by Jack Cady
“What?” Bertha is not used to mystery stuff. She is not used to being in the middle of conversations she doesn’t understand.
“I got a lever,” Petey told her. “We’re talking facts of life.” And, although he was talking facts of life, he couldn’t bring himself to discuss hookers.
“You got hustled,” he told Bertha. “That bust was a setup. This guy bought one of his pet gov-guys, and the gov-guy brought in cops. Cops would run people home. Tournament canceled. You were going to end up owing ten grand to the leader of the tournament at the time of the bust. Plus, you’d owe a big piece of the three grand registrations. You’d have to refund guys who hadn’t had a turn at the tables. This guy never intended to pay a prize. He was gonna bankrupt you.”
It was the absolute worst moment of Bertha’s life. Probably. She sat breathing shallow, turned pale, then began to turn red. The shame. To be suckered like that. The shame. She caught a deep breath. “Why?”
“He wants the joint,” Petey said. “This goes back a ways. You wouldn’t sell, and his boys could have upped their offer. But it’s a game to them. He was setting you up where you’d have to sell. He’s got big plans.” Petey looked toward the group of rich guys. “They got blown out on the tables once before. That was a heist. This guy used the purple momma to open this up, because you wouldn’t have bought in, otherwise. The other mommas didn’t know.” Petey watched the butterflies who were watching each other with lots of questions. He looked again at the rich guys. “After those boys got blown out the first time, anybody could figure they’d bring the mommas to the second joust. Because anyone could figure they’d show off with a fake win.” He looked at rich guy. “Big mistake.”
The fisherman, sitting nearby, told himself that rich guy had about seven and one-eighth seconds to make things right, because Bertha would pretty quick start to flame. The fisherman actually made a bet with himself and checked his watch. Then he noticed general movement toward the door. The outdoors guys, the fishermen and loggers and linemen, the men who understood weather, were bundling their ladies out and into the night . . . except it wasn’t night yet, it wasn’t even mid-afternoon.
“If you ever need a job,” rich guy told Petey, “look me up.” Rich guy, though totally ticked, could not control his admiration. “So what’s it gonna cost?”
“I’m gonna miss this joint.” Petey watched the rapidly thinning crowd, saw players bent over pool tables, saw butterflies perched on the bandstand and looking absolutely smashing from a distance. He saw a cluster of rich guys pretending to pay close attention to the pool tables. He saw hookers jiving a couple of uneasy loggers, and he saw hustlers packing up their cues; because hustlers may not know a lot about weather, but they know when a hustle is busted. “I been thinking,” Petey told Bertha. “There’s a nice joint for sale in Tacoma.”
Bertha looked the place over, looked at Petey with all kinds of personal questions, stuff that couldn’t be asked except in private. “Why?” She looked at her bar like a thing already lost, her voice puzzled and sad.
It turned into the greatest moment of Petey’s life. Probably. “It’s time to cash out,” he said gently. “I don’t mean to tell you what to do, and there’s stuff we’ve got to talk over.” He paused. “This running the road gets to a guy. Being dead is a pain, but it was a cover for the hustle. These guys bought hustlers, but they couldn’t buy me. I had to fix it where I wasn’t a threat.” He looked at rich guy, then back at Bertha. “He and his buddies own half the real estate for miles around. They own absolutely everything for three miles around you. They’re putting in another housing project, plus they’re buying the legislature. It’s a matter-a-time until the road gets widened, and that much road construction means tons and tons of money. More than we would ever need . . . “ he paused, blushed all the way from his hairline to his bald spot, because that “we” had slipped out. “. . . not worth the hassle,” he muttered. “Take the money and run.”
Bertha caught her breath, sharp, caught it again. That “we” had gotten to her. That “we,” right here in the middle of a pool tournament, in front of lots of people; that “we” had come out in public when it couldn’t be said in private. Bertha tried to remain normal. “How much?”
“More than enough. Enough for two joints, if needed.” Petey reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out papers. “You can argue duress,” he told rich guy, “but you’d have to do it in court which means it would be public.” Petey laid papers in front of rich guy. “Take your time. Talk to your boys. If you try to leave, the hookers will get affectionate.” Petey actually touched the back of Bertha’s hand. “Dirty pool,” he said, “but not as dirty as what they tried to pull.” To rich guy he said, “A lawyer wrote that up. The promissory note is for thirteen thou. The other is a binding offer.”
