by John Everson
“It’s time,” I say.
It’s all I ever say.
This time he nods, and hangs his head in offering.
Pushing back my cowl to ensure my aim is true, I raise the ancient scythe high enough to touch the moon and then bring it crashing back to earth, sending his wrinkled head rolling to the edge of the river. The boatman will be by soon, but I don’t wait.
Our paths always lead to this, but rarely cross. I have many more barren yards to walk.
Fish Bait
“Not the best stuffed fish I’ve ever seen,” Wayne ventured, staring up at the five-foot-long trophy on the bar’s wall.
“You got that right,” whispered Terry, who raised an eyebrow in lieu of pointing upward. “It’s some kind of small shark, right? They fuckin’ nailed it to the damn wall!”
While normally a mounted fish had an almost plastic, fake sheen to it thanks to the preservatives the taxidermists used, this one’s skin was marred by an array of ragged, uneven scars. The silver of its belly, interrupted by the rusty head of a nail, shaded into a deeper hue at its top fin, where another nail head intruded. Its whole form was wrinkled, shriveled. Worst was the head. An empty, desiccated eye socket topped a gasping mouth that looked poised to snap with a row of twisted, yellowing teeth.
“Hope the beer’s a bit more appetizing,” Wayne agreed. “Though I suppose anything’d taste good at this point.” He shrugged off a backpack and nodded toward the bar.
“What do you want?”
Wayne and Terry had been hiking and camping in the back end of the Rockies for the past five days. They’d left their car with an old friend of Wayne’s in Estes Park and trudged immediately off-road through the deep woods of the national park system with the intent of getting as far from civilization as possible. They took a bag of beef jerky, some canned beans, and an illegal handgun to hopefully add some game to their diet. They had no jobs and figured to return to civilization only when hunger drove them to a road to hitchhike back to their ride. Terry had hoped they might disappear for most of the summer.
“Whatever’s on tap,” Terry said. He scratched idly at the growing black stubble curling across his cheek.
Wayne nodded and walked across the stained wood floor to the bar. A dirty-blonde bartendress in red plastic glasses, who apparently had an issue with underwear (as in, it was obvious that she wasn’t wearing any), nodded at him and bent over to grab two glasses. Terry could see the blur of tattoos beneath the edge of her stained, white, ribbed tank top as she turned. He wondered how her faded khaki shorts stayed up. He had seen the triangular edge of her hips when she faced them, and the pants barely hung off her ass when she bent. He wasn’t surprised to see Wayne try to score small talk with her while she filled the glasses at the tap.
As he turned to carry the two glasses back to the stools of their table, the bass pound of Heart’s “Barracuda” segued to Seger, and Terry found himself humming along to a life-on-the-road song. He was liking this bar already.
They’d been camping just a few yards away from a small gravel road the past two nights, not realizing how close they were to a town, in the dark mesh of branches and brush. The trudge of their boots across the rocky ground, the whisper of the wind through the cathedral of pines, and the steady hiss of a nearby mountain-runoff stream were all they heard. But this morning they’d stumbled across the gravel road, and Wayne had suggested following it downhill a while to see where it led. After only three long curves, they’d found themselves entering the town of Winston, population fifty-seven, according to the faded wooden sign.
The town seemingly consisted of a bar, a three-aisle grocery, a handful of scattered shacks, and a tin silo that was apparently a nondenominational church (it bore no name, but a silver cross dominated the air above its silver doorway).
“I’m not impressed,” Wayne had said as they stood at the mouth of the town, sizing it up.
“Well, we can at least restock and grab a beer,” Terry answered, nodding at the neon Coors sign just a few meters and three decaying buildings away.
“I suppose.”
They’d passed the tin church and what appeared to be a private house before stepping up the wood-plank steps to enter the bar. A sign above the door labeled it as Carioca Morte.
“I hope that means death to karaoke.” Wayne had grinned.
“Whatever,” Terry said. “As long as they have beer. I can’t believe we forgot to pack alcohol.”
