Fresh fish at Pedros. Trust me, itll be worth the wait.
I turn off the box, take a last look around. Did I forget anything? I mean, other than not to fuck up my life again? Nope, all taken care of. Back door bolted, storm shutters padlocked. Good enough. I walk onto the porch and set Bud and the pack down next to the door.
Im pulling the tarp off the Willys when I see a white Bronco turn off the trail a quarter mile down the beach and come bouncing across the sand toward me. Could be they just have a few more questions, but I dont think cops roll up on you at dawn to ask questions.
I drop the tarp, wave, and point to the bungalow with a big smile on my face. One of the Federales in the Bronco waves back. I walk to the bungalow, grab Bud and the pack, step inside, lock the front door, go out the back, and dash across the sand into the jungle that is my backyard. All I have to do is get to Pedros and Ill be OK. Unless the cops are there too.
THIS IS how things get fucked up again.
Once every three months you walk to the grocery next to the highway and use the pay phone to call a guy in New York. And this one time you call, and he tells you about a story everyone back there is telling.
Say youre a guy and youre out taking a walk and you get thirsty and its hot, so what you really want is a beer. Thing is, its really hot, August hot in the City, with the garbage piled up and stinking, and the people with dogs that they dont pick up the shit after, so you dont want a beer from a deli, not even one of those sixteen ouncers from the bottom of the ice barrel the places put right out on the sidewalk. Its so hot and the street stinks so much from garbage and dog shit and piss, what you want is a cold beer in a cool dark room. So fuck the can from the ice barrel, youre going in this bar right here that you know its a bar cause out front is a neon sign that says BAR.
You tell the guy you get the point and wonder if maybe he can get to the payoff. You hear the gurgling sound of a bong over the long-distance line. Then he starts talking again, in the unmistakable voice of someone trying to hold in a gargantuan lungful of smoke.
So you go in and its just what you hoped for, cool from the AC, dark cause the window is tinted. Theres maybe something good on the juke like Coltrane, My Favorite Things, but not too loud. And not crowded cause its the middle of the day in the middle of the week; just the bartender and a couple regulars.
Theres a huge whoosh over the phone as the guy lets the smoke out, but he doesnt cough. The guy youre talking to hasnt coughed on a hit since he was maybe twelve; he would consider it unprofessional at this point is his life. The thought of smoke knocks against something in your head and you dig in the pocket of your shorts for a cigarette.
So you sit down and the bartender puts down the paper hes looking at and he comes over and hes never seen you and youve never seen him, but he gives you a little nod and you nod back cause you know youre each others people cause hes working in a bar in the middle of the day and youre coming into one at the same time. You tell the guy, Bottle of Bud, toss a twenty on the bar, he opens the fridge, grabs your beer, pops the cap, sets it on the bar, takes your twenty off the bar, and walks to the register.
No cigarettes.
Bartender comes back, drops seventeen bucks in front of you, which, three bucks aint too bad for a bottle of Bud in New York these days, so you feel pretty good about that. You guys do the nod thing again and he goes back to his paper. You wrap your hand around that bottle and take your first sip. Its coooooold. Bartender reads his paper, bar hounds over there, one is doing a crossword, one is just chain-smoking and making his Old Crow last. You drink your beer, listen to the music and youre having a pretty good day, figure youll stick around that place and drink the rest of that twenty.
You know what hes talking about. Youve had days like that.
And thats when the door bangs open, some dingleberry
comes in, orders a fucking margarita so now the bartender has to work and he sits down right next to you and starts with the fucking chatter. There goes your mellow, right out the window.
You think about the pack of smokes sitting on the little table on your porch at home. Down the phone lines, the bong rips again, and you know this story isnt getting any shorter.
This dingleberry, he lives in the place, but you can tell by the way the bartender doesnt give him the nod and the way the boozehounds turn their stools away from him a little that they all wish he would fucking move out. Right now he cant believe his luck, a new fucking face in this place he can chew the ear off of. He starts right in with, Hey my names so and so and I do such and such and aint it hotter than a bitch out there and this bartender he cant make a good margarita to save his life and heres the secret to a good margarita. And the questions. Whats your name anyway? Aint seen you here before, you from around here? You never been here before, you dont know about this place? Everybody knows about this place, how can you be from around here and not know about the old M Bar, the old Murder Bar?