by J. Warren
“Yeah,” I said, “Listen, thanks.”
She walked toward the sidewalk, and I could just hear a bus coming from up the street. “Thanks for not being an axe murderer,” she said. Just as she made it to the bench, the bus pulled to a stop. She got on, and the bus pulled away.
I left the radio off for the ride back home. Something about that seemed right. Wind past the car windows made this hollow sound that I liked to listen to sometimes. Susan said it drove her crazy. I felt like I should have some sort of deep thought while the radio was off. It was like I wanted to have some powerful revelation, but nothing happened.
My head started to hurt long before I even pulled into the driveway. I could tell from the way the pressure was growing at the base of my skull that this would be a topper. I wondered if it was already too late to take medication. I figured it was.
I pulled the car into the driveway and shut it off, listening to the engine tick for a moment. In the garage, I looked at the bike as I walked past. Up the stairs to the kitchen, I kept wondering about little things; what mom would fix for dinner, if it was time to get new shoes. It bothered me that I wasn’t thinking about important things, and that I didn’t really want to think about them. Sarah was so smart; she and her friends must sit around and discuss important people, and important movies all the time. I wondered how she got so smart and I was still so stupid.
The kitchen was dark and cool. All the heat of breakfast had gone. On the counter, mom had left a note “Mikey, gone with Milly to get some things from the farmer’s market in Eukiah. Back in a few hours. You should call that nice Susan girl. Love, mom”. It was done in that flowing, loopy cursive that she had always wanted me to write in. My penmanship had always been blocky at best, so I never wrote in cursive except to sign checks.
The television was on, and I could hear the sound of a crowd. I walked into the living room. On the screen, two football teams were assembling on a big chalk line. I could just make out the number 10 on the far end of it. I’d never been excited by football. Not like dad was, anyway. The rules seemed too fluid to make any sense; not like engines. Engines made sense.
I sat down. Dad looked over at me, then back at the screen. “From last night. I taped it,” dad said.
“Who’s winning?”
“Score’s tied,” he said, “She leave?”
“Yeah,” I said, knowing he meant Sarah. He nodded without looking at me. “Who’s Milly?”
“Millicent Barnes. Your mother’s best friend. I swear those two are like Lucy and Ethel.” I could tell that was some sort of reference to something, but I didn’t know what.
“You don’t like her?” I asked.
“Woman’s a damn do-gooder. Works over at the Hospital with the loonies. Ever since they met, all your mother can think about is “the community”.”
She hadn’t said anything about it to me since I’d gotten back. I wanted to ask more, but his tone said not to. On the television, the referees blew whistles, and the players wandered around the field.
I got up and walked into the kitchen. The pressure at the base of my skull had turned into a vise creeping up around my ears. I realized I’d forgotten to go get my medication from upstairs. I picked up the phone and dialed Susan’s apartment. The phone rang twice, then picked up. A man’s voice said “Hello?”
I couldn’t say anything for a moment, then “Umm—is—is Susan there?”
“Yeah, hang on a second,” he said, then there was a loud ‘thunk’.
The phone picked back up, “Mike?” Susan asked.
“Yeah,” I replied, “who was that?”
An exasperated sigh on the other end, “I’m fine, Mike, and yourself? That’s good, thank you so much for asking,” she said, another sigh, “That was my brother. He’s in town for a little while.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother,” I said.
“That’s because you never asked,” she said, “it was a surprise visit. He showed up last night and we had Thanksgiving dinner together.” The phone muffled again, and I heard him saying something in the background. Then I heard her say something like “No, I won’t tell him that, and neither will you,” the phone unmuffled, “how was your dinner?”
“Sarah got into a fight with my father, and she left this morning. She and her girlfriend broke up, I guess,” I said.
“That must be very hard for her,” she said, the phone muffled and I heard him mumble something, and when Susan replied to him, there was a laugh in her voice, “Yes, he does, and in the pictures I’ve seen, she’s very attractive—but she’s a lesbian.” He said something else and she laughed hard. The phone unmuffled, “You still there?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “You’re—busy—I guess. I’ll call back some other time.”
