Don't Order Dog (13 page)

“Okay. Well, hey look, do you want to get out of here?” he asked, patting her back. “Seriously, I’ve got this covered. You should just go home.”

Jeri looked at her colleague. While she was not one for finding excuses to avoid working, at the moment every bone in her body was aching to slip away from the stares of the bar and crawl onto the warm privacy of her apartment. Besides, the more she considered the substantial profits Joe was making on the attention surrounding her letters– which really meant the substantial profit he was making on
her –
the more
her guilt of walking out on the busiest afternoon in recent history began to fade.

“Are you sure?” she asked, a genuine smile of appreciation lighting her face.

“Go.”

Jeri quickly grabbed her bag and jacket before noticing Chip sitting sullenly in the corner, his blue eyes following her with curiosity. She sighed and walked over to him.

“I’m out, Chip,” Jeri said, tossing the copy of
The Lumberjack
in front of him before ducking under the counter and popping up next to him on the other side. “I can’t seem to get any privacy around here tonight.” She watched the older man’s eyes widen in surprise as he read the headline.

“My my,” Chip said under his breath. He scanned the article for a moment before glancing at the crowd over his shoulder, his eyes deep in thought. “So that explains it, huh?” he asked quietly. He muttered something else to himself before taking a sip of his beer, but the words were lost to the noise of the room. Jeri leaned in close to him.
“Do me a favor,” she said, putting her arm around his broad shoulders. “If you see Joe, my close friend and self-appointed press agent before I do, please inform him that I would like his resignation immediately. In the meantime, I’m going home to my paparazzi-free apartment.”

“This is why you need a
real
job, Jeri,” Chip replied, looking at her with a solemn expression. He tapped the paper slowly with his finger and leaned towards her. Jeri felt the soft scratch of his gray stubble against her cheek as he whispered in her ear. “This is the only thing this place will ever give you – grief and disappointment.”

Jeri nodded quietly as she pulled on her jacket and threw her bag over her shoulder. She looked somberly into Chip’s blue eyes for a moment before tousling his salt-and-pepper hair.
“Don’t worry about me, old man. We both know this is just a stepping stone until that gig at the strip club opens up in Vegas, right?”

Chip smiled back at Jeri,
seeing once again the dark ember that smoldered and gave light to her beautiful eyes. He knew the source of that fire all too well, and like any fire he knew to regard it with caution. “You’re right,” he replied, giving her a thin smile as he went along with the joke. “But only if it’s a day job. You’ll want to keep your nights free for prostituting. That’s where the real money is.”

Jeri’s eyes softened a
s her smile stretched wide. She hugged Chip tightly and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for understanding me.”

Chip shrugged. “Oh I don’t ever pretend to understand you, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying to persuade you otherwise. Now go home.” He smiled as Jeri gave him a final squeeze, then turned and watched as she slipped quietly through the crowd, a wake
of curious stares following behind her. His eyes lingered briefly on the crowd before he turned back and took a long sip of his beer. He then grabbed the newspaper lying on the counter in front of him and began slowly reading the article.
 

∞
 

Tom Coleman
looked up at his surroundings in surprise.

Nearly an hour after leaving the Homeland Security offices to clear his mind, he now found himself walking along historic Route 66 at the edge of the old downtown. He glanced up at the sky. The fading rays of late-afternoon light were smothered behind a low, dirty-gray blanket of clouds as small, cotton-white flakes of snow fell in a meandering dance before dissolving on the brick-lined sidewalk. Suddenly noticing the chill in the air, Tom raised his collar and considered what to do
next. He didn’t want to go home. It was too quiet at home. Too alone. A fleeting image of his ex-wife abruptly came to mind, forcing him to shrug. No, he wasn’t ready to go home. And besides, he still had more thinking to do.

A flash of light caught Tom’s attention. He looked up to find the neon sign of
Joe’s Last Stand Saloon flickering to life above him, it’s red-orange colors warm against the cold sky. Remembering the promise of a drink he’d made to himself a few hours earlier, he turned and headed for the entrance.   

