Last Call Lounge (5 page)

Jacob shuffled down the hall toward his room.  I went to the kitchen to get him a snack.  Drying herbs hung from a string pulled across the window.  A cat-litter box was set on a rubber mat by the door to the laundry room.  I got a bag of chips from the pantry and a soda from the fridge.

Jacob was in his room, sitting with his feet dangling over the edge of his bed.  He was always a nervous kid, quiet.  His doctor had told us it was something to watch but not something to worry about yet.

Today, he seemed especially nervous, as Miss Elena had pointed out.  When I walked in the room, he seemed to slump lower.  His eyes didn’t rise from his hands folded on his lap.

“Hungry, kiddo?”  I put the bag of chips next to him on the bed and opened the coke.  Jacob shook his head.  I pursed my lips and fought back a feeling of frustration.

I sat next to him and looked around the room.  Books stacked on plywood shelves his grandfather had built.  Clothes scattered across the rug.  I resisted the urge to get him up and make him put them away.

“Eat something, Jacob,” I said, but he just dipped his head away from me.  Boxes of board games were in a loose stack on a small, plastic table.  On top was a pack of Bicycle playing cards.

“Hey,” I said.  “Grab those cards.  I’ll teach you a game my Dad and I used to play.” He got up and baby-stepped to the table. 

“Let’s sit on the rug,” I said.  Jacob folded his legs under him and sat at the edge of the rug.  I slid off the bed and onto the floor.  The flask in my pocket dug into my hip, so I pulled it out and set it on the bed.

“Here,” I said, holding out my hand.  Jacob put the cards in my palm.  I did a quick shuffle, then began to deal the whole deck into two stacks.  “This game is called ‘Slaps,’” I said.  Jacob may have smiled.  He was looking up at me from under his hair mop.  “We each put a card in the middle, face up.  If the cards are the same number, you try to grab them.  The one who grabs them first gets the whole stack and the one who gets all the cards wins.”  His eyes were still on me.  “Get it?” I asked.  He nodded.

“Okay,” I said.  I put a card down.  Then, slowly, Jacob did, too.  I put another down and he followed, picking up the pace a little.  After a few cards, we both threw fives.  I gave Jacob a second to see it, then slammed my hand down on the pile.

“See?” I said, pulling the stack to me. Jacob nodded, now staring at the spot where the pile had been.  We threw cards down again.  At the next match, Jacob’s hand went out, tentatively.  I gave him a beat, then reached out as if I were going for the cards.  My fingers hit his knuckles with a smack.  He snatched his hand away, surprised, and his brow wrinkled.

“See? That’s why it’s called ‘Slaps,’” I said.

Jacob studied the back of his hand.

“Take your cards, kid,” I said.  “Those are yours.”

Jacob reached for the stack with both hands, slowly, like I might smack him again.  When I didn’t move, he pulled the stack toward him with a tight smile.

At the next match, I let him smack me.

“Ow,” I howled.  “Not so hard.” 

Jacob studied my face.  I blew on my knuckles and shook my hand.

“Dad,” Jacob said, grinning.

The paced picked up as Jacob caught on.  He’d slap me and I’d pretend it stung.  I’d slap him, a little harder each time, and he’d giggle.  Sometimes he’d slap the pile so hard, he’d lose his balance and tip forward, almost falling into the cards.

We got to the end of the deck.  I showed him how to do a basic shuffle and we started again.  Jacob yelled, “Yes!” when he won and he laughed when I shook my hand in pain.

“Kiss it,” I said to him after a smack, holding my injured paw in front of his face.  “Kiss it and make it feel better.”  Jacob rolled back on the rug, laughing.

We played for twenty minutes, smacking and yelling.  “Kiss it” became a gloat when we won.  Jacob would leap to his feet and dance over to me.

“Kiss it, kiss it, kiss it,” he sang.

Then, at the end of the deck, Jacob was on his feet.  He was red-faced and we were both breathing heavy.

“I need to go potty,” he said, wiggling toward the door.

I stood and stretched and my back popped.  The cards were in a sloppy pile at my feet.  My knuckles were pink.

“I’m gonna go out front and smoke,” I said to the bathroom door.  “Come get me when you’re done.”

“Okay,” he yelled, his voice still pitched high from the game.

In the landscaped circle of gravel, outside the front door, I sat in one of the gray Adirondack chairs and pulled out my cigarettes.  There was a tall, wrought-iron ashtray between the two chairs.  I lit a cigarette as Sarah’s car crunched onto the driveway.