The guy looked it over. Whistled. “It’s steep,” he said calmly, “but do-able.” He looked at Bertha. “You want to sell?”
Bertha, who had already forgotten pool tournaments, bar worries, wrecks, troubled friends, and a dead or dying cop, nodded. Bertha planned a wedding and a move to Tacoma.
═
“I’ll be double-durn,” the tow truck kid said, “it’s the bust that turned into ice cream.” He touched the fisherman’s shoulder. “I’m outta here. You want a lift?”
The fisherman, who had nowhere to go, and who could not protect those he loved, looked at a joint now stripped of hustlers, outdoor guys, their ladies; stripped of just about everyone except butterflies and hookers and rich guys, plus a couple bartenders and, a ‘course Petey and Bertha who, it appeared, would soon be left alone.
“Sure,” he said to the kid. “You’re headed for Olympia. Let’s go there.”
Storm Surge
Until the kid turned it off, radio yammered breathless. The subject was a zone of weather hovering midpoint along the Canal. The radio guy made bad jokes, sparked and fizzed, then phoned National Weather Service. The lady at weather service came up with a big, “Don’t know?” but that was okay. The radio guy didn’t listen. Neither did the tow truck kid. He had his hands full.
By the time the Dodge rolled a half-mile south of Beer and Bait the road went black as the sky. Wind crashed and young cedars bent nearly flat while the tops blew out of young fir. The fisherman thought of the sea and told himself he had seen brighter midnights. Rain pulled power from darkness, and speed dropped to ten m.p.h. as the truck rocked and tried to blow sideways beneath the wail of wind. Wipers slowed under overflooding rain. Above barnyards, mercury lights peeked through darkness. They were tiny spots of blue in an eternity of night and rain. Occasionally an oncoming truck crept past, headlights blue and steaming. Headlights of the Dodge turned the roadway into a blue path between gray shoulders that lay like shrouds. Water crashed and tumbled in the ditches, rose, washed across the road, gnawed at the roadbed.
Twice the kid had to pull over. Twice the kid turned off the lights to avoid a rear-ender. The first time the kid had to pull over because windshields went solid with rain. The second time he pulled over, fisherman and kid looked at each other, showed commendable calm in the middle of fear.
“I gotta stop. We weigh too much. The back end is rocking, front end is lighter.” The kid kept his head, even if no one, nowhere, had ever been in rain so great a pickup bed filled too quick to drain. This was not land-based stuff. This kind of stuff happened on open ocean.
“Don’t do it,” the fisherman said. “Wait it out.”
“I gotta.”
“Then don’t get on the lee side. You’ll get blown away. Take my word.” The fisherman felt the weight of age, the weight of helplessness.
“I gotta do it.” Before he bailed from the cab the kid set the heater on high. When he jumped from the cab to let down the tailgate, the voice of storm screamed the high-pitched wail of Banshee, or even greater, a scream of Fury. The fisherman knew from the sound, more than the feel, that wind made up to sixty-five or seventy out there; and hurricane force is seve
nty-five.
The rear end of the truck lightened as the bed drained. The kid had pulled it off. When he jumped back into the cab, water flowed from him. The fisherman shrugged from his jacket as the kid stripped to the waist, and the heater blew like a champ. The kid huddled into the dry jacket. “Cold,” he chattered. “Cold as a well digger’s hindey.”
Only once before, and that at sea, had the fisherman seen lightning in the middle of a snowstorm. As they pulled back onto the road, rain turned to blown snow, nigh thick as a New England blizzard. Snow hit the wet roadway and turned to ice. Lightning crashed above the snow, blue, blue, wickering as wind dropped to fifty knots, then forty. When thunder boomed, the pickup recoiled from shock. Snow crossed the road, piled in the forest, and the Dodge crept across ice like a truck on tiptoe.
The fisherman figured that in thirty minutes they had come under two miles. He figured, if the kid could hold on, they would drive out of the mess further south. The fisherman mourned his failings, and wondered if he should not be headed in the other direction; headed back toward Annie. Then he told himself this whole business really did run on rails. He just couldn’t figure who had laid the track.
