Last Call Lounge (2 page)

About eleven, Tim Cole came in. Tim was an oddity as far as our regulars were concerned – not part of the daytime hard-labor crowd, too old to be a part of the night crowd. He came in every night, got staggeringly drunk. Usually I found him entertaining, but tonight his arrival didn’t seem like a good thing. He had a way of making anything that happened seem better or worse or just more. Concentrated.

He sat at his regular stool, midway down the bar. Normally I couldn't keep him from talking to me. But, tonight, he was silent. Tracy set his drink in front of him and he lowered his head to it.

“Hey,” I said.

He raised his eyes to me and managed a weak smile.

“What’s up, Juanito?” he said.

I had long before asked him not to call me Juanito. It had only encouraged him.

Tim was short, and he would get shorter as the night went on. His hands were always moving – scratching his mouth, rubbing his eyes, plucking at his t-shirt. He squinted so much that everything must have been a blur to him, like first thing in the morning. Tim looked worse than normal, which was saying something. His clothes were too big and his skin was pale.

“How's it going?” I asked. He looked up at me and at first seemed confused by the question. Then he nodded.

“Think the hurricane is gonna hit here?” he asked, gesturing towards the TV with a bob of his head.  Three guys sitting at the bar were staring up at the screen.

“I haven’t heard about it,” I said. “I haven’t turned on the TV in a couple of days.”

“It’s a big one,” he said, warming up a little now. “It's supposed to make landfall in a couple days. Maybe a category four.”  Every time a storm in the Atlantic got big enough to get a name, the local weather men went nuts, showing projected paths, replaying old video of the destruction from Allison and Alicia. Some reporter would do an in depth story about the storm that destroyed Galveston a hundred years ago.

“They don’t know shit about where they’re going,” I said.  “There've already been two in the Gulf this year.  Both of them hit Mexico.”

“I know,” Tim answered.

“Remember Hurricane Rita?”

“I know, I know,” Tim said.

I lit a cigarette and offered one to Tim. When he took it, I saw his hand was shaking. I waited for him to light it.

“You okay, Tim?” I asked.

He puffed on the cigarette, then rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Yeah,” he said. “You know.”  He brought the cigarette to his lips and closed his eyes. “Everything’s just kind of fucked up, you know?” 

I picked up my beer, but didn’t drink it. Tim opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. “My job is fucked up, my car is fucked up, so I can’t evacuate.” Tim chewed at the inside of his cheek and nodded his head. He waved his hand dismissively and smiled a little. “It’s nothing. Things just aren’t going all that great right now. And I hate hurricanes.”  He scratched the side of his nose. “And in two weeks, I won't even be able to smoke in here.”  He sighed.  “And, you know, there’s nothing I can do about any of it.  I just have to sit here and fucking take it.” 

“Yeah, well,” I said, “you pretty much just summed up life perfectly.”

Tim had been right here when Tropical Storm Allison dumped three feet of water on Houston in a couple of days. The water rose to the bottoms of the barstools and Dad started giving the liquor away. Tim was one of about a dozen regulars who got trapped with Dad and me. The water didn't recede until after sunrise. We pulled chairs up on top of the bar, to sit out of the water and muck. When we emptied a bottle, one of us would plunge into the water and wade, elbows up, to the back bar to get another one. The wake would trail out around and behind you, little waves that splashed all the way to the emergency exit. Tim, I remember, saved the cigarettes.

Tim looked over the red-lit room, the dusty wooden furniture and the yellowing floor, and I thought he might be remembering the flood, too. Then he lightened up a little, his shoulders unslumped and he smiled at me. “So, hear about the Galaxy?” he asked. Tim would get really excited if he thought he knew something you didn’t. When Tim nodded, he nodded with his whole neck.

“Yeah,” I said.

“They just got raided,” he said. “Some guy got shot.  And Richie got arrested.”

“I know. Curator Jack told me,” I said.

He sipped his drink, still nodding.

“They’re watching the whole neighborhood.”

