by J. M. Parker
A pair of girls rushed from an alley at the side of the building and Bannon watched as they passed by the window light, gorgeous Asian things, their light dresses blowing around their slight bodies. Their faces twitched with tiny snickers as they passed by Bannon and turned back into the bar. Behind them came the Frenchman, a bottle of champagne in one hand, the other fumbling at his zipper. He walked across to Bannon and stopped to rest beside him. “What a night,” he said, gazing off at the starless horizon.
“You really fly that storm?” said Bannon.
“Oui.”
“Wasn’t just a line?”
The Frenchman lifted his linen top. An enormous bruise stretched from shoulder to waist, marking his skin with a dark purple stain.
“Christ,” said Bannon.
“From the impact,” said the Frenchman.
“Shouldn’t you be laid up?”
The Frenchman placed the champagne bottle on the ground and fixed his zipper for a final time. “Fortune favors the brave.”
Bannon laughed as he reached into his pocket and loosed the final joint. He offered it to the Frenchman. “Well, this might ease the pain.”
“Mon ami.”
“Beg yer pardon.”
“Your last one?”
“Sure is.”
The Frenchman held the joint up to his face and smiled. “You are sure you know what you’re doing?”
“All yours, partner.”
“Okay,” said the Frenchman, extending a hand to Bannon. “I am in your debt.”
“No need for that.”
The Frenchman laughed, clapping Bannon on his side. “Come, Monsieur. You never know when you may need my help.” And from his pocket he pulled a small pack of matches, the box covered with the silhouette of a female form and what appeared to be the name of the place.
“What’s it say on the matches?” said Bannon.
“The Moonshine Dive,” said the Frenchman, lighting a match and rolling the joint into the fire, burning away the paper in one even turn. He took a long drag, inhaled, and exhaled. “A wonderful place.”
“That a bar?”
“No, my friend,” said the Frenchman, lifting the joint back to his lips. “It is not quite a bar.”
“Well maybe I’ll have to check it out sometime?”
The Frenchman smiled as he tossed Bannon the matches. “I hope you will.”
*
Bannon woke in the room above the bar. Puke stained the mattress and it clung to his arms in grotesque stripes. He moved gingerly from the bed, scouring the floor for his jeans and finding them in a heap in the corner. He reached for the pocket, looking for a joint and coming up with the box of matches. He looked down at them, his mind swimming with half-remembered conversations. The words “Moonshine Dive” were written in small pink letters above the slender silhouette of a woman. “Christ, Bannon, what did you do?”
He tucked the matches into a pocket of his new backpack and headed downstairs. Laughter rang out toward the stairwell and as he moved into the bar he saw the Frenchman, turning a celery stick in a half-drunk Bloody Mary. He wore another linen shirt, this one faded blue, and he waved as Bannon moved into sight. “Mon ami, come, you must have one, these are the best bloody…” and he cut himself off, throwing his arms upward in an exaggerated show of embarrassment, “but, of course, you must know.”
“Ain’t my drink,” said Bannon, tasting the puke in his mouth.
“But you must try one. That man, he is a mixologist of the highest caliber, an alchemist I say,” said the Frenchman, pointing a finger at Sullivan, who guffawed again.
Bannon rubbed his temples, “Wait, what are you…?”
“Doing here. Ah, you do not remember, you insisted upon it.”
“I did?”
“You did. And, before I forget, a gift,” said the Frenchman, producing a wooden cigarette case, the exterior coated in an elaborate carving of minute characters: a woman in a long flowing dress, musket in one hand, a French flag in the other. Behind her came a swarm of revolutionaries, beneath her lay the bodies of the dead. “I give unto you,” continued the Frenchman, extending it out to Bannon, who shuffled forward and grabbed the case. “Please, open it.”
Bannon popped the lid and looked inside to find two tiers of perfectly rolled joints. Ten a tier. “You didn’t have to.”
“Please, you will make me blush.”
“Generous character, this friend of yours,” said Sullivan, his face still unusually ruddy. “Even fixed the door you broke on your way in.”
