Goats by Mark Poirier

Author:Mark Poirier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2000-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

Wendy had given Goat Man a hundred-dollar bill and the keys to her Volvo, and told him, ‘Get Quentin out of my house for as long as possible.’ Goat Man figured it was the least he could do for Wendy – and Ellis. Ellis didn’t need Wendy on his back. So he took the hundred dollars and loaded Quentin into the car.

Goat Man had planned on getting Quentin drunk quickly and sending him off to bed quietly, but it didn’t work. After about twenty minutes at the Nugget, Quentin had swallowed the mescal worm and patted the asses of three women, the third of whom shoved him and yelled, ‘Fuck you, asshole!’

‘Most Scots think American beer is piss water,’ Quentin bellowed. ‘I just think it’s piss. Coors is piss.’ He pushed a bottle off the bar. Miraculously, it didn’t smash, but it clanked around on the cement floor before rolling under a table. Three grim cowboys stood and surrounded Quentin. Two were taller than him.

‘What was that you were saying about American beers?’ one of the cowboys said. He had a waxed mustache and dead, silver eyes.

‘He didn’t mean anything,’ Goat Man said.

Quentin faked a hick accent as best a Scot could. ‘Where’s Jethro? Where’s the ceee-ment pond?’

Goat Man didn’t want to fight. He hadn’t fought in years. He always lost because every fight situation he had been in was like the one he was in now: he was outnumbered and defending someone who didn’t deserve to be defended. Goat Man motioned to the mustached cowboy. ‘He’s retarded,’ he whispered to him. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying.’

‘You’ll keep him quiet?’ the cowboy asked.

‘I will,’ Goat Man said.

The cowboy tipped his ARIZONA FEEDS cap skeptically and told his friends to back off. With his Cro-Magnon forehead and close-set eyes, Quentin did look sort of retarded.

Stanley, the bartender, walked over. ‘Get him out of here now,’ he said to Goat Man.

‘What’s all this about?’ Quentin asked. ‘Set me up with another nip of the worm stuff.’

‘We gotta go,’ Goat Man said, pushing Quentin towards the door. ‘I’ll take you to another place with cheaper beer and better company.’

‘I was just making friends with some real-life cowboys,’ Quentin said.

Goat Man was amazed that Quentin didn’t put up more of a stink about leaving; he complied, saluting the cowboys as he left.

After a strip club and two more bars, Goat Man was exhausted. Quentin wasn’t. No matter how much Quentin danced, or how much alcohol Quentin consumed, or how many times Quentin whooped it up, Quentin didn’t seem to tire. At last call, Goat Man pulled Quentin away from three women and convinced him that going to a party at an apartment complex in Marana was a bad idea. ‘Marana’s too far,’ Goat Man said, ‘and besides, I have some weed.’

Leaning against Wendy’s car in the dirt parking lot of the Bay Horse Tavern, Goat Man lit up the only bowl he had brought along. A truck with women leaning from its windows screeched out onto Grant Road.

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