The Wash Read online

  J.B. stopped for a second and leaned against the counter.

  “She’s a nice girl, despite what people say about her. In fact, you two would probably be perfect for each other.”

  Robert waved his hands, “Oh, no. Don’t try fixing me up with her.”

  “You’ve been here a while and haven’t dated anyone,” J.B. smiled. “People are starting to talk.”

  “Let them talk. Besides, it won’t be me they’re discussing tonight. You’ll get that honor for breaking up with The Wash’s most eligible bachelorette.”

  “Let ‘em talk,” J.B. said. “It’ll blow over quickly.”

  He looked at Robert who raised an eyebrow.

  “Well? Why did you break it off?”

  “We just had nothing much in common,” J.B. offered. “That was it really. She wants a way out and I’m not that guy.”

  Robert nodded. He stripped off the sweatshirt he was wearing to reveal a Jim’s Bar t-shirt. It hugged tight to his thin frame. He was wiry but strong, “ropy” in build. What fat he had clung to his sides.

  In contrast, J.B. was like The Incredible Hulk. A huge, muscular man whose cut figure looked like he could toss Robert across the room easily. He wore his long black hair in a ponytail that hung to the middle of his back. His dark eyes sat in a bronzed ruddy face that left no doubt of his Native American ancestry. Most folks didn’t get past his size, but to anyone paying attention, those same eyes shone bright and the crow’s feet around them told the story of someone more disposed to laugh at the world than rail against it.

  Robert walked over, grabbed a couple of baskets of peanuts and headed out into the bar. The lights were already on and the neon Corona, Tecate and Bud Light signs glowed around the room. He flipped on the two long Budweiser lights hanging over the pool tables.

  “Damn, you’ve got us all set to open already. I could have stayed home another hour.”

  “And do what?” J.B. called after him. “Actually, don’t answer that.”

  “We good on kegs?” Robert asked.

  “We should be fine. The Coors Light died on me last night right before closing but I changed it out. You’re going to want to order another one of those and more of that Wasatch brew when Tracy comes by next week.”

  Robert walked over to the only window in the block building and flipped on the open sign. Then he turned to the door and unlocked it.

  “You know if Javier has anything scheduled for tonight?” he called back.

  “I’m not sure. He may have Reller coming by for something. I heard him bitching about him to someone yesterday.”

  “Jesus!” Robert muttered. “He knows better than that. Did you tell him to keep his mouth shut?”

  J.B. emerged from the kitchen, “No. You’re about the only person on Earth who can tell him that. If I say anything, he just gets mad.”

  Robert nodded, “Okay, I’ll say something tonight. Rules are rules and the biggest rule around here is don’t involve the locals.”

  He walked back behind the bar, flipped through the Cd's in the book next to the stereo and popped in a Rolling Stones disc. The echoing start of ‘Gimme Shelter’ began to fill the room as he sat down on a stool next to J.B.

  “You know,” he started as he plopped his elbows on the bar. “I love Javier Quintana like my own brother, but sometimes, being that son of a bitch’s friend is a hard thing to do.”

  J.B. just smiled again and reached for a peanut.

  II

  Steve Cohn rolled the last of the battered scrap tires around the back of his shop and tossed it over the side of the trash trailer. It bounced back up and for a moment, he thought it might roll back at him but it settled down and stayed put. He wiped his hands on the belly of his work shirt and hitching his jeans up, headed back toward the garage doors of A&M Automotive. Steve was a big man, an even six feet tall and every bit of 280 pounds. His closely shaved head and long van dyke beard made him an intimidating figure to those who didn’t know him. Strangers assumed he must be a biker or hell-raiser of some sort, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Those who knew him realized that despite his intimidating look, Steve Cohn was one of the kindest, gentlest men on Earth. As he made his way back to the garage he took in the graying skies and wondered to himself how long it would be before The Wash got its first dusting of snow.

  “That it?” called a voice from inside the garage.

  “That’s it. Nothing left to do here but lock up. You going to Jim’s?”

  “Hell, yeah,” the wiry young man from the back of the garage wiped grease from a name tag that read Wendell, then walked around the front of the Buick he’d been working on.