Sarah studied me as she folded herself out of the car and shrugged her bag onto her shoulder.  I took a drag of my cigarette.  She didn’t much approve of my smoking around Jacob, but her parents smoked, and occasionally so did she, so I knew she wouldn’t say anything.

“Hey,” she said, tossing her bag onto the other chair.

She was dressed for work, in a long black skirt and a loose blue shirt.  Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail that was loose with the end of the day.  She looked good.

“Hey yourself,” I said.

Sarah gave me a half smile, then rolled her head around on her neck.

“How’s the kid?” she asked, watching me with narrowed eyes.  I told her about Slaps, about what Miss Elena had said about him being nervous.

“He relaxed a lot when we started playing cards,” I said.  I stubbed my cigarette out in the ashtray.

“You seem pretty relaxed, too,” Sarah said.

“Yeah, well,” I said.  “I guess I am.”

Sarah propped a boot on the arm of my chair and leaned forward, stretching her calf.  I could feel the heat from her skin on the back of my hand.  I felt loose.  I reached out to touch her boot but she stood and put in back on the ground.

“You’re in some kind of mood,” she said, turning her back to me.  Her gray skirt pulled at the curves of her hips as she walked up the path.  “I’m gonna go say hi to Jacob,” she said over her shoulder.  She looked at me with, well, something.  I watched her open the door.  Just inside, she bent to pick up Jacob’s backpack and I watched that, too.

I lit a cigarette and leaned back in the chair.  My shoulders popped again and I blew smoke up into the trees.  Music drifted from an open garage across the street, half-strains and harmonies and a ticking beat.  I closed my eyes and felt the sunlight on my cheeks.

Then Sarah was standing over me.  The something that had been on her face a moment before was gone.  Her jaw was clenched, her eyes narrowed.  She tossed the flask onto my lap.

“Go home, Little John,” she said.  Then she turned on her heel, went inside, and pushed the door shut.

The cigarette was burning between my fingers and the flask was cool in my lap.  Sarah had left her bag in the chair next to me.  I considered picking it up, carrying it to the door, and knocking.

Instead, I jammed the cigarette out in the ashtray and stood up.  I took a long pull from the flask, feeling the whiskey burn in my throat and in my gut.  Then I walked to my stupid rice-burner truck and drove to the bar.

FIVE

I drove the long way to the bar, just to be out for a while.  Arm out the window, chain-smoking.  Grocery store lots were full and there were long lines at all the drive-throughs and bank machines. 

I drove through the area around the university, under the fawning oak trees that lined the boulevards.  The lawns of the big, rich homes were full of activity – gardeners and handymen boarding windows and staking vulnerable trees.  Pick-ups full of plywood were parked along the street. 

I got to the bar around two in the afternoon. Boyd was working. He was the regular day guy, so regular I usually forgot about him as an employee. He’d show up, work his shift, have a beer, and leave. Five days a week. He had the front door propped open to air out some of the Thursday night smoke. The place was pretty empty. A middle-aged Hispanic guy in a blue denim button-down sat by himself at one of the booths, drinking a draft beer.

Boyd was sitting at the bar, watching a baseball game. The TV screen was divided into two smaller shots – the game in one corner, a loop of the swirling storm in the other.  A tight green blob spinning off the west coast of Florida.

Boyd was long and thin and looked longer and thinner because of the tight jeans and old Ropers he wore. There was always something like dust around him, like ranch, even though he'd lived in Houston his whole life. He was only a few years older than me, had grown up in the same neighborhood, but his accent was thick, like motor oil.

Next to him was Redmond, probably the oldest of the old guys. He didn’t say much and seemed like he probably couldn’t. Nobody charged him for the two Lone Stars he drank a day. Boyd waved at me without really looking away from the screen. Redmond opened his mouth big in a hollow sort of smile as I passed. I went behind the bar and poured a cup of coffee, then poured a shot of Beam in on top of it. When I turned, Boyd was watching me.

“Having your dinner a little early today?” he asked. Boyd generally poured himself a shot of Irish whiskey when he unlocked the door at eleven.

“It’s a late breakfast,” I said.

Boyd laughed, a satisfied guy laugh, and turned back to the ballgame.

Mitchell was there already and he was worked up. He was standing at the pool table, papers spread out in front of him. A cup of coffee rested on the rail. He was talking into his cell phone, making notes in a crisp, new spiral notebook as I walked up. He had a gray baseball cap on and jean cover-alls. He looked like a train engineer.

“Yes, sir. I’ll see you then,” he said and hung up. He took a sip of coffee, finished his note, and turned to me.