“When are you coming home?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe tomorrow,” I replied.
“Okay. Call me and let me know, alright?”
“I will,” I said, and hung up. A second late I realized I hadn’t said goodbye. I felt like picking up the phone and dialing her again to say it, but realized how stupid that would be. I sat down at the kitchen counter, and noticed again how cold the kitchen was with mom not in it.
My head was pounding by this time. I walked upstairs, my head splitting with each step. My nose felt runny, and when I reached up to wipe it, there was blood on my finger. I stared at it for a moment. The morning had already been very busy, and I thought , this isn’t fair. I opened my bedroom door to find all my clothes out of the suitcase, stacked neatly on the bed. The collared shirts were in a perfect column, and the pants sat seam to seam. I rolled my eyes and said “mom,” out loud. I went into the pocket on the side and pulled out the bottle. I shook a pill from it, and walked to the bathroom. I had to sniffle back blood, again, and tasted it in my throat.
Pill in mouth, handful of water from the tap, swallow; second handful of water to finish. I stood up and looked at myself in the mirror. I thought, I should be able to see pain this bad.
I shut off the light and went back to the bedroom. Again, I rolled my eyes. I didn’t know how to feel about her going through my things. She’d of course say she was only doing my laundry because she had a load to do, herself. I knew the truth, though. She was snooping. She’d done it since I was a kid. I remembered coming home from school one day to find my bedroom completely spotless. That was the day I got a lecture from dad about lying. At the end of it, he asked me “Is there anything you want to tell me?” and I’d finally admitted that I’d been working at the Y for almost a year instead of taking boxing lessons. I knew exactly what mom had done; she’d gotten suspicious of something, then cleaned my room to find it.
I laid down on the bed, sweeping the shirts and pants off onto the floor with my hand, and remembered that they’d found the check stubs. I’d been cashing the checks down at the bank and saving the money. By that time I’d had a few hundred dollars sitting in an envelope under the bed. I’d never expected anyone to look for it.
“This all goes in your college fund,” my father said, then he asked “Where is all the money I sent with you to pay for the lessons?” He followed me back upstairs while I dug out the other envelope that I’d put behind a stack of old encyclopedias against the back wall of the closet. “I’m counting this; if there is even a dime missing, you’re repaying me,” he’d said. There wasn’t. I hadn’t spent any of the money he’d given me. Sarah told me years later that it was the number of times I’d been to the movies that week. Mom had decided that since I didn’t have enough money in my allowance to go that often, I must’ve been up to mischief, as she said. That was mom’s way of talking. That’s how I knew that Sarah hadn’t tipped them off.
I hadn’t planned on a nap. Usually the only way to stop the headache/nosebleed, though, was to lay face-up on the bed and slow my breathing down. I hadn’t thought I was that tired. I remembered looking at the patterns on the ceiling.
I woke to the room in dim light. ‘Five or six,’ I th
ought. I wondered how it had gotten so late. Downstairs, I heard someone moving pots and pans around. Mom must’ve come home. My bedroom door was closed, as well; she’d been up here. I knew that because my father would have never thought to close it. Shaky images ran through my head; small flutters of pictures. I tried to remember the dream I’d just come up from, but nothing was left of it. I thought about divers, and how they die if they come up from deep water too quick. My palms were dry, and my body was overheated.
I sat up; looked at the mess on the floor. Oh, I thought, headache. I wanted to bend forward and start putting things back in piles, but I didn’t. My arms were thick and heavy, and my skin was stretched dry.
The flickers in my head slowed some, and I noticed more than once an image of me in front of a mirror, looking at my face. The image had the feel of déjà vu, as though I’d seen this face somewhere before. Looking back on it, I thought, ridiculous: it was my face. In the dream, it hadn’t been my face.
