recruit. She had fallen in with a gang of taciturn men older than her father, and after one meeting, they knew more about her than her father ever had.
Rachel assumed that the patrons of the bar would remember her past, would treat her with disdain. But drunks knew better than that. She had control over the thing they wanted most.
Gene Runkle showed up at eight thirty every morning. He was the dogcatcher in Quinn but was terrible at it, probably because he spent every single day drinking. The only thing he ever caught was gossip. He looked the same as he did when Rachel was a child. Rachel stopped by in the mornings to badger her mother for lunch money, and Gene Runkle was always drinking his first or second beer. Fifteen years later, he did not have the red nose and cheeks of an alcoholic. Gene Runkle was a gray man. His face and limbs were the color of shirts and sheets laundered for years, in a barely functional washing machine. His hair wasn’t silver. He had a full head of it, and it was the kind of blond that had given up and faded, leached of color, yellow in some lights, the hue of old wood.
At nine o’clock in walked Mrs. Matthis, who had once been the judge’s wife. Her first name was Erlene, but Rachel addressed her formally, as did everyone else in town. The judge died ten years prior, pneumonia that he just couldn’t shake, a bad rasp that turned into a death rattle. After he died, Mrs. Matthis immediately took to drinking, as if she had always been waiting for the opportunity, determinedly, a little desperate, vodka and tomato juice every half an hour. She always kept her composure, and left before the lunch crowd. Mrs. Matthis sat far away from Gene Runkle—she did not engage in his rumormongering. Every day, Mrs. Matthis worked a book of crossword puzzles, sold at the Sinclair, new at the end of every month. She never asked for help with answers but was obviously not certain, for she used a pencil and brought her own pink eraser and pencil sharpener. She left the curls of shavings in neat piles around her purse. When Mrs. Matthis sharpened her pencils, it sounded like the scratchy chirp of crickets. Mrs. Matthis was the puffy kind of drunk, swollen hands and face, cheeks chapped red, pink hands clutching at the pencil so hard her joints turned white. Despite this, she erased carefully, almost daintily. The crossword puzzle books were cheap and the paper tore easily. She erased often, and Rachel suspected the boxes were filled with gibberish. Mrs. Matthis’s mind was obviously pickled, and there was no way she could recall the largest of the great lakes, or the famous college football coach from Alabama.
Winsome Shankley walked into the Dirty Shame for his red beer at ten o’clock. She knew him from high school, the bad boy, the kid with money and the only new car in the parking lot. His parents moved to Quinn from California, determined to keep Winsome out of trouble. He owned the Booze and Bait, a bait shop and liquor store, and he kept dilettante hours, just afternoons, and sometimes, not at all. He was still cute enough, with the same floppy brown hair and the same sad eyes. He was handsome, because he didn’t look like a local. He had originated from a completely different gene pool. Not that Winsome didn’t do his best to share his DNA with the women in Quinn, and the surrounding county.
This was her morning routine. Today was Thursday, and at ten o’clock she poured Winsome’s beer, and waited. Winsome was already half-lit when he walked through the door. She could tell he was drunk because he was grinding his teeth, something he unconsciously did after his fourth or fifth drink. Every drunk had a tell like a bad poker player.
“Fuck,” Winsome said, and rubbed his eyes as he staggered before her. Gene Runkle kicked a stool toward him, and Mrs. Matthis bent over her crossword, her tongue poking out as she concentrated.
“Fuck is right,” said Gene Runkle.
“I saw your mom outside,” said Winsome to Rachel. “She’s peeking through the window right now.”
Rachel turned her head, and sure enough, saw the flash, the white of the casts. She expected Laverna to barge through the door, but nothing happened. Her mother was a terrible spy, had always left the espionage to Red Mabel.