by John O'Brien
“And Simply Susie,” said Fenton to the kid.
Not much help and certainly not what I needed, thought Rudd, to whom Simply Susie sounded silly, back-of-the-head familiar, and promising enough to stave off any annoyance he might have felt at Fenton for not keeping up. “What the hell’s Simply Susie?” he said.
“A quiet cafe featuring nouveau Franco-CaliforniaMex cuisine,” sneered the busboy.
Everything stopped. Suddenly neither Rudd nor Fenton could remember if they’d ever heard this kid speak before, even one word.
“That’s right!” said Fenton, a bit too enthused. “That’s what the ad says, and I passed the place when I was driving up, just down the block. ‘The crowd’s almost as good as the food’!”
“Okay, back off, boy,” said Rudd, supremely annoyed at this uncalled-for chumminess.
“Well it was a funny ad is all,” said Fenton, hurt.
The busboy, summed to zero, returned to his hot-faced smoldering glare. We’re in the kitchen, my room, and I’ve got tricks.
The busboy gave them a look so clearly meant to display impatience that the men weren’t sure if he’d spoken words to that effect; unless it was the echo of his one pronouncement, still resounding throughout the kitchen like a gong or the dink of the chisel in the old Mark IV Productions movie logo that these two white men were simultaneously reminded of hearing and watching and not quite understanding as kid and not-so kid. Fenton turned to Rudd and he to him and both turned to the kid who moved so boldly and so unexpectedly (again, as if to underscore his speech) to put his hand on the door handle that the latter two decided they’d had enough and what’s done is done anyway.
“You be careful. Try not to take too long,” said Fenton, arriving at what Rudd had to admit may have been the perfect thing to say, the best way out, the line the latter wouldn’t have found any time soon.
Busboy had enough and now darkened door to night beyond. Fled.
“Say, what’s your name kid?” said Rudd to no one in particular.
Dry Sack Canasta Cream Sherry, Duff Gordon El Cid Sherry, Domecq Vina no. 25 Sweet and Mellow Sherry, the latter bearing dust and a ringlet of ossified, sherrified schmaltz twixt cap and bottle, daring entry in the same musky breath of invitation, a chastity belt, a breachable condom, a mistake forewarned, make no mistake.
“How much of this shit is there?” wondered Fenton hours after the busboy had left and some hours after his safe return.
Amontillado Sherry, Gonzalez Byass Jerez Diamond Jubilee Cream Sherry, Gonzalez Byass Jerez Tio Pepe Very Dry Sherry, Harvey’s Bristol Fino Extra Dry Sherry, Duff Gordon Santa Maria Cream Sherry, and Harvey’s Rich Golden Shooting Sherry all stood thus abreast, awaiting inspection like the whores they were but nix the disparaging smug-’n’-wry smiles of miles worn. Plush red carpet under slipper, gum on both, not so plush my name’s Marina, babe. Have a sip but don’t touch.
“It’s all up here,” Rudd told him. “It’s all for show at the bar-blue stuff to make the real stuff look appetizing-no need for backstock because nobody drinks it. Downstairs is all actual booze.” He paused, looked at the men by way of on-the-line-manship. “I say we drink it. Fuck it.” Then added as if it were a logical support of some kind: “Nothing out there, we know that now. Fuck it (Rudd was already …). We drink it and save the good stuff for later. Drink it now, all we want. All of it,” in fact he said or thought and looked around, “like a mission or something.”
Marie Brizard Blackberry Liqueur, Marie Brizard Mandarine Liqueur, Marie Brizard Menthe Liqueur (green), Marie Brizard Maraschino Liqueur, Marie Brizard Menthe Liqueur (white), Marie Brizard Peach Liqueur, Marie Brizard Coconut Liqueur, Marie Brizard Triple Sec. Now these weren’t here before,
opined Osmond
(in so many words).
And there was Gaelano Cappuccino Liqueur. And there wuz Cherry Marnier Liqueur. Wuz a bottol of Trader Vic’s Rum and Brandy. Got sum liquore Roiano. Gots us da Diana’s Old Berlin Cream Liqueur. Suze Centaine, present also, this bottle mostly gone and try to explain that!
Reluctantly confessing, Rudd responded, “Okay. You’re right. So I found a box or two of this shit in the kitchen and brought it out. So big fucking deal, changes nothing. Best: be done with all of it.”
And revealed in the course and natural progression of the evening were too a bottle of Verana Liqueur, one of Carolans Irish Cream, which would be fetching a premium price necessitating a glance at the shot list in more economically stable times and presuming a bartender more inclined to glance than the one currently in the freezer. Trader Vic’s Navy Grog and Punch Brand Rum was a bottle, Irish Mist Liqueur another. There was Dos Cortados Sherry, Chartreuse Green and Yellow at one hundred ten and eighty proofs respectively, Jagermeister German Liqueur, which was produced in the village of Jill’s great-grandfather’s mother’s birth though no one here knew that, Sambuca Originale Italian Liqueur, Rumple Minze Peppermint Schnapps Liqueur, Gallwey’s Irish Coffee Liqueur, Wild Turkey Liqueur, Glayva Liqueur, Cheri Swiss Chocolate Liqueur, and Mandarine Napoleon Grand Imperial Liqueur.
