Lawhorn. Did that pinch, Mr. Lawhorn?
Yet something else is happening, and all of AmSouth feels it, too. Lawhorn reports to the bank, but his manner is different. The women who work the tellers' windows exchange looks heavy with meaning as he mounts the stairs to his office, closes the door, and fails to emerge for long hours. The consensus is that Brice Lawhorn is having a nervous breakdown of sorts. Four employees have money down on its cause being his miserable child, and five back Best's maneuver around his authority as the origin of it. As no one likes Lawhorn, no one is near enough to ascertain the true cause, or condition.
In his cubicle, Best watches Lawhorn skulk to his office like a zombie with a secret. Best isn't proud. Let Junior be the agent that topples Lawhorn. Just let the crumbling commence. He spritzes the fern. It flutters girlishly under the spray now, as though happy in its owner's happiness. Best croaks in song, '...you are mine, my bay-beeee...'
It is probably coincidence, that Lucius has taken a break when Baron Dunn stops by the little store that day.
"Gone home to count his money?" This to Dip Dip, rosily flushed with the activity of pouring Luscious and collecting the cash for it.
But she smiles, not looking at him. He's rather nice, this man. Besides, not many girls get a fat raise so early in their new jobs; perhaps he was instrumental in this. Whatever the case, life is good. And her smile turns coy.
Dunn approvingly watches her work. Then he feigns forgetfulness on his part and places a bag on the counter. "Would you care for a roll, by any chance?"
Dip Dip peers into the bag. "You have cinnamon?"
As a matter of fact, he does.
Brice has waited all day for this day's end. At four-thirty, he can wait no longer. He dials a number on his telephone.
"Holiday Inn. May I help you?"
In a voice choked with anticipatory emotion, he says, "Room service. Please."
Next: In which all things are resolved, to the satisfaction of a select few.
Jack Mauro's book Gay Street is available locally at B. Dalton in West Town Mall, Barnes & Noble and online through Amazon.com. Mauro will release Spite Hall, which is also set in Knoxville, in September.
July 19, 2001 * Vol. 11, No. 29
© 2001 Metro Pulse
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Part IV