Red’s Hot Honky-Tonk Bar

by Pamela Morsi

Red was shocked almost to disbelief.

  “I haven’t condemned it,” the little man, with a pen in his hand and another behind his ear, told her. “You can still use it for access to the stairway and for storage, you just can’t serve people out there or have musicians working.”

  He slapped a handwritten sign on the inside of the back door that read:

  EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY

  NO CUSTOMERS BEYOND THIS POINT!

  “My God, haven’t you people done enough to me?” Red complained. “Are you trying to kill my business?”

  “I have no interest in your business one way or another,” the man assured her. “You’re welcome to appeal. Call city hall and get on the waiting list for reconsideration. But until my decision is overturned, don’t even be tempted to open that space to the public. We do random checks and a violation won’t just result in a stiff fine. We can get your license pulled. And that will kill your business.”

  After he left, Red felt physically sick. She walked out on the patio to get some fresh air and ended up sitting in one chair with her feet propped up on another. A gorgeous blue sky arched overhead. She pulled her hair away from her neck and back and held it atop her head as she stared across the devastation that had once been her serene sanctuary. She could no longer see the river. Across the wide divide, the trees that had once lined the far bank were all gone. What was left was a muddy slope decorated with bulldozer treads.

  Red closed her eyes and tried to listen for the water, the buzzing of bees, the wind in the leaves. The only sounds she could hear were those of workers and construction vehicles.

  Deliberately, although with some effort, she quieted those sounds in her mind and drifted back to the peace of the faraway farm that had always been there for her.

  The little girl that she once was sat beside her daddy, happy and content as they listened to the rushing water of a farm creek and watched the afternoon sun slip beyond the trees.

  “I wish every day could be just like today,” she told him.

  “No, Red,” her dad answered. “It just can’t be that way.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’ve got to have our bad days to make us notice the good ones, I guess,” he said. “Though I have to admit, this one has been too fine for anyone to ignore. I’m happier sitting on this grassy bank with my redheaded girl than doing anything else in life.”

  He hugged her close and smiled down at her. Red could see that smile in memory as clearly as if it had happened an hour ago, instead of forty years earlier.

  “This is something I won’t forget,” her dad told her. “Not even when you’re grown up with a husband and children and living far away from me. I’ll hold this precious time when it was just me and my girl in my heart, to get me through every lonely hour after you’re gone.”

  Red felt a hand on her shoulder and snapped upright, her eyes wide open. Cam was beside her. He seated himself in the chair where her feet had been.

  “Whoops, I didn’t mean to scare you. I came out here to give you a hug and hold your hand,” he said. “I thought you might be crying, but I see you’re a million miles away again, sitting here with a smile on your face.”

  She started to dispute his words, to get mad or make a joke, something, anything to throw him off the track. But, surprising both of them, she didn’t.

  “I was thinking about my dad,” she said.

  “Ah…” he said, nodding slowly. “You have a dad.”

  “Had,” she answered. “He died when I was a teenager.”

  There was a quiet moment between them.

  “Then we have that in common,” Cam said. “Mine was killed in a traffic pileup on Interstate 10. What about yours?”

  “Heart attack,” Red said. “He was driving a hay mower and just keeled over. Folks said that he was dead before he hit the ground.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Cam said.

  Red laughed, but it came out so strained, it was almost a choking sound.

  “Thank you. It was a long time ago,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “But it’s never that far away, is it?”

  She thought about that and then nodded.

  “I guess it’s not,” she agreed. “He was a great guy. You would have really liked him. And, you know, I think he would have liked you.”

  “Thanks,” Cam said. “You were really close to him, huh?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “He and my mom were divorced. He was…he was my whole life. What about you? Were you close to your dad?”

  “Not so much. My mom had been sick and I was so involved with her that I didn’t even have an ounce of anything to spare for him. She died first, slowly, really painfully. And I was still so angry, grieving so much, that losing my dad a year later was almost a nonevent. I felt like he’d been gone forever and his funeral just made it all official.”