I stood up. Going down the stairs, each step felt like it should be sending shoots of pain through my skull, but wasn’t. It was like I was aware of the pain, but only from a great distance. I’m sure Sarah would say something like ‘better living through chemicals, Michael?’ The downstairs was dark; dust floating through the dim rooms made strange webs of light in the air. The television was off. On the kitchen table was a note.
‘Gone with your mother to dinner with Millicent Barnes and her husband. Their grandkids are in town. Your mother’s idea. Back by ten. Food in fridge. –dad’
I opened the refrigerator. He was right; my mother had packed everything away into neat compartments and bins. She’d stretched plastic so tight over things that water had beaded up on the inside. Tomatoes, celery, lemons; the clear front on the crisper showed everything inside it. Moving the plate of turkey aside, I found a bottle of white wine. My face scrunched up. Wine? They’d never liked wine before. I thought, Sarah must’ve left it. I pulled it out and set it on the counter. I pulled the plate of turkey and set it down, too. I closed the refrigerator door and rummaged for a corkscrew. I found one after about ten minutes of opening random drawers, but it was so dull that it took me another ten to get the cork out.
I put my nose to the lip of the bottle. It smelled okay. I upended the bottle. Susan would’ve hated it. It was sweet and not very dry. Something nagged at the back of my mind, though. There was something I was supposed to do, and I couldn’t remember what it was.
I took the bottle and the plate into the living room. The remote control was settled into the cushion. I clicked on the television. A blank-faced blonde in a red sports jacket was facing front. Next to her, someone had posted a graphic of a skeleton with a question mark. I turned the volume up, and took a swig from the bottle.
“—bodies of four American civilian contractors were dragged through the streets. This brings the total dead since the President declared an end to the conflict to a staggering—.” I flipped channels.
On the next channel was a woman who looked almost identical to the first, only this one had black hair. Her sports jacket was blue. “—our top story tonight. News Five has confirmed that the bones found just outside Eukiah city limits this week have been transported here and are in the care of the County Coroner, James Clarke. News Five has also learned that assisting on the case is Placerville’s own doctor Robert Gantner. Our reporter was told, I quote, ‘the examination could take as little as two days, or maybe as much as a week’. Of course, News Five will keep you posted—.” I took another swig. Gantner, I thought, then it hit me: he’d asked me to meet him tonight for a couple of beers. I thought for a second, looking down at the turkey. It looked gray and dry. That was plenty enough thinking for me.
They’d taken the car, of course, and I hadn’t rented one when I got in. It wasn’t so bad, though; it was still around dusk, so the temperature hadn’t dropped too far yet. The walk was nice. I found myself looking at everything I passed and thinking things like, My first kiss—Mandy Killinger—Kinger?—, and feeling ashamed when I couldn’t remember the last names. My first can of beer, when I passed the high school football field. All of the stories came flooding back; things I hadn’t even thought of last time I was here.
I passed the grocery store, and wondered if Alvin was working. A young woman with long brown hair was getting out of some foreign compact car as I watched. Her door slammed and she walked toward the doors. I wondered if I’d ever known her. She could have been any one of a thousand girls I’d been in school with. I decided I didn’t; there was nothing familiar about her.
Further down the road, a stray dog peeked out from behind a dumpster. I whistled for it to come over, and it lowered its head as though it might. At the last minute, though, it bolted off toward some houses. It looked near death, thin and knobby.
Finally, I came to the side street that led toward the train tracks. He turned his feet down Upham Boulevard, and wondered at that name a moment. Everyone from Placerville pronounced it the same way, I thought, and said it out loud “Up Ham” I said. You could always tell when someone was from outside, because they said “You Fam”. Sarah was one of those. Even though she had grown up in town, she’d never gotten that right.
From the time any kid was about twelve, they knew where Sully’s was. More important, they all knew the legend of Sully, himself. Sully Baker had just returned from what he, to his dying day, called “double-yah-double-yah-two”. He’d gotten on a train in New York and had been on his way to Montgomery, Alabama, the story goes.
