In the backseat of his mom’s Oldsmobile, Michael was drinking soda pop out of a Styrofoam cup. He held the soda in a plastic straw at midstream. He put one finger over the mouth of the straw, pulled it from the lid of the paper cup, and held it in front of him at arm’s length. He leaned toward the end, lifting his finger from the top; he began sucking on it as a deer would from a feeder.

It was raining lightly, and the town’s lampposts reflected off of the drops on the windows as they passed, illuminating the interior of the car, and then fading again and again as though they were beside a melancholy strobe light. The Oldsmobile’s tires ran over the wet streets, sounding like bacon frying in a skillet. Michael’s little brother, Curtis, was sitting next to him. The boy was looking out of the window, humming along quietly to the radio, seemingly unaware that he was doing so. Michael’s mother, Abbey, was quietly talking to herself in the front seat. She seemed unaware. Her words were indecipherable; she seemed to be speaking a language all her own. She was like a monk before an altar, mumbling something personal, something solemn. She was lost in a reverie. It aggravated Michael to see her talking to herself. He had no idea why.

The family rode on toward the outskirts of Rowena, Texas. The Oldsmobile, long overdue for an oil change, was squealing, its engine knocking like a metronome as Abbey pulled into the dirt parking lot of the Cotton Club. The ramshackle squalor of a dance hall was located a good fifteen minutes from town, because Rowena was a dry county. Abbey drove around the parking, the car bouncing over the rivets in the road as though it had a limp. She overshot a parking spot, then backed her car in slowly and cut the engine. Abbey pulled down the sun-visor and gave herself a once over in the vanity mirror. She was not unpleased with her appearance: she could easily pass as twenty-three, she thought.

"Michael," she said as she applied eyeliner, "Watch your brother, Momma’s only going inside to see who's there. I'll be right back. Here, I'll leave the radio on for ya’ll."

"Mom, will you get me some snacks?" asked Curtis, five, the younger of the two boys. With his crow-black hair and handsome, round face he looked like a very little greaser-in-training. He wore a T-shirt and a pair of canvas shorts; his tennis shoes dangled just over the seat.

"Sure, hon."

Abbey turned to look at Michael, eight years old and already showing the recalcitrant nature of adolescents. He was wearing a starched, buttoned-up shirt and jeans. He liked to imagine himself as a bull-rider, a truck-driver, even a movie star.

"You want anything baby?" Abbey asked.
"I'm fine."
"Suit yerself.” Abbey opened the glove compartment and reached for a soft pack
of Kools menthols. A red lighter was cradled in the cellophane of the pack.

“I'll be back." She said.

There was an electronic ding as the car door opened and the dome light flashed on. The backseat momentarily lit up a drowsy yellow, and the two boys looked at each other. There was an excitement in Curtis’ face that Michael despised. Abbey didn't slam the door behind her, but she was in a hurry. She weaved around the mud holes and the dents left from truck tires. With his soda in his hand, Michael crawled his way from the back over to the steering wheel. The light in the car slowly began to dim. He watched his mother at the entrance of the Cotton Club. She lit a cigarette; she wiped her shoes on the doormat and tucked her shirt into her jeans. Abbey swung the door open wide and shook her hair out behind her, then vanished inside.

Michael took a sip from his soda. He concentrated his eyes hard on the face of the Cotton Club, its ramshackle exterior. It looked like it’d been thrown together with a seed fork. There was no sign that read “Cotton Club”; just a neon light seen in just about every establishment that keeps night hours: Open. The single red streetlamp lit up the building like the glowing cherry at the end of a cigarette. The leaves on the trees were wet and dripping, the streetlamp giving them an orange amphibian skin.

Curtis, still in the back seat, began singing along to the radio. "All she gotta do is just give me that wink."

Michael's attention wandered to the drops of water that ran down the windshield, their streaks looking like translucent veins. A sudden longing wandered over him. A winding feeling that ran through him like a hoop of gypsies and settled in his mind and in his stomach. He wasn’t unfamiliar with this feeling. He rather enjoyed it. Michael would sit and let the feeling grow; polishing his woefulness like it was a gemstone, to the point of conceit. The clock of the car’s radio emitted a vague emerald green. Outside the Oldsmobile, the trees in the distance swayed in the night. It looked like the dark itself was moving about.