“Shit, I’m sorry,” said Bannon.
“I’d say I made out ahead.”
Bannon glanced over to the entrance, where a new door hung from a set of golden hinges. He looked at his watch. “It ain’t even twelve. How did you?”
The Frenchman sat sipping his drink. He shrugged and smiled. “He stepped into the office. Made a call and there she was,” said Sullivan. “You didn’t hear the drilling?”
“Deep sleep, I guess.”
Sullivan laughed. “Well I have just the thing to wake you up.” And he pointed his thumb in the direction of the men’s room.
Bannon tucked away the cigarette case. “Right on it, boss,” he said, heading for the mop as the Frenchman called out behind him.
“Eat, drink, take pleasure in his toil. This is God’s gift to man.”
In the bathroom Bannon plunged a toilet, stooped uncomfortably above a backlogged bowl, the water showing little sign of disappearing as it splashed out onto the floor. The door flung open and in came the Frenchman, another drink in hand. Bannon rose to face him, a sudden embarrassment creeping over him as he noted the Frenchman’s unblemished appearance. “I must take flight,” said the Frenchman.
“Thanks for the pot.”
The Frenchman stepped inside. From a leather wallet he pulled a tiny little card. “Visit with me sometime.”
Bannon reached out and took it, his grubby hand left a shit-colored thumbprint on the white of the card and he concealed it quickly. “Sure thing.”
“Formidable,” said the Frenchman.
*
In the evening he worked the bar, a long shift and hardly free of trouble. When the police arrived he ducked into the kitchen and sent a waiter out to take his place, watching through a crack in the doorway as the young boy gave his statement.
The bar closed in the early hours and Bannon stood alone in the deserted room, his pulse racing. He felt the cigarette box in his pocket and he took out a joint. He smoked while he mopped, leaning against the mop as the weed began to take hold.
Sounds from the kitchen jolted him awake in a rush of paranoia. He inched that way, the mop held in front like a sword. The loud clatter of pans echoed out and Bannon jumped back. “Hello,” said Bannon. He pushed into the kitchen, his shadow running across the floor, and he flinched at its sudden appearance. Another sound, the roll of a glass, and he turned toward it, the mop shaft at the ready. Something bolted from beneath the stoves and Bannon swung the mop at it, cracking the shaft against the hard tile of the kitchen. “Fucking goddamn rats,” said Bannon, throwing the mop away in disgust.
He pulled the joint back out and moved over to the stove, where an overturned glass wheeled across the hot plates, a baby mouse struggling within its confines. Bannon watched as its feet slipped in the beer, his anger quickly turning to pity as the glass rolled like a hamster wheel around it. He squatted down to the glass and peered into the opening. The mouse froze, the tiny hairs prickled along its flanks. He tipped the glass forward and the mouse slid out onto the stove top. Bannon backed away and the mouse twitched, its nose searching the surrounding air. It took a few steps and broke into a run, veering drunkenly across the stove and disappearing over the edge. “Shit,” said Bannon, watching as the furball plummeted earthbound. It bounced once when it hit the floor and then lay there twitching, a trickle of blood seeping from beneath it, an amber dribble creeping from its mouth. Bannon sighed as the life slowly went out of it
and the twitching finally stopped. He relit the joint, standing above the little corpse and eyeing it with a wary feeling as smoke drifted through the quiet of the room.
*
He woke to find the cigarette box placed in the center of the nightstand, the small white card planted on top of it, the Frenchman’s address written across its surface in ink lettering. Bannon lifted up the card, admiring the elegant flow of letters before he reached for another joint. He dozed for the next hour, rising to smoke and then drifting back to sleep.
In the bar he ate heartily, a five-egg omelet packed with all the trimmings. Sullivan watched as Bannon forked up giant spoonfuls of food, “Good weed, ain’t it?”
“What?” said Bannon, food falling from his mouth onto the platter-sized plate beneath him.
Sullivan held out his own half-smoked joint. “The Frenchman passed them out to half the bar.”
“That so?”
“Your case was a nice touch though. He must like you.”
