Hoosier Daddy Read online

  Mona waved a handful of sculptured nail enhancements toward the assembly line below. “This looks pretty good . . . lots of bright color and big action. How about we set up right here?”

  We were standing over the part of the line where a massive orange hoist lowered an Outlaw cab and bed onto a preassembled chassis. For people unfamiliar with the process, this was the most exciting part of production because it’s where the actual truck came together.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “How can I be helpful?”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll just ask you some general questions while Mitch, here, films what’s happening.”

  I nodded.

  Mona signaled the cameraman to start recording. “So can you describe what we’re seeing below?” she asked me, in a perfectly modulated, prime time voice.

  “Sure,” I said. “This is the part of the manufacturing process where three major assemblies converge. The cab and bed are lowered onto a preassembled chassis by robotic arms. This particular unit is called the marriage machine, because it’s where the body meets the chassis.”

  “Amazing,” Mona added.

  Behind Mona and Mitch, Luanne Keortge was ambling toward us on the catwalk. Luanne was a quality control inspector, and part of her job was to walk the line. I signaled to her to wait up for a few minutes. I was pretty sure we’d be moving along to another area soon.

  “If you look closely,” I continued, “you can see how precisely the cabs and beds align with the vertical chassis bolts. This machine is actually the most sophisticated piece of equipment in the plant.”

  “The colors are just sensational,” Mona cooed. “How many different trucks do you make here?”

  “That’s a good question. With all of the possible combinations of options—engines, transmissions, tires, colors, interior appointments— I suppose you could say that we make more than sixty thousand different kinds of trucks.”

  “Incredible.” Mona actually sounded impressed.

  Below us, another cab and bed were seamlessly lowered onto the next chassis rolling forward on the line.

  “What the hell?” Mitch blurted. “Get a load of this!” He leaned over the railing, trying to get a better angle on something.

  I looked over at him. “Hey. Don’t do that . . . it’s dangerous!”

  Mona pressed a hand to her mouth. She looked at me, then back toward the marriage machine. I had a sinking feeling. It would be just my luck to have a six million dollar robot pick this precise moment to drop one of the cabs.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus.” Luanne had plainly seen whatever went wrong, too. “That sure as hell ain’t on my checklist.” She hit an emergency stop switch on a pillar. The production line below us ground to an immediate, seven-thousand-dollar-a-minute halt. The momentary silence was deafening. Then I could hear laughter drifting up from someplace.

  I looked down. Two naked figures were writhing around in the bright yellow bed of an Outlaw Super Duty 450. I was stunned. From the tattoos, I could tell that the woman was Misty Ann, and the man on top of her was none other than our company public affairs rep, Jerry Sneddin.

  Mitch laughed. “I suppose this is one of the sixty thousand options?” he asked between snorts. “I could make a fortune with this shit on YouTube.”

  Luanne huffed her way over to stand next to him. “It sure is, honey.” She pulled a pack of Viceroys from her shirt pocket and tapped one out. “But I can’t say as I agree with puttin’ the stick shift in the back door.”

  I sighed and took another look at Misty Ann. T-Bomb was right. I’d been hiding long enough.

  Tonight, I was heading for Hoosier Daddy.

  Chapter 2

  Bobby Roy’s band wasn’t playing until nine o’clock, so the crowd was getting warmed up at the Karaoke machine. Normally, this was just too painful to endure for long. Nothing could make the Belgian beer in my belly turn sour faster than listening to a bunch of drunken auto workers croak their way through a cover of “Friends in Low Places” on open mike night.

  I sat at a table in the back with T-Bomb and Luanne, trying to ignore the obnoxious music—and everything else. When I first walked into the bar a little bit after six, it was clear that everyone there had already heard the story about Jerry and Misty Ann. A chorus of “Sixty-Thousand Options!” roared out above the music. I tried to just roll with it and not show how much it annoyed me. That was generally the best way to get people to drop it and shift their attention to somebody else’s misfortune.

  I was well into my second beer when I caught a whiff of something nasty and took a look around.

  “What’s that smell?” I raised a hand to my face.

  T-Bomb pushed her chair back and took a look beneath our table. “Oh, hell. It’s that damn Lucille.”

