The Ice Harvest

by Scott Phillips

  The boy rose from his chair with something between a sob and a war cry and leaped onto Culligan, whose chair gave under him with an audible crack. “Shut up, shut up,” the boy sobbed over and over.

  “Fuck,” Sidney said, reaching down for his baseball bat. Charlie moved to one side to allow him to vault over the bar, and the big man strode across the room, thumping the bat into his left hand. Rusti looked down on the scene in horror. “Donny!” she yelled. “Quit it! Get up off of him!” Donny seemed not to hear her. His comrades rose up nervously as if to come to his aid, but a glance from Sidney was enough to get them moving backward and away from the struggle.

  “I’m a cripple, I’m a cripple,” the old man howled, “don’t hurt me!” In fact Donny was just holding him down in a bear hug, and Charlie almost felt sorry for the lad when he heard the impact of the bat on his knee. The boy screamed in pain and shock and rolled off of Culligan and lay there holding the knee, wide-eyed and breathless. Culligan, realizing that he was essentially undamaged, sat down in another chair.

  “Sidney, stop! That’s enough!” Rusti cried from the stage. Donny looked up for a moment at her, heartened by this show of compassion from his beloved, and then the bat caught him on the right shin, at which point Rusti jumped down from the stage and threw herself over him, weeping. “Donny, Donny, did he hurt you?”

  Breathing hard, Sidney leaned jauntily on the bat like a cricket player. “Fuckin’-A I hurt him.”

  The three boys who were still standing started to move for the door. “Hey,” Sidney barked, straightening up and extending the bat toward them. They froze where they stood, terrified. He swung the bat in the direction of the highball glass with its lone ten-dollar bill. “Tip the lady.” They stepped dutifully forward and around their fallen comrade, and each stuffed a couple of dollars into the glass before heading once again for the door. “You don’t have to leave, boys,” Culligan cried out, his short-term memory too feeble to hold much of a grudge. “Stick around for Amy Sue’s number; she’ll get you good and hot.”

  “Yeah,” Sidney said. “Stick around. Your buddy’s gonna have to wait outside, though.” Donny still lay on the floor, weeping in Rusti’s arms.

  “Donny, Donny . . .” She cradled him gently, brushing his hair with her short fingers. “Poor little Donny baby.” He said something nobody could make out. “What? I can’t hear you.”

  He spoke up. “Ronny,” he said. “My name’s Ronny.”

  Amy Sue, a skinny brunette in shiny blue bikini panties and a matching bra, was punching up tunes on the jukebox. She looked over the room, only mildly discouraged at the size of the audience. Her first song came on and she climbed onto the stage and started to dance.

  “All right,” Sidney said, tapping Ronny’s hiking boot with the tip of the bat. “Time to go, pal.”

  “Come on, Ronny,” Rusti said. “We’ll go sit in my car while your buddies watch Amy Sue.” She helped him to his feet and covered herself with the robe Amy Sue had just removed; then she took the sheepskin coat from her unsteady, blubbering champion and put it on. He didn’t seem to notice, overwhelmed simultaneously by the pain in his knees and by the unexpected attention of his feminine ideal. She accompanied him outside and his friends shrugged and sat back down. They still had most of a pitcher of beer left.

  Sidney got back behind the bar and set a fresh beer down in front of Charlie. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said, “what’s next?”

  Despite his earlier endorsement, Culligan found himself losing interest in Amy Sue and he limped over to Charlie, bracing himself on the scuffed Formica tables as he passed them. “Any chance you might be heading out to the ’Rama tonight, Charlie?”

  An hour ago there hadn’t been, but now there was the matter of getting the photo out of Bill Gerard’s hands and into Renata’s. “Yeah, I guess I’m heading out there now. You need a ride?”

  Culligan’s head bobbed idiotically. “Sure do.”

  Charlie swigged his fresh beer down to the foam and slid off his bar stool. “I’ll be back later,” he told Sidney.

  “Bring some customers back with you,” Sidney said. “We’re not gonna make shit tonight.”

