by N. Godwin
“You work the 4th, Randy!” I find myself yelling.
“I’m making an exception this year,” he says, quickly wiping his hands on a bar towel and untying his apron. “I’m taking my thirty minute break,” he says throwing his apron in my surprised face as he grabs a pitcher and two mugs. Without looking back, he leads my swooning, cousin, Ali, who remains glued to his every word, toward a back table that has maddeningly opened up. “Cover me, princess,” he taunts over his shoulder.
As they settle into their first mugs of beer, I situate myself behind the bar and listen to Hobie trying to convince the dudes to convince me to convince Eunice to allow a bunch of women with talented tongues to entertain us for but one glorious evening. Ali is blushing like a thirteen year old while Randy sits across from her and keeps refilling her mug every time she takes a sip of beer. He is showing her all the dog pictures in his wallet, and I’m feeling nauseated. Hobie is at my side pleading again as Andrea slides over to the bar with an order for twenty seven draft beers.
“Just one night,” Hobie begs in my ear.
Alan and John are talking to Killer and Horst. Killer is pissed that what he considers a God-gifted right (weed) is almost impossible to get this summer when there is such a glut of addictive, mind-trashing drugs instead, so he’s arguing around the topic before committing it to debate, because he knows I wouldn’t like it even though it really does piss him off because he believes it’s another government conspiracy. John’s arguing it’s a Latin American conspiracy because of how restless those natives are down there; while Alan tells them emphatically that if they’d just give in and try Jesus they wouldn’t need to argue about any other opiate.
“Yeah, whatever!” John laughs again each time Alan says this. “Okay, you chickens. How about tonight we all go for a jump on my bungee? Come on!” John pleads again.
“No way!” we laugh.
“Dude, how many times we gotta’ tell you we aren’t jumping on no bungee!” Hobie says.
“Amen to that!” Alan agrees.
John looks at us and squawks like a chicken. Then he laughs at Alan: “What, you think your divine maker is just looking for a good reason to squish you flat? Where’s all your faith?”
We laugh as Alan looks heavenward in exasperation.
“Hey, Jimmy-Sue,” Eunice motions to me from her table, “come and tell me if you think this design in the floor looks like Porky Pig. By Jiminy, I think it just might!”
“See?” Robert exclaims, poking Bud in the ribs, “I told you it‘s Porky Pig! And over there you got Sylvester the Cat, and over there you got--”
“Boy, you got too much time on your hands! You need a good hard day’s deck handing.”
“On someone else’s boat!” Otis moans, covering his eyes as Bud finally gives in and invites Robert to deckhand for a day on their boat.
Even though she thinks I’m not paying attention to anyone and that she’s whispering low enough for me not to hear, I can still hear Andrea ask John for a source for some illegal substance and he responds negatively and shrugs: “No smoke. There’s a ton of coke, though.”
Andrea explodes. “Why can’t you guys get any decent smoke?”
“George Bush,” the dudes say in unison.
Andrea seems to take this into consideration. “Man, you guys don’t do no blow! It only makes you want to sell your mother’s refrigerator or shoot your neighbor’s dog for barking. Man, I burned up more vibrators when I --”
“Really?” Hobie squeaks. “You’ve used a… a vibrator?”
“Hobie!” they all laugh as I try to tune them out, wondering if I should shoot this topic down even though I know they’re mostly joking around.
“You’re one pathetic puppy,” John tells him.
“Hey, Andrea,” I hear Hobie lean in to ask. ”If I find you some killer weed would you, ah, you know, let me watch?”
Everyone laughs as Andrea blows a thick smoke ring in Hobie’s face. “Little dude, what you need is a girlfriend.”
“Or a self-help manual!” John locks Hobie in a headlock and knuckles his scalp while everyone continues laughing and I scan the room seeking balance from the atmosphere.
Something was shifting, shifting hard and fast at this very moment.