“Looks like folks gotta find a new joint.” The kid’s voice trembled, but his teeth stopped chattering. He stayed focused on the road, but needed reassurance.
“Small loss,” the fisherman said, and found himself too overwhelmed to explain. He watched blown snow, watched a black sky cut with streaks of electric blue; lightning like symbols of fury, sorrow, dread. Thunder crashed like voices of ancient gods.
And a joint was a very small loss when thirteen cars, and maybe twenty people, were drowned; when a good cop, who was also a good man, lay dead or dying, and when another good man was insane; a good woman crazed with grief; and himself, old and helpless, driven south to safety. The loss of a beer joint amounted to zip.
And what good came of it? None. Except a kid was growing up and pointed right. But, maybe that would have happened anyway. Maybe.
“You ever feel like you’re in the middle of something you oughta understand. And don’t?” The kid’s foot lay gentle on the accelerator. The pickup moved across ice like a slow dance, controlled, athletic, serene amidst blowing snow. Thunder boomed above the forest, and here and there, beneath flashes of blue, wide spaces appeared where a pathway of trees had blown flat.
“All the time,” the fisherman admitted, “and I’ve got more information than you.”
Snow drifted. The world turned white. As wind continued to drop the fisherman puzzled aloud, “I made a mistake. I kept looking at things instead of forces. That creature in the Canal is huge and ancient and sad. It’s actually kind of friendly. But, then, there’s something else out there and it’s different. It’s equally old, but it’s shallow and silly and dangerous.” Along the shoreline lightning crashed, cracked, and a big tree split and showered wind-blown kindling. If the truck window were open the cab would flood with ozone.
“I don’t know what the dangerous thing is,” the fisherman explained. “But I finally understood it isn’t the dead guy.”
“Looked pretty dead. Smelled extra dead. I think we’re going to make it.” The kid gentled the steering wheel. “First we had too much weight over the back wheels, now not enough. Things are skiddy.” He watched road, figuring where road had to be, because the landscape was blank with snow. Only the flowing ditches traced a path.
“I thought I saw a war,” the fisherman said. “I thought it was some big damn contest between good and evil. Turns out that was too easy.” He watched the kid to see if anything registered. Hard to tell. At least the kid listened. “If I read history right,” the fisherman said, “civilizations hardly ever die because of catastrophe. They die because they become trite.”
“We are gonna make it,” the kid told him. “This crappola is breaking up.” A half-mile down the road daylight appeared as snow thinned and wind dropped. The fisherman turned around in the seat and looked north. Behind them lay complete darkness, wind, storm, lightning, snow and ice. Behind them, in a small house, Annie must still be tending to Sugar Bear. Annie fought back, but against what she fought, she could not know. Nor, he told himself, could he; because he still didn’t have it figured out.
“I thought the trouble had something to do with the Canal,” he told the kid, “but any body of water, or any mountain valley would have served. It’s a tussle between forces.”
“Then why here?” The kid still paid attention, sorta, but truck speed picked up. The kid was eager to drive out of the mess.
“I don’t have the foggiest notion,” the fisherman admitted. “But, you’ve got to figure there’s some kind of reason.” He looked toward the shore. In gradually growing light the ripped and broken hull of a crab boat littered the beach. The bow had separated and lay twenty feet beyond the tide line. The fisherman shuddered, knew what decision the crabber had made, and admired it. The guy had known the boat was a goner, so he had not waited to be blown in sideways. He had opened the throttle and driven it ashore bow first. He no doubt saved his life but at the cost of a boat.
As the road cleared and daylight returned the kid picked up speed. The cab turned hot and humid. The kid rolled the driver’s window but did not lower the heater. He was coming down, relaxing, tension coming off. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” he confided to the fisherman, “but I ain’t driving a tow truck the rest of my life.”
“Kind of figured that would happen,” the fisherman told him. “I wonder what you’ll come up with?” He knew the kid asked for advice and didn’t need it. The kid just needed reassurance. “Whatever you do,” the fisherman said, “I know it’s going to be good.”
“This truck is a hustle,” the kid said. “Do you understand that? Because I don’t. I just know I’m getting rid of this sucker.”
