Gun Lake by Travis Thrasher Read Free Book Online

snapped at the old-timer stopping by his booth.
    “She still gone?”
    “Maybe you should mind your own business.”
    “Only if you buy me a beer.”
    Don looked at Alfred and shook his head.
    “Kay. Give this coot whatever’s wrecking his liver,” he said. “And I’ll take another one too.”
    The Joint was a crummy bar and restaurant about five minutes from the northern tip of Gun Lake, on a side road not too far from one of the golf courses and the recreation area. Only locals came here. Don had started coming here several years ago after they first opened, stopping by on the way home for a quick bite to eat and a few late-night beers. It had become a habit, a comfortable habit that he knew he could break if he really wanted to.
    Collette didn’t think so. Obviously. Maybe the Joint was one of the reasons she decided to leave him. He didn’t know. He just knew he’d rather be here now than in the empty house without her and the boys.
    It was ten thirty, an hour and a half before the weekday closing time. Don sat in his regular booth, a red vinyl seat that could fit two thin people, watching the bar and sipping on a Budweiser and smoking a Marlboro Light. These were the two constants in his life now—Budweiser in a bottle and Marlboro Lights. He’ddefected to the Lights a few years back when he started coughing up dark brown chunks. Before that, he smoked twice as many Marlboro Reds. Now in the mornings he enjoyed a couple of smokes with his three cups of coffee. He never ate breakfast, but he ate a decent lunch from the deli down the road from the station and then usually had something greasy on the way home from work.
    It wasn’t exactly a healthy lifestyle. He knew that. Yet, in this booth, right now, there was a calm. That slight buzz, a full stomach bulging over his belt, the chatter at the bar and the occasional call out to him—it was familiar and strangely comforting. This was his life. And he wanted to feel good about it.
    “You okay?” Kay asked.
    The bartender was a big girl. Not fat and not unattractive either, but big-boned. Tough, too—she could probably take down a lot of the men that strolled through here. He had his revolver to lay down the law. Kay had her brawn—along with her attitude.
    “Yeah, I’m okay,” Don said, taking the bottle from her. “Why?”
    “Hitting it pretty good tonight.”
    Was he on his fourth beer? Or his sixth?
    “I’m fine.”
    “You don’t look it,” Kay said.
    “I’m just dog-tired.”
    Kay walked back to the bar and handed Alfred his beer. The old guy usually showed up five sheets to the wind and started feeding dollars into the jukebox so he could dance. The music he played always surprised Don. Alfred liked rock music, Led Zeppelin and Lynard Skynard and music like that. It didn’t fit the way he looked, but when the liquor moved in him, so did his quarters and his feet. Tonight, at Kay’s urging, Alfred had chosen a softer selection—Fleetwood Mac’s entire
Rumors
album.
    Don slid out of the booth and walked up to the bar. He took a seat as Kay watched with friendly but suspicious eyes.
    “So what’s up?” she asked.
    He shook his head. “Nothing. That’s what’s up.”
    “That’s good, isn’t it?”
    “About as exciting as gutting a trout,” Don said.
    “Hey, don’t complain. You could be behind this bar.”
    “I guarantee you see more action than I do. Being a deputy in Barry County ain’t exactly
NYPD Blue.”
    “You want it to be?” Kay asked.
    “Probably not. But sometimes I wonder.”
    Don knew he could be doing worse, that he was actually well suited to his job. Coasting around Gun Lake in his unit. Coasting through this existence. Watching other people fly past like speedboats on the water, leaving his little rowboat in their wake.
    Was Collette one of those speedboats? He didn’t know.
    He missed the boys—Jeff and Todd, aged eight and ten. And he wondered what they were thinking about all this, how they were