Connie Barnes Rose
Action Avenue

It's Thursday night and most of the town is sleeping, just waiting for their alarm clocks to scare the dreams right out of them. I just hope Carla has the good sense not to buzz down past my father's house. He went off duty at eight, so I know he's not patrolling the streets tonight. Which is about the only reason I'm able to tear through town on Baxter's ten speed, shouting, "Action Avenue!" instead of just slinking around the side streets. Just thinking about this makes me raise my hands into fists, and when the wind from behind picks up my jacket like a sail, it whisks me even faster down main street.

Main Street has that red glow it gets on summer nights. I guess this comes from the sandstone buildings. Or maybe it's just the drugs. There's a few guys perched over on the park bench, high on magic mushrooms and wearing these funny little pixie grins. When I stop the bike next to them, Nick, the only one I know, says, "Hey, Nancy, this stuff is really good."

"Ain't it though," I say and wheel away. Baxter's tires hum on the pavement, my whole body is in rhythm with these legs that are as strong and tireless as the pistons on the train that's just now charging through town. I bike down to the tracks and stop so close to the train that the force of the wind blows my hair straight back from my face. As soon as the last car passes, there is this suction that lasts just for a second, but just in that second, I feel like I'm about to get yanked right on after it. Then it's gone, the screaming steel noise, and right after the train has rattled away, it gets quiet so suddenly that I can hear the nighthawks screeching.

Oh, and I can hear Carla again too. She's somewhere up by the cement works by the sounds of it. She's been getting pretty close to Father Jack these days. Not that I think they're doing it, Carla told me she doesn't like him that way at all. What she does like is anything to do with speed.

Baxter has gotten himself into speed in a big way too. He and Carla and Jack shoot up in the attic of the rooming house that Jack owns. It's been going on ever since Baxter moved into a room there. I knew at the time it probably wasn't too healthy for him to move into Jack's, but he wanted to get out from under his mother's roof and since I'm still living in my father's house because no-fucking-body believes in tipping at the Jupiter where I work, I told him I thought it was a good plan. But the simple truth was we needed a place to screw.

Baxter is two whole years younger than me. But he was so cute I couldn't keep my hands off of him. Carla teased me when she saw that I had a thing for him, said things like, "You sure he's allowed out after dark?" He was almost eighteen for Christ's sake, so I hardly think it was craddle robbing. And besides, he's the one who started following me around town one day. I'd be at work at the Jupiter restaurant, and he'd come in and order a piece of banana cream pie, and then he'd go on about how good it was. As if it was me who'd made it. I couldn't help noticing how he smoothed the hairs on his brown arms resting there on the counter. And he had these clear green eyes flecked with little dots of gold.

One night he showed up at the Purple Hall. I watched him go straight to the bar and ask Dennis for a beer. My heart went right out to him when Dennis asked him for some I.D. He looked my way before walking out the door. And I just followed him right on out there. Behind me I could hear Carla and the rest laughing. I caught up to him at the bottom of the stairs. All I had to do was put my hand on his shoulder.

We got it on behind the Purple Hall where a grassy bank runs down to the tracks. It was dark and I hustled him out of his clothes so quick that later he said he felt like he'd been caught in a twister or something. When the Halifax train came through I decided that we'd best roll behind a bush. That Baxter may have been young, but he didn't lose me for a second.

The sports car comes screeching to a stop right in front of me. My back wheel swings around and I just about bash into the door. Father Jack takes off this dotted red scarf he has wrapped around his eyes.

"I couldn't stare death in the eye anymore," he says, wiping at his forehead.

Carla seems so excited she looks like she's about to come. I once heard her say that the only thing that went with speed was more speed. And Jack with his car made the perfect match. If there's something to be had, you can be sure the Father has it. And like he says, he's always happy to share the magic with his friends. He also has this thing for bows and arrows. There's a line of tin pie plates stuck on the barn behind his rooming house. At any time of the day or night you can hear the arrows rip through them. It used to amaze me how Jack's tenants would put up with all the noise until I figured out that they were mostly old drunks with nowhere else to go.

One day Baxter gave me a lesson in archery because I was getting bored with smoking dope and screwing to Seals and Crofts. I liked how I felt, pulling the arrow back just as far as it could go. And I liked the way Baxter felt behind me too as he helped me guide the shaft along the bow. But mostly I liked how Baxter reminded me of Robin Hood standing there with his long brown hair and steady gaze. So we soon ended up back on his mattress.

Father Jack asks me where Baxter is as he wraps the scarf around his neck, carefully tucking the ends in.

"He's at Chase's," I say. "There's a poker game or something going on over there."

"Go tell him something for me, will you?"

"Why can't you?" I say, because I like to think that I've developed a thing for not doing what I'm told.

