We were only just outside on the sidewalk when I saw Clyde's tall silhouette approach. He was hurrying, his pace closing the stretch of pavement between us fast. Clara saw him too. She kept right on jabbering at me about how Bobby had really saved her life, how New Orleans had saved her life. She'd been suicidal and then she came to the Fest and realized she could still feel and all that. She was talking like a sentimental cokehead. I could tell from the way Clyde was walking that he was angry. I didn't feel bad about fucking Clara. If I'd come I would have, but I hadn't so it was like it hadn't happened. Two coked up kids playing doctor. No harm in that. Not really. Melissa wouldn't like it but then again Melissa didn't know and she was a bartender I'd only just met.

 

"Clyde looks pissed," I said.
"He's jealous. He's always jealous. I'm always fucking around on him."

 

She looked at me like what she was telling me was an annoyance, like the dog barking at the doorbell. I felt anger come into my cheeks and I tried to look at Clara to let her know that it was fucked up her not telling me that Clyde would be angry. I tried to search back through the two days to a moment when it was clear they were really together, but it was always just all of us and then crashing out. The glass cracks in my brain grew and the Chief was laughing at me.

 

"We callin em back," he said. "All of ‘em."

 

The town speaks in code, I thought, I know it does. I could not decipher what it was telling me, but I could hear its voice in everything around me. Clyde stepped into the light out of the shadow of a tree and he wore a wide stretched smile. His eyes were not smiling. They shimmered. He looked very tall to me.

 

"How are y'all?"
He spoke loudly and his voice had the shrill of betrayal in it.
"We're just fine Clyde. Where ya been?" Clara said.
He laughed loudly.
"Where've I been? Well I guess up at Tips where you said you'd meet me."

 

He was staring at Clara. I was grateful for that. Their faces were locked in on one another. Clara's was calm and cool. Clyde was so angry he could barely contain it but she had trained him to play by her rules.

 

"What's the matter Clyde?" she said.
He shook his shaggy blonde head and stepped closer to her.
"What the fuck is going on Clara?" he said.
"Nothing. Don't embarrass me."
"Am I embarrassing you? Am I embarrassing you Henry?"
His head turned to mine and his smile shifted to a crooked grin.
"No Clyde. You're not embarrassing me. What's up?"
"Don't fucking talk to me," he said, and stared me down.

 

He knew we'd fucked and it had nothing to do with anything we'd given away. Clara did it all the time and he knew exactly what situations she did it in and this was one of them.

 

"I've got a fucking whore for a girlfriend Henry," he said calmly. "And I have to live with that. What's your excuse?"
"For what Clyde?"
"For fucking around on one of the two friends you got in this town?"
I smiled and wagged my head. I was still trying to act cool but there was a cold panic in my stomach. What was my excuse?
"Clyde, I didn't even know you all were together."

 

Clara turned her eyes on me and there was hate in them. Clyde grinned. He'd won. They were on the same side again.
"Maybe you didn't," he said, looking down at his feet.

 

We could all touch each other but I was very conscious of being alone again. Alone like I'd been when I woke up on the couch and it made my face hot with shame that I'd thought I could avoid it. It was a long quiet moment and my stomach twisted in knots.

 

"Let's get out of here Clyde," Clara said.
"Not yet," he said. "Not until I kick Henry's fucking ass."

 

I am not much of a fighter but I know the feeling of when it is about to happen and I know to calm down and try to land the first blow. Henry squared his body to mine. Clara took a step back.

 

"Don't Clyde," she said.

 

She wanted him to. It was part of their routine. Otherwise it would be her. I had the feeling right then that I should just turn around and run into the night, but I couldn't make myself do it.

 

Clyde reached out and grabbed the front of my shirt. His hand and wrist were powerful. I tried to knock it off but couldn't and then I tried to throw a punch but it was late and non-committal and it did not work. His big fist came crashing through my hands and hit my mouth and I could feel his knuckle split on my teeth. After that it was like Clara and the car wreck. I cannot remember much. He was all over me. I had one glimpse of his crazed eyes and of the smile on his face that a person who has power over another uses to maintain that power, and then I was down and trying to cover myself. He stomped me pretty good. Clara pulled him away before his stomping reached my head because he would have killed me. They left. I didn't move for a while.