Page 30 of Levi

The air treatment worked to pull the weed smell out of the vents. Walk in now and you’d never know I was here.

The sliding glass door to the terrace is cracked open. Dante kept his word again. Apparently, he’s an honest man selling real estate, which is just about a miracle. I’d bet my last dollar on him doing what he says, and these days my last dollar’s not that far off.

My clothes are in the laundry room, folded on top of the dryer. I left them swimming this morning, when I dropped three dishwasher pods into the washing machine and turned the floor into a creek. The floor’s dry now and my shirts are stacked on the washer in a tight square, socks paired off. Every shirt I brought with me, except the one I’m wearing and both pairs of jeans, folded with style.

This is Dante’s doing. He stood here and folded my worn-out shirts like he folds his own.

I’m waiting for the catch, because there’s always a catch. Everything handed to me since I was seventeen came with a price tag on it, said out loud or not. I look for it now. There isn’t one. Just my own shirts, squared off perfectly.

The laundry soap sits on top of the machine, turned to face me, the little picture of a washing machine on the label pointed at the fool who couldn’t tell it from a dishwasher. That’s as close to a note as Dante leaves.

I go hunting for the pie. I can’t believe I left all the sandwiches out after I took the photo for Freddie. Dante thinks I’m an idiot and I keep proving him right. The pie’s still in the tin with two slices gone. I’d have eaten it cold over the sink and called supper done. But there’s a bag on the middle shelf that wasn’t there before.

Brown paper, folded over twice, grease soaking through the bottom. Red letters across the front.

BIG TEX’S ROADHOUSE.

Inside is half a rack of ribs gone dark with sauce, and under them two squares of cornbread wrapped on their own, enough for a man twice my size. No note. Just the food, and plenty of it.

Dante left me a bag of ribs and didn’t mention it once in the car when I said I was eating the pie for supper. And here it is, the meal he wanted me to have, sitting cold on a shelf for me to find.

This makes twice he’s fed me today.

I take the ribs out to the terrace. The Gulf is loud past the railing and the concrete still gives back the day’s heat. The cornbread is sweet and dense. I finish both squares standing at the rail. Then I eat the ribs with my hands, straight off the bone, cold from the refrigerator. They’re delicious.

The last time I tasted ribs like this, it was with a backyard smoker and a paper plate at a church supper in Tennessee. It’s weird how a smell or a taste can take you straight back somewhere, whether you want to go or not. I let the memory go as fast as it comes. When I’m done, I put the bag back in the refrigerator to save a few for lunch tomorrow, then think about the rest of my night.

Saturday’s bottles died over the weekend. I kill the little bit that’s left of Sunday’s pair, tipped straight up for the last mouthful, and that’s the supply gone. The last of the weed went with the ribs, out on the terrace. Now there’s nothing left in the house that turns the noise down.

Up it comes, slowly at first.

I’m stone cold sober now. Underneath the sounds of the AC cycling and the waves crashing, the track is cranking up.

I need to get more. Tequila, weed, anything that ends the next hour before it gets going. The liquor store is a ten-minute drive up the road and it might as well be in Tennessee. I won’t call Dante, because he told me no twice already today and I’ve got a little pride left, not much, but a little.

Eventually, I get a stupid idea. I’ve got cash and nothing smart left to do with it. I dig the cracked phone out and skip past the ride apps to the local pages, the buy-sell-trade groups where people unload jet skis and hunt for babysitters. Halfway down, somebody’s running a party bus. Bachelorettes and birthday crawls. Call or text for immediate pickup. There’s a photo of a white bus with purple lights underneath it like a UFO that serves drinks.

I call the number.

A kid answers over his own music. “Gulf Coast Party Bus.”

“I need a pickup. From a house on 30A, out to Big Tex’s Roadhouse and back.”

“Big Tex’s, yeah, we run out there all the time. Minimum’s two hours, two hundred an hour.”

“Three hundred, round trip, cash. Two hundred now, the last hundred when you bring me home at midnight.”

A pause while he decides whether I’m a joke. The numbers settle it.

“My name’s Tyler,” he says. “When do you need the pickup?”

“Now,” I tell him.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Give me your address.”

I change into clean clothes, wrap a bandana over my hair and slide on sunglasses. In the mirror I’m nobody in particular. Could be a tourist, could be a local. Lee Streeter needs a stylist and a stage to exist, and I’ve got neither, which makes this the safest I’ve looked since I arrived.

I leave the phone screen down, pinging the tower so Freddie’s map keeps me home and asleep. I take cash and the license that means nothing to anybody down here. Dante’s card is already in my back pocket. I walk out to wait.