“Where there is Coors, there is a hangover,” promised Wayne, and they pulled open the roughhewn wooden handle of the bar door.
They were well on their way to hangovers two hours and four beers later. While they’d been sitting, the bar had begun to fill with a strange mix of overalled rancher types and tattooed, punkish youth. As a band began to set up a xylophone and assorted guitars and amps in the corner, the loosely clad bartendress slipped out from behind the bar to sidle over to their table, tanned belly swaying ever so slightly as she walked. Terry smiled as he noted the blue-etched shark that threatened to swallow her bellybutton with its teeth.
“Hi there,” she said, flashing a line of teeth beneath a face of pale freckles. “I’m Jasmine. Glad to see you boys in here tonight. I’m guessing you ain’t from any place near.”
When neither answered quickly, she offered, “Get you boys something from the kitchen?” She held up a small order notepad. Terry thought the edge of her chin looked as thin as a nail. He shrugged away the image of his tongue licking it.
“Can you get me a burger?” he hazarded, and Wayne took a sip of his beer before answering.
“Got a menu?”
“We can do burgers and dogs,” she said. “And catch of the day is salmon. Cook fries it if you care. We don’t print a menu. We just make what we got.”
“Got any tilapia?” Wayne asked and grinned when she looked at him sidelong, confused.
“It’s a fish,” he offered. “How about some catfish?”
“Out,” she answered. “Wanna try a bit of shark?”
“Ya got shark but not tilapia?” he teased. “You’re not exactly sitting on the ocean. I think I’ll stick with the land bound. Gimme a burger, grill the onions?”
She nodded and headed to the bar, where she spoke to another bartender, a man in a black-and-red-checked shirt. The man’s face was long and marred with pockmarks and a patchy growth of beard. The arm of his shirt hung loosely on the left side. No hand protruded from its dangling sleeve. He disappeared through a door beneath the shelf of whiskey and vodka bottles.
The music had begun alternating between Woody Guthrie and Nine Inch Nails. Then some cow-punk band started in, an earthy female singer vouching psychotically, “I only love pieces of things that I hate.”
“This place is weird,” Wayne hazarded.
“Fuckin’ A,” Terry agreed. “We camp as far away as we can walk tonight, I’d say.”
“We don’t eat something soon, and I ain’t gonna be walking past the church,” Wayne said.
“Was thingin’ the same thing,” Terry slurred.
Both men leaned away from the table and their bottles of half-drank Coors and stared about the bar, noting the women with multiple piercings and deep-cut cleavage, and the men in worn jeans and T-shirts that boasted logos by Chevy, Harley, and lesser-known businesses. Terry focused in on a woman who kept her arm slung over the neck of a thin man in a faded blue button-down shirt. Her eyes seemed on fire, glinting with humor and energy, as she jabbered away at the table next to them, occasionally pressing an open palm to her electric bright T-shirt. Eat me, it said in bold black letters. I’m part of an unbalanced nutritional diet.
The B-52s warbling about a “Rock Lobster” abruptly stopped mid-song, and a swarthy man with a peg leg stepped to the mic and said something in Spanish. Several in the crowd laughed at whatever joke he’d told.
“Hello,” h
e said, switching to English. “Welcome, friends.”
Terry thought his black eyes were staring straight at them. “My name is Petey, and we’ll be playing for you tonight. Just like we do every night.” He chuckled to himself then, white teeth flashing in the dimming light.
The bandleader nodded and the drummer took brush to snare as a white-haired man began to plink out a Cajun-sounding melody on the xylophone. Terry noticed a jagged scar down the center of his forehead that led to a misshapen blob. Half his nose was missing. This is a band that’s seen the low side of down, he thought.
Not too much later, Jasmine reappeared at their table, tummy provocatively displayed as she balanced two plates. Steam rose from piles of fries and two bun-clad burgers.
“Eat up,” she announced and slid the plates to the table. “Get you boys anything else?”