  Lucille was an ancient and morbidly obese Jack Russell Terrier. He was a fixture at Hoosier Daddy. Nobody really understood why Aunt Jackie, the owner and bartender, had named her unneutered male dog Lucille. Lucille was famous for his bad disposition and his righteous gas. The crankiness probably came from two decades of being called by a girl’s name. The epic flatulence was the likely result of being fed a steady diet of fried codfish.

  “Sweet Jesus.” Luanne fired up another Viceroy and blew a plume of smoke across the table to try and mask the odor. “That damn dog is a menace. Shoo him outta here, T-Bomb.”

  T-Bomb looked beneath the table again. “Too late. He’s already settled-in. Now he’s lickin’ his business.”

  “Oh god.” I finished my bottle of Stella. I didn’t go much for the beers Aunt Jackie kept on tap. “That’s an image I didn’t need.”

  “Why?” T-Bomb nudged me on the arm. “Remind you too much of Jerry and Misty Ann?”

  Luanne snorted. “Hell. From what I saw, Lucille is hung a lot better than Jerry Sneddin.”

  T-Bomb shook her head. “Cheap bastard couldn’t even spring for a motel.”

  “Hey? A bed’s a bed, right?” They laughed and clinked mugs.

  I’d had just about enough of this. “You two aren’t helping, you know that?” I looked around the bar. Aunt Jackie was nowhere in sight. I pushed back my chair. “Want another round?”

  T-Bomb held up their empty pitcher. “You don’t have to ask me twice.”

  I got to my feet and noticed that someone else had taken the stage—a woman I’d never seen there before. She was petite, with short dark hair and a dusky-looking complexion. She did not look like a local. There was a small round of whoops and hollers when she picked up the microphone.

  “Hey, everybody,” she said. Her voice was low and kind of husky sounding. “I’m kind of new at this, so don’t be too hard on me.”

  A man who appeared to be there with her was setting up the Karaoke machine. When he had it ready, he gave her a thumbs-up and returned to his seat. The slow, sexy music started. After all the country caterwauling, it turned just about every head in the place.

  “Come to me, my melancholy baby,” she crooned. “Cuddle up and don’t be blue. All your fears are foolish fancies, maybe. You know, honey, I’m in love with you.”

  You could have heard a pin drop in that joint.

  I’d heard that old Ella Fitzgerald song about ten thousand times in my life, but never before had it affected me the way it did right then. It was like her voice had reached right down inside me and wrapped itself around all of my internal organs.

  And I noticed that my external organs were acting pretty impressed, too.

  “Every cloud must have a silver lining. Just wait until the sun shines through. Smile, my honey dear, while I kiss away each tear. Or else I shall be melancholy too.”

  “Who in the hell is that?” Even T-Bomb seemed impressed.

  “Her name’s El-somethin’,” Luanne said.

  “L?” T-Bomb asked. “What the hell kind of name is L?”

  “E-L,” Luanne said. “Like El DeBarge.”

  “Oh.” That seemed to make more sense to her.

  “She and that good lookin’
fella, Tony, are from New York,” Luanne added.

  I looked down at her. “New York?”

  Luanne nodded and made a face. “UAW.”

  Oh, man . . . It figured. She was a union rep. And she’d have to be hot, too. And straight. I needed to get out of this damn town.

  The crowd in Hoosier Daddy was having no problem with her performance.

  El kept on right on crooning. She noticed me as I stood against the back wall, and I about dropped the empty pitcher and my Stella bottle. Her voice actually faltered for a moment, but she caught up to the machine pretty quickly.

  “Come to me,” she sang. I thought I might slide right down the wall and join Lucille on the floor beneath our table.

  “All your fears are foolish fancies . . . you know, honey, I’m in love with you.”

  What was happening to me? I sank back down onto my chair.

  T-Bomb was staring at me. “What the hell is the matter with you? You look white as a sheet.”

  I tried to shrug it off. “I think I just need something to eat.”

  “Well, here.” She shoved a plastic bowl full of redskin peanuts toward me. “Eat some of these, and we’ll order some fries.” I looked down into the bowl. It was mostly salt and skins.

