The Next Cool Place

by Dave Balcom

  That’s when I noticed the two construction workers sitting at a table for two directly behind Mickey’s position at the bar. They were youngish but older than us, maybe 30. They were burnt almost black by the relentless summer sun below the headbands of their hard hats. Their blonde hair was a stark contrast to their skin and days-old stubble on their faces.

  They were talking, it seemed to each other, but in a low whisper that from our position at a table near the end of the bar, next to the pool tables and just inside the screen door that led to the parking lot, we could only catch a word or two or a phrase.

  “Think she … date?” “pussy…” and “dance” were about all I heard. “What makes you think…” but those bits of talk and their cruel chuckles were enough for me to realize that they were making those comments to and about Mickey.

  Greg whispered, “Watch Mickey. Something’s going on, and he’s getting pissed.”

  As I studied him, I saw his hand go to his forehead, then with fingers spread, comb through the length of his hair before he bent down to listen to Joey who was whispering to him.

  “I don’t think that’s going to work,” I heard Mickey say. “Joey, you probably oughtta make that call right now…”

  And with that he pushed himself away from the bar and, with what appeared to be some resignation, he approached the two men at the table, and even from our point I could see the smile in his eyes and hear the charm in his voice. He stood before them, hipshot, with a hand on his right hip, his left hand near his mouth.

  “You fellas all right? You have change to make a phone call?”

  “What’s it to you?” said the wiry, mean-looking hardhat to Mickey’s left.

  “I thought you might want to take a minute to call home and tell whoever’s waitin’ that you’ll be late,” Mickey said with a chuckle.

  “Why would we want to do that?” asked the beefier of the two, on Mickey’s right. “What we have in mind won’t take all that long.”

  “Well,” Mickey said in that affable, good ol’ boy tone of his, “I just thought it might be easier to call now than after you’re outta the hospital, you know, ’cause then you’ll be tryin’ to explain how a 300-pound pussy kicked your asses.”

  Beefy sent a nod at Wiry, and Wiry started to stand up. From where we sat, I couldn’t tell at first what had happened. Wiry just suddenly collapsed straight down below the table. Mickey picked the table up with one hand and tossed it over a nearby railing as he began stomping on Wiry’s head. It all happened so fast, Beefy was still in his chair as Mickey’s right hand flicked out and caught Beefy on the ear, sending him sprawling.

  Beefy scrambled up quickly, and he had only one plan: Flight. He wasn’t quick enough. Mickey caught him at the screen door near our table, grabbed his shoulder and spun him around to catch him by the throat with his left hand. “You wondered if I kissed on the first date, didn’t you? Well, how do you like this?” and with that he threw Beefy through the men’s room door.

  Not that the door opened, it just sort of disintegrated as the big guy went through the doorway, landing on top of the splintered wood on the bathroom floor.

  Mickey went in after him and we heard the man screaming as Mickey kicked him repeatedly until he was unconscious. Mickey reappeared from the bathroom and started walking toward Wiry.

  “Mickey,” Joey yelled from behind the bar. “That’s enough, now.”

  “Not quite, Joey, but we’ll finish outside.”

  He grabbed Wiry by his ear and helped him to his feet. “Remember wanting to dance with me before you fucked me, cocksucker? Well, dancing’s just what we’re going to do.” All this while he pulled the reluctant victim who was crying and pleading toward the parking lot door, “Come on, sweetie. You were such a big tough stud a few seconds ago, let’s dance outside.”

  Mickey threw the man through the screen door into a sprawl on the gravel parking lot and proceeded to kick the rolling, bucking, screaming man across the lot. Finally, he picked him up and threw him into an empty dumpster, the man’s head making a hollow clunking sound on the metal container.

  As he re-entered the tavern, he acknowledged Greg with a nod, and went back to the bar. His voice was so conversational, so calm, despite the heavy breathing from his exertions, that if you hadn’t seen what I had seen, you’d never have believed him capable of such violence. “Sorry, Joey; I just couldn’t handle that shit today,” he told the owner. “Figure out the damages, and I’ll pay ’em. I’ll come by later and replace the door on the shitter and fix the screen, but I’ll make good on the table, chair and stuff.”