  “I will,” he said. Amy Sue stared after them as they headed for the door, hurt that they were taking off in the middle of her act. Neither Charlie nor Culligan gave her a second thought on their way out.

  3

  “I believe that boy hurt me.” Tiny specks of saliva flew from Culligan’s lips onto the passenger window as he spoke. He held his crooked left arm straight out to his side, letting it swing to and fro from the elbow like a pendulum, coming perilously close to Charlie’s right arm with each swing. “This arm hasn’t been right since forty-three.”

  “War?”

  “Aw, fuck no, I wasn’t in the war. Hockey. See, all the aircraft plants had teams; we used to play out at the ice rink Sundays. A lot of fellas stateside felt like they had something to prove, figured everybody took ’em for four-F or queer or yellow, so we ended up fighting more than playing. I don’t imagine there was ever anybody in the crowd came wanting to watch any hockey.”

  “I remember. My dad took me to a couple games; I must have been about six or seven. Tail end of the war.”

  “Well, sir, that’s what happened to my arm and my hip, and I got a trick knee too you could probably put down to a time this fat-ass welder body-checked me right into the side of the rink. I went after him with my stick, damn near put out his eye.” The old man smiled placidly, savoring the memory.

  Snow had started to come down lightly and the county road was dark, the street lamps few and far between. There was no traffic heading north away from town, and Charlie knew the club would be empty. One last chance for him to listen to the dancers piss and moan about how slow it was, as though Christmas were something he’d dreamed up himself just to fuck them over.

  Beside him Culligan recited a litany of all the drunken insults his body had endured over the years: concussions, dislocations, broken bones, a third-degree burn on his good arm. Nearly all of these were directly or indirectly self-inflicted; Rusti’s young admirer was far from the first drunk Culligan had goaded into felonious assault.

  “You ever been married, Charlie?”

  “What?”

  “I said you ever been married?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Then you know what I’m talking about. Deadlier than the male. See this here . . .” Culligan pointed to a jagged, narrow strip of smooth pink skin that neatly bisected his left eyebrow and ran another inch up his forehead. “Another half-inch down I woulda lost the eye.”

  “Your wife did that?”

  “She sure as hell did. Gave her what for, too.”

  “You hit her?”

  Culligan was appalled. “I never hit a woman my whole damn life. Christ, what the hell you take me for?”

  Charlie shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “Fuck no, I walked out on her, left her with two school-age kids to support.”

  “Didn’t know you had kids.”

  “Sure. Her two, plus another girl, she’s about your age. None of ’em’ll have anything to do with me now. Their mothers poisoned ’em against me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Hell, I don’t care. Some of us just wasn’t made to be dads.” He was silent for a moment. “Do you know if Cupcake’s dancing tonight?”

  As they pulled into the parking lot Charlie noted, pointlessly now, that the neon sign needed repair again. The dancing girl’s white go-go boots were both dark, and so were the T and the O in “Tease-O-Rama.” There were three cars in the lot. “Looks like you’re gonna get a show all to yourself,” Charlie said. The snow was coming down a little harder now.

  Inside, one of the dancers was shrieking at the bartender, who looked up at Charlie and Culligan’s arrival. The dancer paid them no mind.

  “Fuck working Christmas for no money!” She had on a shiny gold G-string and nothing else. “I’m not gonna operate at a loss on a go
ddamn holiday! I could be at home enjoying Christmas Eve with my kids!”

  “Your husband’s got your kids, Francie,” the bartender reminded her in a gentle, monotonous baritone. “They’re in Denver.”

  “Fuck you for throwing that in my face, Dennis.” She sat down on a stool and started crying.

  “Now, come on, Francie, it’s not so bad. See? Culligan’s here.” Francie looked up, wet-eyed, at Culligan and Charlie. Culligan was overjoyed at the sight of her. “Howdy, Francie. Like your new hairdo.” She had on the same wig she always wore, long black curls that fell halfway down her back. Charlie had known her for ten years and had no idea what her real hair looked like. As far as he knew she might have been completely bald under there.