Much later saw Rudd and Miles in a virtual embrace of camaraderie that would mercifully be erased from both their memories by the next day. Osmond regaled Fenton and Langston with jokes he could not remember and ended up telling in something of a reconstructive manner which began with the punch line. Jill and Carey were present largely as observers, the former sipping slowly from something red and syrupy and the latter leaving same untouched after having accepted it only as the quickest way out of further conversation with bartender/pusher Rudd, now in what tomorrow would be revealed as total blackout along with all the other drinking men present. The busboy sat in his place in the kitchen, listened to the men, and sucked from his jug of wine, chuckling derisively at the predictable morning of liqueur-induced white man’s burden that was surely imminent. A modicum of marijuana swirled through his system with the wine. It was what he’d gone out for.
Kamora Mexican Coffee Liqueur stood right alongside Kijafa Denmark Cherry Liqueur, near the Malinowa Raspberry Cordial Austrian Liqueur (seventy-six proof), which was set slightly behind the Barenjager Honey Liqueur (seventy proof) from Germany.
Fenton had what one would commonly refer to as bedspins were it in a context more profuse with teenagers, beer cans, and beds. Rudd sternly advised him to have a sip of water between liqueurs, that this would take care of everything and cleanse the palate to boot so that the heady, mouth-embracing taste and aftertastes of the
Wu Chia Pi Chiew Chinese Liqueur
wouldn’t be corrupted by the hearty, sing-songy nip of the
Picon Amer Picon French Liqueur. Osmond concurred, and though Miles took exception (Langston abstained) the plan was enacted and Fenton provided with a generous glass of water. Night drew into a tentative morning.
And yet another shelf in a lower cupboard was revealed to contain Peter Heering Cherry Heering Liqueur, a bottle of Bailoni Rare Old Apricot Cordial, one of Venetian Cream Italian Evening, the gem of the cache, and what was this hardsell stuff doing hidden behind closed door anyhow? Trinca Cachaca, Carmel Rishon Brandy from Israel, Douro Fathers Brandy, ten years old (and then some, no doubt) from Portugal, Orange Liqueur Aurum, Allborg Jubiloeums Akvavit (whafuck?), Dettling Kirshwasser, Liquore Strega, Grappa Julia, Der Lachs Danziger Goldwaffer.
“… ‘cause there’s no more chance of making blue ice than there is of making ice blue.”
Royal Irish Coffee Liqueur, Sa’ala Coffee Liqueur Cognac, Misimarja Arctic Berry Liqueur.
“I’m saying if the drink is already blue and you put the ice in.”
Cuervo Almondrado Liqueur, Yukon Jack Canadian Liqueur, Licor Liqueur Mirabilis 43 Cuarenta y Tres.
“What I’m saying. You’re not listening.”
Gold Kirsch Cherry Liqueur, Demi-Tasse Coffee Cream Liqueur, Polmos Blackberry Cordial from Poland, Vieille Cure Liqueur de I’Abbayede, Aldof Fuber Achern Cherry Fruit Cordial, Suomuurain Cloudberry Liqueur, Vieille Cure L
iqueur de I’Abbayede Yellow, Romona Rum Liqueur, British Navy Pussers Rum.
Creme de Kirsh Liqueur, Bommerlunder Aquavit, Chateau Tanunda Australian Brandy, Brandy Viejo Vergel Dinner.
Soberno Gonzalez Byass Jerez, Marie Brizard Cacao.
Marie Brizard Dark Cacao.
Marie Brizard Curacao, Cherry, Kummel Danoff, and Cream de Cassis.
Sciarada Italian Liquore.
Lamancha Liquore.
Suntory Cherry Blossom Sakura.
Midori Melon Liqueur, Bols Creme de Bana …
Two hours later an explosion at an address very near to Tony’s woke Fenton from his deep and troubled sleep. First he thought, There’s a noise, where would that be on the street; then he wondered about addresses and if such things still existed beyond numbers painted on buildings, if any had relevance. He felt terrible as he lay there in his or someone’s booth and felt the building shake gently to rest. This building was now a god to these men. Fenton knew this, knew that its builder’s material manifestation of defense against a crumbling savings and loan years earlier had been insane in that it took the shape of a building that would not crumble. He had been right of course; in those days the building was the S&L, far more so than the deposits. Some knew it. Fenton himself suspected it. Now the ratchet had clicked quite appropriately and the building was God. It stood between these men of erstwhile wealth and their salvation. Judgment day was beyond these walls, and it wouldn’t wait forever.
