Free Bow Grip by Ivan E. Coyote

up the little girl’s basket with one hand and the top of the bag of laundry with the other.
    “Here, let me help you with that.”
    The young woman let the bag go into my hand, relieved.
    “Thank you so much. We just washed seven loads, didn’t we, Bug? My name is Kelly. This is my daughter Raylene.”
    We shook hands in the air without touching, on account of all the laundry. Raylene sucked her thumb and avoided looking right at me, twisting her upper body in half circles, alternating from side to side. Her hair was exactly the same red-blonde shade as her mother’s. Same nose, too.
    They were staying in the corner suite, right next to the parking lot off the highway. Kelly had the key for her motel room on a ring with the rest of her keys and an orange rabbit’s foot keychain. She held the wicker basket against
the stucco wall beside her door with one hip and unlocked the door, kicking it open with her knee.
    Their room had a tiny little kitchenette, the remnants of their spaghetti dinner still on two plates. There were crayon drawings stuck to the mini-fridge with magnetic letters, and three different cereal boxes tucked into one corner of the counter, next to a toaster. Kelly and Raylene were living here in this one big room, with the headlights from the highway scrolling like a lighthouse across the wall over their headboards. A scruffy bit of lawn outside the barred window where the tourists let their poodles shit before loading them back into the minivan.
    I dumped the bag and basket on the bed, disturbing a pile of stuffed animals that had been arranged on the pillow. Raylene pushed past me to come to their rescue.
    “Sorry, kiddo. Didn’t mean to bump anyone. I’ll get out of your way. Nice to meet you.” I stepped towards the door. “Nice to meet you both.”
    Kelly was scraping the leftover spaghetti into a plastic bag and putting the dishes in the sink. Under the fluorescent tube in the kitchen, she looked older than she did outside. She had pulled her hair behind her ears, revealing a cluster of earrings, maybe eight or so in all.
    “You wouldn’t mind lending me a cigarette before you leave, would you?”
    I took my pack out and shook three smokes out of the tin foil for her.
    “Thanks, James.”
    “It’s Joseph.”
    She followed me outside, placing one cigarette between her lips and unfolding a lawn chair she had stashed behind her door.

    “Read your books, Bug. Mommy’s having a smoke. No TV, okay, honey?”
    Raylene nodded, still in her puffy coat, sitting on her bed with her feet hanging over the edge.
    “And no boots on in the house.”
    “The carpet is sticky by my bed,” Raylene said in her small voice.
    Kelly pulled the door shut and sat down in her lawn chair. “Don’t mind her. She doesn’t like it here much. Do you have a light? I left my pack at work, in my locker.”
    I lit her cigarette, then mine. Stuffed my one hand into my pocket, leaned my ass against the concrete wall between her front door and the parking lot. Couldn’t blame her for wishing she lived somewhere else.
    “We’re not going to be here much longer, I keep telling her. I’m saving up.”
    I nodded, stared at the red end of my smoke.
    “I work at the Bay, downtown. Part-time cashier. Plus at the Esso, three days a week. You?”
    “I run a garage in Drumheller. I’m just in town for a couple of days. Little holiday.”
    “A holiday at the Capri?” She smiled and blew a perfect smoke ring. “Figures. All the nice guys only stay one or two nights. Just the losers move in here.”
    “How many people live here full-time? I never heard of that before. Forty-nine dollars a night? That must get expensive.”
    “Is that what that cheap fucker is charging you per night? That guy, I tell you. You should try to talk him down a bit. That’s almost what he charges the Americans. I pay the monthly rate. It’s way cheaper. Cheaper than that shitty basement suite me and Raylene were in at first, until we
came