The Hauntings of Hood Canal
Page 14
And the best part, the story said, was that Bertha had got past her case of the blues.
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Bertha stood in the doorway, watched the cop car disappear, and turned to the beetle-lady. “. . . you want to do any more business,” she told the lady, “take it outside.” Bertha looked at the kid and decided he was too young and dumb to be trusted with private stuff. “You too,” she told the kid.
“I gotta git,” the kid said. “I got a bunch of stuff to do.”
“You’re in over your head,” Bertha told the beetle-lady. “How much dough can you afford to lose?”
The lady, still stricken with admiration for Bertha, strove to get past her plans and learn something. She failed. “Our gentlemen have taken care of themselves for many years. One supposes they can handle a contest.”
“They can’t handle hustlers,” Bertha said. “Believe it.” She pointed to the door. “Come back when you’re sane.” She looked at the loggers. “You deadbeats stay where you are.”
When the kid and lady stepped into sunlight Bertha turned back to the bar. To Annie she said, “Quit moppin’ and get over here.” To Chantrell she said, “C’mere.”
Chantrell cowered in the corner, snotty and sobbing. “Yard ’em,” Bertha told the loggers.
The loggers, glad of heart, crossed the room.
“If you blow snot on me,” one of them said in a quiet voice, “you lose both legs. I got a chainsaw in the truck.”
Chantrell cowered. He blubbered. Something had gone bad, bad wrong, and he couldn’t figure out why.
“And if you bleed on me,” the other logger said, “I feed your nuts to chipmunks.”
Chantrell, knowing something of loggers, understood that what he heard was true. He trudged slowly to the bar, head down, scared nearly straight.
“You shut up,” Bertha told Annie. “I’ll handle this.”
“Do it right,” Annie said, “or I will.”
Bertha leaned across the bar as Chantrell stood sniffling.
“Major screwup,” Bertha said. “What should we do with you?”
“I think maybe break his jaw,” the Kenworth logger said. “That keeps a guy quiet for a good, long time.”
“Not a bad idea,” the second logger said, “but there’s mister cop. If we mess this guy up too bad the cop comes looking.”
“You’re not worth jail time,’’ Bertha told Chantrell. “But you’re dangerous. So you’ve got a ride with the next guy who goes to Seattle. In Seattle you’re just another bum.”
Annie made movement to protest.
“He won’t last ten minutes,’’ Bertha told Annie. “He’s about done, anyway. Let him do it on city streets.”
She turned back to Chantrell. “You poor sap,” she said, “I don’t know why you had to do it, but don’t come back. If you come back you go in the Canal. That dead guy is down there. Just think of what that dead guy would do to you.”
The Kid Visits Rough and Ready
Petey made his rounds in Indian summer. His worn Plymouth cruised through green foothills as he mostly ran north and west; or parked near the dunk site where Petey sad-eyed the cop while acting suspicious.
The Plymouth also parked outside of lawyer’s offices, and before remote joints on the Washington Peninsula; in Port Angeles where the game of nine ball is king, and in Forks where eight-ball-slop is about the best a guy can expect. Petey laid a mild hustle on guys who, having heard of his reputation, expected trouble. Guys played him, won or lost a few bucks, and were greatly impressed with themselves.
On every third or fourth evening Petey dropped into Beer and Bait where he hung out at the pool table farthest from the bar. His visits, though glum, were nice for Jubal Jim who received big welcomes and scored a few potato chips. Petey, on the other hand, barely broke even. When he left before midnight, and before the road turned ugly, Petey would pack his cue then stand irresolute while glancing covertly at Bertha.
And, during those visits, Bertha slapped the bar with a wet bar rag more often than necessary. Bertha was not about to admit that Petey meant a blessed thing to her, but Bertha’s countenance grew bleak. When a Norwegian is bleak the atmosphere turns cloudy. At closing time, Bertha would pretend indifference as her crowd drifted to the door, and Petey drifted with it. For a few days the crowd passed a junk bicycle that leaned against the building. It stayed there until a well-juiced guy tripped over it, stood up cussing, and threw the bike into the Canal.