“The Pancho Villa mask has been stolen,” he said.

“I know.” 

His eyes jerked up in surprise.

“How do you know?”

“I had to come back up here last night. I saw it was missing,” I said to his hat.

He stared at me, waiting for me to explain myself. I stared back.

“Allen’s on his way over,” he said finally. Allen was a regular, a cop. My scalp ached and my mouth was dry.

“Why the hell is Allen coming over?”

“I called him,” Mitchell said.

“Call him back,” I said, pushing past him toward the office door. “Don’t waste his fucking time.”

The office was how I left it. Six pack and newspaper on top of the beer cases. Trash can full of trash. I rested my head on my fists, breathed through my mouth. The door opened behind me and Mitchell stomped in. I looked up. He was holding his coffee and the Death-Mask notebook.

“Allen’s said he’d file a report for us,” Mitchell said. “That way, if the mask turns up in a pawn shop or somewhere, we have a chance of recovering it.” I put my head back down.

“Jesus, Mitchell. Nobody’s gonna pawn the stupid thing. It’s hanging on the wall of some frat house somewhere.”

“It’s valuable,” he said.

“Whoever took it doesn’t give a shit if it’s valuable. They thought it would look cool in their apartment,” I said. “They steal everything. Hell, last week somebody stole the air freshener out of the men’s room.”

“We should at least try to get it back.”

“I can’t think of many things I care less about right now than trying to find the plaster face of some dead Mexican,” I said.

He gave me a long look. Not mad, just long and silent.

“Allen will be here in ten minutes,” he said and turned to the door.

I pressed hard on my eyelids with the heels of my hands. I heard the clunk of Mitchell’s heavy shoe as he stopped at the door and turned back around.

“Ruby is in town,” he said. “A friend of mine ran into her this morning.”

“I know,” I said. I looked up and he was staring at me again, waiting again for an explanation. I tried to stare back, but my eyes were too tired. “Jesus, I don’t have to tell you everything I do all the time, do I? Someone told me last night. That’s all.” 

He sipped his coffee, then folded his notebook up under his arm.

“Just thought you should know,” he said and turned and went out the door.

I dug my phone out of my pocket while I sipped my coffee. Not really knowing what I was going to say, I dialed Sarah.  I thought it was going to go to voicemail, but she answered on the fourth ring.  She didn’t say anything, but I could hear her breathing, hear a dog barking in the background.

“Hey,” I said, pinching my eyes shut.

“Little John,” she said finally.

“Listen,” I said.  “I’m sorry.”  My voice felt heavy and thick in my mouth. “I had the flask in my pocket from last night.  I took it out when I sat on the floor to play cards,” I said, “but I wasn’t drinking.  Not while I had the kid.”

There was a pause.

“Jesus, John,” she said.  “It never gets any easier with you.”

“I know.”

“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice wavering at the edge of concern.  She had occasionally had this ability, during the time we’d been together, to turn my worst behavior into a sign that I needed help.  Sometimes it was a comfort.  Sometimes it was annoying.  “I mean, really?” 

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine.”

She was silent for a long breath. I could hear the TV turn on in the background.

“You wanna talk?” she asked. She was raised on the coast and her voice had a thin, salty rasp.

“I can’t right now,” I said.

She sighed.  “You coming to lunch on Sunday?”  We had a standing playdate at a burger place near her house.  I missed it most weeks but Sarah was there regardless.

“Sure,” I said. “That would be great.”  I wanted to say something else, let her know I appreciated her giving me a chance, but my head felt like a crushed cinder block. The cell phone silence hissed between us.  I rested my elbow on the desk, my cell phone pressed into my cheek. Sarah sighed.

“Twelve o’clock,” she said. “Don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

“Don’t,” she said with something that might have been warmth.

We waited there like that for a long minute.  I took a deep drag off my cigarette.

“Ok,” Sarah said finally.  “Sunday?”

“Sunday,” I said.

There was a knock on the door. Allen leaned in. It took me a second to recognize him in uniform.

“I gotta go,” I said. “The cops are here.”
“That’s not fucking funny,” Sarah said and hung up.

I shoved the phone into my pocket and stood up to shake Allen’s hand.

“You didn’t need to come over for this,” I said. “Some kids just took the thing off the wall is my guess.”

