Lost Confidence

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Timothy Dunne, Master Barber, very respectfully offers his professional services to the citizens of Lost Confidence and surrounding country. Salon at No. 24 kConfidence House. Where satisfaction is not given money will be refunded. Will not perform hangings.





-1-

Tim Dunne strode into the bar, looking fit to kill.

"Whoa!" they cried. "What's this all about?"

"Why, it's Timmy D, the dude," said the barkeep.

"Lookin for Sally," Dunne said, flipping a coin down on the counter. Somehow it actually spun out kind of flashy. He thought that was a pretty good one.

Holloway, the barkeep, shut his eyes and looked down. "What'll it be while you wait?" he offered.

"Oh. Usual."

Meaning a shot of whiskey, which is what everyone had. Dunne hardly ever touched his but he always paid for it, so that was all right. Holloway just poured what was left back in the bottle after Dunne went home.

Gingerly measuring out a shot, Holloway observed Dunne's getup: the elegant gray waisted jacket, matching pants, a gaudy red vest and black tie.

"You plan on takin her to Paris?" he asked.

"Nope. Just dinner. Maybe the new Opera."

"Good as Paris, I guess."


"Have you been there, Mr. Holloway?" Dunne asked longingly.

"Sure, I have." He giggled and headed back down the bar to give someone a refill.

Then PM came in and stood next to Dunne at the bar.

"Jeez, I thought you was a pimp or something, from behind," he said cheerfully.

"Evenin, Marshall," Dunne said.

"Whoops! John Law!" warned the barkeep, dramatically throwing up his hands. "Check your guns, boys."

He bowled a jigger along the counter and PM stopped it with his thumb. Holloway came over with the bottle and poured him one.

"You hear about it?" he said. "Yon hangman is escortin Sally to thee hoppera."

PM squinted over at Dunne.

"If she'll go, " Dunne said, covering his embarrassment.

PM calculated, scrunching up his cheeks and rubbing at his whiskers.

"Oh, I think she will," he said. "What do you think, Dave?"

"Might be too tired," Holloway said, nodding up at the ceiling.

"Early yet."

"Well, she got an early start." He gave a couple lifts of his bushy brows.

"Ah ha."

Just then a lanky dude cantered down the stairs, making a great show of his fancy footwork. He was lean and lippy and sunken eyed. He wore showy rodeo duds, wore them well. Dunne envied him his style.

PM took no notice whatsoever. Neither did Holloway when the dude took a place at the other end of the bar. Then Delores, one of the other girls, came over and whispered something to the barkeep.

"Well, no Sally tonight," he told Dunne.

"Can a man get a drink around here?" the dude called from down the bar. For some reason he was looking right at Dunne.



* * *


The town of Lost Confidence had been there since the beginning of beginningless time. It was an unreal town in an unreal place. It was a town after death. People came and went and you never saw them again. But in this one space of time there was PM and Tim Dunne, and that was the start of something as they walked out into the twilight. Stars that hadn't been there before were slowly blinking into life as the evening came on. Genteel folks gathered around the Gypsy wagon out in front of the new Opera, grabbing a bite to eat before the performance. The motion picture crew was there filming it, of course, and Mayor George was making civic noises.

PM suggested they head out to his place for some dinner. "Molly'll have enough for you," he said.

"Well, I was set on that opera," Dunne told him.

"Suit yourself."

PM nodded and walked off.

Dunne watched as his big ten gallon hat bobbed against the twilight like a humpbacked duck with no head. He loved PM. Always had. One time they were walking out in the tules near PM's place, and it was a vivid twilight, just like this one, with the tule bugs dancing against the burnt out horizon, when PM moved ahead of him suddenly and began to sink as he walked. "Whoops!" he said. "Whoopsy Daisy!" but he just kept on bobbing along. Dunne gave chase and fell in the water, and when he picked himself up he saw PM's hat bobbing along in the distance, and soon enough PM rose up with the hat still on his head. He was gasping and snorting but he just kept on walking, finally rising up out of the marsh, mud from head to foot, but obviously pleased with himself. "Well, come on," he said to Dunne, who felt that he must follow. That was years ago, but he'd known the man forever. PM had always looked after him because Dunne was feeble. Dunne got away with a lot due to PM.

"So, who are you tryin to be?" someone said from behind.

He quickly turned around and beheld the dude from the bar.

"Timothy Dunne," he said jovially, as if that was an answer to the question, and then stuck out his hand.


The dude just looked at it and gave an ugly laugh. He walked on.

Dunne felt more slighted than he should have. It was always like that. For this man was just another in a long line of them who felt it was appropriate to put Tim down. He often dreamed of killing them all, just lining them up like tin cans on a fence and plugging away. It wouldn't happen. He'd never kill a man. Not even PM had killed a man, and here he was Town Marshall. When they saw PM coming they dropped their guns, that's all. The man had Power, he had Grandeur.

Some people would try to think of PM like Wyatt Earp, but there wasn't any comparison. Wyatt was a hard man, while PM was warm and funny, a companionable sort of person who'd walk a ways with you of an evening and point out how the moon wanted to light your way to wisdom and understanding and not just suffer of a life. He had a fine big woman name of Molly who was devoted to him and he to her. No children, though; they were gone. But many animals. Hogs and sheep and a cow and dogs all over the place. He spent much time with the dogs, teaching them things. They were very well behaved dogs.
Tim thought about how glad he was to have such a friend as PM, and about himself, how ridiculous he was in his dude clothes, courting Sally. It was all a lark, and he knew it; she did too. Sally Rain was a fancy woman and she was way too much for him. Too much for the town, for that matter, and so she had her revenge by whoring. Some day she'd whore herself to bits, she'd go to blazes. He didn't want to be around for that; and didn't really feel like sweeping up after her leavings, neither; loving her while he watched himself grow small. He just wanted to pretend to be a high rolling gent with a fancy woman, talking the talk and walking the walk, escorting her to the opera just to be seen. He wanted to wake up in the morning with her beside him and to leave a gold piece on her dressing table going out.



