Albuquerque: Local Establishment (cont.)

He was a tall man with a thin smile that peeked from behind his full, gray beard.  He was smiling then.  I asked for a beer, and in one motion he slammed open the cooler and pulled out a Budweiser.  He twisted off the cap and set the bottle in front of me.  Instead of asking for payment then, he just slapped the bar and headed back to resume his conversation with the Mexicans.
            
I drank my beer and listened to the jukebox.  As I said, it really was a decent place.  Inside you could tell it had been here forever, since before Albuquerque had started to stand up tall, from the days when Route 66 cried of change in the grumblings of automobiles from Los Angeles and Chicago.  Back when this land was enough of nothing to make it the choice for popping our country’s nuclear cherry.
            
The boy had picked a few ballads in Spanish that his girl obviously loved.  She was beaming and singing along quietly, and she kept leaning in to get a rise out of him, touching his knee or the back of his head during what I guessed were the good parts.  I couldn’t quite make out the words.  But he didn’t pay her much attention.  She was a pretty girl too.  Instead the boy just stared at the Mexicans carrying on with the bartender. Then, all of a sudden, the Mexicans erupted in laughter.  I watched them.  They yanked on each other’s hats and slapped the bar.  They took big gulps of their beers.  And they all snuck peeks over their shoulders at the boy.  The Mexican closest to me, still giggling, slid down a seat toward me and slurred something my way.  I didn’t understand anything except peligrosa.
            
At that, the boy glared at him and stomped over to the juke box again.  I felt my stomach flutter.  The boy flipped through a few pages.  Then he stomped back to his table.  The girl had stopped smiling and sat up straight.  The boy shouted something in Spanish to the Mexicans at the bar who all looked at each other and snickered some more.  Then the one closest to me slid down another stool; there were only a couple of stools between us now.  He giggled and with a nod toward the boy’s table made a show of whispering something to me again—loud—so everyone heard over the music.  Then I realized it wasn’t peligrosa I’d heard but rosa.  I still couldn’t make out the rest.
            
The boy fired a rebuke at him in Spanish.  I understood puta.  I knew what that meant.  Then it started. 
            
“Amigo!” the boy said to me.  It didn’t register at first.  “You like this place?”  He was talking to me!
            
I didn’t really know what was happening.  I saw the bartender looking at me.  Waiting.  The drunk Mexican closest to me slid back toward his friends. 
            
“Yes, it’s a nice place,” I said.  What are you supposed to say? 
            
The woman’s voice on the jukebox wailed above flourishes of flamenco guitar.  “Nice place,” the boy sneered.  He snapped his head back and looked up at the ceiling.  He bounced his knee furiously under the table.  He looked at his girl who was sitting straight and motionless, her face void of the flushed romance there just a moment before.  Then he looked back at me.  “Nice place. You like it, right?  I bet you do.”  The Mexican who had slurred at me then slurred something to the boy, but the boy spoke right over him.  “So, where you come from?”  He dropped his head back and looked up to the ceiling again. 

The fluttering in my stomach started to make me nauseous.  “I’m just in Albuquerque for the summer,” I said.  I swallowed the rest of my beer, by then flattened and warmed in my hands.

“The summer,” he said.  “So you like this place in the summer. You like coming here. It’s a nice place.”  His black eyes glared at me.
            
As if on cue, the bartender came toward me, reached his long arm across the bar, and slapped his hand on my shoulder.  “That’s two bucks,” he said.  He kept his hand on my shoulder, not unfriendly, but heavy.  He was smiling under his beard.  I didn’t understand what was going on, but he repeated – just to me, “Two bucks.” So I pulled out my wallet and dropped a five on the bar.  Then I felt his hand gripping my shoulder and guiding me off the bar stool.  Everything was moving slowly.  The boy was saying something to me, but I didn’t hear him.  I saw his knee going strong under the table.  The woman still wailed away on the jukebox.  The bartender had already led me a few steps toward the door before he finally took his hand from my shoulder.  I didn’t even think of asking for change.
            
Outside, the three men had not changed positions, nor did they acknowledge me as I walked past.  The moon was bright in the night sky, illuminating spotty clouds overhead.  It had cooled considerably, and a gust of wind down Central chilled my skin.  I realized I was perspiring.  As I walked toward my apartment, I noticed that my stomach had settled; but in trying to replay the boy’s words in my mind, all I could hear was woman’s voice on the jukebox, all I could feel was the bartender’s hand.
            
Three blocks lay between Central and my apartment.  Three blocks.  I walked quickly.  When I came to the first corner, a beaten-down Toyota pulled up in front of me, blocking the crosswalk.  I stopped and lifted my head.  A man’s unfamiliar voice came from inside the car.
            
“You need a lift somewhere?”  Music blared from the car radio.  Nausea flooded back.
            
“No thanks,” I said.  I paused for a moment—he didn’t move—then crossed the street behind the car.  He waited until I stepped onto the sidewalk before gunning the engine and speeding off around the corner.  I could see my apartment ahead.
            
I walked up the next block and came to the corner, and again headlights flooded my eyes as the same car pulled up.  “You sure you don’t need a ride?”  His voice was husky, intentional. 
            
“I’m fine,” I said.  “Just walking.”  I didn’t stop this time.  What the hell is this? I thought.  Again he roared off. 
            
I knew what was coming at the next corner, so I walked fast to beat him there, but he screamed up the street and met me at the crosswalk again.  He said something quickly above the car radio; I kept moving.  His engine rumbled as he waited in the crosswalk.  My apartment was only thirty feet away, but as I strode up the sidewalk, fingering the door key in my pocket, about to turn down the stairs to my basement, I got a raw feeling.  I didn’t want him to see where I lived.  So I kept walking up the block past my apartment until he sped away around the corner. 
            
Once the car was out of sight, I broke into a run.  I abandoned the notion of going back to my apartment, instead sprinting through the neighborhood streets, my legs willing me up the gentle inclines away from the din and headlights of Central.  For a second I thought I heard an engine rumbling close, but the pounding of my heart drowned out any supposed sound.
            

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