After five minutes Michael was already beginning to grow restless. Everything in him wanted to tear at something.  He wanted to claw his way through the hood of the car. He wanted to go stomp his name in the puddles of water that littered the parking lot like empty mirrors.
While staring out the windshield Michael caught a glimpse of himself reflected. It startled him at first, taking him a moment to realize that those eyes were in fact his staring back at him. He then began to study his face in earnest.

Michael began practicing faces in front of his reflection. First he tried apologetic, which was similar to his sad face. Michael supposed he had a face so honest, so pure, that no one would dare pull a gun on him. If they did, it'd break their hearts. He rested his soda on the dashboard. With his index finger he pushed the point of his nose upward to resemble the nose of a pig. He began oinking at his reflection. Being a pig tired him out almost immediately. Michael decided to pucker his lips and quack at himself as though he were a duck. This amused him very much. He smiled, pleased at his reflection. That’s when he noticed his teeth. Shining in the windshield, he examined them, grinning largely, squinting his eyes in the process. Looking, he thought to himself, unbearably frightening.

"What are you doing?" Curtis asked.

Michael leaped into the backseat, threw himself on Curtis, and began to claw at him. Curtis, recognizing this as play, nevertheless wailed for his life. The fun Michael was having, however, didn't match the annoyance of his brother’s high-pitched squeal. Curtis knew the power of his annoyance; he derived a great deal of pleasure from it. Michael cut the game short. He let off his brother and abandoned him for the front of the Oldsmobile, crawling between the two car seats. Michael positioned himself behind the steering wheel as though he were perching there. His knees up by his chest, his weight on the balls of his feet, he gripped the steering wheel and began to bounce up and down slightly, the bottom of his ass hitting the back of his heel. He bounced up and down like that with his gaze transfixed on the Cotton Club.  

Both boys were lost in their own private silence. Curtis began pulling at the hair on his head obsessively; he was silently humming to himself. Michael began to tire, his legs were cramping from the way he was sitting. He listened to Curtis' humming, he couldn't resist: he lunged into the backseat growling like an angry dog. He playfully clawed at Curtis' soft belly, managing to get a hand up Curtis’ shirt, and under his brother’s arm he began tickling hard, harder still to keep his brother from squirming out of his hold. Curtis began a pitiful laughter that came out in gasps, as though he were drowning.

Curtis got his legs into Michael's chest and began pushing. Michael had a good hold on his brother, and he tried to get Curtis pinned into a ball. Curtis' foot slipped and caught Michael in the front of the face. Michael's eyes watered with tears. Curtis knew with a sudden sickness that he was in for a beating; his body tensed and he looked at Michael.

"No, please. No.”
 
Michael's fists came down on his brother first on the top of the head, then the sides of his body. Michael, shaking Curtis loose from the fetal position, got several good blows to his brother’s body. Curtis, crying now, strained to roll over, and Michael used the bottoms of his fists to pound hard on Curtis' back. The punches sounded thick like a hammer beating on a tree stump. Michael grabbed the back of Curtis’ head and began pushing his face into the car seat as though to suffocate him. Michael could hear Curtis’ screams coming up muffled and pleading. Michael pulled his brother’s head up by the hair; he felt he was very far away and looking at his brother from somewhere else. Michael released his grip from his brother’s skull.

Curtis was still for a moment, when he moved Michael pushed him back down. Curtis laid flat on his chest, waiting. Still mad, Michael retired to the driver’s seat. Curtis could feel Michael’s weight lift off of him. He waited until he was certain that Michael wasn’t paying attention to move onto his side and sit properly. Curtis sobbed and Michael felt a grave shame wash over him.

Michael could feel where Curtis had kicked him. The flesh between the gum line and his nostrils was pulsing with a deaf pain. He turned the radio up: a Patsy Cline song. "Now I'm back in baby’s arms," she sang. Michael remembered he had been told Patsy Cline was a relative of his. He let his mind wander. He stared hard at the entrance to the Cotton Club. He could sense his mother’s presence inside. He tried to communicate with her telepathically. With his heart and his mind he tried to pull his mother outside. He concentrated his face, his chest, his stomach, his entire being and sent his message through his eyes: a sad sick message to come back to the car and drive home. Every time he was sure he was effective, that any minute his mother would walk out that wood door. After several minutes went by he felt that maybe there was some unseen force getting in the way. Some kind of shield the Cotton Club had that was blocking his thoughts, as though the building were under a spell.

