Star Dancer: Part Two

I don’t know why they called him “Red.”

There was nothing red about him.
Except maybe where hard drinking put blotches on his cheeks and bloodshot in his empty blue eyes. He was skinny as a stiletto and he had the look of a man who was just as dangerous. When your back was turned.

He liked to hang out in this roadhouse called “Cactus Jack’s Saloon.” The place was so old they still had a jukebox over by the pool table, even though on weekends they might have a DJ come in — on rare occasions a live band — and people would jam the place for country line dancing, which, as far as I could tell, was an unpleasant form of close order drill.

Okay, I wasn’t a big country fan: Beer bellies and fancy belt buckles. Imitation alligator or ostrich skin boots — or, worse real alligator or ostrich skin. Skoal tucked into the lip. Cowboy hat apparently nailed to their fucking heads. And those were the women.

Somebody had selected an ancient recording of Hank Williams Jr. doing his dad’s tune, “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”
I dig hank Williams.
It started up just as I slid onto a barstool a couple seats down from Red.

I almost laughed out loud to see myself in the mirror: a down vest over a faded Levi jacket; black chamois shirt, Levi jeans, work boots. “John Deere” baseball cap tilted down over my eyes, partly to hold my wig on. Most of it was from a Goodwill Thrift Shop.

It wasn’t my style. But then, what color is a chameleon, anyway?

And it matched up well with the uniform that Red was wearing.
He had a woodland cammo baseball cap pushed back on his head, revealing sandy hair that matched the scruff of beard on his chin. Undershirt stained around the neck. Plaid flannel shirt, hunter orange vest. His shirttails hung out under the vest. Levis. Harness boots.
And hanging from his belt, a big old truckers’ key ring on a heavy chain.

I order a beer, sipped it from the bottle, just like he did, putting a stretch in my vowels that might suggest I was raised somewhere south of the Manson-Nixon Line. Just like he did, I leered at the buxom waitress who showed lots of cleavage above her ruffles. I made a comment about her breasts and he sniggered.

And that was the start of a beautiful friendship.

We got to talking. Bought each other a few beers. Made crass comments about women. Mostly I listened. Nodded a lot. Asked him what he thought about this, what he thought about that.
It was almost too easy.

I worked it into the conversation that my daughter had a birthday coming up and that I wanted to get her something really special — something my cunt of an ex-wife wouldn’t be able to top. Maybe a horse of her own. I told him I knew of a horse for sale that sounded like a pretty good deal, too.

Then I led him to questions he could ask me, letting him think it was all his idea, showing him how stupid I was when it came to horses, letting him flaunt all he thought he knew. Letting him walk into the trap all by himself, using just his ego and a little greed for bait.
It usually does the trick.

By the end of the night, my new pal had agreed to meet me the next morning to go out and have a good look at this horse I wanted to buy. Give me the benefit of his expert opinion for fifty bucks. I noticed, when he left, his keys jangled loudly at his side as he walked.
Like spurs.


(To Be Continued...)