“It’s only a truck. The hustle happens when you think a truck is something else. The hustle stops when what you do, is more important than what other people see.” The fisherman remembered their talk outside Beer and Bait. “You already know that. You didn’t get sore because you were set up at pool. Because a pool game means absolute zero.”
“That is gonna save a heap of truck payments,” the kid muttered, and it was clear that he almost understood. As the sky continued to lighten the kid no longer had to keep his gaze fixed on the road. He glanced at the fisherman. “When we get there, what?”
“Drop me downtown,” the fisherman told him. “I can make my way from there.” He doubted if he would ever see the kid, ever again. Unless, of course, more cars dunked; but somehow that part of the game seemed played-out. “And thanks for the lift.”
═
Winter blew into the bright streets of Olympia where the Capitol dome stood lighted and glowing like an ideal of commonwealth; though beneath the dome anything tacky could be, and was, goin’ on. Streetlights in the old part of town shone softly beneath cold clouds, while promises of warmth dwelt in the brightness of coffee houses, dry goods stores, and video parlors. The fisherman found himself dwelling happily on common things; women buying blue jeans for their kids, men leaning against bars watching ball games, kids carrying cornet and fiddle cases as they waited for buses. The fisherman watched a clean-shaven itinerant standing before a bakery window. The guy looked like a man who understands five-cent cotton and forty-cent meat. The itinerant turned, walked away, and he hunched inside a thin jacket. The itinerant looked vaguely familiar.
Since the state of Washington lies northerly in the latitudes, night came early apace. The fisherman ordered burgers in a brightly lit cafe, downed one, found he could not finish the second; a young man’s appetites no longer fitting an old man’s body. He found a public phone, called a cab. By the time evening news arrived on TV he had settled in one of those motels so beloved by golfers of the polyester persuasion. The motel parking lot, he saw, was peeing Lincolns.
Television flurried with breathless stuff labeled “breaking news” although it was clear
the news had already broken and gone. The fisherman watched TV flacks discuss the fantastic impossible—once-in-a-century—tragic—climate-climactic-catastrophe of weather along the Canal where an unexplained storm had taken out the road. Home video was remarked upon, and TV cameras offered views from helicopters, views of snow and ice, of blown trees, of a couple hundred yards of water where road once ran, and the tip of a yellow crane barely poking above waves. The flacks consulted their weatherman-in-residence. He consulted satellite photos, ouija boards, astrology, and came up with zilch-O. The TV flacks were as well groomed as any hooker.
What TV did not say, although it might have guessed, is that rich guys somewhere had just fallen feet-first into a bonanza. Now the new road would have to be built. The fisherman could actually feel the rich guys visiting their tailors, and ordering deeper pockets.
He told himself he should be angry, horrified, lamenting, concerned, or something. Instead he felt dull. He watched TV and realized that he and the kid had not been anywhere near the worst of the storm. They had driven along the fringes. At the center of storm, where the road was out . . . and if the fisherman judged aright, where the dunk site had lain . . . weather must have struck like the lighting bolts of Zeus.
He thought of Sugar Bear and of Annie. As winter wind wrapped around the building the overheated motel room felt cold. He told himself to get some sleep. He told himself that being helpless meant a guy was not responsible for anything, except, a ‘course, a guy could cry.
Day of Darkness
Dreams came and went and came again, heavy-footed and ruthless and crazed. He dreamed of Annie, of Annie’s young smile disappearing into a cave of darkness where voices wailed. He dreamed of Sugar Bear, pounding and shaping glowing steel, and using the dead guy’s forehead for an anvil. He saw the dead guy, a misshapen thing rising from the Canal, and the shape sang love songs of the dilly-silly-ditsy kind; stench and decay spreading from the dead guy to cover grasses and hang like clusters of moss from trees. He dreamed of the cop, stalwart, well-intended, idealistic sorta, and smart, but not smart enough. And the dream said there was no more cop, only something left over to fill a coffin. He saw Bertha and Petey, smiling, then frowning as they danced along the top of a bar while hustling each other. He saw his fishing boat blowing above the tops of trees, long lines sweeping the depths of forest and hooking varmints before it disappeared among clouds. And, he saw the bartender at China Bay; saw the bartender’s face, calm, detached, immense, watching all of them, watching, watching . . . somewhat entertained, somewhat amused.