  Red felt a strong pang of sympathy for the young man that Cam once was. She reached up to lay her hand against his cheek. He turned his face enough to plant a kiss on her palm.

  “Is your mom dead, too?” he asked.

  Red immediately withdrew her hand. “No, I’m sure she’s alive and well. Though I haven’t actually checked on that in about thirty years.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not,” Red answered. “Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and move on.”

  She started to get up, but Cam stopped her by laying an arm across the chair.

  “What?”

  “I just wanted to thank you for sharing with me,” he said. “It wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “No,” she admitted, a bit surprised at the truth. “I thought I couldn’t talk about it, but it was fine.”

  “Good.”

  He let her go and she rose to her feet.

  “So, what are you thinking about all this?” he asked. “Is this one of those times when you just cut your losses and move on?”

  “No,” she answered with a determined sigh. “This is one of those times where we figure out how to set up a postage-stamp-size stage inside the bar with the least amount of equipment we can get by on.”

  To: buildabetterbridge@citymail.com

  October 7 9:16 a.m.

  From: Livy156@ABrats.org

  Subject: Hi Mom!

  U will never guess what I got 2 do! Nayra and I went to the High School football game. SO COOL! Nayra’s m&d took us but they didn’t make us sit with them. We sat with some other kids from school. Kaya and Jocelyn. Jocelyn is not too bad really. Nayra and I think she could be a friend. She has a great personality and that is why we like her. Mixon does not have any personality at all. She is maybe the prettiest girl in school but I agree with Nayra. Mixon is a horses bottom! (Nayra didn’t say bottom, but she was not talking to her Mom like I am. ha-ha)

  Mixon wore a cheerleader skirt to the game and her blouse had little blue and yellow pom-poms and megga fones on it. She thinks she is so much. She waved at us but she sat with her sister’s friends from Junior School. I bet her sister got sick of that.

  Daniel wined because I got to go and he didn’t. So today Cam is taking both of us to a rodeo in Hunt where his band is playing at noon. I don’t know if the Red person will go with us or not. A lot of stuff is going on at the bar. She is moving the tables around to make it small or something.

  I luv U and miss you. Daniel does 2. We are ok and having a good school year. So don’t worry about us. Get all the sleep U can and email me anytime.

  Livy

  17

  The new lease contract arrived from Merton, Wythe and Stone Development Properties on the same afternoon as the moving party at the Ramirez’s restaurant. Red didn’t have time to look at it. Instead, she stuffed it under the cash drawer, vowing to go over every word when she had the time.

  She’d brought the kids down to the bar with her and they were hanging out on the patio. She went outside to join them.

  The place looked completely different than it had only a few weeks ag
o. She’d left only two tables on the much-shrunken patio. The old stage was now utilized for storage of all of the tables and chairs that used to make money for her every night. Her seating capacity had gone from a hundred thirty-two patrons to ninety-two. Of course, people could still stand, but without the open area on the patio, there was just a feeling of crowdedness that made standing less desirable. A big chunk of her business now walked through the door, only to turn around and walk back out again. Red knew that even the most loyal customer, turned away more than once or twice, would just find somewhere else to go.

  Her beer sales had dropped by fifty percent, as well, and she had let Graciela go. She’d hated to do it, but the business could no longer support three waitresses. As things turned out, some good actually came out of it. Nata, already dealing with his job moving across town, was so thrown by the possibility of losing track of Graciela that he suddenly found the courage to declare himself and pop the question. Mrs. Ramirez was hopeful that, in the new location, there would be a job for Graciela, as well.

  Red couldn’t resist a smile as her gaze focused on the three occupants of the patio area. Cam was sitting at one of the tables, and Daniel was kneeling on the chair beside him. They were both busy using colored chalk on the bar’s blackboard.

