by Jean-Gérald Charbonneau 

I almost punched the bartender at the Tally Lounge when he wouldn’t give me one more drink. 

"Last call was ten minutes ago," he barked. A vein bulged in the middle of his forehead. 

I wanted to climb over the counter, but Celeste put a hand on my arm and said, "Let’s go to your place, Marcel. Allons."

She wasn’t beautiful, not according to the canons, but there was something captivating about her features. A hardness, a kind of violence. In time, I probably would have grown tired of that face. Maybe I even would have hated it. But in those days I couldn’t get enough of her. 

I was in Mississippi on a one-year contract, teaching a graduate course in Francophone literature. Celeste was a student of mine. She came from a small Cajun town outside Baton Rouge and spoke a little French, with the odd accent from the bayou. That was part of the attraction. 

Celeste teetered in the parking lot. We’d been drinking—Bloody Marys for her, whiskeys for me. A few beers, too. Her car was one of the three still there. We were among the very few valiant drunks in town who would stay up so late on a Wednesday night. Or so I thought. 

"Sure you can drive?" I asked. 

She broke into giggles. 

"All right then," I said. "Give me the keys. Come on, let’s have them." 

She reached inside her jean pocket—she wasn’t one to carry a purse—and tossed them my way. They hit my hand and fell to the pavement. She laughed again. So did I. She waited for me to unlock the door of her banged-up Plymouth, which had taken us all over the Deep South in recent weeks—Jackson, Mobile, New Orleans. In the car we held hands. 

"How are you doing?" 

"Fatiguée," Celeste said. 

She did look like she was about to fall asleep. I reached for her hair. She turned her head so my fingers pressed against her cheek. 

As soon as we’d stepped out of the bar I’d begun to sweat, and my glasses slid down the bridge of my nose. The late afternoon rainstorm had been no help. "It’s usually not that hot this time of year," Celeste had said earlier. "This is almost like summer." The air was alien, vicious. It almost made me long for Montreal winters. I turned on the air conditioner. 

"D’you have anything to drink at your house?" 

"A bottle of Jack. Maybe a bit of vodka." 

She frowned. "We should stop and get some beer." 

"We better hurry then." 

* * * 

I was taking a chance going 50 in a 30 MPH zone. I would have flunked a Breathalyzer if a cop had pulled us over. But I wanted to make sure Celeste got her beer. I managed to drive straight enough. 

Celeste had somehow smuggled a Bud out of the bar. She opened the bottle using her seatbelt buckle, had a few sips, and handed it to me. 

I was parched. "You never cease to amaze me, chère." 

I said chère the way the Cajuns do, with a slight English inflection. 

She smiled. 

"A Fine Romance" was playing on the radio. 

"I love Billie Holiday," Celeste said. 

"So do I." 

Celeste turned up the volume. She lit a cigarette and pulled out the ashtray. It was full of butts. We listened to the music until we got to the store. It was closed. 

"Shit," Celeste said. 

Some of the lights were still on, out back. I ran to the door and knocked on the glass. An old man came up and grimaced, displaying rotten teeth. His hair was grimy, and tattoos smeared his forearms. 

"Please, sir," I shouted through the glass. "I just need a few beers." 

"Cain’t do it. Y’all are too late." 

"But it’s not quite two yet." I showed him my watch. 

He flashed his blackened teeth again and pulled the shade down. I slapped the door. "Hey!" 

The old man pushed the shade aside and glared at me. It occurred to me that he probably had a rifle in there, and I went back to the car. 

"No luck?" 

I removed my glasses and wiped my forearm across my brow. "Vieux sacrament." 

"What happened?" 

"Son of a bitch wouldn’t open the door. What do they all have against me tonight?" 

Celeste lit another cigarette. "So, what d’you want to do?" she asked. "I’m getting a second wind." 

"Everything is closed now." 

She took a long drag. The swirling smoke spread out against the windshield. 

"You’re wrong, professeur," she said. "There is a place we can go, not far from here. And you’ve never been in a joint like this, I’m sure. Let me drive."