  “Sure, Mickey, but you’d better go now. I called the cops when I thought you were going to kill them.”

  “Aw, Joey, you know I’d never kill anyone in your place. See you tomorrow.”

  “Greg,” I said, “I don’t want to be a witness and I don’t think your friend was outnumbered at all.” He tipped up the rest of his beer before he started laughing as we headed out the door. “Can you believe that guy? Have you ever seen anybody as tough as him in your life?”

  I stayed silent, but all I couldn’t help but think of how many tough guys I’d known. Mickey had put on a display of pure violence, but I had seen that before with an added dose of well-trained ruthlessness in action. That combination created toughness beyond anything Greg or Mickey could imagine.

  5

  Mickey’s life celebration was being held at the sportsman’s club just outside Millerstown, on the county road that would take you 15 minutes to Lake Lucy if you were thirsty. I had reserved a room in a new motel in Jennisen, a half hour north of Millerstown on M-66. I figured it would be a good place to leave from for points north, and far enough away from the celebration that nobody would question if I decided to leave early.

  I knew, too, that in the spirit of Mickey’s memory, things could easily develop into a drunken brawl. It had been a long time between tequila shots and beer for me.

  Wolfe wasn’t all that wrong about a man being unable to go home again, but it’s not because home has changed so much. It’s us. I was no more the guy I was in 1974 than those folks who had never left here were. We’d all changed, grown, whatever, and it wasn’t just how we dressed, either.

  Nobody knew me when I drove up, and I was able to wander into the party without recognizing anybody, either. It was just before noon, and people were bringing food and coolers to the party. I had bought a large tray of vegetables and fruits from the grocery store in Jennisen. I’d been gone a while, but I knew you didn’t come empty handed to any party in this world.

  While the years had taken their toll on everyone, the most striking impression for me was how affluent everyone appeared, in a superficial way.

  The women were all made up like television characters, even some with big hair, a style that was in vogue back when we all lived in this neighborhood. The men were all wearing golf attire rather than the jeans and tees that I had remembered. Some of them also wore gold bling, a far cry from the way they dressed back when I knew them.

  Rick was in high gear, and he didn’t look all that different from my memory of him. He was still trim, bearded, and his hair, while much shorter than the old days, was still shimmering black without a touch of gray.

  He still seemed ready to run a 6-minute mile wearing flip-flops, which I had seen him do on a bet once. In fact, he still appeared capable of going the distance in a high school wrestling match at 138 pounds, something he had done twice in the state finals earning standing ovations but no titles.

  He didn’t recognize me until I greeted him, then the look of recognition and pure good humor lighted up his eyes behind his black glasses.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” he said, putting two folding chairs down so he could grab me in a big hug. “I just don’t believe it.”

  Rick introduced me to his wife, Wendy, and their daughter, Jennifer, who was carrying an expensive-looking digital 35 mm camera. “Jenny’s going to record this day for posterity,�
�� Rick said, “Right Jen? She wants to go to Central and be a photo journalist. Maybe you could try and talk her out of it.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, and then looking at her, “Just remember, Jennifer, the press photographer’s creed.”

  “What’s that?”

  “F-eight and be there, babe. F-eight and be there.” She understood it instantly, and we shared an insider’s laugh.

  The rest of the day devolved into a series of vignettes saturated in sadness and pale spring sunshine.

  There was Kathy… She marched in, put her bowl of potato salad on the buffet table, and, with a purpose in mind, gave me that smile. It was a smile that said she’d caught me doing something naughty, and would tell everyone if I didn’t behave. We met in a hug that produced a little glower from the hulk of a guy right behind her.

  “Jim, meet Gary White, my husband,” Kathy said while clinging to my neck. “I warned him I was going to throw myself at you as soon as we arrived, and he has promised to be a good sport about it.” I could hear the familiar teasing tone that had always been part of her nature.