“Naw,” Wayne drawled, imitating her accent. “Not unless you’re on the menu.”
“Special of the night,” she returned. “Only it’s not night yet. You’ll have to stick around and see.” She winked and pulled an unlit cigarette from behind her ear.
Wayne laughed.
“We got a good show tonight,” she offered. “You oughta stick around.” She pointed the unlit smoke at the sign over the door at the back of the room. It was a simple poster, black on white. Its text offered little, simply boasting Carioca Fish Bait Fridays. No deposits, no returns. 7 p.m.
“What, you have some kind of bottle contest here tonight?” Wayne asked.
“No, it’s more of a game,” she said, winking a wide, blue eye. “And we take bets on the winner.”
“What kind of game?” Terry asked. “Chance? Betting? Cards?”
“Yes,” Jasmine said, twisting a kinked strand of wild honey hair between her fingers. She gave them a friendly, freckled grin. “All of the above. I’ll let you know when they start.”
Then she turned and wove through the growing crowd back to the bar.
“What the fuck?” Terry grumbled.
“Yes,” Wayne said. “The operative word is fuck.”
“Get over it.” Terry shook his head. “The looks of that…you’d be going where every man has gone before.”
“I may not have packed heavy,” Wayne said, “but I did pack protection.”
Terry rolled his eyes. “What, you were hoping I’d bend over one night?”
“Naw, I figured you’d bend over in the morning!”
Terry threw a french fry at him. “Get over it. We need to head outta here and set up camp for the night.”
“Just eat your burger. We’ll be fine.”
“I’d suggest you eat your burger,” Terry said. “Cuz you ain’t gonna be eatin’ her.”
Wayne just grinned and took a large bite out of his bun. A splat of grease swam across his plate.
“We’ll see.”
The two ate in silence for a while as the band moved from New Orleans jazz to a strange Mexican-sounding rhythm with a psychedelic twang.
Behind the bar, Jasmine was talking animatedly with the other bartender, waving around her still-unlit cigarette and then tapping it against the bar in a strangely nervous habit. Every now and then she’d lift it to her lips and reach for a lighter, but she always dropped the lighter back to the bar and then continued to tap the unlit tobacco in an unheard drumbeat.
Someone nearby tossed her a pack of matches and yelled, “Consummate the damn relationship with that thing, already!”
Grinning, she struck a match and lit up. But after just a couple puffs, she put the smoke back out and slipped from behind the bar.
“Getcha another?” Jasmine said, suddenly at their table again. Terry raised an eyebrow in surprise as she put a warm hand on his shoulder.
“Next round’s on the house,” she said, amber eyes twinkling. “You boys put plenty in the kitty for tonight, if you know what I mean.”
Wayne grinned, made an inappropriate comment about kitties, and agreed to another round as Terry pinched his midsection, trying to unobtrusively clear his head. The pinch cleared the fuzziness for a moment, but he wondered if he could really soak down one more and still manage to walk back into the wilderness and stake up a tent.
“Getting late,” he ventured as Jasmine’s tattoos swayed their way back to the bar.
“Hmm.” Wayne nodded, taking another bit of his thick burger. “We may not need to camp tonight.”
“Keep dreamin’.”
“From dreams are memories made.”
“You’re crazy, you know that?”
“No more than you. Fuck, the whole reason we’re out here is that you couldn’t keep your little piece of ass happy.”
With that comment, Terry knew Wayne was officially drunk, but it hurt nevertheless. After his breakup with Rochelle, he’d pretty much gone the nose-dive route, at least by the judgment of society. After sulking for weeks and getting written up at work, to the point of being put on a thirty-day probation after nine years of service, he’d cashed it all in and walked away. As it turned out, Wayne had just gotten fired from the lumberyard for insubordination (“All I did was pee on his shoes,” he’d complained) and had no prospects himself. So the two had emptied their apartments, thrown their belongings into a cheap storage cubicle, and hit the road.