-2-


Couple days later the dude from the bar came into Dunne's shop wanting a haircut. He took off his hat and flung it at the rack where it spun gaily around one of the antlers and then hung there inert. But when he sat down in the chair without being asked, Dunne was offended. He liked to invite a man, liked to take his feather duster and sweep off the seat, then snap the smock and sort of hold it up in an inviting way. But this fella wanted to put you in your place right off, let you know you were the help. Dunne didn't say anything, of course, but he made no move to jump to, neither. He just went about his business, straightening up, stropping his razor, cleaning his brushes. He even took a seat in the other chair and commenced reading the newspaper and soon enough became absorbed. There was news of Jesse James, how he had been shot in the back … end of another entirely undistinguished head of hair, Dunne noted.

"Can a man get some service around here?" the dude wanted to know.

"Certainly," Dunne said, carefully folding up his newspaper and placing it in the reading rack, then commenced earning his living .

As he worked, Dunne noticed that the man had a prominent Adam's apple, covered with little black hair follicles where his beard had been expertly shaved. Dunne was both repelled and fascinated by it, watching it go up and down, retracting slightly, like a dog's penis, when the man swallowed. Dunne found it at once disgusting and sexy. He couldn't keep his eyes off the dang thing. And he wondered if Sally looked at it, smelling the faint mustardy scent coming from it, as he pumped away at her like a danged old dog. Maybe she even licked it and sucked at it. Did she maybe want to slice into it, though, with a fresh honed razor? Did she want to know what it looked like underneath, the way Dunne did? Maybe there were worlds under there with little men crawling around, farming, cheating each other, trying to make the best of it, and all the sudden vague shapes in their newly open sky were just the doings of humans writ large to them as those of the gods were to us, while for the humans themselves it was just the same old dreary dance of livelihood, with friends and enemies and picked bones and corns and zits, as the life below for the little men inside the cut-open Adam's apple.

Nothing was said throughout the whole procedure. Dunne clipped away, he even hummed and whistled. He didn't offer to make conversation, and neither did the customer. There was an unspoken covenant between them. Dunne could not testify as to its nature. Maybe the other couldn't, either. But they were bound, that was for sure. They couldn't escape. Not until it was over with, one of them dead in the street, maybe, or both of them diminished and forgetful and lost to the meaning of what might have been won.
But afterwards the dude just got up, paid him and left, and that was that.


* * *


Later on over to the bar, Sally came down and had a drink with him.

"I hear you was planning to escort me to the opera," she said with a slight show of mockery. "That a fact?"

"That's a fact," he admitted. "You were indisposed at the time."

She looked dark for a minute. Then she said, "Well, some other time, then. I'd be happy to attend it with you."

She smiled as though she thought it would never happen. It probably wouldn't. She took his hand. She always said she loved his hands. "They're so delicate," she told him. "Like a woman's."

Sally had bright red hair that she said she didn't dye. And she was big. Some men liked them big, Dunne included . Others went for Delores or Floreen or Mo, all to varying degrees diminutive. Dunne had no truck with them. He liked Sally, and then only to buy her a drink or to walk with her under the moon. She didn't ask why he never came upstairs. It was his way, and she liked it. She felt a little protective around the boy, almost motherly. She wanted to keep him from harm, even though she knew no real harm would come to such as Tim Dunne, and not just because of PM, neither, but just because he was protected. An angel seemed to be flying overhead as he walked – you could almost see it – maybe saving him back for something special.

"Well, perhaps next time," Dunne said again, toasting her with his drink – he even took a little sip – and then set it back down.

But when he made to go, she grasped his hand more tightly. She was looking over his shoulder. "Would you mind waiting a while?" she said in a hush. "And would you mind saying I'm with you? I mean, if anybody should ask."

Her eyes grew frightened now. She leaned over the table suddenly and kissed him, kissed him big.

"Just take me up to my room," she whispered.

She got up quickly, taking him by the arm and urging him up, too. Then, as they headed toward the stairs, he looked back and saw the dude standing there by the table they had just vacated. Dunne nodded stupidly and followed Sally upstairs.

When they got to her room she gave him a squeeze and said, "Thanks, hon. I wasn't in the mood for that fella."

"Well, who is he? What's the problem?"

"Nothing, nothing. He's just got some kinks I don't feel like ironing out tonight. Want a drink?"

"No, but you can kiss me again the way you just did," he pleaded.

She took his hand again and looked sad.

She said, "Let's just keep it the way it is, OK?"






-3-


The town of Lost Confidence woke up to the sound of a rooster, just as it would bed down to that of chorusing frogs and crickets. It seemed that each part of the day had its characteristic sound and rhythm. Mornings tended to be kind of creaky and slow getting started, with the snorts and groans of various cowboys waking up and wondering where they were.

PM was posted right out front of his office, sitting in his squeaky rocker and taking in the morning sun with his coffee and newspaper when Dunne opened up shop.

"PM," Dunne mumbled as he went inside.

"Mornin, Timmy," PM said, although Dunne was well out of hearing by that time, for he had hotfooted it quick out back of the shop, already drawing water for a wash and a shave, by the time the words had slouched clear of PM's tiny little mouth. Barber had to be an example for his clientele, that was his philosophy, and sometimes he put off attending to his grooming till he got to the shop so he could sleep later. That accomplished, he set about readying the place for business, sweeping a little, laying out his scissors and combs and brushes and draping a fresh smock over the chair, saving for last the stropping of his razor – he loved that, loved the way a keen edge shone in the morning sunlight. Then he went out on the boardwalk and looked over at PM.

"You make coffee, Marshall?"

"I did," PM declared. "Couldn't wait for you, carrying on all night."

Dunne looked sly. "You saw me go up with Sally," he said in a lowered voice.

"I'd say it was apparent."

Then Dunne asked in all seriousness, "Do you think I did wrong, PM? Do you think it went against the order of things?"

"Nope," he said.

A little irked, Dunne said, "Well, then, if it meets with your approval, I guess I'll steal some of that coffee you made."

"Help yourself."

Dunne went into the Marshall's office and grabbed a cup off the nail and poured some coffee from the big kettle PM was keeping warm on the cook stove. Then he heard somebody hawk and spit. He looked back at the cells and there was that dude again, locked up, standing over the privy and regarding what he had produced. Dunne fled before the man looked his way.
"Why's that fella locked up in jail?" he asked PM.

"Ah. Disturbing the peace," PM tossed off with a lazy wave of his hand. "I'll let him out directly."

Dunne sat down on the bench beside PM's rocker.

"Well, what did he do?" he asked.

"He was bothering folks. Just getting drunk and giving folks a hard time. I put him in there to sleep it off."