  “Gary,” I said shaking his hand while holding Kathy with my left arm as we leaned away from each other, “I’m happy to meet you as something other than a name on a Christmas card, and I’ll let her go in just a few more seconds.”

  “Keep her,” Gary said back in the same tone of good spirit, “it’s the first sign of passion I’ve seen from her in years.”

  “And these two guys,” Kathy said, “are Phillip Buchanan, Mickey’s son, and Ron White, Gary’s and my son.”

  I reached out to Phillip, who had been about two the last time I’d seen him. “I’m sorry about your dad.”

  He was almost painfully shy, and kept his eyes down as he gave me a limp shake and said, “Thanks.”

  In Ron I saw no shyness. “Hi,” he said, looking me right in the eye. He grinned as we shook, and then added, “I’ve been hearing about you and Mickey for years. You’re some kind of celebrity around these parts. There are all kinds of legends about you two guys.”

  I laughed. “And I bet they’re better with each telling.”

  The noise level went up as more and more people entered the hall until it topped out at a steady roar.

  The smell of barbecued pork was heavy on the air as people stood and sat around in small groups, remembering Mickey, talking about old times, and enjoying the sunshine and mild temperatures – doing what people always do after weddings and funerals – catching up.

  I saw Ray Means, known as “the Stork” for his six-foot, eight-inch height and his angular frame, regaling a bunch of guys much younger than he with stories of his days in the oil fields of northern Michigan, interlaced with memories of Mickey.

  I had eaten more than usual and had a couple of brews, and finally I found myself on a bench, leaning against a tall pine. The spring day was full of sunshine and a gentle breeze. I was drifting off, and then I saw Ron White and Ray Means together, by themselves, in the shade.

  It was obvious that they were in deep conversation, and that Ron was arguing angrily.

  Means never took his eyes off the crowd as Ron talked. Means kept shaking his head. Finally, he just made a cutting gesture with his hand and mouthed the word, “No.”

  As Ron started to walk away, Means grabbed his arm, and I could read his lips, “Enough! What the fuck are you thinking?”

  Later, the beer had started to take effect, and by this time some of the boys were passing around a bottle of tequila and others were getting maudlin in their memories of Mickey. Kathy, as first wife, shared in those memories; even starred in some of them.

  “I’m curious, Kathy, as to where Mickey’s other family is today. Were they invited?” I asked.

  Mickey’s remarriage had produced a son by wife number two.

  “Sure, Ginny was invited, and I’m a bit surprised she didn’t come, but she was never really a part of this group. She met Mickey after he moved away, and after he hooked up that wireless deal. They lived a completely different lifestyle after he cornered the cellular market north of Highway Ten.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You knew he sold farm equipment, right? That was about the time you headed off to New York, the first time. You should have seen him then. You had to feel sorry for those good ole boys when Mickey was kickin’ tires with them, talkin’ a blue streak about how they could power their whole farm on the methane gas comin’ out of their silage… they never had a chance. He set the record of records, sold three million dollars’ worth of that equipment his first year, and doubled it the second… tall clover.

  “It’s funny, but selling was a new drug for him. He was just getting a taste. He really became hooked on success. Golly, that boy could talk anybody into anything …

  “So, he gets a tip that you can buy up the franchises for these wireless networks for next to nothin’ and he had the ready capital to leverage, so, you know Mickey, he bought every one of them in the lower peninsula north of Highway Ten. That’s how he became rich, caught the big boys nappin,’ and when they found out, they beat a path to his door.”

  I had never heard this story, and I was intrigued. Cell phones were such an ubiquitous part of our world in 2005 it was hard to remember when they were rare or even unheard of.

  “Yes, Mickey claimed he was tipped by a drunken lawyer he was pool hustlin’ in Lansing. He slept on it, and was at the Secretary of State’s office the next morning when it opened. The rest, as they say, is history.”

  “So, then he met Ginny?”