“Andrea, is it?” I hear a deep masculine voice ask from all around me, and I jerk my head around seeking the source and see Andrea just standing there all but drooling, nodding up at him. “How about I hook you up with someone and you introduce me to your friend?” Apollo asks her.
She keeps nodding up at him as he stands there smiling like the devil and towering over even the tallest dude. His smile is unnerving and it widens as he continues to talk to Andrea but steals amused glances at me. “You’re friend appears to be shy,” he tells her as he gives me a wink.
Our group seems to automatically part as he slowly walks toward me, piercing through our circle then comes to a standstill just across the bar from me, no less than five feet away. I still have twenty five more mugs to fill so I ignore him and keep trying not to get my hand and arm drenched from the leaky, Yingling tap.
“I’ll fuc—flippin’ sell her to you for some smoke!” Andrea gushes. “You got any?” She asks suspiciously as she stares up at his spotless, intimidating uniform. She looks up, all the way up to the large, white hat on the top of his head, with its fierce silver eagle resting on a shield surrounded by golden ropes and anchors, all polished to a high gleam.
“Never touch the stuff,” Apollo replies as he motions over his shoulder with a jerk of his thumb. “Go talk to that redneck in the Tennessee hoodie. Apparently he can hook you up with just about anything.”
Enough!” I say as I turn and stare at the redneck in question. “Banish that redneck,” I tell Ken and Horst who spring into action. “Tell him we’ve got the cops on speed dial.”
But I notice that Andrea has turned and is immediately headed in the direction of the redneck. I groan and glare at the back of her head. “Don’t do it, Andrea!” I shout over the noise. “Don’t!”
She turns on her heels and silently begs me. I stand my ground and give her a serious index point. She changes her course and gives me a salute, then a raspberry as I turn to address Commander Apollo.
“That was totally inappropriate! Drugs could get her kicked out of here and she needs us!” I fume up at him. “We don’t tolerate dealers or pushers or whatever you rationalize yourself to be. And we—no, Commander, I kick customers with stupid ideas off the premises on a regular basis!” I all but hiss at him and look away. “Consider yourself warned.”
“I--I thought it was allowable since they were all joking about--”
“You thought wrong!”
“It won’t happen again,” he says, loosening his collar.
“See that it doesn’t.”
I am concentrating on these beers like a maniac but I have him in my peripheral vision, as I would any other troublemaker. This one seems to provoke me more than the others, so I will engage him no more than necessary. He sits down in the only vacant chair in the place, which, of course, turns out to be some errant stool directly across the bar from me. We are now less than three foot away and his proximity disturbs me.
I ignore him while he takes off his hat and sets it down on the bar between us. He is silent while he runs his long fingers through his hair and takes a deep breath. Once again, his enormous size and the stark contrast of his white uniform to his deep tan and unnatural beauty make his black, foreboding eyes appear even more sinister. Even from this angle, I can see his cunning eyes trying to pierce through the invisible barrier to my thoughts. His eyes feel like lasers and are too warm, so I instinctively take a large sidestep to my right.
“Maybe you’re just shy?” he finally asks softly. “Truly shy, I mean,” he says and puts his elbows on the bar, resting his square jaw on his large hands as he stares me up and down with evident doubt.
I hear laughter as Alan tells him that I’m “one strip shy of a drill
sergeant!” and Hobie laughs along.
“She’s a total control-freak. She lives to keep us all on our knees,” Hobie whines rolling his eyes to the ceiling.
“She does run a tight ship and keeps us our toes, but she can cook, and God knows she’s easy on the eyes,” Alan chuckles.
“Not our toes, dude—it’s our knees,” Hobie’s whining intensifies as he glares at me and sticks out his tongue.
“Well, she is reverent,” Alan considers, “but willful.”
“So, shy is out,” Apollo considers, stroking his chin. “Then maybe you’re engaged or married?”
I feel as if I am a specimen under his microscope, and I am obviously one bacterium he finds highly amusing. I take another step to the right to distance myself and he stands and slides his barstool over closer to me again.