"Say, listen, PM, who is that fella, anyway?"

"Ah. Yeah. Billy Rebar. He comes in every now and then. Travels with the herds, I hear tell."

"Don't look like any cowboy I ever saw."

"Well. Just rides along, I guess."

"So, is he a bad guy or what?"

PM closed his eyes and scratched at his whiskers. "He wants to be. But he's really just nobody going nowhere. Don't worry about him." But now he looked over pointedly at Dunne. "I'd keep away, though," he said, and he tapped the side of his head with his finger.

"No problem." Dunne copied PM's usual hand waving, dismissive gesture.

PM considered a minute. Then he said, "I get the feeling that you didn't sleep with old Sally."

"You'd be right," Dunne admitted.

"How come?"

"Well, if I had, do you feel it would go against the order of things?"

"It ain't."

"What?"

"It ain't in the order of things."

"Yeah." Dunne couldn't argue with that.



* * *


Maybe the man in the jail was from the Dakotas, the Badlands some said; nobody knew for sure. A vague reputation preceded him wherever he went. He and his brother had terrorized their Ma, keeping her locked up in a silo for days. This was when they were just little kids. Nobody knew who the father was. A man who came and went in days of many comings and goings, and Billy followed suit, wandering over the prairies. He shows up in Abilene in 1878, at a dentist's parlor with a bleeding bullet hole in his foot. Some said it was an accident, others that it was intentional, that he liked pain. The dentist denied it, saying, "A man don't request opium who enjoys pain."

For years he'd followed the herds, going from cow town to cow town, sometimes as far as the big cities up north. He didn't seem to need to make a living. Crime was suspected, but he obviously didn't have the heart for it, even if he was no stranger to gunplay. Some people speculated that he came from money. He always had it, anyways. Not a lot, but enough to get by. If he minded his own business you'd barely notice him. But he didn't. He was always getting into something, always stirring things up. There wasn't a town on the circuit where old Rebar hadn't caused some kind of trouble. He seemed to like it. He liked having a hate on. Mostly he liked people being afraid of him. It was the only kind of respect he understood. He certainly never got any other kind, and not very many people were afraid of him, neither. Word got out that he was a dirty little coward, and it just wouldn't go away. He was a big pain in the ass was the plain truth of the matter.
Now, he was trying very hard to be a bad guy, as PM had observed, and he wasn't doing a very good job of it. He ran away from most of the fights he started. Among the cowboys he was a laughing stock. One old trail hand had him dead to rights, though.

"Didn't have us fooled none with his stuff," he told Dunne. "Not the Hooker outfit. We thought he was a little funny. A little stupid and pathetic, too. Dumb, skinny guy with his talk, talk, talk. The fool was obviously used to some pretty lame prairie trash coming through, bored to tears cowboying and hence ready to listen to all his crap, but not the Hooker outfit, that's for dang sure. To our way of thinking old Rebar was just a useless bore. Oh, townies might buy his line of bull – but they're mostly stupid. With the stupid chewing tobacco which he'd dribble down his chin when he spit, his silver studded saddle and mauve boots. My God, you can't live like that and expect to be believed. One dumb son of a bitch is what he is, all that toilet water and his disgusting oiled pompadour, and you know he ain't even grown a beard yet except on his Adam's apple, that's how fucked up he is. He's a goddamned inbred degenerate, you want to hear my true opinion. Tries to impress with the god damned spin-the-rope and his wild west numbers. Shit fire, at last we just had to get shut of the crazy peckerwood so we tied his ass up and left him to die in the dust.

"But the next thing you know there he is again; somehow he's managed to free the cinch and get to his feet so's he's able to hop along after us. Yeah! At first we thought it was some strange prairie critter out there, but no, but no, it was just old Rebar, and let me tell you he was a sight. He was still gagged and bound but he was able to hop along pretty fast, none the less, so that's what he did, and he managed to pretty much keep right up with us because we were driving a big herd and moving kind of slow. You had to admire his determination, but still one wonders just what the hell did the man want? He wasn't much interested in cowboying, and he was useless in every other respect. Was it just to be seen with us riding in? That's what some of the boys surmised. He wanted to be known to associate with trail hands; he'd heard some romance of them, hence he dressed in a way that sort of suggested an operatic presentation of a cowboy. Then too he could do a lot of funny stuff with his pistol, and he was pretty good at the fast draw. Couldn't hit nothing for shit, of course, none of them rodeo types can. Rumor was his eyes were bad, too. Anyways, after a while the boys got to feeling sorry for him enough that they sent me out there to untie him. Which I did, and I brought him back in for some grub. We just got used to the son of a bitch after awhile. Got tired of foolin with him."

So the boys didn't have much to fear from Billy Rebar. "But women and children beware," one of them felt compelled to add. "And the same goes for you, Tim Dunne."

For indeed it was that very night, when Dunne was hanging out with Sally in the bar, that things got started. It was when Billy came over and hit on her again.

"I'm sorry, but I'm with this gentleman here," she told him shortly.

He gave Dunne a pouty, vacant look and said nothing.

But Dunne was studying that old Adam's apple, waiting for it to do something interesting. Yet the man's whole face was wan and slack, his eyes were empty and so the Adam's apple was at peace. Could be that it needed the stimulation of a shave or a haircut to get it to ejaculating again, some other ritual of nature, eating of course, or drinking. And then too the man seemed to be gone in some way, the man was simply not to be found. He'd just zeroed on out of this world. What had gone wrong? Something was needed to bring him around again, some singular movement driving him away from the quiet center and return him to the hubbub. But here … here … let me …

Dunne reached out and flicked the man's Adam's apple with his finger.

And that did it.

Outrage flooded over Rebar's tender skin, rushing up his neck and covering his face. His eyes shone with black light, his lips stuck together.

And he slapped Tim Dunne.

Tim couldn't believe it. His whole head seemed to fly away. But then he got slapped from the other side. He tasted blood. His whole face was burning, and yet it felt numb at the same time. And yet he was hit again.

Then it was over.

The room was quiet. Sally looked terrified. Then, after awhile she lowered her eyes.

At some point during all this someone was heard to say, "Isn't he going to do something?"

Sally got up.

"Come on," she said to Rebar, looking tired and disgusted.

They moved away, and when Dunne made to go after them Rebar held up a warning finger. Tim sat back down.







