Drink for the Thirst to Come

by Lawrence Santoro

  “Wizard, Cordwell,” the inspector said, “jolly good. Take a letter, Miss Wren: ‘Dear Adolph, might as well surrender now, Cordwell’s flying heavy bombers.’”

  “Now that,” John said years later in the pub he’d made on Lincoln Avenue, “that was Theatre!”

  John survived the enemy, his own officers. He survived the theater of war, emerged with tales of captivity, tales of pigs as pets and being rabbits on the run. Oh it was Wizard fun and it was awful and he lived. It’s what John did: he lived to tell it all.

  He came home, became an architect, married an American, moved to Chicago, and built, built, built.

  Then he made the Red Lion.

  When I came to Chicago from the east, the Lion was a nest for a burgeoning corps of actors who fancied themselves in the Shakespearean line.

  As an easterner, I considered Shakespeare—the classics, in general—to be my province, a place where practical stagecraft merged with scholarship. You see, I like the stuff, don’t feel it needs improvement.

  Midwestern Shakespeareans seemed all headbash and rock and roll. For them, it seemed less performance, more like day labor in an abattoir.

  Okay, shut up, Larry. The point is, I wasn’t expecting much when I caught the first preview of The Tempest, the premiere work of a group calling itself “Will’s Jolly Crew,” performances under the stars, on the Red Lion’s roof garden, beneath the spreading arms of Cordwell’s ancient oak.

  A word: this “ancient oak.” It is not so ancient and definitely not an oak. A city weed tree, the thing grows in the crack between the pub and another building. When it reaches the roof garden, though, the thing does seem to have come magically up through the Lion. The trunk writhes and twines to spread a leafy canopy across the deck outside the second-floor dining room. Very nice. From time to time, when nested birds shat upon his patrons’ fish and chips, John threatened to cut it down. He never did. It remains. John was allowed his eccentricities. Anyway, he loved that tree. “Grounds the place, you know. Connects it to the world!”

  I had to admit, for Tempest, the simple setting—night and tree—was effective. Even so, I wasn’t expecting much.

  The production blew me away. Simply stated, the director stepped aside and let the play sing.

  It sang.

  Despite the whimsical familiarity suggested by the company’s name, the actors of Will’s Jolly Crew knew their stuff. By the end I was in tears, weeping, in part, because the play always makes me cry. Tempest is Shakespeare’s last script, a farewell to the worlds of magic he created over that short, extraordinary life. After this, he retires to Stratford, lives, a wealthy man, then, soon, dies. Even on the page, Prospero’s final speech moves: He breaks his staff, he drowns his book then says, “Now my charms are all o’erthrown, And what strength I have’s mine own—which is most faint…”

  The other reason I was bawling: reality had hit me. These people were good, at least as good as I. Better, maybe. Oh, feh! It’s truth: in theater, no one is happy unless A) he’s on top, and B) his best friend is in the dumpster. These weren’t my friends.

  I sat. I stared at the empty playing space, at Cordwell’s tree. I blunted my disappointment with a fourth pint. A moment later I noticed another audient, also still seated, also in tears. That was it for resemblance. He was an anti-me: I, young. He, not. I, tall. He, tiny. I’m… Okay, heavyset. He, not so, no not a bit. I am fully furred—haired, bearded, et al. He was naked as a molerat.

  We sucked the dregs of Cordwell’s thin bitter English beer, though, and both shed salt tears, I, for the passing of Shakespeare’s magic and because the butt-end of my illusions was kicking me in the nuts. He, for whatever reasons old men sob in the night. We both stared at the stage.

  The director’s dad, I thought, and gathered my things. I was heading toward the aisle when, around me, the lights went out. From behind me, where the little guy still sat alone, there came a glow. The light was cold, oh so cold, and cast my shadow across the seats and among the branches of the tree. I froze. I turned.

  Four pints in three hours do nothing, I repeat, do nothing to my head, heart, soul, or eyesight. They also cannot make little old men incandesce in sweet summer night.

  I yelped out one of the seven or eight queeps or whimpers actors tell me I make when I suffer and hide it from them. The old guy must have heard. He jumped and gave me a look as though I were an avalanche come down upon him. “Ach!” he said and fluttered out like a candle in the wind. The scent of something smoky wafted toward me in the sudden dark.