Curtis' wails turned to the occasional sniveling. Michael hoped for his brother to fall asleep.

“Here,” he said, offering Curtis what was left of his soda. Curtis reached for the cup as though it was being held just out of his grasp.

“Well, you gonna take it or not?” said Michael.

Curtis leaned off the backseat just enough to take the Styrofoam cup from Michael’s hand.

“Thank you,” he said.

***

The radio continued to play, the two boys sitting without a word between them. They listened to songs, misinterpreting the meanings of the lyrics. Michael sat smelling his forearms that were folded over the steering wheel.

"Michael?" Curtis said softly.

"Yep."

"I gotta go to the bathroom."

"Hold it." Michael said.

"I can't."

"Go outside then."

"I gotta poop."

"Then hold it."

"I can't hold it, I really gotta."

Michael turned around to face his brother. He attempted to gauge the severity of the situation.

"Do you really have to go to the bathroom?" he asked.

"Yes, bad."

"You can't hold it?" Michael asked, almost pleading.

"I gotta go number two."

"Okay. Okay."

Michael looked toward the Cotton Club. We need mom, he thought, realizing that his earlier attempts at retrieving his mom - communicating through the mother-son bond - had failed. He decided to just go inside and bring her out.

Panic took him over; it made him feel small, like driving for hours in the desert.

"I'll get mom."

Michael had a little trouble with the weight of the door but he managed to push the Oldsmobile open. The light came on, but without the keys in the ignition there wasn't the familiar ding. He shut the door softly behind him, careful not to have it make any sound. He ducked low to the ground as he made his way to the entrance of the Cotton Club, throwing his back against cars and trucks, always trying to stay in the shadows. He felt he was on reconnaissance.

When Michael had reached the front door of the Cotton Club, he glanced back at the Oldsmobile. The lights were dimming off, and his brother was looking at him from the passenger seat. His little brother was too far away for Michael to make out his expression. Michael could hear the voices inside the club, the sound of music—it all sounded like it was coming from a great distance, from over treetops somewhere, or through a field.

I gotta run away, he thought.

He reached for the door handle, which he was perfectly eye level with, turned the knob, and pulled hard. Nothing. Dammit. He wondered if the door knew he wasn’t supposed to enter. He stepped back and looked at the door. A little sticker read PUSH. "Pu...sh" Michael read, but he couldn’t remember which direction was push. He made up his mind that “push” meant forward, not behind, and pushed on the door not entirely sure that he was, in fact, pushing. The door opened abruptly and Michael fell into the doorway of the Cotton Club. A gigantic man in a cowboy hat and striped shirt stood over him, propping the door open.

"What do you think yer doing, little kid?" he asked, amused.

He picked Michael up and held him in his arms like child that he felt he had outgrown. Still, Michael did not protest.

"I need my mom."

"Shit. This kid needs a mother, George," the cowboy said to a young Mexican man, equally built but with a baseball cap instead of a felt Stetson.

"That breaks my heart, man," George said.

"This one of yours, Georgie?" asked the cowboy.

"No, he ain't mine. Mine you can't pick up."

The cowboy held Michael close to his face and asked, "Which here is your momma?" Michael didn’t reply, his faced turned from the cowboy, his eyes began searching the room for Abbey.

"Come on kid, we’ll find yer mother for ya." The cowboy said, making his way to the bar.

"Come on man, we got business." said George.

"Hold yer damn horses Georgie, only take a second."

"Hell man, why you gotta be picking up fuckin’ strays and shit." George said to the cowboy’s back. The cowboy didn’t appear to hear, and made his way to the bar, carrying Michael not as a child but as though he were a prized lamb, or a kitten, his hands under Michaels arms, lifting the boy out in front of him.

The cowboy sat Michael on the end of the bar, not on a stool, just there on the bar. He sat Michael on something wet.

"Who’s this?" the elderly barmaid said, with a voice that sounded like a stuffed-up drain.