“Or are you very afraid?” he leans in and whispers low enough for only me to hear. As he sits back down he catches Alan’s and Hobie’s eyes and makes a slight jerking motion with his thumb over his left shoulder and they magically take a large step backward and disappear into the mob.
There is an elevating pause whereby I simply stare at him with my mouth hanging open and my fifty-pound tongue struggling against my bottom lip. I must be having trouble breathing because I seem to be holding my breath.
“Will you please take a couple of deep breaths and relax,” Apollo tells me. “Good, good, just like that. Now again. Good, now, doesn’t that feel better?”
“You know I’m not married!”
“Indeed?”
“You’ve been watching me, Commander. I’m not completely stupid.”
“It’s Lieutenant Commander and you’re definitely not stupid,” he says. “And I confess to being impressed.”
“Golly gee.”
“And it’s damn hard to impress me.”
“Although I think I should say spying or stalking me, instead. Either one would work, don’t you think, Commander?” There now, I’ve given him food for thought and he’s the one who looks surprised now. “I know that was you in the plumber’s van across the street from my parent’s house, wasn’t it?” He’s staring at me with his mouth ajar. “And yesterday at the Farmer’s Market you were the fat man in the red beard and the--”
“You’ve actually spotted me?” Apollo stops to whistle. “Damn! I am impressed!”
“Do us both a favor and don’t be. I also saw you up in that tree again this week and I think you’ve been stealing my garbage for pity--”
“I’ve been to your church, too.”
“Dressed as what, Commander, a girl scout?”
“No, I was dressed as myself, actually. Think back. You saw me. We made eye contact several times.”
“The demon in the Armani suit? No way, that beast had long black hair with a beard and--”
“As I said, I came as myself.” He nods at me as I study his face.
“That was you? That was you! Why are you spying on me?”
“Studying you, not spying on you,” he says then pauses to chuckle over something. “Rule one, sweet Helen,” he informs me as he raises a long finger in front of my face. “Know your enemies and keep them close. And keep your lovers even closer still,” he leans over to whisper.
“Oh, good Lord,” I roll my eyes heavenward and ask the ceiling “Are you kidding me here?”
I grab a new mug and concentrate only on pulling back the tap, watching as the cold, golden beer slowly begins to fill the frosted mug. All I can smell are the six different types of beer in my nostrils and an occasional waft of heavenly summer every time the front door opens. I am trying hard to tune him out because he is a spooky, master-manipulator at play and his presence is overwhelming, and he is perfect, too eerily perfect. I look at his chiseled face again, just to make sure. Yep, he’s creepy. There is absolutely nothing about this giant I like or trust.
“That aside, you can’t imagine how much money Uncle Sam’s invested in me to keep me invisible, and you spot me not once or twice but--”
“Seriously, Commander,” I interrupt impatiently. “It’s not that hard once someone knows your physique.”
“Ah,” he chuckles as he places his elbows on the bar, resting his chin in his hand, smiling at me as if I have just betrayed something important, “so you’ve been studying me, too.”
“Am I a threat to national security, Commander or are you just killing time?”
“Ooh, I’d say you’re a definite threat, Helen,” he offers cautiously. “Tell me, does it scare you that someone like me has been studying your every move?”
His question makes me look up in mid-fill of a beer. “Should I be scared?” There is still only silence when the beer finally spills over my fingers.
“I think maybe you should be afraid,” he finally offers in a low voice as he turns his head to watch Robert scurrying by with a tray of food. “Because I’m terrified of this, and I like it too much. Dear God in heaven, I like it way too much.”
“I’ve been watched before!” I blurt out as I angrily thump the over-filled mug on the tray.
“Yeah,” he says with a harsh laugh, “I thought we’d already established that man will do anything for a woman like you. Keep up, Helen.”
“For you’re infor-- look, you don’t faze me. I’ve been stalked by the best before.”
“No, Helen, you couldn’t have been stalked by the best before because I’m the best, the very best.”