  “I do apologice for dat,” he said. His accent? European. Northern. German, perhaps or somewhere east of there. He turned to the dark stage again. “Yes. For dat, I do apologice.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  “Dis iss most remarkable…” He seemed to seek just the word to describe the past two hours. “A most egzeptional…” Still seeking.

  “Play?” I ventured.

  “No. A most remarkable Trans. Fig. U. Ration.” He was proud of that word, savored its parts. His smile broadened at each syllable.

  “‘Transfiguration.’ A good way to put it,” I said. Humoring the gallery never hurts. “Transfiguration is what an actor does…”

  I swear: he glimmered when I spoke this minor flattery. Glimmered, pulsed, once, twice, three times, then again, then went out.

  “I dank you, so wery much,” he said. His broad smile showed no teeth but something glistened in the dark of his mouth and I didn’t look there again. “Dank you, greatly, but no, no. Dat? Dat shadow show? No, no. Not dat. Dat vasss…” He shrugged, squinted. “Dat vas, ah, well, delightful, but no. I mean dis…” He gestured. “Dis wholeness, I mean. Dis place…” The sweep of his arms took in the roof, the dark tree and stage, the restaurant at our backs, the Red Lion, below, it also seemed to encompass all the times I’d had there, maybe all that was to come in the dark, ahead of me down the years, down the years to…

  No. All right, still, the whole place was gathered by that one gesture and stuffed into my heart.

  God, would that I’d had HIM for my Minneapolis Mephistopheles and not Rick Bloody Bolig, I thought, Jesus.

  He smiled, nodded as though I’d spoken what I’d only thought. “Yez?” He’d come to a decision. “You see it, too? What Cord-vell hass fabricated here…” He spit John’s name and slobbered on it. “Ahh. Ach…” annoyance growing, “Ach, ach, ach, achachach...” His achs fluttered into a pizzicato back-throat growl. He finished coughing that vocal hairball and drained his pint. “I cannot see Mizter Cordvell. No, not tonight.” He turned to me. “You vill. For me. You shall give him diz,” he handed me a wooden box, “ding.” The box was the length and a half of an index finger, two fingers wide, one deep. “You vill tell him, John Cordvell, dat diz ding no longer shtands between uz. Dat ding you hold? Yez? Yez you will.”

  My mouth was open. I shut it then said, “I?”

  “Yez. You,” he said.

  “I may not see John. Not see him tonight. No. I hadn’t planned to.”

  The man had gathered his coat, umbrella, Marshall Fields bags. He walked toward the stage. “Ya, ya, ya, ya, yayayaya. You vill. You say it now, wiz me: ‘Diz ding...’”

  “This di—thing…”

  “Wery gut. ‘Diz ding,’” he pointed with his chin at the box, “‘no longer shtands between uz. Hm?’”

  “Yes. The thing...” I waved the box. “No longer shtands… between us. Between you and he…”

  He looked at me as though I were a bright puppy. “Yez. You go now. He vill be dere. Turn ’round so you do not zee me go. Yes, go. Go on.”

  I did and he must have gone. The tree rustled and a cool breath crossed the back of my neck. The next thing? The L was passing a block away and I was the only one on the dark roof.

  Between the deck and the bar, the little guy drained from me. It wasn’t natural but the Red Lion was like that. Not natural. I mentioned it. The place has a reputation. There were stories, stories I never credited
. Okay. The joint’s haunted. Not that I believe that. Believed. All right. What I felt was that the little guy had slipped down the tree and flowed into the world. Or something. And time had shifted. That too. The first I was aware of my actual going, rooftop to bar, was when I reached the landing in the stairwell. Okay?

  Oh. The stairwell. It’s a funny place. On a ledge above and facing me on the landing was a wooden shield. On it is carved the face of a lion. The stairwell ceiling is twelve, fifteen feet overhead. From it a fan turned slowly, stirring the shadows. Pictures of the Queen, other pictures, Napoleonic frigates and such, lined the wall. Shadows licked them. Dark evenings, and this was a dark evening, going up or down this stairway can be… delicate. When he opened the place, Cordwell had hung a plaque to his father’s memory on the wall beneath the lion’s head. It’s still there. Tonight the plaque glowed in the ambient light from below and from the high window above. Father Cordwell had died years ago in London. His grave remained unmarked. John had made this place in America as a memorial to his father who had loved the life and the spirit of pubs, the communities they gathered and nourished.