  She ignored Culligan and unloaded on Charlie. “You heard what I told Dennis. I’m not going on. Fuck paying you a twenty-five-dollar stage rental; I’ll be lucky to make ten tonight.”

  Culligan was hurt. “You know I’m good for twenty, Francie.”

  “That still puts me five bucks in the hole. Fuck paying Bill Gerard five bucks for the privilege of letting that randy old pervert stare up my twat all night.”

  Charlie sighed. The old speech, one last time. He’d made it a thousand times in six or seven years, probably a hundred of those to Francie alone. “Francie, you can’t just work the nights you want. You want to work the hot nights, you gotta work the cold. You miss a scheduled night without a goddamn good reason, you lose your spot. Understand?”

  “I understand it’s Christmas Eve, there’s nobody in here, and I still gotta pay a twenty-five-dollar stage rental even though there’s nobody to fucking dance for!”

  Culligan’s voice was thick with hurt and desire. “I’m here,” he choked.

  “Go on, Francie, dance for old Culligan,” Dennis droned from behind the bar.

  She turned back to him in a fury. “I already told you, even if he gives me twenty I’m still five in the hole!”

  “I could make it twenty-five, sweetie,” Culligan whimpered.

  “And I’m still dancing for free!”

  Charlie held up his hand. “Tell you what, Francie. It’s Christmas Eve. If you’ll go on, your stage rental’s on the house.”

  Francie was stunned into an unaccustomed momentary silence. Dennis raised an appraising eyebrow at Charlie, then turned back to his bar inventory. Culligan pressed forward and took Francie by the hand and led her toward one of the tiny stages. She looked back at Charlie, uncertain exactly how to interpret the gesture. “Thanks, Charlie,” she said.

  “So what makes you such a friend to the working girl all of a sudden?” Dennis set a beer down on the bar in front of Charlie, then turned and flicked the PA system on.

  “Merry Christmas, Dennis.” He picked up the beer and took a long pull at it. On the small stage, Francie had begun dancing for an enraptured Culligan to a syrupy pop song. “Who else is here?”

  “Cupcake. She’s in the office. Told her I’d yell if anyone showed up.”

  “She pay her stage rental yet?”

  “Course she did.”

  “Give it to me.”

  Dennis looked skeptical, then turned to the cash register. “You clear this with Vic?”

  “Don’t have to. I’ll cover it myself if I have to.”

  Dennis handed him two tens and a five. “I don’t think that’s the point, Charles. I think it’s the precedent you’re setting.”

  “It’s Christmas Eve, Dennis. God’s birthday.” He walked back toward the office with Cupcake’s refund. Francie had already dropped her G-string and she crouched awkwardly, concentrating hard, trying to take a five-dollar bill from Culligan’s palsied hand with her labia.

  Cupcake sat in a shiny gold bikini at Charlie’s desk reading a paperback biography of Gandhi, swiveling the chair in listless semicircles to the time of the music outside. She barely looked up as Charlie walked in.

  “I suppose the music means we got customers.”

  “Just Culligan. Here.” Charlie handed her the money.

  “What the fuck is this, my Christmas bonus?”

  “It’s your stage rental. It’s on the house tonight.”

  She looked skeptically down at the bills in her hand, then shrugged and put the money in her purse. “I can always use twenty-five bucks. Thanks.” She frowned. “I saw Desiray’s kids this morning.”

  Charlie swallowed. “Where?”

  “They’re staying over at her sister’s house. I brought them each a little present.”

  “Kids okay?”

  “How could they be? Jesus, Charlie. I don’t think the sister’s too worried about Desiray, either. Good riddance, far as she’s concerned.”

  Charlie wasn’t eager to think about Desiray. “Well, she’ll turn up eventually.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure she will. Just like Santa’s gonna be coming down the chimney tonight.”

  Charlie coughed a little, trying to dislodge a speck of itchy phlegm from his throat. He was trying not to glance too obviously at the safe. “Why don’t you go to the bar and tell Dennis I said to comp you a beer.”