  “Sara coming out tonight?” he asked.

  “No,” Steve smirked. “She’s lettin’ me out on my own tonight. Practically asked me to go, in fact. I don’t know which one of us needs a night off. Maybe both.”

  “You heading home first?”

  “Nah. No use in cleaning up if Sara’s not going. I got no one to impress.”

  Wendell walked over to Steve and looked out at the sky.

  “It’s going to snow in two days,” he said as he ran his fingers absently across his scalp.

  “Is that the Weather Channel talking or is the Wendell Internal Snow Sensor starting to ping?”

  “The Weather Channel isn’t good for shit,” Wendell said with a grin. “I can feel it coming. It won’t snow hard enough to break out the board yet but it’s going to be the beginning of a beautiful season.”

  “So that means I should plan on getting some sick calls from you soon.”

  Wendell smiled slyly, “I can feel an illness creepin’ up on me already.”

  “I better work you while I can.”

  Wendell chuckled, “I’m kind of hungry. I think I’ll head home and grab a quick bite before going to Jim’s. Give me about fifteen minutes and I’ll meet you there.”

  “Sounds good,” Steve said. “Do me a favor before you head out. Sara mentioned an appointment we had on Monday. I don’t see it on the schedule out here. Would you check the calendar up front?”

  Wendell nodded and walked inside.

  As far as garages go, A&M Auto was amazingly clean. When Steve first began working there, the endless clutter and sloppy organization were his pet peeves. Later, when he bought it, he insisted on cleanliness, so while his uniform may be filthy, the garage itself was almost spotless. Very few things were out of place and perhaps even more surprising was the distinct lack of ‘women on cars’ pictures on the walls. While working at A&M early on, he’d seen mothers keep their kids away from the pinups and calendars the mechanics had up. He was even embarrassed when Sara would come by, although it didn’t seem to bother her all that much. Steve was no prude but he figured that if he was going to run a business then it shouldn’t offend anyone to come in his shop.

  He reached for a file resting by his workbench and quickly snatched his hand back.

  “Shit!” he watched as blood welled up from his fingertip.

  “Everything okay?” called Wendell.

  Steve sucked on his fingertip, “Paper cut is all.”

  “Those damn things hurt like hell. There ain’t nothing on the calendar. You better check with Sara when you get a chance.”

  Steve nodded, “Alright, let’s close up.”

  Wendell turned back into the office while Steve walked to the bay door, grabbed the chain and pulled it down, kicking the sliding locks in place. As he turned back, something caught his eye. Under the workbench where he’d been standing a moment ago something was moving, like a ball of pulsing shadow. He pulled a flashlight from the bench nearest him and played the beam out under where he’d been.

  “HOLY SHIT!”

  The door from the front office flew open as Wendell came running. Steve was leaning down about four feet from the bench, his light shining on the squirming ball.

  “What the hell are those?” he asked. “They look like ants the way they’re swarming.”

&n
bsp; Wendell shook his head, “Those ain’t ants, man. Those are spiders, fiddlebacks, and they will fuck you up but good. We had ‘em growing up in Arizona. Didn’t know they came up this far.”

  “Fiddlebacks?” Steve bent down to get a better look. “Do they normally act like this?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  There were at least a hundred of them crawling all over each other in a tight ball about six inches in diameter under the workbench.

  “They’re usually pretty shy. You almost have to work to find them. They’re really friggin’ poisonous. They bite you and the wound just festers. I have an uncle who lost a finger to one. The meat just rotted off the bone.”

  Steve backed away from the bench and walked toward a cabinet on the opposite side of the garage. He pulled out a large can of bug spray marked “Wasp Repellant”.

  “You think that’ll kill ‘em?” asked Wendell.

  “Well it won’t make ‘em healthier.”

  He pointed the can and let loose a stream of poison. The two men watched as spiders began dropping off the ball in twos and threes, each one squirming and pulling their legs beneath them before finally lying still. It took two more blasts from the can before the last of them fell away. Wendell had already grabbed a push broom and a dustpan. He reached under the workbench with the broom and poked at where the ball had been.