“So I’ve heard.” I‘m starting to get more than a little annoyed and I look away to try and temper my anger while I begin to fill another mug.
“Consider yourself warned,” he mocks me.
I stare him straight in the eyes and see only cold, black, steel, and I swallow hard and look away. Okay, I consider myself amply warned and afraid, but he looks like he can read my mind anyway, so I might as well just go ahead and ask him what’s really on my mind right out here in front of God and everybody. I need to ask him the only thing I have to know about him even though I doubt he’d tell me the truth. Before I can ask him, a group of sated customers begin leaving from the table just behind him, disrupting the air between us, and I can feel a sudden flutter of breezes and the typical smell of garlic and wine and honeyed colognes. But there are other scents, too. Mingled in with them is another scent that smells remarkable and I instantly salivate over the scent I cannot place.
This time I completely tune out the demon at my bar when the front doors blows open and a new group of hungry customers step inside. The air is stirred around me again as they pass by on their way to the table which Tony has impressively appeared out of nowhere to bus. There is another wave of cool air and salty beach wind and a sweet reminiscent scent that stirs in my memory like some forgotten dream from long ago. I stretch to remember what and when, and I follow the alluring scent and take a small step closer toward it, breathing it into my nostrils.
There! There it is again… It evokes something lost and buried in my cells until I can almost remember something. I think I smell God in that memory, so I close my eyes reaching for somewhere, breathing the scent deeper into my lungs and trying to guess what this intoxicating aroma might be. With my eyes tightly closed, I lean both hands against the bar as I step up on the short stool under the sink and stretch up on to my tip toes to get closer to the source, inhaling the air again and again. This time I can detect cinnamon and honeysuckle and red currants along with an earthy musk that is haunting, intoxicating... I breathe in deeply, slowly but suddenly feel heat, too much heat and I open my eyes and give a startle cry.
I am almost cheek to cheek with Apollo!
We are facing one another and are so dangerously close we are almost touching. Even more alarming is the realization that he hadn’t moved and inch. I was the one who had initiated this… I gasp again because up this close, the enormous amount of heat coming off him is overpowering, so I jerk back hard and lose my footing as I fall backward off the stool, yet somehow my feet manage to touch back down on solid ground. This tim
e, I take a giant step to the left away from this beast.
After an awkward pause, I just blurt out the only thing I need to know from my encounter with this ridiculous man. “Okay, I get it! I should be afraid! I should be very afraid of you, especially if you’ve, you know-- Okay, here’s one you probably hear all the time, but have you ever, ah, you know, ever killed a… girl?” I mean we might as well get this question over with. “Are you here to kill me?” I ask breathlessly.
His eyes flash over to mine and he laughs out loud. “To kill you?” he laughs again. “Baby-girl, your mind is a curious maze, indeed… Is that all you really think I do, kill people?”
“That’s what everybody thinks you do!”
“Look me in the eyes and tell me if that’s why you think I’m here, to merely resort to killing you?”
“Merely resort to killing me?” I echo as I take a step back.
“Yes, merely, when there’s so much else you need from me and so much else I need from you, so much else, Helen,” he tells me softly, but the muscles of his strong jaws flex and his face betrays a glimmer of something else. “Curious thing, need,” he says tracing his forefinger across the brim of his hat. “Need can bring you to your knees, Helen…Here’s a secret, woman, so listen up.”
“Oh, please don’t tell me a secret,” I moan.
“I’ve devoted a lot of thought for the best strategy in approaching you, and I must confess the answer eluded until I decided against any strategy at all. This is not a game, so from here on out it will be mono e mono, just a boy and a girl who have odd hobbies.”
“Please don’t tell me your hobbies,” I plead as he stares at his watch and I fill beer number 15.
“Consider nothing too sacred to ask me at this precise moment, ask me anything at all. You have a seventy-five second window, starting now.”
“Who are you?!”
“Ah, that’s an easy one. I’m the one you secretly pray against meeting,” he says and slides his hand across the bar towards mine as his shadow eclipses my light.