her Gabriel swung at the bouncer but missed. He swiveled into a glossy black pickup truck and hit his head, then got back up. The bouncer smacked him openhanded on the top of his head, as if he were a giant bug. Gabriel got to his feet and swung again, but the bouncer stepped back and Gabriel’s hand smashed into the pickup’s wide side mirror, breaking the glass.
He winced, holding his right hand, and crumpled into the parking lot. Oh fuck, he said. Fucking shit.
Una crouched against the front fender of a car a few feet away. A wave of nausea crested and she puked onto the oyster-shell parking lot. After that her stomach felt empty, but she continued retching. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. She wheezed, trying to catch her breath through the mucus in her throat. One of the girls from the table showed up holding a green plastic monkey. She looked at the bouncer. I saved this for her, said the girl. I’m sorry. We didn’t mean anything.
The bouncer pulled Una’s hair out of her face. He said, Just get it all out, darlin’. Get that poison out.
People piled out of the bar, closing time. A guy in a crumpled cowboy hat walked up, laughing, until he stopped beside the glossy black pickup. What the fuck? Look at this. He neared his mirror, propped from the front right fender on metal struts like a piece of farm machinery. It was smashed and broken.
Now I don’t like this one bit, he said. Who the fuck broke my mirror? He saw Gabriel in the shadows, mumbling. Yo, little drunk dude? Tell me you didn’t just smash my mirror? Tell me that and everything’s going to be hunky-dory.
Fuck you, said Gabriel. You probably looked into it is what you did.
The cowboy lifted his hat off his head, sighed, and put it back in place, his shadow in the bright light above the entrance going tall, then shrinking into the parking lot and casting a pool of darkness. He stepped forward and neared Gabriel, who was still hunched against the back fender of the glossy pickup. He said, I guess I’m not as pretty as you.
You were born ugly, said Gabriel. And you’ll fucking die ugly, too.
Someone walking by laughed and said, Someone’s beggin’ for an ass-kickin’.
The cowboy turned to people walking by, said, I’m a reasonable man, is the truth. But this piece-of-shit taco eater, he broke my window.
Beside the building stood a yellow plastic mop bucket full of dirty brown water, a mop sloshed in it, a wringer mechanism on the lip of the bucket. The cowboy picked up the mop, a huge dripping filthy thing like a Rastafarian hairdo, and walked back to his truck. As Gabriel got to his feet the cowboy swung the heavy wet threads of the huge mop across his face, slapping him broadside with it. People groaned. Someone laughed.
Stinking mop water splashed all over Gabriel. He grabbed the mop head and jerked it out of the cowboy’s hand, then slipped on the wet asphalt and fell again.
As he started to get up the cowboy kicked Gabriel in the shoulder and knocked him against one great knobby-treaded tire. Hey, shithead! You know what your problem is? He kicked him again. You got to learn to keep your mouth shut, little shit! He kicked into the shadows again, his boot crunching against something. Gabriel scrabbled under the pickup like a spider.
Una stood upright. She was panting, trying to get her breath. Leave him alone! she screamed. He’s drunk! Can’t you see that!
The cowboy backed off, looked around at everyone, lifted his hat off his head again and replaced it. He raised his eyebrows at Una. Well of course he’s drunk, china doll. Hell. We all drunk. He laughed. That’s no excuse for anything.
Around him people climbed into their cars and trucks, slammed doors, started engines, turned on radios. We all of us drunk, the cowboy shouted into the humid wind. He shook his head. Don’t change a damn thing.
On the drive home Gabriel winced every time he shifted gears with his right hand. He stank of the filthy mop water and his face was disfigured with anger.
Una sat slumped and nauseated. I’m sorry, she said. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I was only looking for a monkey. You’re the one who overreacted. If you would have just—
Why don’t you shut the fuck up? Can’t you shut your fucking mouth? Is that so hard?
Don’t tell me to shut up.
I’ll tell you what I feel like telling you. Gabriel fished a cigarette out of the pack in his front pocket, his hands shaking. He punched in the cigarette lighter.
Una said, Those guys were assholes. We’re never going there again.
Gabriel refused to look at her. He put the glowing orange tip of the lighter to his cigarette and mashed it too hard, crumpled a kink in his smoke.
Una reached across and stroked his wet hair. Baby? Come on. Baby?
Don’t call me baby, he hissed. He brushed mop water off his forehead and wiped it on his pants. How could you do this to me?
Una turned away. Staring out the window, she watched the waves in the moonlight. I said I was sorry and you didn’t listen. You act like I was flirting with him. All I was trying to do was—
You’re drunk and disgusting. You think a man wants a drunken woman hanging all over strangers in a bar? Is that what you think?
I hate when you smoke. That’s what’s disgusting, if you want to know the truth.
Gabriel turned to glare at Una. She slouched in her seat, her head leaning out the window.
Are you going to be sick? If you’re going to fucking puke you better tell me to stop because if you get it on the side of my car I’m going to—
Gabriel pulled his El Camino onto the oyster-shell shoulder of Shoreline Drive. With the car suddenly stopped the air off Red Moon Bay reeked of salt and fish. A car’s passing headlights glared into the front seat and shone upon Gabriel and Una, their faces wooden and harsh. It seemed as if they had paused for a moment, unsure of which direction to go next, at a turning point, a fork in the straight road along the ocean.
Una rubbed her face and sighed. You know what? I’m not sorry. You think I did it to you? You’re pathetic. No hice nada. You did it to yourself.
You were the one hanging on that pendejo, said Gabriel. That’s what started all this.
I’m sick of this. It happens every time. You know that? I never have any fun.
You were hanging—
Maybe I should.
Should what?
I don’t need this.
Should what?
Una got out of the car, stumbling on the uneven shoulder of the road. Leave, she said. Just leave, okay?
Don’t push me, Una. Don’t fucking push me.
Go home. I don’t need you.
Gabriel watched as she stumbled down the shoulder of Shoreline Drive, illuminated in the headlights, her small body like a young girl’s, something forlorn and heartbroken in the way she moved alone on the road in the night. For a moment he considered running her over, just to put the both of them out of their misery.
He gunned it and drove off, the El Camino tires burning rubber on the rough asphalt, leaving Una in a cloud of burnt tire smoke and exhaust.
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