  The plaque opened something, so the story goes, and since that time, the Lion had gathered a reputation. It was the most haunted bar in Chicago. That was saying something. This is a haunted city.

  Okay. I don’t believe any of this. Didn’t. The little guy was probably some Polish pal of Cordwell’s from the war. I shivered and scooted to the light and warmth below.

  Actors were mingling, spreading compliments, tossing off sweat, sharing loudly, feeling about, in equal measures, for return praise, a jolly put-down, the next gig.

  Too sharp, those memories from my actor days. I shivered again. Tonight was a triumph for the Jolly Crew. Tomorrow and tomorrow would be the days after. This Shakespeare-upon-roof? Grand fun, yes, but also it was Equity waivers work. All for free. The rent would come due and be paid by the next McDonald’s ad; the haircuts, headshots and resumes, food, beer, visits to the shrink would all be courtesy of the next chorus boy stint—“O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A” at Pheasant Run Dinner Theater, if they were lucky. If not? They’d be behind some bar, not belly to it.

  Tonight, though, in the Lion? They ruled the world. I didn’t want to stay. If the play had been a crock, I would have made nice with Prospero, Ariel, Miranda. I would have mingled, angled, wheedled, worked such wiles as I possess, gotten next to the producer, made self and bona fides known. I’m not a nice person.

  The play, alas, had not been a crock. It had been sublime. Even Trinculo and his pal, whatshisname, they’d been exquisite.

  Rats.

  Then I heard John. “I learned, you see,” he intoned to Caliban, “that your moral tale must be wrapped in a good song. You know that. A good song and a funny story. Shakespeare knew, by God. And that is why we love it all. Why we cry with him. Why we learn from him.” He dropped his voice to a whisper audible in Kankakee, “This thing tonight, now, Tempest. It’s just the politics of old age, you know. That and a bit about education and family, all wrapped in magic, love and good song and dance. Yes? Yes!”

  John.

  Right, I said to myself. I’ll hand over “dat ding” and be off. Off to find another career. Another life. Somewhere. Further west.

  I slipped between Cordwell and a hutch of street-bunnies who seemed unable to stop touching Ferdinand with their noses.

  Colin, Cordwell’s son, was behind the bar. The world’s best bartender, Colin juggled jokes, patter, orders to the waitress, balanced laughter and business as only a great publican, to the matter-born, can do. He was—is—brilliant at the art.

  I ordered another pint. Got it. Placed the wooden box on the bar. At first lull, I ah-hemmed John.

  “Ah,” he said, turning. “What’d you think?”

  I thought.

  I believe—believed—that it is never good simply to love something. Such love always must be tempered with analysis and kvetch. “Sagged at the top,” I said. “A great storm. Then that first island scene, well…” I hated having loved this production.

  “Well, yes!” Cordwell said. “It’s all that stuff. Then it gets into it and, by God!”

  “Yes. It sang,” I said. I hated myself.

  “Ha!” he said. “Yes. It sang. Good.”

  I handed him the box. “From a friend of yours,” I said, “at the show. Said he had to leave and could I give it to you. He left. I’ve given it to you.”

  Cordwell turned the box over. His vast nose wrinkled. His eyes crinkled. The box looked small.

  When I made to leave, Cordwell stopped me.

  “Have you any idea what’s in here?” he asked. He waved the unopened box under my nose. “Any idea at all?” The box seemed to offend him, as though he knew that I knew just what was in there and, by God, sir, he wouldn’t have it. No, sir, not a bit of it!

  “Damned Bavarian bureaucrat.” He tipped his head back and looked along the hump of his nose at it.

  I remembered my line. “He said to tell you, ‘This thing no longer stands between you.’ With an accent, but that’s more or less it.”

  “Yes, yes, yes…” Cordwell was slipping into fustian mode, as he must have with the RAF officers’ board, more British than God, donchaknow?

  “Let me show you, young fella.”

  So saying, he opened the box. I almost heard a boom of kettledrums, a growl of bowed basses. Inside, a metal something gleamed in barlight. The place faded. The background of actors, fans, and dreams withdrew.