  “I think I need some air,” I said.

  Luanne was staring at me. “Honey, what you need is better sense. You stay away from them agitators.”

  “What are you talking about?” I was mortified that she might have noticed my reaction to the woman singing.

  “I saw the way you were staring at her. It was like somebody looking at their first Eldorado.”

  T-Bomb slapped her on the arm. “Good one, Luanne. Eldorado. Just like El DeBarge.”

  I’d had just about enough of these two.

  “Excuse me?” a husky voice asked. “I saw that you ladies were dry. I took the liberty of asking Aunt Jackie what you were drinking. May I join you?”

  El was standing next to our table, and she was holding a fresh pitcher of Old Style and a frosty bottle of Stella Artois. I looked up at her. She had smoky gray eyes. I opened my mouth to say something, but no sound came out. Up close, she looked like a slightly older version of that dark-haired actress from those Northern Exposure reruns that used to be on A&E in the mornings. What was her name? Janine . . . something.

  El continued to stare at me, and I realized that she was waiting for me to say something.

  Thankfully, T-Bomb was enough like Mother Nature to hate a vacuum.

  “Hell, yes, honey. You put that pitcher right down here in front of me and pull up a chair.”

  Luanne ground out her cigarette and shook her head. Her bloodshot eyes were fixed on mine. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She held up her empty mug. “One more, then I gotta head back over the river.”

  T-Bomb punched me in the ribs. “What’s the matter with you? Get her a chair.”

  “I’m sorry,” I stammered. “Let me get you a seat.”

  El finished pouring Luanne’s beer. “Thanks.” She looked at me. “My name’s El.”

  Turner. The actress’s name was Janine Turner. El looked enough like her to be her older sister.

  I stood up and grabbed hold of the table to steady myself. “I’m Friday . . . Jill.”

  “Friday Jill?” she asked. “That’s unusual.”

  “No. Just Friday. Jill.”

  “Friday? Jill?” she asked again.

  I sighed. “Jill. But my friends call me Friday.”

  She smiled. I thought I might pass out. “I’m Eleanor. But my friends call me El.”

  “Like DeBarge,” T-Bomb cackled.

  El looked at her. “Just like DeBarge. Although I never understood why Janet Jackson married into that family.”

  “Me neither,” T-Bomb was holding up her mug. El filled it.

  “I always liked her on Good Times,” Luanne chimed in.

  “She was a sweet girl before she started acting so slutty.” T-Bomb sucked the foam off the top of her beer.

  Luanne nodded. “Wardrobe malfunction my ass.”

  “Hey? I say, if you got ’em, flaunt ’em.”

  “You sound just like Jailissa.”

  Jailissa was Luanne’s teenage daughter.

  “What’s your last name?” T-Bomb asked El.

  El shrugged and sat down on the chair I pulled up for her. “It’s complicated.”

  “Complicated? How?”

  “It’s just hard to pronounce, so I don’t use it much.”

  “Hell.” T-Bomb scoffed. “That don’t make you unique around here.”

  El smiled at her. It was like somebody turned all the lights on. “Wanna bet?”

  “Sure.” T-Bomb took the bait. “Let’s hear it.”

  “It’s spelled R-Z-C-P-C-Z-I-N-S-K-A.”

  T-Bomb and Luanne exchanged blank looks.

  “How the hell do you say that?” they asked in unison.

  “Zhep-sin-ska,” El replied.

  “Zhep-what?” T-Bomb asked.

  “Zhep-sin-ska,” El repeated.

  “I see why your friends call you El,” I added.

  El looked at me. “Be my friend, Friday Jill?”

  Luanne cleared her throat. It sounded more like she was hacking up a hubcap. “How the hell many points do you get for a name like that in Scrabble?”

  El laughed. “About two hundred and eighty—if you had two Z’s and were lucky enough to hit a triple word score.”

  “You sound like you done that a time or two,” Luanne observed.

  “I do all right,” El replied. She was looking at me again.

  Maybe I was wrong about that straight part . . .

  “We were just gonna order some fries,” T-Bomb blurted out. “You hungry, El?”

  El smiled again. “As a matter of fact, I think I am.”