-4-





Things were different after that. He felt it in the weight of the sky, the sweaty effusion on the surface of things, and a smell as of stale rooms, of age and piss and vinegar.

He was ashamed, humiliated. So he pulled way in. He stayed home. He went out to PM's for dinner but that was about it other than work. He went back to his reading, which was his habit of an evening before he got notions about Sally. No more socializing, that was for sure. Look what it got you.

He practiced quick draw. He shot the hell out of cans on fence posts.

PM asked him, "You had some trouble?”

"Nah. Nothing in particular," he told him.

Molly was cutting pie, huge hot slices.

"Here's your favorite," she said.

He thought he was going to cry, being there with Molly and PM. The richness of their life together made him ache with love.

But he left early. The moon shone bitter and strange. The road was endless. Then he met a man. The man said to carry him piggyback and he did. After awhile he asked to stop. He said he wanted to roll a cigarette and smoke it. Dunne allowed him to do so. While the man had his cigarette Dunne told him how he had tried to take up smoking himself when he was younger but it made him sick and so he stopped. The man made no comment one way or the other. He just smoked until he was finished. Then he said, "Come on," and Dunne carried him. The road went in circles. It seemed to be a concentric path, yet tiered somehow, senselessly joined in any case because he kept meeting the man over and over, and they kept doing the same thing. Dunne didn't question it, though, and neither did the man. They were bound. This was the road.

In his reading he had discovered that a concentric shape was a perversion. The true form of things was a spiral, and that the concentric was fallen from that. He found the term "fallen" suspect for some reason. "Perversion", on the other hand, was OK.

He went on practicing his quick draw. He was getting to be pretty good at it, in fact. Maybe it was time to go out and blow Rebar's face off. Maybe it wasn't.

Next time he saw him was back at the bar. Sally wasn't there, just Holloway and some regulars. And Rebar. They didn't speak. Rebar shot some pool. There was a truce in effect. Tim felt it. He could go on now and forget it for a little while. Soon he was coming to the bar regular again in his fancy opera duds, courting Sally. It was their little secret that he was a dirty little coward. And soon enough, Rebar was gone. Maybe he was dead and lost forever. Tim even drank some more of that whiskey Holloway was always having to pour back, he even got a little drunk, maybe. It was a good sweet time. Sally was there, and PM … But every now and then he'd think he saw old Billy the dude, just out of the corner of his eye, but he was usually mistaken, until one day Rebar finally did appear, or seemed to, slowly emerging from out of a dust storm, but then he just as quickly blew back into it … gone … gone. No. Wrong again. For he quickly came vaulting down the stairs and jumped like a rabbit out the window. This happened over and over. And the last part was he'd go into the middle of the street and howl until the warning shots were fired and peace was restored. PM would walk in afterwards, looking satisfied, slapping his hands together to clear a path through the smoke in the bar, and the smoke sort of rushed away to either side of him like the parting of the waters.

"So I guess you're feeling better," he said to Tim.

"I never was sick," Dunne insisted.

"I think you was a while back there. I could be mistaken."

"It's been known to happen."



* * *



The sound that marked the middle of the day was a cat's meow. The cat always seemed to be in heat and at high noon it would start in, keening desperately from one end of the street to the other without fail. It was a sound from hell, Dunne thought. He wanted to shoot the dang thing down.

"It's the cry of nature," PM said. "Not hurtin nobody."

"Makin me insane," Dunne owned.

"You already are insane."

"Am I?"

"Always been."

With that, PM poured out the dregs of coffee in the street and they sizzled in the mud.
Then the stage came in, bringing Penelope Manning. When she got out, Dunne was instantly smitten. He'd never seen a real high stepping lady before and it was just too much to bear. And it might have been nothing. He could have turned away and it would have been over with. But a thread was woven from eye to eye, and from thence it became law. She smiled at him and he raised his stupid hat (he was dressed to the hilt in anticipation of another fine evening at the bar) – which flew suddenly from his hand; the wind had taken it. His heart and mind were gone, too.

PM said, "Classy stuff, eh?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Figure you should do something about it."

"Like what?"

"Well …" He sniggered like a fool. Went back inside with his kettle.

Tim was alone there, facing her.

Now, a wise man would have broken into song, but Tim just did his bumpkin act and sleazed on over there, fanning himself with his hat (some kind property master had restored it to him), then bowed grandly, saying "Ma'am."

She couldn't help but laugh.

"So, are you the local color?" she twitted him in a broad, mock western twang, eyelashes fluttering and all.

He didn't know what to say. He just stood there, clutching his dumb hat and grinning from ear to ear.

Finally he managed to eke out an introduction. "Timothy Dunne, at your service," he said with a flourish of the old hat.

"Penelope Manning," she announced. (Can there be such a thing as a sarcastic curtsey?)
"And now you say, 'Whar ya frum, Ma'am?'"

"Well, it's a start."

She was waiting for him to help her down. Finally getting the point, Dunne raised his arm for her. She rested her hand on it and came lightly down the stoop, then snapped open her parasol against the heat. Dunne loved that parasol, and the big wide dress and the amazing raven hair, tied loosely in back so that it came down in a lovely flowing ponytail. He was just standing there, looking at her, with his arm still up even though she had let go of it. Finally he dropped it and brushed off his trousers and straightened his tie and sharpened his mustache betwixt his thumb and forefinger. She looked at him as if to say, "You all ready now?" and gave him a wink. He could have sprayed his pants right then and there, she had him so wound up.

"I'm from San Francisco," she told him. "Can't you hear it in my voice? People say I have a foggy voice." She actually fluttered her eyelashes at him now!

"I guess, so, Ma'am."

Then the shotgun rider brought her luggage over and set it down beside her.

Dunne nodded toward the two suitcases. "Where you stayin?" he asked.

"Why, I think I have reservations at this very establishment," she told him, indicating the Excelsior Hotel.

"Help you in?"

"I'd be much obliged," she said, looking like she'd burst out giggling any minute.

He picked up her bags and walked with her into the hotel.