Tom opened the door and immediately recoiled with shock. The old saloon was packed. He’d been in
Joe’s
a few times before, but the crowd had never been anything like this. His first instinct was to pull an about-face and find a quieter bar, but as the patrons closest to the door turned and stared at him, the idea of leaving suddenly seemed childish and rather cowardly. Deciding that his need for a drink was stronger than his aversion to the crowd and the germs that came with it, Tom cautiously worked his way inside.

He headed towards the bar and noticed with luck that a single barstool in the corner was still open. He pushed his way
through the mob and sat down wearily between a young couple busily groping each other and an older man quietly reading a newspaper. “I’ll take a Bud Light when you get a chance,” he shouted as the heavyset bartender passed by. The bartender didn’t acknowledge him. “Bud Light, please!” he repeated.

“Heard you the first time,” the bartender replied flatly, giving him a petulant sidelong glance as he poured a fresh beer from the tap. “Be with you in a minute.”

Tom glanced around the old saloon. He wasn’t familiar enough with the place to know if this type of crowd was common, but his instincts told him it was extreme even for a busy night. As he always did in public areas, Tom pulled a sanitary wipe from the inside pocket of his jacket and quickly wiped down the bar top in front of him before tossing the cloth discreetly under the bar. He then glanced at the young couple beside him as they continued to kiss; their hands in constant motion to find exposed and loosely concealed skin. Seeing no chance of a conversation there, he turned to the older man sitting next to him.

“Hell of a night here, huh?”

The older man looked up from his newspaper and leveled his piercing blue eyes on Tom. “Indeed it is,” he replied.

The bartender hastily placed a beer on the counter in front of Tom and yelled out the price as he moved down the bar, his hands stretched full with drink orders. Tom considered wiping the glass with a sanitary wipe before irritably pushed the thought from his mind. “I don’t think he likes me,” he muttered as he pulled out his wallet and dropped the money for his drink on the bar.

The older man seemed to weigh the thought for a moment before shaking his head. “I say he’s too busy to have an opinion of you just yet.”

“You’re probably right,” Tom replied as he studied the man next to him. He looked to be in his late fifties, with wavy, gray-streaked hair and a rugged-looking face that gave him the incongruous look of both outdoor adventurer and philosophy professor. Despite his age, he appeared to be remarkably fit, and something about his demeanor told Tom that the man was still quite capable of handling himself. Given his relaxed manner, Tom also sensed the man was a regular
at Joe’s.

“So
, is it usually like this around here?” Tom asked, slightly out of curiosity and mostly just to kill time.

“No,” the older man replied, his e
yes still scanning the paper. “Today is a uniquely busy day.”

“Any particular reason why?” Tom pressed.

The older man looked up from the paper and drained the final drops of his beer. With a quick gesture of his hand he caught the attention of the bartender, who wordlessly nodded and smiled before immediately bringing a fresh replacement. Tom knew without trying that he could not replicate that response.

“Th
ere’s always a reason my friend.” The old man turned and stared at Tom with a stern, empty expression. “Whether you can know it or not, whether you can see it or not, whether you can understand it or not, the reason is always right there in front of you.”

Tom stared back at the old man, trying to decide if they were still talking about the same thing, when the older man suddenly smiled. “By the way, my name’s Chip,” he said, extending his large hand. Tom nodded and shook the older man’s hand, surprised by his strength. “I’m Tom. Nice to meet you, Chip.”

“Nice to meet you, Tom,” Chip replied, extending his arm and sweeping it theatrically around the room. “And welcome to gay and lesbian night at Joe’s Last Stand Saloon.”