  “What’s going on?” Red asked.

  “We’re working on signage,” Cam answered.

  Red leaned over the table to examine it critically. The message was written in the crisp, clean strokes of Cam’s penmanship.

  Closed for a party

  Join us

  Ramirez Restaurant

  3 blks north

  The words were surrounded by artistic depictions of colorful streamers, stars, flowers and what looked to be fish.

  “Why the fish?” Red asked.

  “For my favorite, fish tacos,” Daniel replied earnestly. “That’s what I’ll miss most.”

  “It’s not that we won’t go to their new restaurant,” Olivia informed her brother.

  The young girl was standing behind Cam with a rattail comb and a determined frown. She was about halfway through the elaborate process of French braiding Cam’s hair.

  “And you’re getting a new hairdo for the party?” Red’s tone was teasing. “The princess look really suits you.”

  Cam stuck his tongue out at her, but refused to take offense. “You know, Livy,” he said to his would-be stylist, “it’s your grandmother that you ought to be practicing on. She’s really got the hair to carry this off.”

  Olivia glanced up, giving Red a look of professional hair assessment.

  “Yeah, she’d be great,” Olivia agreed. “But she’ll never sit still for long enough.”

  “Ah…” Cam agreed. “So I was chosen for my sedentary qualities, rather than my luscious locks.”

  “Thinner hair is better to learn on,” Olivia said very matter-of-factly. “Your hair is kind of strange, especially here in the front.”

  Red leaned closer to assess what Olivia was talking about. The girl ran her fingers curiously along his hairline.

  “I think what you have here is the beginning of a new world for Cam,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Yeah,” Cam asked. “Am I going to have to change my look to a French braid on a permanent basis?”

  “No, that won’t be the answer,” Red said. “I think the technical term for what Olivia’s detected here is male-pattern baldness.”

  The two children both had sharp intakes of breath.

  “Baldness? Cam is going to be bald?” Daniel asked.

  “Oh no, this is terrible,” Olivia said. “Your beautiful hair!”

  To Red’s surprise, Cam laughed.

  “Hey, I’m not kidding,” Red said.

  He grinned up at her. “I know you’re not,” he said. “It’s one of the things I really like about you. You never try to pretty up the realities.” He reached over and wrapped an arm around her hip, pulling her closer. “I guess I’ll just have to leave the gorgeous hair to you, Red. Are you still going to love me when my nickname is ‘Cueball’?”

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever said that I love you,” Red pointed out.

  He nodded. “I know, you’re always playing hard to get.” Then he pinched her backside.

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to pinch you, I was aiming for the armadillo.”

  “You were aiming for the armadillo?” Daniel asked, confused. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing,” Cam assured him. “Grown-ups are just crazy, crazy, CRAZY!”

  “I think losing his hair is making his brains spill out,” Red told the children. They both laughed.

  A few minutes later, with Cam’s elegant hairstyle completed and the blackboard sign hung on the front door, Red locked up and they walked up Avenue B toward the restaurant. The ill-maintained sidewalk had weeds growing through its cracked and buckled concrete, and the pavement itself was an obstacle course of potholes. Except for VFW Post 76, housed in an old Victorian house set back on Tenth Street, the buildings were either boarded up or festooned in burglar bars. The kids ran ahead, Daniel acting positively goofy. Olivia was a bit more circumspect, but she was having fun, too.

  Typically, Cam would have been hanging with the kids, being as crazy and silly as they were. But today, he walked sedately at Red’s side and clasped her hand.

  Red wasn’t much of a hand-holder. She preferred to relegate physical contact to the bedroom, where it belonged. But strangely, she wanted this memory, walking down the street with a man who loved her and cared about her, in the wake of two happy children. If someone glanced in their direction and maybe squinted slightly, they might mistake them for a happy young family.

  If things had gone just a little bit different, Red might have had a chance at something like that. But life had gone as it had. Nothing could change that now.