Rebar leaned against a fence nearby, watching them. He'd been up all night, and he wasn't feeling any too good. He needed to kill somebody. He wouldn't, though, because this town was too well policed by Mr. PM, who could use to be killed himself to Rebar's way of thinking. He wouldn't do that, neither, not today, anyways. Maybe he'd just take a little snooze and later on ride out and look for some trouble. Maybe he could find a little right here. First the snooze, though. He needed that. He had trouble sleeping nights. When he finally managed to nod off he had bad dreams which woke him up and he couldn't go back to sleep afterwards. He sometimes tried to drink himself to sleep but it usually didn't work. He just got drunk to the point of semi-consciousness, which was OK but it wasn't sleep. It seemed he only slept good after he killed somebody.

The Excelsior was the finest hotel in town. The two others – Brown's and the Ritz – were just rest stops by comparison. It suited Penelope, Dunne felt. Its preposterous pendulum clocks and stained glass windows, its overlook on the Lake of Geneseret, its heavy draperies that smelled of musk, its crystal, its grandeur – all of that suited this fine lady … At night the lake would smolder with fog and her spirit flew above it as a bird of prey. At night her name became Selena and she wore the light veil of Tyre. He felt her lips through the sized muslin, his hands rushed over her body.

She took her key from the counterman who moved as though he were suspended by wires. He was friendly enough, though, and he seemed to recognize Dunne.

"See me to my room?" she asked.

They moved up curved stairways, shimmering and prism lit, the heavy carpeting woven with the grinning faces of gods. Dunne was sleepy. He wondered if she'd let him lie down in her room, perhaps even lie on top of her. She wouldn't, of course, but he asked anyway. She told him it was OK, just so he didn't get any notions.

But then he was down in the street again, strolling along the boardwalk toward his salon. He lit a cigar and felt chipper. This was a good life here, he thought. This was fine.
But when he got back he found Rebar there, waiting. He was lounging in the barber chair, reading a dime novel. Had Dunne left the door unlocked?

Rebar said, "I need a shave."

"Momentarily," Dunne told him.

He hung up his jacket and put on a work smock, then he draped Rebar and readied him for a shave, whipping up some soap in a dish with a fat brush and lathering his nearly smooth face, of course making sure to cover up that ponderous Adam's apple where most of the whiskers seemed to grow, and then went to work. Neither of them spoke. But after awhile Rebar closed his eyes and soon enough commenced to saw them off, obviously in a deep sleep. Dunne continued with his work. Then, satisfied with the chin and jaws, above all the Adam's apple, he considered a minute and then took up the dish and brush and lathered the man's eyebrows, and with two deft strokes shaved them off entirely. He looked down and beheld his work, saw that it was good. He gave a whistle of approval. Then he took up a damp towel and wiped off the remaining lather. This had the effect of waking the man up.

"Wow!" he said, smiling sweetly. "Guess I was sleepin."

"Looks like," Dunne agreed. He couldn't help but return his smile.

Rebar got up, brushed himself off and tossed Dunne a gold piece, which wound up on the floor. Then he went out without even looking at himself in the mirror.

"You're welcome," Dunne said to nobody. He picked up the gold piece and tucked it into his pocket. Then he sat down in the barber chair and snapped open a newspaper.

"Good bye. Kiss my foot," he said.



-5-


That night at the bar there was dancing. People were dancing and dancing, and Penelope was there, unescorted. She sat at a table in the rear, sipping some colorful confection and looking amused.

Dunne went over and asked her to dance.

After a few turns she said, "You're a virgin, aren't you?

He didn't answer. He just looked at her. Then he buried his head between her breasts. He could smell them, their sweet fleshy perfume. He wanted to taste them. He wondered if she'd let him; he'd have to ask her some time.

"You know," she said. "I came out west to find me a cowboy."

He looked up.

"I am that cowboy," he declared.

She snorted. "Maybe."

He whirled her round and round, not knowing what else to do. He didn't know any of the standard dance variations. Then he looked across the floor at Rebar, for he knew some, surely. (Dunne noticed that he had drawn on eyebrows with a grease pencil to replace the ones that had been shaved off.) And indeed, Rebar was a beautiful dancer. He held his arm out fiercely straight, his fingers laced loosely with those of his partner, who was Sally, and he sort of bobbed up and down in an interesting way to the fiddle music, and his expression was interesting, too, sort of pensive, and he had his tongue balled up against his lips so that he looked like he had a mouth full of something he wanted to spit out but wouldn't until later out of politeness. Dunne immediately began to imitate him. And he worked and worked but couldn't seem to get it quite right. But then the music stopped. They broke apart and applauded with the rest. He noticed there was a little dribble stain on the front of Penelope’s dress from when he'd been nosing around there which she attempted to brush away, making an impatient tisking sound.

"I'll get us a drink," he said. "Meet you back at the table."

As he was heading toward the bar he ran into Sally.

"You're red as a beet," she said.

"I can't help it," he told her, and moved on. Arriving at the bar he called out raucously, "Hello, Holloway, how's your bod?"

"What'll it be?" the barkeep muttered.

"For me, the usual, and for the lady … well, whatever it is you made for her the last time. It is many colored, and with a small umbrella."

"I call it horse piss, myself, but she seems to like it."

"Very well, then."

But as he made his way back to her he saw something terrible. Penelope was standing there by the table with Rebar, smiling, talking animatedly, and just when Dunne came up and set the drinks on the table he saw them exchange a brief little peck of a kiss. He couldn't help himself. He swept her up in his arms and carried her out through the swinging doors. Setting her down outside on the boardwalk, he said, "You want a kiss, I'll give you a real kiss," and he took her in his arms and frenched her long and hard. Breaking away finally, he looked to her for approval.

"You don't do that right," she said. "Let me show you."

They kissed again, and she improved upon his performance.

Then Rebar came out, obviously ready to start something.

But Dunne had had it with this joker. He reached quickly into his blouse and pulled a nickel plated Derringer. But Rebar just as quickly grabbed the weapon out of his hand and threw it into the street. Then, when Dunne went to retrieve it in order to finally blow the joker away, Rebar kicked him a good one in the ass. Dunne went sprawling. He got up, grabbed his gun and dusted off his pants. Rebar stood there, sniggering, then went back inside.

Dunne took Penelope’s arm, saying, "Come dear. Let us take the sweet night air."

They walked on.

After awhile she asked, "Why didn't you hit him?"

"I shaved his eyebrows off, didn't I?" Dunne protested. "Isn't that enough for you?"

"Hitting him would have been better," she said. "Besides, you didn't shave them. He shaves them himself just to be outre."

"I see," he said.