Tom froze for a moment as the words sunk in, then nodded as he reached for his beer. He glanced quickly at the couple kissing next to him as he took a drink, trying to catch a glimpse of their sex. The one furthest from him was definitely a woman, and a good looking one at that. Although he couldn’t see her partner’s face, by all accounts it appeared to be a man with short cropped hair in an oversized flannel shirt. Unfortunately, Tom knew that description also matched the look of every bull-dike in northern Arizona. He sat his drink back onto the bar and sighed heavily.

This was turning into a total fucking disaster of a day.

“You okay there, Tom?” Chip asked next to him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tom muttered, stealing a few more quick glances at the crowd before smiling at the older man. “I just didn’t know it was a homo– I mean, I didn’t know
Joe’s was a–”

“I’m just kidding you
, Tom,” Chip said as he slapped him on the shoulder. “You just looked like a homophobe, and I couldn’t resist.”

“Right, got it,” Tom said, forcing a weak laugh at the joke. He wasn’t a homophobe, he thought defensively. He just didn’t go out of his way to hang out with queers.

Chip pushed the newspaper towards him and tapped on the story at the bottom. “Here’s the real reason for tonight’s little party,” he said, staring at Tom with a wry smile. “In case you didn’t already know.”

Tom leaned forward and read the headline.

“Local Bartender Romanced by International Mystery Man”

He pointed his finger at the heavyset bartender behind the counter and glanced at Chip.
“Him?” he asked with a disbelieving look.

Chip considered the question for a moment, watching Tom’s expression for any hint of humor before realizing he was serious. “No Tom, not him. As I said, this isn’t a gay bar.”

“At least not yet,” Tom muttered cynically, shaking his head. “The way these young people are nowadays, you just never know.” He scanned the first few sentences of the article. Before now, Tom had never bothered to read the local college paper. He’d always assumed that if it were anything like the people he saw walking around campus, it was a useless expression of naïve liberal viewpoints written by people who’d never stuck their heads out of the ass of Academia long enough to see how the real world really works. Based on the subject matter in front of him, his opinion wasn’t changed. He took another drink of his beer.

Reading further, Tom realized the bartender mentioned in the story had to be the good-looking woman who’d served him the last time he was here. He vaguely remembered the heated discussion she was having with her friend. A hot flash of anger passed through him as he recalled the way her bitchy blonde friend had dismissed him when he’d tried to speak to her.
I should have shown that bitch who’s boss
he thought with a shrug. He finished the article and ordered another beer.
“So let me get this straight,” he said, turning to Chip. “Some kind of James Bond wannabe is sending letters to a female bartender with a hot piece of ass, and the story makes the college paper?”

“Apparently it does,” Chip replied, focusing his blue eyes on Tom. “By the way, the bartender with a hot piece of ass is a friend of mine, so please mind what you say about her.”

“Oh... my apologies,” Tom replied. “I didn’t mean to offend... just making conversation.” He silently scolded himself for his lack of judgment.
The old man was a regular. Of course he’d be friends with her.
 

Chip’s expression softened into a wide smile, but his stare remained ice cold. “I’m sure you didn’t.”

The bartender returned and dropped a fresh pint in front of Tom. Both men drank in silence for a few minutes as Tom studied the interior of Joe’s. Despite the untold number of dive bars he’d frequented in his younger years, Tom still marveled at the predictability of their features. The morose collections of decaying pictures and cob-webbed debris that cluttered the walls under the dull incandescent light. The sturdy, ass-worn barstools and stained, gummed, knife-carved tables. The amalgamated scents of tobacco, mildew, perfume and breath. And most importantly, the bar counter itself – ancient and coffee-black, shellacked and relentlessly wiped like a revered altar until it gleamed with a waxy pallor that was both dull and brilliant at the same time. All were the requisite features of Joe’s Last Stand Saloon and its dive-bar kin; this ubiquitous archetype that, as its name implied, sat lowest on the social scale. As Tom glanced around the room, he surmised that whatever glory ever dwelled in this ancient saloon sitting alongside old Route 66 had long since vanished, its remnants entombed beneath the thick layers of varnish on the counter where his beer now rested.