This is an entry in Lit's Winter Story Contest 2006. It's more-or-less a Romance. There's some talk about sex, but the only real action is a fairly brutal fight. Consider yourself warned.
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A weary Seeburg Select-O-Matic jukebox crouched beside the front door of The Rebel Yell. The tenth playing that evening of "Please Come Home For Christmas" was just ending. Across the room, Sam, joint's cheerless owner, stood behind a short bar with several worn stools. Strings of Christmas lights acknowledged the season and provided most of the illumination. An old, printed sign taped to the cash register proclaimed, "You're white today because your ancestors practiced segregation."
This same lighting scheme extended into a large dance area lined with plastic covered booths and small, scarred tables. The place had a pervasive odor of beer, cigarette smoke, hair tonic, cheap aftershave, and testosterone.
Clay Atkins stood next to the jukebox until he spotted Wheeler Sims sitting at a front booth. The Rhodes brothers were with him. So was Renee. With eyes you could get lost in and an ass to die for, she was the best looking girl he'd ever dated, much less made love to.
Abby called her a manipulative bitch and, just for good measure, white trash. As usual, she'd been right. Renee was also a racist, so were a lot of other people Clay knew. He wasn't, but he'd lusted for her since junior high. Years of futility ended last summer when they began dating, and then making love. But all that ended last week, a lifetime ago.
The jukebox screeched in protest as he pushed it away from the wall. The needle settled back into a grove with Tammy Wynette spelling out, D-I-V-O-R-C-E. She reached R before he found the power cord and yanked hard. Lights went out and it ground into silence.
A chorus of loud complaints erupted. People turned to see what happened. Then, like a scene from an old western, everything got quiet.
Behind the bar, Sam reached for his blackjack. "Easy Sam." Clay held up a hand. "Stay where you are and I'll be out of here in a second.
"Wheeler, you need to come outside. I'll be waiting by your truck. There some things we need to settle. You know what. If you're not there in few minutes, I'll leave a reminder on that bird-shit yellow paint-job about when I'll be back. So you might as well come on."
Clay plugged the jukebox back in and left. Wheeler, along with Renee and the Rhodes brothers plus most of the bar's other patrons, soon followed. They milled around in the frosty southern air while he made a show of checking out the situation.
In a loud, cocky voice, he asked, "Okay, I'm here. What's all this about?"
"You started the church fire that killed Abby and Ike." It was a statement, not a question.
A tiny smirk flashed across Wheeler's face. Then he put on a show of indignation. "Bull shit."
The men stared at one another, until Wheeler looked over at the two men standing beside Clay's old Ford. "What you doing here, Hoss? Trying to keep Atkins's junker running?"
The hulking mechanic pointed at the three Rhodes brothers standing near Wheeler. "Thought I'd come along to make sure this is a fair fight, a one-on-one deal, and your little buddies stay out of things."
The undersized brothers, who preferred doing their brand of fighting in dark, crowded bars, showed no interest in an outdoor encounter with Hoss Driscoll. They smirked, but made no reply.
"What about you, Hemphill?" said Wheeler. "You want a part of this?"
"Not me," said Bob. He used his thumb to gesture at Clay. "I'm just here to make sure he doesn't kill you. You're not worth an involuntary manslaughter charge."
The casual tone seemed to unsettle Wheeler. But he recovered and turned to the large crowd clustered behind him. "Well, I guess Atkins ain't gonna be happy until I kick his sorry candy-ass across this parking lot. So let's get it over with." He punctuated his final words by making a big production out of turning back around to face Clay. What he saw seemed to surprise him.
Across the small, neon-lighted space, Clay stood shirtless. A second summer spent wrestling with heavy, green, plank-road lumber had put some impressive muscles on his arms and upper body. The chubby junior high football player the two-year older Wheeler had once beaten and humiliated now looked more than a match for his former tormentor.
He smiled, took off his cowboy hat, and handed it to Renee. "Would you mind holding this for a minute? I'm not gonna take my shirt off. Candy-ass might get all hot and bothered at the sight." The crowd guffawed. Renee returned his smile and accepted the hat.
With the formalities over, Wheeler turned back, then moved forward, talking loud and grinning. Without warning, he brought a vicious left sprang up from the hip.
Clay had expected a sucker punch, but forgot Wheeler was a lefty. The side of his head exploded with pain as the punch bounced off his ear. He countered with a short left to the eye and a hard, straight right to the jaw.
Wheeler shook his head, then pressed in with a flurry of quick headshots. Some landed, most missed. Then a sharp jab shook Clay and left his mouth bleeding. It seemed to wake him up. Before, he'd been fighting more in grief than anger. Now a lifetime worth of rage took over.
Wheeler took two hard shots to the body, and stepped away. He paused to rub at his swelling eye, then grinned and came on like a right-hander, throwing a left-right combination. While Clay was no fighter, thanks to his Golden Gloves father, he knew how to box. He parried most of the blows, then countered with a jab that bloodied Wheeler's nose and followed that with a hard right to the gut. There was a satisfying grunt of pain as air exploded from a gaping mouth.