  Not really but this was a cinematic not Shakespearean moment. Inside the box, nested on a piece of charred khaki cloth, was a bullet. It looked newly cast and polished, yet I knew it was from the war, the Second War, as John called it, World War II.

  “Huh,” I said or something like.

  Cordwell picked up the thing, held it from point to cap, between thumb and middle finger. He handled it as though it were of vast import and impossibly fragile. He turned to me. The brass casing caught a spark of warm light from the lamp on the end of the bar. The glint flashed in John’s eye.

  “The nerve of the fellow,” he breathed. His dudgeon had softened. “He wasn’t even supposed to be there, you know? You know that?” Cordwell turned the thing, hefted it, gauged its weight, looked at it point-on, then from its rear. “He was a substitute. Making-do because it was wartime. Damn the fellow anyway. His fault.”

  He laid the bullet on the bar.

  “You know, don’t you, what this damned thing is, eh?” He was speaking because I was there, not because I was important to him or that I hear the tale he was about to spin.

  Because I was there I answered. “A bullet,” I ventured.

  “Right…” There was more expected.

  “I’d say… .30 caliber?” A guess.

  “Thirty.”

  “Maybe?”

  Cordwell hefted it again. “Caliber thirty. Yes.” He knew he wasn’t going to get a savvy answer from me. “I’ll tell you a story,” he said and put the shell, slug-up, on the bar. “Colin!” Cordwell ordered a quarter-gill of Irish whiskey and sat it next to his pint of Watney’s. He flicked both ends of his mustache with the knuckle of his index-finger then bolted the whiskey. “There,” he said, “now…”

  He was wound for a good one.

  “That bullet,” he said, pointing with his chin, “is my bullet. Meant for me, here.” He touched himself over his heart. “See?” He pointed to the markings along the shell casing. “That, sir, is me, my number. Go on. Have a look.”

  I shoved my eyeglasses an inch or so from the round. There was a number. Fine lines engraved on the brass. I read it aloud, and as I did Cordwell spoke it with me.

  “A thing one doesn’t forget: one’s number! The one that, when it’s up, it’s bloody well up. Don’t care how old you are, what war you were in, you carry it forever.” He tapped his chest again. “Turn out Beowulf’s crew from the ashes, ask them their rowing numbers, and by the Lord Harry, they’d know ’em to the man. To the man.” He
picked up the round and turned it again. Again the light caught his eye. “One’s number.” He repeated the number. I’ll not repeat it here.

  “Beginning of the war: everything was shambles, I can tell you. Not enough of anything: men, weapons, ammunition; everyone a bit of shy about who does what to whom. Well, the very same was true of the Small World.”

  That’s how he put it, as though anyone would know instantly what he meant, “the Small World.” I crunched my nose a bit and must have looked confused.

  “Let me put it to you this way,” he said. “The wee-folk, as the Irish have it, ‘the kingdom,’ Faerie, the glamour world, don’t you know? See, they’re no more ready for war than is the smelly mob. Us. At the beginning it’s all chop-chop and never a by-your-leave. Things have to be done and they are done. Not well sometimes, sometimes bloody badly, but they get acted upon.”

  I took a long sip and found the glass empty. A full one sat next to it.

  “Take for instance the Hampden bomber. Damn fine ship. What I flew, Hampdens. Four-man crew, tight little piece. Kept losing them. Long narrow tail had a way of falling off when hit with too much at one time. Well, that’s war. Mind you, the Hampden was a bit elderly. Came along in the ’30s. A grandfather of a plane, you might say.” He smiled and licked his lips. “And now this is a thing. They looked just like one of Jerry’s kites. Yes. The damned Dornier, the Do. 17. Our own chaps kept shooting us down. Bloody embarrassing. ‘Anything to report, flying officer?’ ‘Oh, I say, sir, either I topped one of Adolph’s 17s or, by God, punched Old Reggie’s mess ticket.’ ‘Ah, bad show…’”

  Cordwell did that, burst into playlettes. Good at it too.

  “So there we were. We flew at night, you know? Yes. And this was early in the war. I was observer. November. November 7, ’41. We were over Belgium. Yes, we were going to bomb, but first we had to fly this long-wide triangle between the Paix de Calais and two other checkpoints. We’re there principally to draw Jerry fighters and ack-ack—that’s anti-aircraft to you Yanks—from our Wellingtons flying the main show into Berlin that night.”