"He's mine. I found him, he just about run me over to get in here," the cowboy said. He turned to face George again. "George, you want a beer? I'm buying, feeling generous,” he yelled to him.

"Bud Lite."

"No shit Bud Lite, is there anything you messicans drink besides Bud Lite?"

“No, I don't think so.” George appeared to be thinking. “Tequila," he said.

"Shut up about tequila," the cowboy said, shaking his head.

"Where’s your mommy?" the barmaid asked Michael. Michael said nothing, just stared out with wide eyes that were bright.

After it became apparent to the barmaid that Michael wouldn’t answer her, she looked up at the cowboy. "Little sunabitch is speechless."

The cowboy replied, "A Bud Lite, and a Coors."



Inside the Cotton Club the women laughed like they were on fire. The majority of men had cowboy hats on. The crowd was thick. Michael couldn't make out what someone was saying unless he looked directly at his or her mouth. There were cast iron pots and pans hanging from nails on the walls. Posters of rodeo men, advertisements for beer, cardboard cutouts of girls with heavy chests smiling, inanely. Two pool tables sat at the far right corner of the bar, and men stood around them with sticks like spears in their hands, while women sat on the benches and talked amongst themselves. Beside the pool table a miniature steer head was propped on a wood table and men took turns roping the head with a thin twine. Wooden picnic tables carved with names were standing in front of the bar, along with additional metal chairs. An old wood-burning stove was in the center of the bar with a fluke pipe that ran upward to the ceiling. The ceiling was low, making the already large crowd seem like a den of giants. There was a band that stood on a stage in the back of the bar, the platform standing no more than two feet off the ground. They wore matching outfits: black jeans, white shirt, black vests, and black cowboy hats. The singer hovered apart, wearing all black. He talked more than sang, in a heavy East Texas drawl.  People didn't seem to mind, they danced even through the breaks. The floor was wet. Michael couldn't make out who his mom was among the crowd, there were too many that resembled her.

"You know what I like about you, kid?" the cowboy said to Michael. "You’re easygoing, people respond to that. Just walks right in here don’t give a damn who cares, people respond to that."

The cowboy held the bottle of Coors up to Michael. "Go on, take a sip."

Michael accepted the bottle in his hand. He looked at the cowboy for a sign of approval. “Go on,” said the cowboy. Michael took a gulp as though it were soda pop.

"Thadda boy. This kid’s a saint, I love him," the cowboy said, pleased.

"You giving that kid beer?" George asked.

"Just a taste, my daddy gave me my first taste when I was knee high to a grasshopper," the cowboy said, gesturing with his hand just how tall that was: about three feet. The beer stunk in Michael's mouth, not at all what he expected. It tasted like something to avoid.

"What'd ya think?" the cowboy asked, grinning.

"It's alright," said Michael.

"It's alright, damnit kid, I think you just said it all right there. It's all right. Hey, Georgie. It’s all right."

"Here, try some Bud Lite," George offered.

Michael obliged. This beer wasn't so bad. He could taste the water in it.

"So, what you think?" asked George.

"I like it alright."

"This kid’s one of us, he's a hell-raiser," said the cowboy. Michael felt a pride he'd only known once, when his father let him steer the pick-up home one night after they had hauled a load of trash to the town dump. That felt like a long time ago.

A group of women gathered around the three of them. There were two straight-haired brunette girls, one fatter than the other, and a blonde that seemed to be their leader. They all wore very tight jeans.

"Who’s this little cutie?" The woman said, more to Michael than to the cowboy or George.

"He's mine. I found him," the cowboy said proudly.

Michael's pride only grew.

"Oh, James, when did you become a daddy?" the blonde asked.

"Girls like you've been calling me daddy for years," the cowboy said. The cowboy placed his beer on the bar to face the three ladies, Michael grabbed it and took a long pull, he didn't know what possessed him.

"Look at this little asshole," said the cowboy happily. The whole group laughed, even Michael, he felt his fame growing.

"Like father like son," the blonde offered.

"What's your name, little boy?" asked the shorter, fatter girl.

"Michael."

"How old are you?" she asked, and Michael could feel that he had everyone’s attention.

"Nine," he lied.

