Read Online Judas Horse by April Smith - Free Book Online Page B

who has changed the music. He is holding on to both sides of the machine, bent over the glass as if in a trance. The heavy ridges of his face are colored blue by the jukebox lights, a handsome face that has gone to seed. He wears a worn-out denim shirt and blondish hair that, if unloosed, would fall below the shoulders. But here’s what really dates him: an improbable pair of frayed red suspenders only old hippies can pull off.

    I choose to steal what you choose to show
    And you know I will not apologize

    “Anybody know what that is?” I ask in general.
    “‘Career of Evil,’” rasps Mr. Terminate, like he’s still got pieces of ashtray stuck in his throat. “Blue Oyster Cult.”
    “Weren’t they big in the seventies?”
    But Mr. Terminate goes stone-cold silent.
    I slide off the stool and meander to the jukebox.
    “Blue Oyster Cult,” I say. “Weren’t they big in the seventies?”
    Julius’s eyes are slow coming out of the trance.
    “You are way too young to know about Blue Oyster Cult.”
    “That’s the only song of theirs I recognize.” I smile truthfully.
    He straightens up. There’s a silver loop in one ear. I like earrings on men. I like the kind of face that knows you’re looking at it.
    He indicates the lighted selections. “One song left. You pick.”
    “Jackson Browne.”
    He approves. I move closer, so now we’re peering over the titles together. The heat of the machine jumps up.
    “I like your friend, Megan.”
    “Good lady.”
    “You come here after the market?”
    “She sells her hazelnut brittle. I grow ’em, she sells ’em.”
    “I just moved to Portland. I haven’t been to the market, but I hear it’s awesome.”
    “You should go,” Julius says.
    We listen to the piano riff at the opening of “Fountain of Sorrow.” The mood shifts, low-key and melancholy.
    “Why do you have a flying corn on your hat?”
    Reflexively, as if to be sure it’s there, Julius touches the red-and-green ear of corn with wings that adorns the cap.
    “DeKalb,” he explains.
    “What’s DeKalb?”
    “DeKalb, Ohio. Corn-seed capital of the world.”
    “What does corn seed have to do with hazelnuts?”
    “I was born there,” the big man tells me. “Picked corn when I was in high school, lying on my back on this very uncomfortable contraption, a mattress they put on wheels—”
    Megan is on her way. She’s had enough of us talking. She slips two fingers in the waistband of Julius’s jeans, sliding him close.
    “I was just telling this young lady about Ohio.”
    “Is he boring you with his life story?” she asks.
    “Yes,” replies Julius, glad for the intrusion.
    “Your friend, Rusty, at the bar, he was saying that you rescue animals? At the hazelnut farm?”
    Julius’s attention snaps back. “Rusty said that?”
    “Why not?” says Megan. “It’s true.”
    “I’m a total animal person,” I say, boasting. “I once got arrested for getting into a fight with a dude at a shelter who euthanized this cat I was going to adopt. Because I was
fifteen minutes
late.”
    “That’s awful. Where are you from, Darcy?” Megan asks kindly.
    “Southern California. Don’t ask.”
    “Heat, traffic, smog?”
    “And the most repressive attitude toward animal rights. We have to fight for every soul.”
    “Are you in the movement?” she asks.
    “I show up. Done a lot of cat and dog adoptions. Can I come to the farm and see your operation, maybe help?”
    Megan hesitates. “We don’t encourage visitors. It upsets the animals.”
    “But don’t you want to adopt them out?”
    “Once we get ’em, we keep ’em. We’re not open to the public,” Julius says abruptly, and downs a beer.
    Regroup.
    “I’ve been reading in the
Oregonian
about the wild mustangs,” I say barreling on. “I think it’s terrible what the government is doing to them.”
    “Infuriating,” Megan agrees.
    “Ever heard of FAN?”
    “Are you a member of FAN?” she whispers conspiratorially.
    “Me?” I