The train had stopped a number of times for food and to change conductors, but it had to stop somewhere just short of what is vaguely called “the south” because most of the railroad lines in the south had been constructed during the Civil War. For any number of reasons, the story went, the Southern leaders decided that they didn’t want to have the same gauge railing for locomotives as the North. For this reason, and because of the enormous cost of tearing up and re-laying the track, for quite some time anyone traveling from “the north” to “the south” had to get off of a train fit for the size track it was on, and switch to another which could continue on the different size track.
So, Sully Baker got off the train in Placerville. Something happened, though, according to the story; he decided not to get back on the train. Instead he bought a house near the railway station. During the war, Sully had been an ambulance driver. He tried to get work driving deliveries, but those jobs were already taken by people who’d gotten shipped back before Sully, who’d volunteered to be one of the last out. He railed about that all the way to his deathbed, people say. “Them damn deserters” he called them, “profiteers and weak-wristed sons-of-whores!” he was known to yell after too many beers.
The only other thing Sully Baker had learned to do during the war was to brew beer. He never told anyone the secret, though. “Bad for business,” he’d say and then change the subject to the White Sox, his only other area of expertise, they say. So he ordered some seeds, did some planting, and eventually started brewing his own beer. Turned out that most of the local men became very fond of that particular beer, and most liked Sully, himself. They started coming by asking for bottles of it, and Sully started to stack up money, always with a smile. He was getting one over on those “damn deserters”. After a time, he married a local girl, and was putting away enough money to buy the house they lived in. Kids came along and one day the wife said that she didn’t like the men always coming around, talking loud and spitting on her porch.
So, Sully bought a nearby house, moved his equipment over to it, and the men started showing up. He put some tables in, got a television, bought a few cases of this, a couple of bottles of that, and in no time had men coming from two or three towns over. Word got out, and because it was so close to the tracks, people could get off the train, have a beer or two while they waited, then catch their connecting train right as it was leaving. Sully’s, they started calling it for obvious reasons, and it became known to a lot of folk
s as the first decent place to grab a beer before heading home (or the last decent place to grab a beer before heading north). Sully hired a girl to be nice to the men, then hired another when Friday nights got too much for the two of them to work alone anymore. Important men were known to stop there, and Sully always had them sign their bar tabs, which he never let them pay. Most of those famous papers are still mounted on the wall to this day.
Eventually, of course, Sully died. I’m thinking about all this as I round the last bend and see the dilapidated old building ahead. The odd thing is that he never really named the place. It was always “Sully Baker’s place” to people of his generation. No neon sign out front saying anything. Of the four kids he had, only one, the next to last, was interested in the bar. That boy was named Dwight, “after ol’ Ike” Sully had always said. Dwight did what he could, but had no head for business, so he nearly ran it into the ground. It was his wife who stepped in and kept the place running. She caught him with one of the barmaids, and it maybe should have shocked people that she got the bar in the divorce, but it didn’t. She was the one who put the sign up that said, simply, Sully’s. Since then, the Baker family (through Dwights kids and their kids) had always owned it. All the town kids whisper about it when they’re younger, try to sneak in when they’re high school age, and forget about it when they go off to college and discover whatever the new, hip micro-brewery is for whatever town they end up in. ‘The ones that go off to college, that is’, I thought. The ones who stay? Sully’s is where they go Friday nights. Thursday nights, too, most of them, I thought, and smiled. I’m about to open the door when I notice that the sign has either not been turned on, or has burned out. For some reason, that feels important to me; it feels right.
I opened the door. Neon signs colored the drifting smoke from gray to red or blue. Something that sounded like a country singer who’d gone surfing was playing on the juke box. The five tables were crowded with overweight men and the corner booths with younger men with trimmed beards trying to impress women. The whole place smelled like an empty beer glass left out in the sun too long.