 * * * 

Outside town we took a gravel road that cut through clusters of trailers and abandoned shotgun houses, some of them roofless. The road turned into a rutted dirt path, and Celeste had to slow down as the Plymouth skidded in the mud. She kept silent, concentrating on the corridor created by the headlights. A weak quarter-moon was out. When a patch of clouds hid it, I couldn’t see a thing around us except for the white blanket on both sides of the road. It looked like snow. I wondered if I was hallucinating, until I realized it was cotton, blown there by the wind from the surrounding fields. 

We stopped in front of a small wooden building that would have seemed deserted if not for the cars and pickup trucks parked in the lot. In the faint light over the door I could barely make out the words UNCLE GUS’S. As we stepped from the Plymouth, something jumped out of an overturned garbage can and scurried off, startling me. 

Celeste took my hand as if I were six years old. 

"It’s only a possum." 

"Where are we anyway? I’ve never heard of this place." 

"Of course not. An old boyfriend used to take me once in a while. A local boy." Celeste peered at me over her shoulder while walking toward the entrance. "Allons-y," she said. The red mud in the parking lot sucked on our shoes. Celeste didn’t seem to mind. She walked into the bar like she were right at home. 

"Hey y’all!" 

The bartender growled a few syllables. A Rebel flag hung behind the bar, and on the walls were four mounted black bear heads, a poster of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and a king-sized picture of Miss Glamorata. Behind the bartender, amidst bottles, was a TV set tuned to the Weather Channel. Patrons sat along the bar and at the few tables near the entrance. In back were two battered pool tables, the obligatory pinball machine, and a jukebox spewing loud country rock. Fans operating at full blast stood on opposite ends of the room. There was no rear exit, just two doors at the back with the words "Buck" and "Doe." 

Uncle Gus was difficult to miss. He had a huge face with inflated lips, a flat nose, and the eyes of a lizard. His wavy hair was shoulder-length in the back, short at the front. He sat at the far end of the counter on a pseudo-Louis XIV armchair—King Gus presiding over his people. 

Celeste and I walked to a table toward the back, twenty pairs of eyes glued to us. We took our seats. 

The only person behind us, apart from the pool players, was an old man sitting with elbows on knees, his face buried in his hands, showing a crown of tangled, gray hair. Nobody paid any attention to him, as if he were an ugly piece of furniture forgotten in the corner. 

"Fancy establishment," I muttered. 

Celeste grinned. "Thought you’d like it, professeur." 

I leaned toward Celeste and said, "I suspect the rednecks might not be crazy about me being here." 

"Just make sure you have a heavy French accent when you speak. That way they won’t think you’re from Boston or something." 

I laughed, though I couldn’t tell whether or not she was kidding. 

Uncle Gus rose from his throne and came over. He wiped the surface of our table, exhibiting the diamond-studded ring jammed on his fat pinky. He wore a pink shirt and Bermuda shorts, exposing skinny legs I thought might snap under the weight of his gargantuan stomach. 

"Celeste. Long time." He had a lisp and a high voice. 

"Hi Gus," Celeste said. "This is my friend, Marcel." 

Uncle Gus shook my hand. "What can I get y’all?" he said. "We got beer, but you might be interested in our house special." 

I turned to Celeste. 

"Gus’s moonshine is the best in the county." 

"The house special it is, then." 

"Comin’ right up." Uncle Gus headed for the bar. 

Around us, the patrons had resumed their conversations and pool playing. 

"How come you’ve never taken me here before?" I said. "I didn’t think it was your kind of hangout." 

"Actually, it reminds me of a bar in Montreal I used to go to when I was a student, a beautiful dump a bit like this one. God, that was a long time ago." 

"Uh-oh," Celeste said. "Don’t you go nostalgic on me." 

I forced a smile. 

"So," she said, "you still haven’t answered my question from earlier tonight." 

I blinked. "I don’t know—" 

"Are you going to stay down here after this year or not?" 