Jack throws his hands up in the air, "You'd think I was asking her to rob a bank. He's your boyfriend for Christ's sake."

Carla has moved herself up so she's sitting on the back of the seat. She has lit a cigarette and looks like she's not noticing this conversation. But of course she is.

"Why don't you say please?" she says now to Jack. "Baxter may be your butler, but Nancy isn't."

That's another thing that pisses me off about Baxter moving into the Father's. Instead of making Baxter pay rent, Jack has decided to call him his butler. Baxter is supposed to take care of the house, clean the bathrooms, shovel snow, things like that. Baxter thinks he's getting a great deal here. When I complained to Carla about it though, she said, "Maybe it's you who doesn't like being the butler's wife."

"Oh yeah," I said, "and what does that make you, Jack's wife? Don't be so stupid, like I'd want to be anybody's wife."

I was pissed off at her the whole day.

Chase's poolroom looks all dark and I'm thinking maybe nobody's in there. I go and try the door and find it open. I start through the hall because I see there's a bit of light coming from the back. I've never been in Chase's poolroom because girls just don't go in there. I suppose that in itself might be a good reason to start, but the truth is I never wanted to before, and I don't really want to go now only I have this message from Jack. It has to do with the stash, it has to be moved tonight. I would do it myself but it's under Jack's barn and I'm afraid of skunks. For sure Father Jack isn't about to crawl under there, and since Baxter is the butler, well it's his job. When I pointed out that it wasn't my job, Jack told me that he wasn't about to go into Chase's poolroom himself. Carla and I tried to get him to tell us why, but all we got was that he didn't feel like dealing with Ricky Chase tonight and if I would be so kind, could I deliver the fucking message to Baxter about moving the stash. I didn't let on, but I knew what it was, the thing with him and Ricky Chase. One night last winter I came out of the Purple Hall and saw Jack pushing the girl he was living with up against a car. He was real mad at her and she was crying. Ricky Chase was walking by and told Jack to lay off. Jack told Ricky to mind his own fuckin' business, but I saw Ricky Chase take Jack by the arm and say something real quiet to him. Jack just stormed off up the street and his girl went after him. I tried to think of what Ricky could have said to Jack to make him back off like that. Ricky's a lot smaller than Father Jack.

I don't really know Ricky Chase, since he's way older, but he seems to know me. Whenever I pass him in the street he smiles and says, "Hi Nancy McKinnon." But then he walks on like it doesn't matter if I answer or not. Once I turned around to look at him after he'd passed and I got all embarrassed because he had turned around too. He just waved and kept on going but for the rest of the day my face got hot when I thought about it.

The ceiling of Chase's poolroom droops down like a hammock. The lights dangle low over the tables. At the end of the poolroom a light shines from a small room. I call out, "Hey, is Baxter in there?"

I hear the scrape of a chair and Ricky Chase comes out of the room. He is wearing a white shirt that just about glows in the dark. He turns on the lights and I stand there blinking.

"Oh, I thought Baxter would be here. He said there was a poker game."

"Why it's Nancy McKinnon."

"So is there a poker game?" I say, wondering why I feel so out of breath.

He runs his hands through his hair as if he's very tired. "No, no poker game tonight, just going over the books for this place. Hey, are you any good at math? Come and take a look at this."

I open my mouth to say no, but he has turned and gone back into what turns out to be an office. There's a filing cabinet and a table full of papers. A bottle of rye sits next to a dusty adding machine. He picks up the bottle and asks me if I want some. I hate whiskey, but I take a sip anyway. Then he tells me that he has just inherited the poolroom from his grandfather. He looks up at the ceiling and mutters that he guessed his grandfather must have hated him.

I say, "At least it's all yours now."

"So it is," he laughs, raising his glass. "All mine."

That's when I notice these drawings of faces pinned up on the walls. I recognize some of them. One is of this guy around town named Garby who everybody says is half monkey. I've seen him come out of Chase's before, and then head straight for the garbage cans by the door. I go to say something about the drawing, how much it actually looks like him, but then I get a bit shocked to see right next to it, a drawing of my father when he was younger, in his uniform. For some reason that makes me shiver, the kind like when someone walks on your grave.

"I have to go find Baxter," I say, "and I really am no good at math."

"That makes two of us." He sighs, rolling his shirt sleeves up over his elbows.

It feels cooler out on the street. In fact, I'm starting to shiver. And I'm feeling grubby, a sure sign that something's wearing off. That Baxter. One morning I went looking for him at a house where there'd been a party the night before. Whoever let me in told me he was upstairs. I went up there and looked into one of the rooms. This girl Rena Dickson was lying asleep with her mouth in a snore. Beside her was this buddy who I'd never seen before. I was about to turn away when I noticed a pair of feet on the other side of Rena's head. I looked down at the end of the bed then and there was Baxter, sound asleep with his hair falling over his cheek. One of Rena's orange painted toes rested next to his ear. I just stood there with my arms crossed tightly and said, "Well this is cute."