“Who needs a roof when you have the national forest?” Wayne had said as they drove up the long, winding road into the mountains, weaving in and out of the snail-paced tourists.
“Not me,” Terry had agreed less than a week ago.
“You boys gonna play?” Jasmine asked, returning with two mugs of amber.
“What’s the game?” Wayne asked.
“Fish bait,” she said.
“That’s you, right?” Wayne grinned. Terry groaned, waiting for the sound of a slap. But the waitress didn’t miss a beat.
“Nope,” she said, adding with exaggerated sultriness, “I hate getting wet. But I like to watch.”
“You’re killing me,” Wayne laughed. “So what’s the game?”
“It’s a floor game,” she said, pointing through the doorway at the back of the bar. “We’ve got a floor laid out with a grid. Two players try to stake out their territory by placing little black rocks on the corners with each turn.”
“Can you put the rocks anywhere?” Terry asked.
“Exactly. But once they’re down, you can’t move them. The goal is for one player to completely capture the board by surrounding and locking up territory.”
“Kind of like a human version of Go.” Terry smiled.
Jasmine looked blank.
“It’s an ancient Oriental board game,” he explained.
She shrugged. “The loser gets a dunk in the tank out back.”
“What does the winner get,” Wayne asked.
“A date with me, if he’s good.” She winked. “You boys in?”
Terry started to decline, but Wayne cut him off.
“Wouldn’t miss it. When does it start?”
From the bar came an awful clanging. Terry looked up and saw the bartender bashing a spoon against a cowbell with his one good arm.
“Right now,” she said. “C’mon.”
Wayne was out of his seat before Terry could say another word. Reluctantly, he slid off his stool and followed the two of them—and most of the other patrons—into the back room.
The Fish Bait room looked much like the outer area of the bar, only there was no bar. The roughhewn plank floor was painted in an interconnecting lattice of black lines laid out in a square grid nine rows deep and nine rows across. The walls were paneled in rough, unfinished pine and bare, except for a handful of stuffed fish, which were nailed to the far wall in descending size. Terry thought of a cartoon he’d once seen where a minnow was being eaten by a fish that was about to be snapped up by a shark, which didn’t notice the whale looming
behind it. The room stank of brine and rotting fish.
The crowd lined up along the walls, and the one-handed bartender stepped into the center of the room.
“All right then,” he yelled. “My name’s Bruce, as ya’ll know, but we got us a couple a’ newcomers, so let’s make ’em feel welcome and let ’em in on a little game of Fish Bait, eh? Do we have any volunteers for t’night?”
The bartender pushed a low-seated pair of glasses back up his nose, scanned the room for the briefest time, and then shook his head.
“Tell you what, let’s keep the odds fair here and let these two gentlemen try a game betwixt the two of them. C’mon out here, boys, and let me teach ya how it’s done.”
Terry held up his hand to decline, but Wayne stepped instantly onto the game field.
“We got us a shy one.” Bruce grinned, looking directly at Terry. “Watch us a bit,” he said. “Then you can play the winner. Jasmine, bring us the pieces.”
Jasmine pushed through the crowd to a wooden box in the back of the room and returned lugging two nets. One held what appeared to be a couple dozen starfish, while the other was filled with dark green turtle shells.
“Goal is simple,” he explained, handing the turtle bag to Wayne and keeping the starfish for himself. Jasmine uncinched the netting for him, and Terry couldn’t help but admire the curve of her barely hidden ass as she crouched. He still couldn’t make out what it was, but the dark sketch of something intricate seemed to rise from below her waistband. Its outline just missed touching the edge of her well-worn shirt. He could almost see her skin through patches of the tight shirt.
“Place a piece on any line intersection,” Bruce explained. “I’ll do the same. It won’t seem like much at first, but after a while you’ll see that we’re fighting to control the board. Whoever does that and blocks out the other player until there are no more moves wins.”
“You’re on,” Wayne said. He dropped his first turtle to the grid with a confident grin.
“We’ll make this a practice round,” Bruce said and placed his starfish close to a corner.