They walked on.

Then she asked sweetly, "Won't you fight over me? I like men to fight over me."

"You're kidding!"

"No."

"Can't we make love instead?"

"You want to make love to me?" She acted surprised.

She led him by the hand again up the vexing stairways and under a wide open skylight, and the moon frowned down through coils of unraveling clouds. Her body was revealed at last and he got a taste of those luscious breasts, which he did lick and suck to his heart's content. She sprawled out on great heaps of silk and showed him how to make love but he came too soon, anyway. It was better the next time, and the next, incrementally, until they were both fully satisfied.





-6-




"Gonna be trouble," PM said. "You keep goadin that boy."

"I ain't goadin him," Dunne whined. "He's the one started it by slapping me to sleep."

"I hear you brought it on. I hear you pulled a gun one night, too."

"Well, I'm sick of that joker. What's he doing here, anyway? What's he want?"

"He's got a right."



* * *



The happiest hour in Lost Confidence was twilight. The eyelids half drawn and giving the light a tawdry glamour, you were halfway to dreaming, too, and more at ease with the unreal. Certainly it was Dunne's happy hour. By then the shop would be long closed – he locked up by three, usually – and he'd be feeling vaguely nostalgic for a time that never was, vaguely in love, tender and sad. Of course, he was in love. Certainly infatuated. All he could think about was Penelope: her body, her smells, her kisses.

"Who's the chickee, that's all I want to know," Molly said. She was dishing out pie again.

"Ah. The fine lady," PM acknowledged, chuckling.

Dunne didn't want to talk about it.

"Well, when you going to bring her on out here?" Molly persisted.

Dunne slumped down in his chair.

"Yeah, bring her on out," PM said, "We'll all go frogging."

"Sheesh!" Molly sassed, slapping pie down on his plate.

Dunne saw Penelope's face out the window, it was rising with the moon. She seemed to be standing inside it, for the moon was the door into her world. He could hear the sort of room noises he would expect to at her hotel, the hubbub from the dining room downstairs, people talking in the street below, their voices coming through her open window … all from inside the moon. She was right there, smiling at him. He could just step over there and be with her now. But she had told him she wanted to be alone tonight; she wasn't feeling well. It was her time, he supposed. Even so, seeing her smiling sadly from her place there inside the moon, Oh how he wanted to go to her! There was a faint smell of rubber from her corsets, of musk perfume, of sex. He couldn't stand it. He had to get out, had to go see her.
"Our boy here!" Molly laughed.

"Where you goin?" PM demanded.

"Oh. Back."

PM gave him a hard look.

"You stay away from Billy, you hear?"

He went out to the road.

The man was there.

"You gonna give me a ride piggyback or not?" he said.

"Sure," said Dunne.

He picked him up, carried him. They went on like that for a mile and a half, several miles. Then he disappeared.

But soon enough he was there again, saying, "Come on, carry me."

Dunne obliged.

It was eternal. It was always the same.

Except for the girl. There she was. They kissed. Then she held his face in both her hands and studied it. "You're a dirty little coward," she said.

"I know. I know," he cried.

He was ashamed of himself. He could hear her saying it – "Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?" – as she sank into the tules.

"Come back up!" he cried. "Come back to me." But she was gone.

The man came again. Dunne carried him into town, and when they parted the man flipped him a gold piece.



* * *



Love's time is fleeting. Love glories in evanescence, fragile spring flowers, shapes which clouds may assume only for an instant, a sad turning leaf. Yet Dunne's love, denied its object if only for an evening, needs must seek other fugitive forms to overflow into, else it should only turn inward to pulse with flowers of evil, fat and dripping, promising a constant life in an airless, benighted world. Love must move, exfoliate, shoot out in colored streamers. Dunne was crazy with it. He took a skater's position and seemed to slide into the bar. The room filled with applause (always appreciated by Timothy Dunne). He ordered up a bottle of champagne on ice and two flutes and lugged it all over to Sally's table.

"I'm in love," he announced.

"With me?" Sally wondered.

He only paused for a second too long before he said, "If you like."

"Ah. I see." She lit her pipe.

He filled the flutes with bubbly and toasted her: "To the Girl of the Golden West."

"Well, ain't that sweet," she purred.

"There's an opera named that. It's all about you," he told her.

"Ah, come on!" She was delighted.

"Well, isn't it? Thought sure it was. How 'bout some more bubbly?"

"Trying to get me drunk, is what."

"How else am I to take advantage of you?"

"I thought you was in love."

"Well, I am," he insisted. "I told you, I'm in love with you."

She considered a moment, seeming to weigh things out. Then she said, "You want to come upstairs?"



Holloway

I knew it was trouble, him going up there. I knew it the other time. Because it went against the nature of things. Because that fellow Rebar would come in and just lurk and turn all different colors; he was like a creature of another species, the way he would know they were together, and then he would turn different colors.

He come over to the bar and says, "How long she been? She's never that long? What's so special?" I tell him it's all a matter of money. You got the money, you can spend all night with old Sal. But he's not having any. He wants to know who it is. I says I didn't get his name. Well, what's he look like, he wants to know. Hey, I'm tending bar here, I don't watch everybody comes in, I tell him. It's Sal's business, those men. All I get is her rent. I tell him why don't you go on now and settle down. Sally'll be with you when she's done. He says, "You ain't gonna tell me, huh? Who it is."

I says, "Nope. I'm not. So just settle down now."

And he turned all different colors when I said that. It's his skin. It's problems with his skin, maybe. Nothing unusual, I guess.

But what I was hoping to Christ was that that other gal didn't come in. She was known to. Kind of spunky gal coming in here unattached, she'd take a table way back there and have one of them umbrella drinks served to her. Never cause any trouble, flirting with the men or anything, or try to get into a game (Gambling women are bad news, I'll tell you). Meanwhile, Dunne's started romancing her, and here he is going up to Sally's. Now that's trouble.

You know, in my line of work it's mostly about listening to other people talk. That's a bar for you, other people talking. Most of the time I don't talk, myself, I just listen. You get tired of it but that's your life. Rebar, though. You can't take much of him. Nobody can, he's coo-coo. I knew he was contemplating trouble with Dunne. There'd already been trouble. And now with Dunne starting to go on up with Sally. He used to just fool with her, but suddenly he's a customer. Not just a customer, neither, but special. She keeps him up there. And I thought he was with that other gal. Now I'm thinking if she comes in, why …

Rebar's going on and on, on and on. He knows he's a pain in the butt to everybody with his talk but that just goads him on and he talks some more. I was going in and out of sleep just listening to the fool. It was way past closing time by now and the bar was empty except for me and the kid himself, and I kept telling him go home, go on now, but then I guess I nodded off because what's he talking about, what does he say?