  “Comp me?” she said carefully.

  “Yeah. I’ll join you in a minute.”

  She set her book down on the desk and stood. “This is real odd, Charlie.” She walked out and he heard her delighted squeal through the closed door. “Culligan!”

  He moved to the safe, picked out the combination, and extracted a small brown envelope containing a single black-and-white 35-millimeter negative strip. He held the strip up to the light. The first three images were party pictures of no particular value or interest, but the fourth was a real gem: a city commissioner drunkenly sodomizing a very disinterested-looking Cupcake, her eyes locked directly onto the camera’s lens.

  He felt a tiny swell of regret about handing the negative over to Renata, since the commissioner had been a law school classmate and Charlie had once considered him a friend. Bill Gerard would have used it one day anyway, he reasoned, and he pulled out his flask and took a long pull. He wondered if he should tell Vic about it, then decided there was no point. By the time he saw Vic it would be in Renata’s hands.

  4

  Charlie felt queasy as he stepped out of the office, his sinuses blocked and his eyes itchy. He pushed through the door into the men’s room, stationed himself before the lone urinal, opened his fly, and let flow a copious stream of urine. He and Vic had once looked at putting in extra urinals and a second stall, but they had decided it was too expensive, coming as it would from funds they could otherwise skim. Besides, Dennis pointed out, another stall would have increased certain customers’ natural inclinations to lock themselves in and masturbate, by reducing the peer pressure from other customers who actually needed to urinate or defecate.

  This is the last piss I’ll take here, Charlie thought, looking at the condom dispenser mounted above the porcelain. A cartoon woman with a salacious grin and a psychedelic dress offered latex novelties for fifty cents, ribbed for her pleasure and sold for prevention of disease only. He shook himself off and washed his hands.

  A very small, bug-eyed, fortyish character in a robin’s-egg blue leisure suit and Prince Valiant haircut had joined Culligan at Francie’s altar. Cupcake was seated at the bar reading her Gandhi book as Dennis leaned his elbow on the back bar, flipping through a tattered bondage magazine he’d found the day before in the stall in the men’s room. He dangled it from his fingertips as though handling a possibly rabid bat, careful not to brush his fingers against any unidentified smudges. Charlie hopped onto the stool next to Cupcake’s and gestured at her book. “So, what’s the word on old Mohandas K.?”

  Cupcake didn’t look up. “Dead.”

  Dennis set a beer down in front of him and gestured at Cupcake’s half-empty bottle. “I put hers on your tab.”

  Now she looked up, aggravated. “I already told you, he said it’s a comp!”

  “I heard you. Charlie . . .”

  “Yeah, it’s a comp. I can comp the dan
cers a lousy High Life once in a goddamn blue moon if I feel like it.” Charlie scanned the room, starting to feel hot and prickly. He needed to get out into the cold air, sober up a little before he headed back to the Sweet Cage.

  “All right, Charlie. You’re the boss. I wouldn’t want Vic to find out about this, though.”

  “He won’t unless you tell him.”

  “How come Vic’s not here tonight, anyway?” Cupcake said.

  “Gave himself Christmas Eve off.” Charlie was aware of a slight slowing of his voice, a running together of words, a sure sign it was time to go outside and try to catch his second wind.

  “What the fuck does he need Christmas Eve off for? He lives alone. Doesn’t speak to Bonnie anymore, doesn’t see the kids ever, doesn’t have any friends I know of, except the two of you.”

  “I think he flew to Cincinnati to see his mom,” Charlie improvised. He pronounced it Sins Naddy. It was time to go.

  “No, he didn’t, I saw him this afternoon,” Dennis said. “Stopped in and dropped off some paperwork.”

  The front door opened and the college boys from the Sweet Cage walked in, minus the belligerent Ronny. They stopped cold at the sight of Culligan, who was staring openmouthed up at Francie’s rotating mons veneris. Cupcake rose and moved toward the boys. Charlie felt unbearably hot now.