  “Working a room will do that to you,” Luanne said.

  El looked right back at her. “I guess I don’t have to tell you that I’m here with the UAW?”

  Luanne shook her head.

  “News travels pretty fast around here.”

  “Well, singing Karaoke ain’t the best way to keep a low profile, now is it?”

  El laughed. “Touché.” She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Miss . . .”

  Luanne sighed and shook her hand. “K-E-O-R-T-G-E. Kerr-chee.”

  “Her name’s complicated, too,” T-Bomb added. She was getting pretty toasted. It was looking like I was going to have to call Donnie to come and pick her up. “I’m Terri Jennings. But my friends all call me T-Bomb.”

  “Why?” El asked. She shook hands with T-Bomb, too.

  Luanne tapped out another Viceroy. “Hang around long enough and you’ll figure it out.”

  El looked at me again. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  I stared back at her without saying anything. Then I realized that saying nothing was like saying everything. I dropped my gaze to the table. “So . . . are we going to order some food, or not?”

  “Not for me.” Luanne took a long drag off her cigarette. “I gotta head back across the river. Bessie Greathouse is comin’ by to let out the seams in Jailissa’s dress. I swear . . . that girl had to get them boobs from her daddy’s people.”

  T-Bomb looked Luanne over. “Her daddy’s people must a had good legs, too.”

  “Kiss my ass. I got these damn cankles from thirty years of standing up for ten hours a day.”

  T-Bomb held out her left palm and drew the fingers of her right hand back and forth over it in small arcs. “Know what this is?”

  Luanne just glared at her.

  “It’s the world’s smallest violin playing ‘Who’s Sorry Now?’ ”

  I looked at Luanne. “Is Jailissa in the competition again this year?”

  Luanne nodded. “That crown had better be hers this time. Jay’s gonna go postal if another one of them Hortons walks away with the title.”

  “What competition?” El asked.

  “Pork Day, USA,” T-Bo
mb explained in a reverent tone. “Being crowned Miss Pork Queen is the biggest honor of the year over in Albion.” She took a big swig of her beer. “Them pork chop sandwiches are mighty good, too—as long as you don’t bite into a bone.”

  “Really?” El asked. Then she looked at me again. Her eyes weren’t just gray. They had little flecks of green and gold in them. “Guess it’s a good thing I gave up bones a long time ago.”

  Ever had beer shoot out your nose? Yeah . . . well, that’s what happened to me, and it was mortifying. I sat there coughing and trying to sop it up off the front of my shirt. This was going from bad to worse in a hay wagon. My face felt hot. I hastily got to my feet and nearly stepped on Lucille, who expressed his displeasure by growling and breaking off another ripe one.

  “I need to go to the restroom. Excuse me.” I hurried away from the table before anyone could notice that I was blushing.

  What the hell was my problem? I was acting like a teenager with her first crush. No . . . it wasn’t a crush. I was reacting to El like a sow in heat. It had to be some kind of extreme response to seeing Misty Ann in the back of that truck with Jerry. I needed to get out of there before someone else noticed and doused me with a bucket of cold water. I was just lucky that T-Bomb was feeling no pain. I’d never hear the end of it if she got a clue.

  The bathroom at Hoosier Daddy left a lot to be desired. One of its two stalls was permanently out of order, and only one light bulb in the ceiling fixture ever worked. Still, for all that, it was clean and didn’t reek as badly of smoke and spilled beer as the rest of the place. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same thing about my t-shirt. It was sticking to me like a pile of last night’s mashed potatoes. All I wanted to do was try and rinse it out so I wouldn’t smell like a brewery on the way home.

  I walked to the sink and took a good look at myself in the cracked mirror. There I stood—Wayne and Sissy’s little girl. Even in the halflight, you could tell that I had my father’s reddish hair, and the same cowlick on the left side. But in every other way, I took after my mother’s people—tall, square featured—with what Grammy Mann called an ample bosom. And as the condition of my t-shirt now suggested, I had the same unfortunate propensity for ending up in colossal messes. That was pretty typical of the women in my family, too. My mom was fond of telling people that my nickname actually came from Friday the thirteenth, because I had so much bad luck.