* * *



When I woke up I was stark naked. I was stretched out on the bar and I'd been written all over my body with lipstick. There was piss and broken glass all over the floor. I'd be cleaning up after it for hours. Then Sally was over there, crying.

I asked her, "Well, what he do to you?"

"The usual," she said. She clenched her teeth and looked fierce. "I swear, if Timmy ever finds out …"

Now I had to laugh at that one in spite of it all. If Timmy finds out. I started sweeping up. Sally was crying her eyes out. If Timmy finds out …






-7-


But something big shifted in the sky because next day one of Dunne's customers asked him, "When are you going to settle it with Billy Rebar?"

And without thinking, Dunne answered, "Why, today, by golly. At the Old Amphitheater. It's all been arranged."

After that it just got bigger. Everywhere he went people said, "I hear you're gonna have it out with Rebar."

"That's right," he told them. "Up to the Old Amphitheater."

Soon he had a whole gang trailing him. He took them in and bought them drinks.

"Yes, sir," he said. "I'm gonna blow that kid to bits."

"Good riddance, " they said.

"Burn that sucker down, man."

Well, it was shaping up to be a big event, for sure. Many were already gathered at the Old Amphitheater, waiting for the contest. It was an ancient structure consisting of ten concentric circles of stonework built into a crater with a smooth floor at the bottom for the performance of theater or games. It was put there by the gods of long ago. Yeah, this was going to be something. This was going to be good. They brought snacks, sandwiches. Guy was even selling beer.

Meanwhile Dunne went about his business. He halfway behaved as if the thing wasn't really happening. But the whole town was emptying out. Soon it was as good as deserted.

Now PM was doing some paperwork in his office when he happened to look out the window to see old Billy, obviously fresh out of bed and taking his first look around, even though it was getting near on to four o'clock in the afternoon. Then some citizen poked his head in the door, saying, "You know what's doin?"

"Nope," PM admitted.

"Well, your man Dunne is shootin it out with Billy Rebar over to the Amphitheater."

"That right?" PM said, checking the window again. Rebar was still out there, shaking his head, looking disoriented.

"It's to the death, Marshall. I do fear it."

"I'll look into it," PM assured him.

The citizen ran on.

PM checked his gun and went outside to where Rebar was.

"Yo, Billy," he said.

Rebar nodded warily.

"What's doin?" PM said.

"Just mindin my own business," Rebar sulked.

"Are you? What's your business?"

"Just wakin up, is all."

PM studied the man. "Looks like you never went to bed," he suggested. "Looks like you might still be drunk."

He went over to him and gave a sniff.

"Whooeey, baby!" he marveled. "Yes, I would say you been tippin a few. But you know, Billy, we got a law in this town against public intoxication. You ever hear of that?"

"Hey, now, Marshall. Hold on now. You got no call. I was just minding my own business."

He was backing away, apparently looking for an escape route.

"Hup! Where you think you're goin there, son?" PM demanded. "You gonna come peaceable or do I have to throw down?"

"This is bullshit, PM!" Billy was livid.

"Come on now, let's go."

"PM, this is bullshit! You know it's just bullshit."

He looked like he was actually getting ready to go for his gun when he got cold cocked by a deputy on his way to the office.

PM went over and the two of them dragged old Rebar into the jailhouse.

"Thanks for stopping by," PM said, locking the cell.

"I guess there ain't gonna be no fight," said the deputy.

"Don’t look like it," said PM.

"I just come in to tell you about it. Whole town's up there to the amphitheater, waitin for it."

"So? Let 'em wait. Ain't no fight happening today."

The deputy laughed. "I guess not," he said, and went out.




* * *



Dunne walked down the middle of the street for the motion picture people, looking very much the flinty eyed gunslinger. Penelope moved in parallel along the boardwalk.

"You gonna fight that boy for me?" she called.

He kept on moving without saying anything.

"Because you don't have to. Not for me," Penelope said. "I don't want this, Timmy." She was close to tears.

He ignored her and kept on moving out of town toward the Old Amphitheater. Others followed, stragglers who hadn't heard about it yet. By the time they got out there it was looking like a Roman circus. Dunne strode into the center of the arena and began to preen like a pistolero. He pulled his gun and swiped his hand across the cylinder so that it spun clickety-clack; opened it up and checked all the chambers, blew on it, whistled, spun it around a little for show and then slipped it back in the holster. Then he took off his hat and slicked back his hair; put it back on and aligned it just right, then put his hands to his sides and stood there, looking all epic. What a show. Look at that Dunne. This was gonna be good. Then he proceeded to pace back and forth, showing his restlessness, his eagerness to get this thing over. But after awhile he shouted up at the audience, "Well, where's your boy?"

Big hee-haw in response to that one.

Others took it up. "Yeah, where's the big bad Rebar? Where's the dude?"

As for Tim, as for what he was thinking, well, he hadn't been thinking a whole lot about this; he was rather moving along on some wave that had taken him earlier in the day. Years later he wouldn't remember how he got out here. It wouldn't change. He'd been in the shop, talking to a customer who had asked him when he was going to settle with Rebar, and from then on it was just a big blurry rush pouring him into this moment. And yet he seemed to always know that Billy wouldn't show up. Because he hadn't told him. It was that simple. He'd omitted the formal challenge from the whole proceeding, yet continued on from that omission with the glory of the business, the show, the theater, not realizing that all he was really providing his audience was prelude, was foreplay, withholding from them at last the main event. Folks were there for some mayhem. But here was Dunne, going through all the motions of preening and warming up, even looking a little nervous from time to time, checking his fine gold pocket watch, shining his nails, squinting up at the sun and saying, "Well?"

Meanwhile, back at the jailhouse, PM and Billy had settled into an uneasy silence. Then some townie peeked in and, seeing Rebar incarcerated, wondered, "What are you doin behind bars? They's all waitin for you out to the coliseum."

"Who is?" Rebar demanded.