"Nine, wow. Are you in school?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Aw, he called you ma'am," said the blond girl.

"What do you want to be for Halloween?"

"A piano!" Michael said, drunk.


Outside the Cotton Club, in the Oldsmobile, the radio had turned itself off some time ago. Curtis sang to himself anyway, in a thin voice that barely passed his lips. The pain of the shit that he had to take coupled with the fear of being alone was working a bad, bad feeling in him. Finally it was too much. He struggled to open the door, opening wide enough for his body to pass through. He left the door ajar as he looked around for a place to relieve himself.

He walked behind the car, into the bushes that were on the margins of the parking lot. He walked further along and felt the grass reaching taller around him. The grass was cold and it tickled his bare calves. The ground was soft and wet. His tiny heart was racing and he could hear it beating in his throat. The woods were beyond, the clouds had parted, and the moonlight was so bright that Curtis could make out the leaves on trees. He felt the dark’s company and he was scared. He began to unbutton his pants but was startled by what he saw moving in the thicket. He stood stock still for what seemed like a long time. He could feel his sweat glands turn cold and a ripple of panic undulated through his chest to his legs and arms. He turned around to look at the parking lot he had just left. The cars and trucks were wet with rain and they gleamed white. The cars seemed close enough to give Curtis the feeling of safety, he could run to them if need be.

He unbuttoned his jeans to squat when he heard the sound of the wind coming up through the woods just ahead of him, the trees making a moaning sound. Curtis pulled up his pants and ran toward the car. He threw himself inside the car and locked the door. He sat breathing hard with his hands covering his eyes. His mind was repeating the word “No” over and over again. Gradually he let his hands down and looked to his sides expecting something to be in the car with him. There was nothing there, so he looked out of the backseat window.

Curtis began to be ashamed for being scared and he thought of his brother and wondered what he would think. He drank what little liquid there was left in the Styrofoam cup. Then he summoned his courage, rallying himself with scenes from movies, and with grand ideas of impressing his brother, he opened the car door again and slipped outside. Rather than walking out into the field he walked to the opposite side of the Oldsmobile, he began humming to himself. He stood sheltered between the Buick and a pickup truck beside it. Curtis pulled down his pants and squatted with his arms wrapped around his knees, his ass hovering above the cold earth. Curtis relieved his bowels, he began singing his ABC’s.

He stared up at the night sky, the stars blinking like glass on a highway. Curtis took off his T-shirt, wiped himself, with it, and flung it clumsily, but with confidence, in the dark behind the car. Curtis buttoned his jeans. He felt the cool air on his torso and he was not afraid anymore.

***

It had only taken Michael five minutes in the Cotton Club to become a star. His new friends listened to everything he said, and they laughed. Sitting on the edge of the bar he was a bull-rider, he was a firecracker, he was a movie star. He was drunk as anyone in there and they loved him for it. Michael had only caught a glimpse of his mother once. Slow dancing with a bottle in her hand. He didn't care if he ever saw her again. He wanted his friends to adopt him. Michael had already planned it out. He'd ask the cowboy for a ride home, and then when he got in his truck he'd explain that he was an orphan.

The band had taken a break. The members made their way through the crowd. But Michael didn't get a chance to see his plan executed. A fight broke out, and the cowboy, calling himself Daddy, decided to intervene.

"Daddy’s gonna take care of this," he said as he made his way to a group of men tearing at each other. The fight moved liked a heavy wave from one corner of the bar to the dance floor, then toward the pool tables. Michael could see the cowboy wrap his arms around a man’s shoulders. He watched as he pulled the man back and threw him, toppling onto a half circle of empty metal chairs. The chairs clanged on the ground, some skidded away as though they had wills of their own. The cowboy was raising his voice, “That’s enough, Gawd dammit.”

The man who had been thrown lifted himself from the floor slowly and with great purpose. His eyes were wide and feral. He picked up a bottle from the wood- burning stove where a pile of empties had gathered. He turned the bottle over behind his back so that the last dregs spilled out onto the floor.

“Let’s all juss git ourselves situated,” the cowboy was saying. Someone cried out and the cowboy saw the faces of the men in front of him; he saw they’re fear and it confused him. He turned around and the bottle came down on the side of his face.The blonde girl turned away and held Michael by the waist. George rushed into the crowd and with the help of another man picked the cowboy up and carried him toward the exit.