And, during that short spell of good weather the tow truck kid found himself in one of those anxious situations that plague the young. The kid needed to assemble a pool team, and he had to “get everybody organized,” and the kid had “gotta have the hottest cues around”; and that meant Petey, a guy who drove the kid nuts because of the Plymouth’s wandering ways.
During the day the kid drove the tow truck, but took it to the company yard at dusk. Then the kid hopped in his own outfit, the cherry ’57 Ranchero with snazzy mudflaps, and checked out joints along the Canal as nighttime crowded the road. When the kid finally caught up with Petey it was not at Beer and Bait, but at Al’s Dock, known locally as Rough and Randy.
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Rough and Randy sits beneath buzzing mercury lights mounted high on fir trees. Forest as black as midnight stands on each side, though the joint, itself, faces a backwater of the Canal. The parking lot drains well because it holds yards and yards of crushed limestone mixed with clam and oyster shells. Through the years rain concreted the lime to form a base that handles anything including bulldozers.
Rough and Randy’s origins lie in the far distant past when an elderly gent, towing a ten-wide-fifty house trailer, parked, and fished. When he returned with a couple rock cod, he found flat tires on one side of the trailer. He said, “to hell with it,” and settled down. In those days land went for next to nothing. It only cost two bucks to jack up the trailer. The elderly gent, after a productive retirement spent drinking and fishing, passed to his reward. Al bought the outfit. He lived in back of the trailer and opened a bait shop in front.
The rest is ramshackle history. Through the years Al added beer coolers, a shed to house a kitchen, a concrete slab for pool tables and dancing, then put walls and a roof over the entire outfit; including the trailer. Rough and Randy is low ceilinged, and three times longer than it is wide. The joint caters to guys who carry shotguns behind their truck seats, and argue the virtues of pit bulls as opposed to dobermans. They do this in a joint where pool tables are level because of concrete, but where otherwise, the floor sags.
In the whitely-lighted parking lot, as the kid pulled in, sat a dozen experienced pickups, three Harley hogs, Petey’s Plymouth, and Al’s treasured ’53 Kaiser acquired from a suicidal patron who believed he could beat Al at poker.
The kid knew Rough and Randy only by reputation. He took a deep breath. He climbed from his truck, walked across the light-stricken parking lot, and heard, beyond the buzz of lights, shushing and slooshing of the Canal. In the forest an owl hooted. A disgruntled woof came from inside the Plymouth where Jubal Jim stood guard.
The kid slowed. The joint was too quiet. There should be chainsaw music going on in there. There should be voices, the click of cueballs, laughter and cussing.
The kid took a deep breath and reminded himself that he was just as tough as the next guy. Besides, he had just gotta talk to Petey. When he stepped inside he stood for a moment deciding whether to run or stay.
The bar at Rough and Randy is a long and skinny oval. It looks like the letter O would look, if the letter O had been run over by a Kenworth. Al walks on the inside of the oval where sit beer cases, beer taps, sinks, and a billy club. Customers sit on bar stools around the oval. They look across the oval at each other. On one side sit guys from a nearby paper mill, on the other are guys from a sawmill. At the ends are a scatter of bikers, shade tree mechanics, retired alcoholics, and an occasional survivalist. Few ladies attend services at Rough and Randy, and those who do are not artful.
The kid tiptoed to the bar and saw the reason for silence. At the far end, two giants sat locked in an arm wrestle. One giant looked sorta Japanese mixed with Indian, or probably Filipino, and the other looked like the biggest gawdawful Hawaiian that ever rode a surfboard to the mainland. The Japanese-Indian-Flip had a forearm like old growth timber, and the Hawaiian’s arm looked like sculpted steel. Both guys were black-haired, sorta tan-like, with hands big as shovels and shoulders purely rowdy. It was hard to tell which guy’s eyes popped most, but the truly scary thing was neither breathed very hard.
No sound came from the bar where sat mill-rats with spikey and unwashed hair, bikers, a red-hair lady wearing a real tight sweater, an ancient gent who looked kinda loaded but smart, and a mean-looking guy wearing a camouflage jumpsuit.
Al moved toward the kid. Al looked like a ship of war; an aircraft carrier or at least a cruiser. Al’s full beard is not curly like Sugar Bear’s, and his eyes are not gentle like Sugar Bear’s, but his hands can bend rebar. Al was not quite as big as the arm-wrestle guys, but nearly.