“I know.”

“They’re gonna be watching this place, too,” he said.

“That shit doesn’t happen here,” I snapped. It came out angrier than I intended.

“Oh, I know. I know.” He could tell he was making me angry, so he tried to calm himself down. He liked to get me worked up, but didn’t like me to be mad at him. His nodding slowed, his feet danced a little on the footrest of his stool. There was an almost silent moment, a lull as the song on the jukebox ended. Tim and I both lit cigarettes.

“Nothing like that would ever happen here,” Tim said, looking out over the room. “Pancho is watching out for us.”

I tried to smile.

“True,” I said.

“Pancho wouldn’t let anything happen.”

Pancho was a death mask that hung above the bench next to the pool table, across from the doors to the bathrooms. A ceramic copy of a plaster cast that was supposedly made of Pancho Villa’s face as he lay on the coroner’s table. It was here when my Dad bought the place. Mitchell had done all the research. He had a notebook full of articles and pictures and photocopies that he kept behind the bar. On the cover, in black marker, in Mitchell’s neatest handwriting, it said, “The Death-Mask of Pancho Villa.”  Tim believed, or said he believed, that the mask was a totem of some kind and that Pancho protected us, brought us good fortune. Occasionally he would buy Pancho a shot, leave it for him on the bench over night. Occasionally, so did I.

The night ground on and Tim Cole settled back down. Back into his normal routine, drink by drink. His hunched routine of smoking and telling me stories he’d told me a hundred times before.

“You remember Kate?” he asked. “The bartender with the hair?”

“Yes,” I said.

I didn’t remember much about Kate, really.  I mostly remembered the things Dad had told me about her.  She had unbelievably red hair that fell across her shoulders. She had farm girl looks and a sailor's mouth and the old regulars loved her. Tim had, many drunken times, confessed to me that he had had a crush on Kate. Once, he tearfully told me, he couldn’t help himself.  He had followed her home, stood outside her apartment and watched her through her living room window.  I tried my best to avoid the subject any time he brought her up.

Quarter to two. Tracy flashed the house lights.

“Last call!” she yelled. Tim waved for another one, but Tracy ignored him.

Mitchell stood at the far end of the bar and when he caught my eye, he gave me a look. It was a look without any reprimand in it, so I knew something was up. Mitchell nodded towards a guy sitting at the tall, round cocktail table near the back, the table where the pool players usually set their drinks. It was the kid Mitchell had pointed out when I first walked in, the kid in thrift store clothes. He was alone. His cell phone was in front of him and he kept picking it up like he was checking the time. He was thin and short and looked just like the rest of the hipsters except his hair was a black, spiky mullet that was either five years ahead of fashion or five years behind. An empty pint glass stood at the edge of his table.

Mitchell approached, leaned a casual elbow on the bar in front of me. His eyes continued across the room as he spoke.

“He’s been here all night,” Mitchell said. “Five hours and he hasn’t ordered anything since that first beer.”

A couple girls walked past, whispered their goodnights. One had a beer in her purse, but Mitchell didn’t notice.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll keep an eye on him.” 

Mitchell pursed his mouth, nodded and tapped the bar with his middle finger, then loped down to wait on a last customer. At the cocktail table, Mullet-kid blew on his fingers, played with his hair. He leaned forward to look down the hall toward the bathroom, then back to eye the length of the bar.

“You remember her?  The bartender with the hair?”  Tim creaked his head around toward me.

“Yeah.”

Time passed the way time passes in a bar.  The jukebox clunked a record into place.  Tracy laughed and told some customer to shut up.  I picked up my cigarettes and put them back down.

The front door opened and a guy walked in, ID out. His name was Jeremy. He was in every week and I recognized him but I didn’t like him, so I carded him every time he walked past me. He was a small kid with a pinky face and a lot of blue button-down shirts. He was the kind of kid that would get really drunk really early, break something, and then tip extravagantly so you’d still be his friend. He kind of hopped on his toes as he waited for me to hand him his ID.

