Nitro Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page A

one of them to say her name, to see how well she knew them. That’s how I planned on trusting her.
    The band had left with the tip bucket, and for pay I was stuck drinking pints of Natty Light, which really wasn’t so bad. She’d already offered to drive me home but I still didn’t want to go. One more beer? Why not. Bob had tried to rub away the eyeliner and by now he just looked dirty. He stood at my table, arms behind his back like he was trying to undo his own bra, asking if I wanted a new beverage.
    “Another one of these,” I said.
    “Another those,” he said, and sidestepped over to Rachel, who was now talking to a group of guys about how hard it was to be a woman. “It’s like,” she said. “It’s like,” she said. “It’s like.”
    They nodded along with her, following her point: It
is
like.
    “Order now or forever hold your peas,” Bob said, cupping his crotch.
    One guy smacked his hand away and asked for a round of whiskeys.
    “How round?” Bob said, reaching for Rachel’s breasts.
    “Do it,” she said, “and I’ll bite your nose off.”
    “It’s all right, Rachel,” another guy said. “He don’t mean nothing by it.”
    When I went back in to pack my gear, I did something on purpose.
    After I’d slid my bass into its bag, I left my power cord and guitar cable on the corner of the stage. Daffy Duck was mopping up behind the bar, sweating and cursing at himself. I expected him to look over as I walked by, but he didn’t. With the gig bag over my right shoulder, the amp in that hand and my broken arm thumping hot pain through my neck, I kicked open the door and dumped it out on the edge of the veranda. The shots the group ordered had come out, and Rachel left the circle to hand me mine. “Here’s to you,” she said. “For trying.”
    I wasn’t sure what she meant. Trying to play bass? Trying to get with her? Trying to be a big boy and carry my own shit? But I tapped my shot glass against hers, splashing a burning drizzle of whiskey over the hangnail on my thumb.
    Daffy led Bob, who was crying again, in by the shirt collar, and without looking at me Rachel said she wanted to go.
    “I’m riding with you,” I said.
    “I’ll load your stuff,” she said. “It looks heavy. Don’t lift a thing. You looked all night like you were hurting.”
    She had a green Subaru Outback with one blue door. “A train hit me one time,” she said. “It was going five miles an hour.”
    “Story of my life,” I said.
    She fit my stuff in the back among jugs of antifreeze, oil, transmission fluid. The heat in her car was a miracle; it even came up out of the leather seats. I told her to drive slow so we could enjoy it.
    She lived in a condo on top of a treeless yard. A basketball goal lay on its side across part of the driveway with sand pouring out of its base. “The family that lived in the other half of the house left it like that,” she said. “A Mexican bunch that was always fixing my car for free. They moved out last week. We can stretch our limbs tonight. Make all the noise we want.”
    We were walking up the stairs to her front door when the blinds in the picture window broke open, then snapped shut. I stopped at the top step and asked who was in there.
    “Why so nervous?”
    I wanted to tell her that I was fine with coming inside tonight, especially since I needed a place to stay. I would do it as long as I didn’t have to get to know her. It was about Jennifer. “Is somebody else here?” I said.
    “It’s just my dog. He crashes the blinds when he gets excited. Nobody ever comes over. Until they do.”
    —
    I slept soundly for the first time since Jennifer had ditched me. Rachel’s boxer was there on the bed where she’d been, twisting on its back, all muscle and muzzle, snorting and sneezing. The smell of bacon came into the room in the dog’s coat and made me think of my folks’ place. I should’ve told them I wasn’t coming home. But I was old enough. I didn’t have to