“Beer,” the kid whispered, and searched the room for Petey. A guy along the bar blew his nose. Other guys turned toward him, sneered, turned back to watch the contest. The kid saw Petey standing beside a pool table toward the darkest corner of the room. The kid carried his beer in that direction, and he walked quiet as a mouse on velvet.
Petey yawned, scratched his bottom, looked bored. The kid, who knew just enough about hustling to be dangerous, understood he was welcome.
“How long?” the kid whispered about the arm wrestle.
“Maybe half an hour.” Petey sounded indifferent, but he kept an eye on the Hawaiian’s forearm, which meant Petey’s dough rode with the Hawaiian.
“Rack ’em?” the kid whispered, because the kid figured if you were gonna talk to Petey it better be while doing a game. Petey, without a pool cue, was an unknown quantity.
“If you wanna get kilt,” Petey told the kid, “go ahead and rack ’em. Otherwise . . .” Pete yawned, “. . . hang onto your beer and wait.”
Along the bar men silently drank, watched, silently pushed empty glasses toward Al for refills. On the paper-mill side of the bar the mill-smell rose like dark perfume, and on the lumber side the smell of fresh wood chips mixed with the sour smell of wet bark. Al cruised silent as a forest weasel between customers and beer taps.
The kid, without understanding why, felt like a child in church . . . something about devotion or devotionals . . . about being bored spitless . . . something like that. The kid would not have been surprised if organ music burst across the room. You didn’t talk in church, and sure as stink you didn’t talk during an arm wrestle. Church or not, the kid still had enough sense to check for exits.
He stood in the best possible place. The cone of light over the table hid him from the bar.
The long oval held the quality of a painting, like it ought to hang in a museum alongside faded ships’ logs, pioneer tools, Indian trade-trinkets, iron-shod wagon wheels, moth-eaten buffalo robes; a museum of the wild-wild west without the gloss of movieland. The kid, who knew just enough history to believe the world was made ten minutes before he was born, found that he felt itchy; like maybe he caught a case of fleas, or maybe hepatitis.
Petey gave a small tap with his toe as the Hawaiian’s arm gained a degree off center. The Hawaiian looked at the Japanesey-sorta guy, looked at his eyes. Mauna Loa hatred flared, blazed, seemed ready to crackle. The Japanese looked back, samurai violence like cold light mixed with the swish of swords; and veins stood out on arms like they would bust, like blood would spurt through skin, fountains of it. The Japanese guy’s arm moved back one degree.
The red-hair lady pushed an empty glass toward Al. A mill-rat pushed some bucks alongside the empty glass. The red-hair lady turned to the mill guy, smiled, and even the kid could tell matters in that direction were settled for at least one night. A skinny biker, hopes vanquished (for at least one night) stood, knocked back the rest of his beer, and headed for the door. He gave a backward wave to Al. In less than a minute the Harley barked its open-throat song, and the bike moved away like sad talkin’ and slow walkin’.
Now the arm-wrestle guys entered the heavy-sweat stage of the wrestle. They dripped from foreheads, and neither had a Second who could wield a hanky. They started to breathe heavy, and each stared at the other’s face. The Hawaiian grunted, sweated, gave an extra heavy grunt, and sudden as a squall, nailed the other guy’s hand to the bar while cheers erupted from the sawmill guys. The paper mill guys sat ticked-off and ready to holler that the fix was in. Al distributed winnings.
“Hot work,” the Japanese guy said to the Hawaiian with affection in his voice. “I’ll get your scrawny butt next time.”
“Winner buys.” The Hawaiian yawned. He spoke to Al. “Give my man a beer.”
“Rack ’em.” Petey came from the bar with his winnings. “We got time for a game or two.”
Noise filled the bar. Guys joked, bulled, thanked the losers for their donations, and Al turned up the tape deck. The sound of molested guitars thumped beneath the low ceiling. Windows facing the Canal, washed only when the health inspector made unbribable threats, showed a full moon shining dimly over tranquil water.
“I got a deal,” the kid told Petey. “It’s a real deal.”