“You’ll have to hurry,” I said. “We already called last call.” 

“That’s cool,” Jeremy said. “I’m just meeting somebody.”  He stuck his license back in his wallet, brushed past me. He walked down the length of the bar and headed right into the bathroom. Mullet-kid stood, stretched, then followed Jeremy through the bathroom door. Mitchell stepped out from behind the bar, ready to follow them in, but I waved him back.

“I got it,” I said.

I stopped at the bench, right in front of Pancho, and pulled out my cigarettes. Anytime I thought there might be a fight, I lit a cigarette. I always did. Tracy turned on the house lights.

“Two o’clock!” she yelled. “You got fifteen minutes to finish your drinks!” Mitchell was still standing at the gate to the bar. I took a deep drag off my cigarette, then yanked the bathroom door open.

The men’s room was small and gray and always slightly wet. There was a toilet with no stall, a sink, and a urinal. One of the bulbs was burnt out and the light from the main room flooded in. Mullet-kid was in the process of handing Jeremy a baggie when he heard the door open. He spun, fast, and turned to stand in front of the urinal, his hands down in front of his crotch like he was pissing. Jeremy couldn’t think that fast. His only reaction was to turn and stare at me, his empty hand still out. I could feel my pulse in my neck again and I was gritting my teeth.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” I yelled.

“Okay, okay,” Jeremy whined and ran past me, hands up by his shoulders, out the door. The door banged shut behind him and I turned back to Mullet-kid. He was still at the urinal. He flushed, pantomimed zipping up his fly, then ducked his head and tried to step around me, but I leaned between him and the door.

“You didn’t wash your hands,” I said.

He laughed a little nervous, “Oh,” turned back to the sink and ran his hands under the water. He pulled out a paper towel, dried his hands carefully, and tossed the towel into the trashcan. I took a drag off my cigarette and didn’t move from the door. He finally looked up at me. Up close, he looked young, baby-faced except for his nose which looked like it had been broken and badly set. His clothes were thin – black cracking shoes and stained work pants.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked.

He looked sideways, closed his eyes tight, then nodded.

“Sure,” he said with a nervous grin.

Water dripped in the sink.  The tank of the toilet had a slow leak and every few seconds the water came back on.  I fiddled with my cigarette for a second, trying to put my thoughts together. Mullet-kid stood there, not sure what to do with his hands. He crossed his arms, uncrossed them, hooked his thumbs over his belt.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Frank.”

“I’m John.” I held out my hand for him to shake. He looked at it like it might be a trick, looked up at me, then shook it.

“Look,” I said. “I don’t mean this as a judgment or anything. I really don’t care what you do, but I can’t have you selling shit in my bar.”  He looked up, mouth open a little, like maybe he was going to deny it. Then he scratched his temple with his little finger and leaned forward a little.

“A friend of yours said it would be okay,” he said. He tried to smile but I glared at him and the smile fell.

“What?” I hissed. “Who?”

He smiled again but looked down at the floor.

“Ray Fletcher?” he said. Suddenly there was a rock in my stomach, a huge heavy stone pit. Frank looked up. “You know – Worm?”

I was aware of the smell of my cigarette, of Tracy yelling out in the main room to clear everybody out. I tossed my cigarette into the urinal and closed my eyes.

“I never told Worm anybody could deal here,” I said. I opened my eyes and the kid looked scared.

“Oh,” he said. “He told me it was okay.”

“Get the fuck out of my bar,” I said.

“Okay,” Frank said. “Sorry.”

The house lights were on, the jukebox off. Tracy was washing dishes, her back moving rhythmically as she scrubbed on the brushes in the three-compartment sink. Mitchell was counting the drawer. He stopped when he saw the bathroom door open. Tim Cole was hunched in his stool, squinting. Other than that, the place was empty. I grabbed Frank by the arm, guiding him toward the front door. Mitchell walked out from behind the bar, ready to help. Frank turned as much as he could to look around the room.