  “That was too weird,” he said. “I’d have sworn they were swarming around something but there’s nothing there.”

  He took the broom and quickly scooped the bodies into a dustpan and then into the garbage bag Steve pulled from a nearby can. He took the flashlight from Steve and shone it back and forth across the floor, looking for anything that looked out of place.

  “There’s just nothing there,” Wendell finally said. “It was like something was driving ‘em crazy.”

  The two did a quick walk around the garage, looking under the other benches and cars but found nothing. Steve tied the bag off with a shudder.

  “You okay?” asked Wendell.

  “I hate spiders. I pay Scott Jenkins every month to spray this place and I end up with a big ball of poisonous ones inches from me.”

  He walked through the front office and into the street.

  “Next time I see him, I’ll tell him his poison ain’t worth a shit,” Wendell called after him.

  “Jim’s in fifteen minutes?” Steve yelled back over his shoulder as he carried the bag out to the garbage can.

  “Let’s go now. I’m too creeped out to eat.”

  Steve turned over the “Closed” sign and locked the door behind him.

  III

  Not everyone who lived in The Wash enjoyed being there. Cindy Walker was the epitome of that. Having spent her whole life in Ogden Wash she figured that was about 20 years too long and days like today made it seem even longer.

  She stared at the phone just as she had for the last hour. The bastard hadn’t even had the decency to break up with her in person.

  “I have absolutely nothing to offer you,” he’d said. “I’m not looking to settle down.”

  “I never asked you to settle down.”

  He never acknowledged that fact. He just blurted some half-hearted ‘I’m sorrys’ and hung up.

  She hadn’t cried. There was nothing to cry about. The relationship had been shallow at best and it hadn’t taken long for her to figure out that J.B. was pretty stuck on himself. In fact, it was obvious from his tone on the telephone that he thought he was devastating Cindy with this news. He delivered the breakup as if he’d been sad for her, like she was missing out on some great man. The more she thought about it, the more she went from disappointed to pissed off. She picked up the phone and called Sara at work, then headed down to Dora’s to meet her for the walk home.

  Sara and her husband Steve lived about a half-mile from Dora’s and most months out of the year, she walked to and from work. Some days, Steve would join her, but not tonight. She and Cindy picked their way down the side of the road while recounting the phone call from J.B. There was no sidewalk and with no traffic at 7:00 p.m. in The Wash, the two stuck to the pavement.

  “I’m going to sound like a broken record here,” Sara began, “but seriously Cindy, you need to just get away. Forget about this place. Forget about the house or whatever promises you made your Mom. You’re wasting your life here. You’re 32 and you’re miserable. Leave The Wash. Leave Utah. Just go.”

  “You know I can’t afford to pick up and go somewhere else. At least not right now. And you know Mom’s will forbids me to sell.”

  “No one is going to challenge you if you go against the will. Just sell the house.”

  “I can’t,” said Cindy. “It’s too soon.”

  Both women walked with their hands in their jacket pockets and even through the extra layers of clothes, the difference between them could not have been any less apparent. Sarah looked the same as she had when they’d first become friends. She was slender, athletic and still carried the wholesome small town beauty that first caught her husband’s eye in high school. Her blonde ponytail bounced as she walked. Cindy was tall, fuller but not overweight. Her dark hair spilled over her shoulders and had none of the wholesome Americana vibe that Sara had. In its place was a sassy sophistication and confidence that projected like a shell around her.

  “At least you’re not holed up in your house bawling your eyes out like after Matt left you.,” Sara said.

  “Why do you always have to bring up Matt?” asked Cindy, playfully bumping Sara with her shoulder as they walked and making her sway into the grass.

  “You became the epitome of the dumped woman when that happened. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone shed so many tears or be so completely irrational about things. I had to practically steal your car keys to keep you from driving to Panguitch to beg him to take you back. You were awful.”

  Cindy smiled. Her light brown hair hung in long loose curls over her shoulders and her pale green eyes glowed in the fading light.

  “Well, you can bet I won’t be doing that over J.B.”

  “Perhaps you should adjust your standards,” said Sara, shooting a smirk toward Cindy.