“I heard the bull,” Petey told him. Petey popped the rack a little too gentle and failed to hide the cueball. “Run ’em,” he said. “I wish you luck.”
The kid ran three balls, then shanked an easy shot. “This ain’t bull,” he told Petey. “This is major money. This is a damn gold rush.” He watched the cueball end up in the middle of the table, naked as a centerfold.
“Lemme ask you something.” Petey took his time running the table. He checked his watch. “Do rich bastards get rich by being nice?” Petey tapped a three-way combo on the nine ball, picked up the fiver the kid had laid out. “We got time for one more game.”
“I figure easy in, easy out,” the kid said. “One hot night, and leave ’em stew in their own crap.”
“You’re talkin’ younger than usual.” Petey watched the kid rack. “Which means you won’t listen. But, it’s your education. Sometimes it costs to learn things.” Petey broke the rack, hid the cueball while making nothing, messing with the kid’s brain.
The kid tried to dig out of the hole and left an opening. Petey shanked the shot and hid the cueball. It dawned on the kid that Petey played mind stuff.
“If you go to that tournament,” Petey told the kid, “win, but win polite, and don’t win big. This is Petey tellin’ you.” He checked his watch. “The road is gonna heat up.” He ran the table. “The worst damfool is the guy who wins big in front of the other guy’s woman.” Petey picked up another five, unscrewed his cue. “See ya.”
The bar emptied as guys shrugged into jackets, and eased through the doorway while carrying six-packs. Loud music faded as Al turned down the tape deck. Al picked up beer glasses, mopped the bar, emptied ashtrays and pitched them in the sink. Al looked like a bear hulking behind the bar, but not a Sugar Bear. Al looked like one of those bad, bad bears that rule the forest, and, as guys attest, crap where they want.
The kid packed his cue, then stood irresolute. He was a good, long drive from home. He had work tomorrow, and guys were leaving before the road heated up. Worse, even, was Petey’s big advice. The kid wondered what kind of hustle Petey was running. Al pointed toward the door. Then Al yawned, grunted, leaned over to work the kinks out of his back. “Sleep in your truck. Use the parking lot if you wanta.” Al reached beneath the counter. Switches click
ed. Lights went out. The kid, who had not recruited a star pool player in Petey, and who still had to put a team together, walked to the door. The only light came from a couple beer signs. When he stepped outside, the only light came from the moon riding high and full above the Canal.
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In spots where light shone unblocked by tree-shadow the road lay like a silver strip beneath the moon. Headlights of the Ranchero picked up greenly-and-redly glowing eyes of possum, raccoon, and housecat. The kid drove rapid but not fast, and he turned up the FM band because nothin’ AM was gonna come in this far from the big city. Electronic music, the bass-beat thumping heavy as a fat pile driver, filled the cab and spilled through partly open windows. Forest creatures fled, or watched flaring headlights, and if they had opinions, kept those opinions to themselves.
The road does not always adhere to the Canal. Sometimes it takes short excursions into little valleys between mountains. In one spot it runs through national forest and is often littered with roadkill, mostly deer, mostly dumb deer. Then, when a guy least expects it, the road bends back and follows the Canal real singleminded. It eases close to dark waters. Moonlight that lies in a strip across the water seems to climb right off the surface and halve the road like a silver knife.
It was in just such a spot the dunked cars were going in, the same spot where the kid loaded wrecks onto the trailer of the tow truck. As he approached the dunk site a whiff of good sense, or maybe only a beer belch, caused the kid to come off the gas. Caution seized him. The kid tapped brakes, slowed in the curve leading to the dunk site, then braked further as the electronic bass thumped from the radio. The Ranchero crawled forward with less speed than a bumper car in an amusement park.
At first it seemed that the truck skidded sideways. Movement caused a little fishtail, and as the kid steered into it he realized it actually was the road, and not the Ranchero that was going twisty. His rig moved slowly, inexorably, sideways, like on an icy grade and pulled by its own weight. Headlights slowly twisted away from the road as the rear end sorta fell toward the Canal. Headlights shone into the forest and were swallowed by trees as the Ranchero moved back-bumper-first into the Canal; moving like on a tow cable wound to a slow winch.