Later he said that Jack had laid some heavy downers on them, and that he didn't even remember getting upstairs let alone what he could have been doing lying naked in a bed with Rena Dickson and that buddy. Like that would make it okay. And then he said he thought maybe it was time he started looking for a job, that there was an opening down at the metal plant. Maybe we could get our own place, like an apartment and then have some kids. "Life could be normal," he said, just before I picked up the chair I'd been sitting on and threw it at him. I stayed mad at him for a week, until one night he stood in my way as I tried to walk down Main Street. He burst into tears and said he was nothing without me. So I took him back. But not once did I tell him that I couldn't really see us ever living together.

Now I'm really starting to shake, probably from thinking about all that. I need something to calm me down. I listen for the sound of the sports car. Jack would have something on him, valium, hash, anything to take the edge off this stuff. That's the only problem I have with the heavier stuff. It usually leaves you feeling raw. Yeah, some hashish would round off the night. And I still haven't found Baxter to give him the Father's message. I wouldn't mind curling up in those arms right now.

The sports car is parked beside the rooming house. I see that the blind has been pulled down on the kitchen window. I'm just going around to the back door when a cop car pulls into the driveway. It's not like I can run, they've got me in the headlights. A cop and a narc get out. I recognize the cop. He and my father sometimes go fishing.

A bust is already happening in the kitchen. I stand in the doorway with the cops behind me. Baxter is there, his face all calm, his hands folded in his lap, a smile at the corners of his mouth when he sees me. Carla sits at the chrome table playing with the salt and pepper shakers. Father Jack is hunched over in a chair, holding his head in his hands. He raises his head and looks pretty freaked out. One of the cops is holding the stash. No fucking wonder the Father is freaked. For a second I try to picture him in jail, but I just can't see him being anywhere but here around town.

One of the cops is writing something on a clipboard. The one who fishes with my father still hasn't recognized me. I figure any second they're going to ask my name. Then Baxter stands up and they put cuffs on his hands.

"What's going on?" I say. "That's not your stuff, Baxter."

"Then whose do you suppose it is?" the cop with the clipboard says, his yellow teeth grinning at me.

I look quickly at Jack, but he's still staring pretty hard at the floor. My own teeth clamp shut.

"It's okay Nance," Baxter says. "I'm okay."

I guess I must be just standing there stunned, because I watch him walk out of there and then through the window I see him get into the car. He raises his cuffs to me, and I get this hot pain in my throat.

"We're through here," says the cop with the clipboard.

"Aren't you Wally McKinnon's girl?" the cop who fishes with my father says, "Now I don't think you really belong here, do you?"

I'm sitting on the steps in front of the Baptist church. It's starting to get light. Soon my father will wake up and clear out of the house. At the station he'll hear all about last night. I wonder if any of them will have the nerve to tell him that his daughter was involved. I wonder if he'll go over to the jail to speak to Baxter. My father has never taken Baxter too seriously. At least he never seems to have anything much to say about him. When I first started staying out all night, he just asked me, "What loser is it this time?" Then when he saw me and Baxter down in front of the Manpower office one day he actually stopped. He was in uniform and he asked me if I was going to introduce him to my new friend. Baxter actually started to turn green when I went right ahead and acted like we were at a garden party or something. My father shook his hand and told him that he'd known his mother in high school, and to say hello to her. Baxter stumbled over the four words he managed to spit out, and kept flicking the hair out of his eyes. After that my father always had this little laugh he used whenever I mentioned Baxter's name. One day he actually stopped me in the street and said right out of the blue, "I'm just curious. What is it you're trying to prove anyway."

Poor Baxter. I'm staring at the dirt on the sidewalk and wondering what it will be like visiting him in prison. He probably thinks he needs me more than ever now. What he really needs is a girl who thinks she's ready to settle on down. What he really needs is a girl who doesn't feel so empty.

I should go home. I don't have a watch on but there's that sun coming up over the town hall just like it's supposed to and there's a robin chirping away like it has everything to be cheerful for. I hear some singing, and I'm thinking somebody's up awful bright and early. Then I see him come around the corner of Pearl's Pharmacy and almost stumble against a parking meter.

"Hey Nancy McKinnon." Ricky Chase calls to me like it's quite okay to be sitting in the Baptist Church doorway at six in the morning. "Keeping out of trouble?"

"Doing my best," I call out, "Hey, how'd you make out with the books?"

"Just like you. Doing my best."

I watch him open the door beside the Jupiter Restaurant. Just before he closes it, he turns and waves to me. And here I've been waiting tables all this time and never knew that Ricky Chase lived just above where I work.