"I haven’t really thought about it. Depends. I think I know what I’m trying to get away from, but I have no clue what I’m looking for." 

Celeste gave me an annoyed stare, and I couldn’t really blame her. Fortunately, Uncle Gus arrived with a bottle and three shot glasses. He poured the clear liquid and raised his glass. 

"Another one the Yankees won’t get," he said. 

"Santé," I said. 

I brought my hand to my throat as soon as I swallowed. Uncle Gus and Celeste burst out laughing. 

"Here." Uncle Gus plopped a beer in front of me. "Chase it down with this." 

I drank a third of the bottle. 

"You thought that was funny?" I managed to say. 

"Don’t take it badly," Celeste said. "You should’ve seen your face." She laughed again. 

Uncle Gus patted my shoulder and headed back to his chair, leaving the bottle on the table. He, too, was still laughing. 

I inspected the moonshine. "What is this anyway?" 

"Pretty potent, n’est-ce-pas?" 

Celeste filled our glasses again. I’d seen her drink and smoke for hours on end and still muster the necessary energy to keep on going in her quest for absolute intoxication. I usually went right along, but I’d had enough of the moonshine for now. I stuck to my beer, not saying a word. The television set behind the bar was showing clips of a snowstorm hitting the eastern seaboard, from D.C. all the way up to Montreal. 

"Marcel," Celeste said, "looks like you’re a million miles away." Then she glanced at the TV. The meteorologist was pointing at a map of New England and Eastern Canada. "Actually," she said, "more like two thousand." I shrugged. 

She pointed at my left hand. "You took off your ring." 

"I thought it was the right thing to do," I said. 

"The right thing?" 

"Well. You know—" 

Celeste snickered and lit a cigarette. I didn’t add anything. Had I opened my mouth I would have had to say how I felt, but I always was better at expressing what I didn’t feel, and I didn’t want to do that right now. I took another swig of moonshine and shook my head as the liquid burned everything on its way down my throat. 

"You want to dance with me, Marcel?" she asked. "Come on, let’s have some fun." 

I led her to the jukebox and we did a kind of crazy tango to a Patsy Cline tune. Celeste was laughing and everyone in the bar was staring at us and I didn’t care. Uncle Gus’s concoction had a wonderful brain- numbing quality. 

"Merci," she said after the song ended. 

In my Cajun accent I said, "C’est mon plaisir, chère." 

"Smart-ass," Celeste said and slapped my arm. I pointed at the back of the bar. "I need to go to the little buck’s room." 

The restroom walls were covered with graffiti, and someone had torn off the paper towel dispenser. There was no mirror over the sink; rusty water dribbled out of the tap. The floor was a muck of urine, spit, vomit, mud, cigarette butts. The lone stall was without a door. The urinal: a long aluminum cow manger filled with ice. I positioned myself in front of it, hoping no one would come in. Someone did as soon as I started to relieve myself. The man was sixty or so. He wore an elegant beige suit. He staggered over to the sink and splashed some water on his face. Then he leaned against the wall and watched me piss, as if I were some animal in a zoo. I shot him a look. No reaction. He was gangly, with deep lines in his cheeks and neck. He slurred a few words that were lost on me. I ignored him and zipped up. Then I heard, "Better be careful." And he laughed a short asthmatic laugh. 

When I came out, Celeste wasn’t there. My heart skipped a beat. Then I saw her, standing by the pool table, smiling. 

"Want to play, professeur?" 

"Sure." 

"You won’t mind the humiliation?" 

I guffawed. "I must warn you, I’m pretty good at this." 

"We’ll see." 

We flipped a coin for the break, and I won. Two stripes found their way into pockets. 

"Nice," Celeste said. 

I sank another one and then missed a long shot. 

Celeste approached the table. "Aha, my turn." 

I showed her the way with an outstretched arm. 

She almost emptied the table, using every technique in the book: plain strokes, top strokes, screw backs, combinations. Balls clacked on the felt and found their way into the pockets as if guided by a laser beam. While she played she told me her dad had a pool table in the house when she was a kid. Then she sent the cue ball on a wild spin, and the last ball ricocheted off the side of the pocket. 