  “No thank you. I’m not going to settle down with some ranch hand for the rest of my life. I want someone who has some ambition. I want someone who wants to see more of the world than The Wash.”

  “And again, maybe you should pack up, get out of here and just go somewhere new. I mean, you’re only a few hours from Las Vegas. Why not move there for a while and see what life throws at you? It’s got to be more exciting than this place.”

  Cindy kept her gaze on the road in front of her and continued walking in silence.

  “Look, come on over tonight. Steve’s gone to the bar with Wendell. He’ll probably be home sometime around midnight. I was planning on watching a movie and having the house to myself but let’s make it a girl’s night, open a bottle of wine and hang out.”

  “Why don’t we go to Jim’s instead?”

  Sara shook her head, “No thanks. This town’s not big enough to do something like that without it being talked about and noticed by everyone. Besides, I don’t want to ruin Steve’s night.”

  “Why would it ruin Steve’s night? Besides, why should I stay home and in seclusion when I could be out enjoying myself? So what if the only place to play in The Wash happens to employ my ex-boyfriend? I’m not ashamed of what happened. Come on, go with me.”

  Sara shook her head, “Not tonight. I’d planned on a quiet evening to myself. Even if you’re not coming over, I’ll probably open that bottle of wine and enjoy having the house to myself.”

  The two women reached the end of Sara’s driveway.

  “You sure you don’t want to hang out here?”

  “No,” said Cindy feeling surer about her decision with each word. “I think I’d rather go to Jim’s. I need J.B. to see I’m not a wreck.”

  “Well Steve will be there if you get into any trouble. I’m sure he’d drive yo
u home.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  The two women hugged and Sara whispered, “Have fun and be careful. Call me if you need me.”

  “Thanks for listening,” said Cindy. She pulled away and started walking the quarter mile to her own house.

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow and tell you how it went!”

  “Can’t wait to hear,” Sara said sarcastically and headed into the house.

  With the fading light coming through the back windows, the entryway was dim. Sara flipped on the light, kicked off her shoes and walked down the short hallway to the living room. She pulled off her jacket and laid it across the couch, then walked past her treadmill and the television to the glass sliding doors. In the backyard were a handful of small pine trees. Steve had spent the last winter keeping them as warm as possible in the freezing winters but now it looked like they may survive on their own. He’d transplanted them from the porch to the yard and Sara made it a point to check on them each evening when she got home. She slid on a pair of ratty loafers, pulled open the door and walked out. The needles on the trees felt flexible and healthy still.

  “So far, so good,” she thought.

  It was nice being outside after waiting tables all day. Subject matter aside, her walk home with Cindy had been a pleasant one and honestly, she didn’t feel like she was quite ready to head back in yet. She walked all the way to the back of the property and gazed out at the road. The back part of the land held enough pines to make them feel like they owned the only house for miles. Sara felt the needles crunch beneath the thin soles of her shoes and looked up to see if she could get a view of the jays squawking overhead. She saw nothing but green needles, darkening sky and something drifting. It was small and bright, floating down from high up in the trees. It came gently as if being lowered by a slight breeze and looked like a brightly colored puff of cotton.

  ‘Feathers,’ Sara thought. ‘It looks like a ball of feathers.’

  It was easily twenty-five feet above her. She kept her eye on it and followed it as it blew back toward the cement slab behind the house. When it got low enough she snatched it carefully from the air and cupped it in both hands. It was indeed made of feathers, but it didn’t look like it came from one bird. The feathers were blue, red, green, brown and yellow. Some were smaller than her fingernails. Others looked like only the tips of larger ones. Each was woven into the next, the individual frills interlocking to form something about the size of a golf ball. A faintly sweet smell tickled her nose. She brought the ball closer to her face and inhaled. The scent was sweet like orange blossoms, yet spicy like the smell of sage or was it a hint of basil? She breathed in again and a flood of images came into her head. She remembered her first kiss with Rick Warner and how he tasted like apples. She heard the sound of her mother singing to her when they hung clothes to dry. She felt Cindy’s hand in hers as they walked to the school bus when they were seven.