“Grab his hat,” someone from the crowd yelled. A group of men overtook the assailant; they poured onto him their great weight of shoulders and took the man to the ground, restraining him. The cowboy’s shirt was stained a brilliant red. The sight of blood horrified Michael. George held a jacket to his face. The blonde let go of Michael and walked toward George carrying the cowboy. “He’s walking. That’s a good sign,” said one of the fat brunettes. Then the three women followed behind George and the cowboy, silent as altar boys following a priest.

Michael watched them leave from atop the bar. The man being restrained began to cry out with a voice that carried all his rage and fear and deepest regret. It was a sound Michael had never imagined coming from an adult. It was primordial. The fight had frightened Michael, but the sound of the man’s screams seemed to scratch away at his insides. Michael felt a tear strike his forearm before he realized he had been crying. His throat ached as though it were about to collapse in on itself.

The barmaid was on the telephone at the other end of the bar. She saw Michael pushing himself off the bar from his stomach, lowering himself to the ground on her side of the bar. “You better be gone by the time I git off this phone,” she said. Michael looked up at her, his shyness returning to him. “I mean git!” the woman said. Michael wanted his mother. He turned from the barmaid and walked from behind the bar toward the hallway, which led to the exit. On the ground Michael felt foreign, his legs weren't working, the room was suddenly on train tracks rocking back and forth. He walked with his shoulder leaning against the wall for balance. His legs sloping beside him as he advanced slowly toward the door. He looked behind him at the Cotton Club, feeling lost. Mommy, he thought, Mommy.

The door was held open by a fold in the doormat, and Michael was able to pull it open enough to fit through. Outside he suddenly felt the grandeur of everything, the whole world, all worlds, and the calloused moon. He began to laugh, and then cry as he walked through the parking lot drunk. He stepped in a puddle and he fell to his knees in the mud and began to pray, though his prayer was belligerent. Michael very much wanted to be at home in bed. The door of the Cotton Club swung open behind him. He could hear the door slapping the wall and the hinges creak. The sound of adult voices, hollering, laughing, they were making their way out of the bar in a great migration.

Michael stood back up with a shock; he turned around to see the silhouettes of people filing out of the Cotton Club. Michael ran, lopsided, toward the Oldsmobile. He banged on the passenger side door and his brother looked out the window, which was foggy with condensation. His brother stared at him, talking inaudibly. Curtis had no shirt on and he looked like a pixie, his bare shoulders reflecting the streetlamp, giving his skin a carroty hue. Michael heard the sound of the door unlocking. Together they opened the door and Michael pulled himself into the car. Michael shut the door behind him and then rested against it.

“I don’t have to go anymore.” Curtis said.

Michael closed his eyes.

It seemed like years had passed when Michael awoke in the backseat of the Oldsmobile. There were two men accompanying them in the car. One, whom he’d never seen before, was sitting next to his brother. His mother was talking to the other, who was sitting in the passenger side of the car. Michael had seen this man before. Whenever he was around the house Michael was sent outside. Michael looked up to see that they were back in town. He pretended to be asleep, hoping they'd soon be home.

"I know dog shit when I see it and I'mma telling you, that was not dog shit. That was genuine human excrement,” the man in the front seat said.

"It don't matter what kinda shit it was, it's all over my boots." The man in the back said.

"Human shit, that’s the worst," the man in the front said thoughtfully.

"Just ruined my gawd dammed night, I tell you what,” said the man in the back.

"You talk like HBO," Curtis said matter of factly.

"Where’s your shirt, honey?" asked Abbey.

"I don't know," Curtis said, looking straight ahead.

"How many kids you got, anyways?" the man in the front asked.

"Just the two, they’re good boys, they say ‘yes sir’ and ‘no ma'me.’" Abbey said.

"Yeah, that’s good," the man in the front said.

"Hey, hon. Sing that song Gam Ma taught you, this is so cute. Go on now."

Michael held his head against the car door; he was trying to keep the world from spinning. He'd forgotten most of the night and all he felt was the vibration of the car, the alcohol in his body was making rude sounds in his stomach. He heard his brother’s voice singing.