"Dunne and them boys. They's all saying you two was to have it out."

Rebar was wild-eyed. "Well, how come I never heard about it?" he demanded.

"Because you was in the clink," PM told him.

Rebar looked at PM with chilly understanding. "You're protecting him, ain't you?" he said.

"I'm protecting the peace," PM told him. “It’s my job.”

At the Old Amphitheater folks were starting to peel away by now. They'd drunk up all the beer, eaten all the snacks they wanted to, and this didn't promise to become anything more interesting.

"Well, Dunne. Guess he chickened on you."

"You win, Dunne.”

"Yeah, Dunne.”

The Circus quickly emptied and there was a long file back into town.

Soon Dunne was all alone there, knowing it had all been a fake.

When he entered the town himself, Penelope came up to him with a face full of night and said, "Are you satisfied? Are you satisfied?" She ran off, crying. Slowly he followed her. Slowly he trudged up the stairs to her room. He lay down on the bed like a stricken man and looked at the ceiling. She was reading aloud from the Bible. Her voice held a moral high ground. It was the voice of the Law and the Prophets that would shame all the children of Adam and drive them from Eden forever.







-8-


"You know, I can't just keep throwing him in the clink," PM said. "The lawyers are moving into the territories now. Pretty soon it's gonna be serious business, arresting a man."

"Well, maybe he'll go away," Dunne said halfheartedly.

"No, he won't go away. Why should he go away?" PM was pointing his finger. "What I'm telling you, Timmy, is back off this thing. Let it alone. You're in way over your head with this fella."

"What do you mean?"

PM jumped out of his chair and stood to his full height, suddenly blazing with fury. "Do you want to get yourself killed?" he said. "I mean, he's crazy. He's plumb loco. And you stay away from him. Now, I'm your friend and everything but I'll lock you up sure as shoottin if you don't back off. I’m calling for a restraining order on both of you in the meanwhile, which means if you approach to within fifty yards of that boy you are breaking the law, bud. You hear?"

"OK," Dunne said sullenly. But he heard him all right, and he was suddenly aware of how powerful PM was. Dunne wilted before him, this gentle man he'd known most of his life and who, for some reason, had always looked after him, indeed seemed to appear at times almost supernaturally, like a guardian angel. But now he was facing the man the outlaws faced, and he was scared. The situation had taken on a forcefulness that Dunne could not accommodate. It was too big, too real; it was for grownups, and Dunne would never be that. All he wanted to do was run and hide, which was OK with PM, and yet he felt he should do something else but he hadn't a clue what that would be. What he did end up doing was slinking out of the office with his tail between his legs and heading on home.

Trouble is, Rebar was there waiting for him in the road, he'd somehow hooked Dunne back into his world of fog and twilight.

"Come on, carry me," he said.

"No way," Dunne said. "Not any more. PM's got a restraining order."

But they were in some kind of penny arcade and the hawker was shouting, "Come on, folks, hunner dollars to the man carries his partner to the other side, or say the secret word, two hunner dollar… Hurry, hurry. Collect a hunner dollars …"

"You gonna carry me?"

"Nah. I gotta get home. Sorry."

"Hey, don't be like that. Come on now, I'm tired."

"I can't just carry you all my life," Dunne protested.

"Yes, you can. You have to. I won't go away. Not in this place."

But he did. He just went away. And there was Penelope. She was part of the twilight, too, but she looked sympathetic.

"I don't mind if you're a dirty little coward," she said. "I don't mind at all."

She sank into the earth up to her waist and became a statue. Tears flowed down Dunne's cheeks. He had lost her. And yet he was relieved to be rid of them both. PM had saved his ass again. He could go on pretending without consequence. He could even go on loving Penelope, who was safely turned to stone, while courting Sally and sawing off a piece on the sly when she took him upstairs, which was more and more frequent these days.
Except … except … She was dead, though, wasn't she? She was dead. He was sure of it. He'd heard a scream. When was that? Long ago, maybe. Very long ago, in some time outside the twilight.

He went into the bar. There was a curse on him now. No one spoke. They knew he was a dirty little coward. Sally was alive, though. She was dealing cards. (Holloway never allowed that!) He might have gone over and sat with her, just watched, and later on run up and had a piece, but it was as if he were the one who had died. Everybody just looked glum, and none of them spoke. He was in a ghost town, a town full of dead people. He couldn't talk to them and they couldn't talk to him. Holloway poured him a drink, though, without his even asking. It was automatic. Someone named Dunne should be there at this moment and so Holloway must pour him a drink. Used to be that Tim hardly touched the stuff, paid anyway, and Holloway would pour it back in the bottle. That was back in the days of Tim’s innocence. Was he ever innocent? How could that be? In this town without honor, where everyone was guilty, guilty, guilty. Guilty as charged. By themselves. They wouldn't let themselves be, so why should the Law?

Suddenly he was out of the twilight. Here was the town of Lost Confidence, here the bar and here the people, Tim Dunne, Holloway … but no Sally. She was back upstairs where she belonged, doing what she was supposed to do. And then you could hear three shots fired from up there. Three bullets entered Sally's pussy. There was an unbelievable scream. Then silence.

PM came in. He stood there, listening.

"Who's up there?" he demanded.

No one said anything, but they all looked guilty. Then you could hear boots tromping on the floor above, followed by a smashing of glass, a low thud as of someone who'd jumped and landed in the street, quick footsteps outside.

PM ran out there with his gun drawn. Dunne followed suit to find PM standing in the middle of the street, waiting for something, listening.

Bullets tore through his body. Blood flew. PM fell.

The shots had come from behind. He'd been shot in the back.

Someone said, "Hey, I got him! I got him!" It was Rebar.

Without thinking, Dunne ran out into the street.

And there he was, the kid himself.

Rebar looked up from his work and smiled.

"Well?" he said.

He already had his gun out and fired three shots before Dunne threw down and put one in the kid’s right eye. Rebar flew away like a tossed doll.

Dunne walked slowly over to the body and, standing above it, emptied his gun into the face, coldly watching it pulp up and lose its shape. There was a general gasp from the onlookers.

Then Dunne went over to PM and fell upon him and wept. He seemed to weep forever. He wept until he crinkled up and blew away like a tumbleweed. And the town blew away and all the people, and all the world blew away and there was only twilight and an ancient and empty amphitheater put there by the gods of long ago.