“Can’t think why.”
“Me either,” said Sullivan, a vacant look creeping across his red-stubbled face. “Anyway, you never answered my question.”
“About what?”
“The weed, pal.”
“It’s good weed,” said Bannon, forking up another mouthful of food.
“Think I’m gonna take a nap,” said Sullivan. “You’ll deal with the customers if they come, won’t ya?”
“Sure.”
Sullivan thanked him and turned upstairs, laughing as he went. “You do a damn fine job around here, Bannon. The pipes have never run so well.”
“Keep your hands off the weed up there.”
“You son of bitch.”
Bannon worked for a couple of hours, attending lazily to customers and switching off with Sullivan in the early afternoon.
In another bar he skimmed through a newspaper. Almost two months, thought Bannon, never heard a word about the diver. He ordered a beer and sat there drinking. “Maybe I missed it.”
“Missed what?” said a customer.
“Nothing,” said Bannon, sweat forming on his brow as he thought about the lost diver.
“You finished with the paper?”
“All yours,” said Bannon, pushing the paper to him and rising to leave.
He spent the next hour swimming, the worry dissipating slowly in heavy strokes as he worked his way along the shoreline. Beneath him pods of fish shimmered in their shoals, suspended effortlessly in the calm of the sea. Bannon plunged toward them, the fish scattering and regrouping, and he marveled at their grace. On the surface he lay face up, the sounds of the beach fading as he recalled another dive, a decade ago, sixteen years old and sitting on the side of a little craft as it rocked on the Florida waves. A man smiled back at him from the other side of the boat. “Your boy’s getting big, Rick.”
In the center of the boat his father checked his BCD, making sure the air from his tank ran smoothly into the jacket he’d be wearing. Without looking up he said, “Yeah, he’s getting some of my weight.”
The man laughed. “You do look a little thin.”
“Not much of an appetite these days, must be the heat, been a real hot summer.”
“Your suit does look a little loose.”
“Yeah,” said his father, putting a finger into the gap between the seal of the wetsuit and his neck. “I’ll fill her back out soon.”
“Won’t you be cold?” said Bannon.
“A whole summer stuck inside, bent over busted engines. Bit of cold will be nice for a change,” said his father, grinning as he pointed at the man. “Besides, I ain’t soft like these Florida boys. Surprised Bill’s just got the one wetsuit on.”
Bill smiled. “Each to their own, I guess,” and he nodded at Bannon. “I sure hope you don’t turn into such a wiseass.”
Bannon’s father laughed. “He’s turning out alright, Billy. Don’t you worry about that.”
A little later they rolled over the side. Bill in the lead and sinking quickly to the bottom. Bannon turned to his left and saw his father matching the speed of his descent. He raised an arm to give a quick okay when panicked sounds echoed through the water. Bannon looked toward them. Bill was flailing one arm to the side in a wild attempt at a swimming stroke. Right below him an enormous manta ray lay on the sea bed, half concealed by sand. With his free hand Bill inflated his BCD, sending a burst of air from his tank into the expandable bladder in his jacket. The air slowed his descent and he hovered inches above the manta, his fin just brushing its back, and the ray burst from the sand. Bill kicked wildly as he tried to get clear, the air expanding in his BCD as he rose a little higher and the pressure of the water reduced. He started to shoot up to the surface.
The manta beat its wings again, kicking up a cloud of sand as it moved away from the bottom, swimming in a wide circle around the rising diver. Bannon saw his father swim in that direction, sinking below Bill and grabbing him by the ankle. Bill reached for the inflator tube on his jacket and dumped the air from the bladder, air squirting from the hose in a rush of little bubbles as the two of them sank back to the seabed.
Bannon joined his father and Bill on the bottom and gave them both the okay signal. His father shook his head at Bill, then instructed him to follow just beside him. They lifted back up into the water and Bannon smiled as his father winked at him. He watched as his father pointed off into the distance. An enormous pod of fish hovered on the edge of their vision. They were circular in shape, each the size of a small saucer, and they shone like silver as the rippling sunlight flashed across their scales. Bannon paused as above them the manta glided through the water, its wings at least a half dozen yards across, swimming just beneath the surface of the waves. He took another long, deep breath as the Manta disappeared into the blue distance, and then he moved dutifully to his father’s side.