  “What?” Cam said beside her.

  “What what?” she responded.

  “You were just looking very relaxed, very content, and then something came across your face. What kind of shadows are we working with here, Red?”

  “No shadows at all,” she lied. “Hurry up, slacker. The kids are getting too far ahead of us. You can always count on a musician to be running late.”

  He grinned. “I think a better way to look at it is that fiddlers always take their time. And I believe that’s one of the things you’ve always liked about me.”

  Red teased him right back. “How about later, you see if you can remind me why I’ve liked you?” she suggested. “When we’ve got a bit more privacy.”

  He stopped walking and abruptly pulled her into his arms. “I love you, Red,” he told her just before his lips came down on her own.

  “Cam and Grandma standing in the street, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

  Red pulled away from him. “You’re going to embarrass the kids,” she said.

  Cam gave a quick glance in their direction. “They don’t seem embarrassed,” he pointed out.

  He was right. Daniel was grinning ear to ear and Olivia was giving her a thumbs-up.

  “The kids aren’t embarrassed at all,” Cam repeated. “It’s you who’s doing all the blushing.”

  It was true. And for Red it was a bit humiliating. She should be way too old, too hardened, too cynical to allow a sweet kiss and the trifecta of the romantic words, “I love you,” to make her heart flutter. It was embarrassing and she was sure that she looked ridiculous. Deliberately she pulled her hand out of his grasp and toughened her tone.

  “It’s the advantage of the redheaded complexion. I used to get paid good money for that,” Red told him. “The old men especially loved to see me blush like a virgin while I lap danced like a nympho atop their stiff little wieners. It was always good for an extra twenty in my G-string.”

  Cam’s smile thinned into one straight line, but he purposely took her hand once more.

  “I don’t care what you did ten years ago or twenty years ago,” he said
. “You can’t push me away with your past, so you might as well stop trying.”

  They reached the Ramirez Restaurant and went inside. The place was already full of well-wishers and good cheer. And the smells of the food were mouthwatering. But Red found it difficult to throw off a feeling of sadness. All the Mexican pottery that had decorated the walls had been taken down and transported to the new place. The old photographs of the Ramirez family, her parents’ wedding picture, she and her sister in matching fiesta dresses, the seventies vintage photo of the restaurant when it first opened, were all packed away. The faint squares on the bare walls where they had hung for so long were a testament to the loss Red felt. Avenue B wouldn’t be the same with this place gone.

  She smiled as much as she could and tried to pull herself into the festive mood of those around her. There was plenty of laughing and talking. Once the mariachis arrived and conversation became impossible over the music, the crowd got down to the very serious business of eating. Mrs. Ramirez had made her usual platters of quesadillas and enchiladas for the kids. The grown-ups groaned in culinary delight at her more rarely served but beloved cortadillo, beef tips in red sauce and the cochinita pibil, roast pork flavored with achiote seed and wrapped in banana leaves.

  The great food improved Red’s mood and before long she was genuinely enjoying herself. She didn’t know everyone in the crowd. Except for a couple of the sons and daughters, Red didn’t know any of the dozens of Ramirez family members. Mrs. Ramirez’s sister, la gorda, was easy to spot and hard to miss. She was ordering people here and there in a manner that suggested the place was as much hers as her sister’s.

  There were people from the church that Red had never met, as well as many of the family’s neighbors. But the majority of the celebrators were people who also patronized the bar.

  Red sat for several minutes talking with Alfred and his mama. Alfred was probably about Red’s age. He still lived at home and except for his job and his night or two per week at the bar, his whole life revolved around taking care of “Mama.” Mama was a charming old lady. She had a quick smile that crinkled her whole face and when she laughed, her whole body quaked. But she was hard to feed. Alfred brought her sample after sample of the food what was available and none of it suited her. Her slight, skin-on-bones frame suggested to Red that she had simply lost her appetite completely.