  “He met her up in Traverse City while he was trying to put the network together. He still thought he was going to be in the business, you know, running the wireless empire of the north. He was so leveraged then he didn’t have a pot or a window yet. No, she fell for the Mickey’s charms just like the rest of us, only her timing was better.”

  “So he has another son?”

  “Yup, Seth is his name, but I don’t know much about him. I guess he’d be twenty-two or so. I think he is in graduate or maybe law school. They live down state, but I don’t know where. I haven’t heard from them since the divorce.”

  “Divorced? Again? What this time?”

  She gave me that half smile again. “Oh, no, he never hit her that I know of. I think I cured him of that for good, but they went different ways. All I know is that one night Mickey shows up at the bar in Lake Lucy with Miss Shar-lotte, nineteen seventy-four, on his arm. Wicked witch of the north, for sure.”

  “Made a great impression on you, huh?”

  “On everybody. Ask Rick, she made a lasting impression on him once, too.”

  Rick had quietly come up behind me, and had been listening to us without saying anything. Kathy was looking past me as she spoke, so I guessed he was there. When he finally spoke, I realized he was well on the way to being righteously drunk.

  “Hell yes,” he said. “She directed ole Rick away from the path to perdition, that’s what she did all right. She stuck a twelve gauge shotgun in ole Rick’s kisser and said, ‘You can have your face, but the drugs and your money are out of the question… so you choose.’ Ole Mickey handed over the money, I put my van in gear and hustled our asses right back home to Lake Lucy.”

  I wasn’t sure how much of that story Kathy knew, and I had heard it from both Rick and Mickey back when Kathy and Mickey were still married. It seemed to be a lot funnier than it had been the first time I heard it, and I wasn’t sure what to say when she piped up.

  “You know it was amazing how much he talked about her and that few seconds. He was obsessed with her. He called her the ‘beautiful Miss Shar-lotte’ and went on and on about how beautiful and mysterious she was.”

  Rick quit laughing for a minute and shook his head. “Mickey once told me if he ever ran into her again, and she wasn’t pointing a gun at him, he’d drop whatever else he had goin’ and ask her to marry him in a New York minute. He never forgot her, either. Then one day she waltzes into his l
ife, all grown up and sophisticated and he was helpless; he divorced Ginny as fast as he could and went courtin’ Miss Shar-lotte, and lo and behold, that was really her name, Charlotte Davis.”

  “You mean he didn’t know her name was Charlotte?”

  “Hell, no! He was calling her ‘Miss Shar-lotte’” he said phonetically. “Because that’s where we met her. We had scheduled the buy for the IGA parking lot in Charlotte, the city. We had peddled all that dope that winter from the crop Mickey grew out by the dump, and we had decided we could make more money with cocaine or acid, so we talked our buddy Reese into scouting around Lansing for us, and he gets us in contact with one of the dealers down there.

  “Mickey and I went down to meet him, and he made us a pretty good offer. We were going to purchase about fifty grand street value worth of coke for sixteen thousand in cash. We set up the deal for Charlotte because he didn’t want to come here and we didn’t trust Lansing…”

  “She must have been some gal, bracing you guys like that. Did Reese help set up the rip off?”

  “No way, man. Reese was and still is a true friend. No; Ricardo, the dealer, was sending us a message about what it means to be a tough guy. It was pretty clear to me that we were playing in a different league.” He had a far away look for a minute, “She has this great hummingbird tat on her left hand and a look as deadly as you can imagine. Mickey gave the bag of money to somebody standing outside the passenger door, she blew us a kiss, and vanished. Luckiest night of my life, really.”

  “Have you seen her since she and Mickey were hooked up?”

  “Just once. He brought her by to show her off. We all had a good laugh about misspent youth. She’s drop-dead gorgeous, even now, but there’s still something very cold about her look. And when they left, she gave me one of those blown kisses again … I read the message that they wouldn’t be back, and they weren’t.” Then, a far away look resettled on his face, and he added, “And, you know, I don’t think I’ll be heart broke if I never see her again.”