Free Wages of Sin by Suzy Spencer Page A

pledge to Chris Hatton that she wouldn’t try to call him, write him, see him, or contact him in any shape, form, or manner until she was graduated from National Guard school in one month.
    Chris Hatton went to Levitz Furniture and purchased one more piece of furniture, one he picked out on his own. He went to the liquor store and bought Hot Damn cinnamon schnapps, Jim Beam, Everclear, Guinness, Keystone Light, and Coors Light.
    Hatton, Glenn Conway, and Conway’s girlfriend, Marlena Broyles, sat in Hatton’s new Aubry Hills apartment and drank. The men chugged Jim Beam and Coca-Cola. Broyles drank beer. They peppered their livers with shots of cinnamon schnapps, followed by beer shooters.
    An hour and a half and a fifth of liquor later, the three fell into Conway’s pickup truck and wove their way down Interstate-35 to south Austin and the Dance Across Texas dance hall, a warehouse-size country-music bar with a flowing Texas flag painted across its wide side.
    Hatton and Conway wobbled into the building, Broyles with them. The boys stopped and rocked on their rolling heels. “He’s a Navy SEAL,” said Hatton, pointing to Conway, as they made their way through the bouncers. “He’s going through training right now. I’m in the military, too.”
    The bouncers motioned for the club manager. He walked out, then yelled over the music. Hatton and Conway tried to focus. They couldn’t. He handed the boys a piece of paper. They bent down to write, but still they couldn’t focus. They handed the paper to the bouncers, who slowly listened and slowly completed the job applications for Hatton and Conway. Right on the drunken spot, the manager wanted to hire Chris Hatton and Glenn Conway, the Navy SEALS, as bouncers.
    Through their bleary eyes, Hatton, Conway, and Broyles saw maybe ten to fifteen people in Dance Across Texas, and one of them, a young lady, Chris Hatton thought was pretty. Since he was drunk, he was able to muster the courage to ask her to dance.
    She accepted, but her sister jerked her away from Hatton. “You don’t need to be talking to that kind of trash!”
    Country music blared from every crevice in the bar. Hatton needed to sit down. He walked toward a table. The pretty girl followed and started chatting him up.
    Again her sister yanked her by the arm, swirled her around, and screamed, “You don’t need to be talking to that white trash!”
    With that, Marlena Broyles taunted, “You wanna come?” She was ready to fight. “Let’s go!” She pointed to the exit.
    The sisters mouthed off. Their guys joined in.
    “Shut up!” Hatton yelled. “Y’all need to leave!”
    They didn’t.
    Hatton grabbed an eight-foot-long folding table, chunked it across the room, and jumped toward the guys, the table bouncing to the rhythm of “Boot Scootin’ Boogie.”
    Glenn Conway flew across another table, while Broyles dived for the girls. Chairs flew through the air. The three flew out the door, with the bouncers’ help.
    They ran for their truck, spotted the guys and gals who had gotten them kicked out of the club, jumped in Conway’s vehicle, and chased the culprits around the parking lot. Hatton hung out the window and cussed and laughed the whole time.
    Chris Hatton had finally begun the life he dreamed—where no one told him what to do.
     
     
    When Lisa Pace’s bank statement arrived the following month and detailed her ATM withdrawals for August, the month for which Chris Hatton still knew her PIN number, she discovered addresses she didn’t recognize.
    She tracked down the addresses. They matched those of Sugar’s and the Yellow Rose, Austin’s two most popular stripper bars. Time and again, Chris Hatton had told Lisa Pace that he hated topless dancers. “Fun to look at,” he said, “not fun to take home.”
    On September 28, 1994, Lisa Pace graduated from National Guard school, her pledge to stay away from Chris Hatton was completed, and she phoned her ex-fiancé.
    “It’s been a month, so