A drunk in a red trapper hat stood up and waved his cigarette lighter overhead as if watching the Beatles. Soon a fluttering brushfire of Bics appeared across the dim room.
“I give up,” Jim said to no one. He turned and saw his amber reflection, the hue of a daguerreotype photograph from the Wild West, in the tinted mirror behind the bar. A lean cowboy from across a century, circa 1891, stared back at him from a full saloon with flickering candles. The cowboy seemed to be saying: Howdy, misfit! Jim felt a surreal twinge. He turned away, jumped up and grabbed a giant swizzle stick suspended from the ceiling, his boots swinging carefree over the crowd.
“That’s a decoration,” Sidney said from below, “not a chin-up bar.”
Jim’s legs swung like a clock’s pendulum. “And that’s not applause you hear, that’s Stockholm syndrome.”
A familiar voice said, “What if your mother were alive to see this?”
Jim looked down and saw his cousin in a black leather jacket over a gray hoodie, his dark hair strangled in a ponytail between his broad shoulders.
“Listen to that, Gary.” Jim let go and dropped. His boots hit the bar and thundered. “That crap could clear out the Super Bowl at halftime in two minutes flat.”
The front door opened beneath a mounted moose head with a beer bong attached to its muzzle. A December wind sneaked inside the Swizzle Stick, a bar in Ludbury, Michigan where the winters could pierce you like an ice pick to the bone. Seconds later, Jim felt a chill.
Gary Wolfe stared up at Jim, deadpan. “For you, every day is DEFCON One.”
Jim noticed the top of a navy blue hood burrowing through the crowd toward their spot. “Put it this way. I’m 35, you’re 25. You grew up brainwashed by soft rock, concussed by disco, and tortured by hair bands. That’s textbook child abuse.”
“Ease up. I came here to meet a friend, not get a lecture.”
Jim tracked the hooded figure squeezing between people. The stranger stopped behind Gary and slid the hood back from a long wool coat. Auburn hair cascaded over a black scarf. Her watery green eyes were vibrant, her face ashen.
Jim’s back stiffened. He said, “Gary,” and motioned with his eyes.
His cousin turned half-circle and caught his breath. “Susan—what happened?”
Jim jumped off the bar, his boots pounding the floor. The singers stopped and bowed amid a sandstorm of cheers and obscenities.
“Tonight…” Susan began. The top of her head reached Gary’s shoulder, who stood six-one. Her eyes flicked to Jim, back to Gary. “I got in a…altercation.”
When she shifted to the side, Jim caught a glimpse of a torn collar. He looked at Gary and saw a freight train of trouble barreling down the tracks.
She said, “On the way over, I stopped at Val Dellinger’s…”
His cousin was on the move, reaching for her upper arm. “Outside, we’ll talk where it’s quiet.” He turned to Jim. “Right back.”
When the front door opened, a snap of cool air swirled inside.
Jim returned to his timetable, an aluminum equipment table by the back wall, and tossed on a record by the Detroit River Surfers. His vinyl collection mostly spanned the 50s through the 80s. A sign on the rear wall announced:
The U-turn Time Machine
Each day,
the world moves forward.
Each night,
the deejay goes backward.
He saw a man slumped at a corner table, asleep or in a death coma, wearing earmuffs the color of dead mice. He envisioned the man exiting the bar on a wheeled stretcher. These days, a gurney qualified as public transportation. He went over and shook the offender’s shoulder.
“Brian, wake up. Don’t give these people any ideas.”
Brian Suggs raised his freckled face, squinting. His nylon parka suggested a sleeping bag with sleeves. During his nap, someone hooked a candy cane into his bottle of beer. “Hi, Jim.”
“Got a mirror at home?”
“Huh?”
“No girl in her right mind is gonna team up and get it jumpin’ with you. Lose the earmuffs. They look like fuzzy hearing aids.”
“You’re in the holiday spirit.”
“Just think. Half this crowd will fly home and spend Christmas without a loved one…because their dog’s at the kennel.”
Suggs laughed. “What a Scrooge.”
“The other half…” Jim spotted Susan across the room by the front door, alone, which signaled a dreadful warning. He cut to the front of the bar.
“I’m Jim Fleetwood, Gary’s cousin.” He offered his hand and she shook it. Her perfume reminded him of orchids.
“My name’s Susan Bayne. I’ve known Gary since we were kids.”
“Where is he?” Jim steadied himself for the answer. The night had gone from normal to downhill in fifteen seconds.
Susan’s eyes cut away from his. “Gone, said he had to go.”
“Who is this guy? What happened?”
“We used to go out. I went to his house tonight because he’s got something of mine, and I wanted it back.”
Her eyes dropped. She stared at Jim’s wrist as if it held a great secret, then reached out and lightly touched his 1940s watch with her index finger. The watch had a black band with a 14 karat gold-filled faceplate.
Jim wondered what she was trying to say.
She continued. “Val was jacked up when I got there, and we argued. Things got worse and he pushed me, so I pushed him back twice as hard. When he took a swing at me, I hit him with a bottle.” Her steely eyes met his. “I got out when it got crazy.”
“Susan, listen. Gary got into some trouble, but it’s been a few years.”
“Like I said, we go back. He’s my brother.”
“Then you know Gary shouldn’t be messing around. When he gets pissed and breaks his leash, set your clock for MDT—Mad Dog Time. Going to Val’s house could blow back a shitstorm.” Jim took a breath, rubbed the corner of his eye with the heel of his hand. Happy holidays. “Where’s Val live?”
After she told him, he led her through the Swizzlers to the back. He saw Suggs turn red when Susan approached his table. Suggs was shy and preferred to communicate with women via telepathy.
“Brian, I need your seat. You’re being evicted.”
“Huh?”
“It’s the season of giving.”
Suggs adjusted his earmuffs and lumbered away. A dog kicked off the couch.
Susan blushed and slowly sat down.
“Be right back. Get something from the bar and put it on my tab.” Jim grabbed a record from a box beneath his timetable, and dropped it onto the turntable. Tchaikovsky’s Overture 1812. “If any ingrate complains about the music, increase the volume. If anyone touches my stuff, clock the bastard with a whiskey bottle. Consider it batting practice. Focus on timing and swing.”
She looked up in the dim light with her uncanny green eyes and said, “Be very careful over there.” She held his gaze when she added, “Watch your back.”
Within a minute Jim stood in a moonlit alley, squinting at his 1940s watch, his breath steaming in the crisp air. He could hear the Overture’s cellos and violas from inside the bar, the soundtrack of Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia. If cellos and cannon fire couldn’t cheer up the crowd, nothing would. Then he slid into the lush wonderland of his 1957 Chevy, pushing aside a box of sweet soul records from the 70s. The engine roared as he shifted into his favorite gear: reverse. Rolling backward, he thought of his crazy-ass cousin. Every family has a janitor, cleaning up the mess. Tonight was Jim’s turn to grab the broom.
He braced himself for an utterly hideous nightmare, circa 1991.
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