“Ah,” Allen said, waving a dismissive hand. “I wasn’t doing anything. Besides, Mitchell sounded pretty upset.”  Allen had been a thin guy, you could tell, when he was younger, but the years on his ass in a patrol car had given him a belly. He had short, curly black hair that was going gray at the sides and gray, bloodshot eyes. He told me once that if he hadn’t been a cop, he probably would have been a mortician. His parents had owned a funeral home in Galveston. I sat on the stool, gestured for him to sit in the wooden chair, but he turned and paced around the room. He dropped his metal clipboard onto my desk, leaned over and looked at the framed licenses hanging on the wall.

“Yeah,” I said. “Mitch has got himself pretty worked up over it.” 

Allen had a cop’s habit of answering you with what you just said, repeating back your statements as questions. He looked over his shoulder at me.

“Is Mitch worked up?” he asked

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess it’s pretty important to him.”

Allen sat in the chair, swiveled a bit and shuffled his boots on the floor.  He leaned back in the creaking office chair, stretched his arms above his head. The door opened and Boyd poked in, handed Allen a coffee cup.

“Your usual,” he said in his oily drawl and poked back out. Allen took a sip and chuckled.

“Kahlua,” he said.

Dad had always given Allen free drinks. When I took over, Allen just expected that the drinks would keep coming. I gave them to him, but I always resented that he never asked.

“Kahlua is your usual?” I asked.

He laughed. “You know, I have no idea how that started,” he said. “Boyd got it in his head that when I come in in uniform, I want a shot of Kahlua in a coffee mug. Been doing it for years. I don’t know if he confused me with someone else or what, but I never ordered a Kahlua in my life.”

“I can get you something else if you want.”

“Nah,” he said. “A free drink is a free drink.”

“You get free drinks everywhere you go?” I asked. Allen grinned and scratched at his round belly.

“Not everywhere,” he said. “Just the places that want me to hang out, maybe keep an eye on things.”  He lifted the mug to his lips.

“Just drinks?”

“Drinks,” he said. “Sometimes food. Every dink with a convenience store gives cops free coffee. They like having a patrol car in the parking lot. Keeps the riff-raff away.”  He rocked a little in his chair. “Plus,” Allen said. “I hang out and that means I know more about what's going on. Let's say something happens in your place and Boyd out there gets into it with some drunk. I'm not gonna take Boyd in. I'm not gonna run his license through the system. I know him and I know he's a decent guy and if he's got a warrant out there, I don't need to know about it.”

“Because he buys you drinks,” I said.

“Because I hang out here,” he said, leaning forward now. “I been hanging out here for ten years. I know Boyd.”  He was getting sensitive, so I decided to back off.

“Well,” I said. “I definitely appreciate you being around. Makes me feel safer.” 

He raised his mug in salute.

“Happy to do it,” he said. “Big John was a good guy and I like to think I'm watching the place for him.”

“Thanks.”  I rubbed my forehead.

Allen gave me a long look over the top of his mug as he finished his shot.

“You gonna evacuate?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Mitchell won't let me close the bar. We haven't closed a day ever.”

“I remember when Rita hit,” Allen said, smiling at the memory. “Or didn't hit, really. Mitchell and your Dad wouldn't evacuate. Everyone thought they were nuts, because it was just a couple weeks after Katrina.”  He tilted his chin up, scratched his neck. “Nothing happens. Nothing. The weather was beautiful, but the whole city was empty. Every time there's something like that, I drive by here in the patrol car, just to check on things. That time, there's your Dad and Mitchell, standing in the middle of the street, smoking cigars and drinking big drinks with umbrellas in them.”

I laughed. “They were Hurricanes. Mitchell ran a special.” I had evacuated with Sarah. She was six months pregnant. We'd spent fourteen hours in the truck, stuck on the highway to Austin. When we got back, Dad and Mitch were all smiles, showing pictures of the empty streets and blue skies and I'd had to choke back my jealousy.

Allen nodded and looked around the room. Then his eyes fell back on me.

“You okay?” he asked. “You don’t look so great.”

“I haven’t been sleeping very well,” I said.

Allen spun slowly in his chair, propped one foot on top of the non-alcoholic beer case.

“You haven’t been sleeping well?” he asked. I stared at his boot, sipped from my cup. “Business been all right?”

“Same as always,” I said. He watched me.  I lit a cigarette.  He nodded at it.

“You worried about the smoking ban?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said with a shrug.  “But there's nothing I can do about it.” 

He watched me lean over and tap the cigarette on the ashtray on the Dad's desk.

“No problems?” He rocked his boot a little, the chair squeaked.

“Nothing we can’t get through,” I said.

Allen put his cup on the file cabinet, rolled his gray head around on his neck.

“Anything else been stolen, anything like that?”

“They steal anything that’s not nailed down,” I said. “Just part of the business.”