"Jésus-Marie," I said. "I didn’t know I was playing against Louisiana Fats." 

"Watch out, buddy-boy," she said. "No jokes about my obesity." 

Celeste grinned; she weighed about one hundred and two pounds. 

I took my turn again and sank the first of the four balls I had left. As I leaned over the table to try the next one, a loud voice called behind me, "The fuck you think you are, boy? That’s my table." 

It was the old guy who’d been sitting alone in the back of the bar. Only he was wide awake now and walked straight at me, armed with a cue. He brought it down like an executioner’s ax. The stick snapped in two as it hit my raised arm. I crouched on the floor. I thought my arm was broken. 

"The fuck you doin’ here, boy?" the man screamed. He tried to kick me. 

Some of the patrons were shouting; I wasn’t sure whether they were urging him on or telling him to stop. 

Uncle Gus rushed over. "Enough, Roy," he yelled, and pushed the old guy away from me. Then he turned to Celeste. "Get your buddy out of here. Now."

 * * * 

We didn’t say a word on the way back. The only sound in the Plymouth was the heavy sighing of the air conditioner. I shut my eyes. I thought I was going to vomit, but it passed. Celeste parked in front of the house the university had provided for me. She didn’t turn the engine off. 

"I’m sorry. About everything." 

"Don’t. It’s all right." 

"I never should’ve brought you there," she said. I looked at her and had the fleeting impression that she had taken me to Uncle Gus’s, knowing something was going to happen. To punish me. I shrugged and said, "You want to come in?" 

"No. I have a nine o’clock class. I’ll try to sleep a bit before." 

I checked my watch; the sun would be up soon. I thanked God I didn’t have to teach until the afternoon. I took off my glasses and massaged my eyes. Thousands of little guillotines were at work in my brain. 

"I should be going." Her voice startled me, though it was soft. 

"You sure? I could make some coffee," I offered feebly. 

"No. I really should go." 

"OK, then. A plus tard." 

She smiled. Celeste’s smiles always varied— glowing, angelic, worried. This time it was sad. 

We kissed, a brush of the lips. I got out of the car. She waved and drove off. The area under my elbow where the cue had hit was swollen and throbbing and taking a bluish tint.

 * * * 

There was a glass on the porch floor by the rattan chair. While waiting for Celeste to pick me up at the beginning of the evening I’d given myself a bit of a head start with a couple of whiskeys. Now two enormous roaches were floating in the gold-colored liquid. At least they died happy, I thought, and chuckled to myself. I threw the contents of the glass away. It was pitch-black out and the air was filled with the smell of rotting vegetation. 

Vomit gushed up my throat, and I leaned over the rail. I remained there, drenched with sweat. Then I collapsed into the chair and used the sleeve of my shirt to wipe my face. All around crickets screeched in an intolerable crescendo. The fury would calm down for a few seconds, then start all over again, each time louder. It was as if the night were speaking in a language I couldn’t understand. 

I walked into the house and headed straight for the bedroom. The red light of the answering machine was blinking intently in the dark. 

The messages were from my wife; I had no doubt of that. 

I sat on the edge of the bed and pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and said out loud, "Mais qu’est-ce que tu fous ici?"—What the fuck are you doing here? 

I picked up the phone, but put it back in its cradle as again I felt a rush of nausea. I ran to the bathroom and threw up until all that came out was yellow bile. I got undressed, turned on the shower and lay down in the tub. The cool water crashed down on my body. It stung my skin, but for a moment it felt wonderful.

Jean-Gérald Charbonneau writes: "Stories of mine have been published in Stop, Liberté and The Nashwaak Review, and I write book reviews for AGNI, the Boston Book Review, Toronto Star, Denver Post, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and other newspapers. Originally from Montreal, I received an MA degree in creative writing from Boston University in 1998 after studying literature and writing at the University of Southern Mississippi."

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions de son soutien le Conseil des Arts du Canada.