*
In the evening he sat in the Irish bar, turning the Frenchman’s address card in his fingers and staring at the precise, italic handwriting. The clock showed seven o’clock and Bannon called to Sullivan. “Ain’t too late for a house call is it?”
Sullivan shrugged. “He told you to stop by.”
Outside the bar the taxi driver passed the address card back to Bannon. “You know?” said Bannon.
The driver looked back, surveying Bannon’s weathered clothes, his shorts fraying at the seams, the color washing out of the shirt. “This right place?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, we go.”
After a short drive the taxi stopped beside a beachfront property. “Here?” said the driver.
“Guess so.”
Palm trees towered above freshly painted white walls and beyond them Bannon spied a red tile roof. At the top of the drive stood a barred gate, an ornate collaboration of iron and steel twisted into giant symmetrical patterns. Perched on the wall a camera peered into the driveway. Beside the gate a small speaker was fitted into the wall. He pressed the button, his nerves growing as it dialed and rang. Somewhere the receiver lifted and a voice came booming out. “Allo,” said the Frenchman.
“It’s me, Bannon.”
“Bannon. Splendid. Splendid.” And with the faintest sounds of machinery the gates swung backward. “Come, come, join me for a drink.”
Bannon moved toward the house, the driveway cutting through twin gardens, where precise rows of lilies stood in their pinks and yellows as peacocks wandered by crystalline ponds with their tails spread in fans of colored feathers. At the head of the driveway stood the house, grand as a palace. Its lightly shaded walls were punctuated by two stories of French windows and a set of double doors, the wood crafted of the finest timber and finished with the same gold hinges as the door in the bar.
The Frenchman threw open the doors. He was shirtless, his bruise coated in ointment. He ushered Bannon into a grand foyer. “You catch me at a good time, I was just finishing my treatment,” he said, flashing Bannon a mischievous grin as he gestured to a side room, where a leggy nurse
folded a massage table back into its case. She moved into the foyer, grabbing a pair of tights from a sofa arm and jamming them into a purse. She bowed to the Frenchman as she passed. He pinched her backside and winked.
“Looks like some kind of treatment,” said Bannon, watching as the young beauty disappeared down the driveway.
“Would you like me to call her back?”
Bannon laughed, unsure if the man was joking. “I gotta be honest, I can’t hardly remember your name.”
“Saint Jean, but you may call me Jean.”
“Alright, Jean. Was there something you wanted to see me about?”
“Come, come, all will be revealed,” said the Frenchman, and from another armchair he picked up a shirt and threw it on, leaving the front unbuttoned, the ointment still glistening.
The Frenchman guided Bannon through the house, a labyrinth of rooms and corridors decked in mad assortments of finery. They passed into an office where bookshelves creaked beneath the stacks of pages on top of them. “An author for every mood,” said the Frenchman, throwing a nonchalant hand in their direction. At the rear of the office a hand-drawn family tree hung from ceiling to floor and the two men stood before it, dwarfed by the size of the thing as they looked across its surface.
They stopped, at last, in a small stone-floored courtyard, surrounded on all sides by the walls of the house. In the center stood a jade sundial, the light of the stars speckling its polished surface. In a corner sat a small table where a bottle of wine cooled in a silver ice bucket. “Have a seat,” said the Frenchman. “I will join you shortly.”
Bannon waited, reclining in a comfortable cushioned chair until his host returned, a square brown package cradled beneath an arm. He set it on the table and reached for the wine, filling two glasses and settling opposite Bannon. He raised a glass and the two men drank. The wine was sweet and crisp and Bannon grinned as he finished it. “How is it?” said the Frenchman.
“Damned fine.”
“I am glad to hear, a little taste of home.”
“Yeah?” said Bannon.
“I miss it, mon ami. And you, you miss America?”