It took Fenton twenty solid minutes of watching light seeping through a few cracks and holes in the ceiling before he realized it was merely the light of day and not an epiphany from heaven or hell, an angel perhaps to fetch him alone, of all of them, or just a bored angel gone fishin’ and looking for the willing nibble of a random soul. Just day.
That’s all. Rudd was in charge of this building. Fenton let go of everything and drank something yellow from a half glass on the table above. He lay still and concentrated on keeping it down the way Rudd had advised his neophyte ass. Down it stayed and Fenton was happy to have done well. That’s all.
“Good job,” said Rudd, slurring whisper, drunk from a nearby booth and surprising Fenton. “I watched you do that. Now I guess I’d better try.”
Fenton heard the gurgle and slurp. “Something’s different now,” he said to his friend.
“Don’t be naive,” said Rudd, a struggle in his voice, a sureness. “What could be different?”
Day10
The first sign came to Osmond though he failed to recognize it. The television was off anyway, the men having grown weary and impatient and rationalizingly distrustful of the liberal media’s test patterns, so that which might have given the day’s real news by virtue of its silence was expected to be silent anyway. It wasn’t until Langston stepped up to the plate and dipped his hand into the ice machine’s cavernous plenum of promise, to the same depth in fact that Osmond’s hand had been only moments before, that the first sign was not only revealed but acknowledged. The ice was lower than it ought to be, the blind man noticed without the handicap of compensatory eyesight; wetter too.
Fenton, absorbed in drink and across the room, said (and dig: the light will fade, see, and this dude don’t know it), “I miss my books.”
“This guy wrote a book that you read it once and it disappears.” Rudd said this. This. And he burped. “Maybe no more books. For a while.”
Rudd was as shitfaced as he’d ever seen him, Fenton. Said (somewhat shitfaced himself), “I have these books. I read. I was thirty. Twenty-nine. I’d read enough, say ... say plenty of books, like a few hundred. A few thousand?” He drank more, his eyes swayed without analogy. “Lots of books. I said to people that I’d really read a lot of books. Then I thought, I’ve read so many books that I’ve forgotten some of them.”
All this time the power’s off. For good. All this time Rudd is drunk.
“So if I read so many,” continued Fenton, “so many that I’m forgetting them, then why not stop and just reread the books I’ve already read? I mean, we’re stuck with that anyway, right? A little window of creation. We try to fool it with quantity, but the truth is that you can’t fool time, and the only way to second guess it is with quality. Those are the books I miss, the ones I’ve already read. Those are my books. I need to read them again and again.” He saw something, something that was too subtle for a drunk man to recognize, yet he saw it nonetheless because it was something that an intelligent man would never miss, like a dimness in the hall when the ladies’ room door swung open, or a failure to hum from some fucking freon grid. Don’t pay attention. You don’t have to. Just take the universe in, blow it out. Look.
“Guy thinks he can make big money with collectors,” said Rudd.
“Ephemeral,” said Fenton.
Rudd burped again.
Fenton knew the power was out, and for all his mighty thoughts of culture he also knew it all came down to the power, the electricity in that socket.
Life is homosexual rape. I am drunk, he thought.
“So what’s the difference?”-Fenton now-“He makes a book that can’t be read again, or I read a book that I don’t remember?”
“You’re drunk,” told Rudd to his friend.
There’s a difference, thought Fenton. Maybe the power’s out too, he thought.
I’m drunk, thought Rudd. My mind. I should have read more books. He’s right. I’m bright. “There’s a value in the ephemeral.”
“There has to be,” said Fenton.
“Everything is,” said Rudd.
“Ephemeral,” said Fenton.
There was a pause and Rudd felt the power out. Fenton. Guns.
“It’s a short time.”
RUDD WAKEs Up aNd hshkeas. S khkesa. S. H. A. E. K. S. Enough. Everything, a short time. I sleep, I slept. I sleept (giggle). My god, I need a (G) drink.
It’s light enough and maybe he does need a drink. Well of course he needs a drink: he’s in a bar. It’s a bar. It is a bar. Think about all that liquor, there for the taking. A finite amount, perhaps, but there aren’t that many men in here. And one of them’s a woman, and she doesn’t drink so she doesn’t count (insofar as liquor distribution is concerned). And one of them’s a guy who doesn’t drink and doesn’t count anyway. Carey, just let him try to take a share.
Rudd, now standing at the service area of the bar, what Jill or the stiff in the freezer, as service staff would call the well, just picked up a fucking bottle of whatever scotch was there and took a long guy-drinkin’-whiskey-in-a-western-movie-bar swill right from the bottle ‘cause it was take-what-you-want time—all you want—and there’d be plenty time for crafting selection later. Plenty of ways for a drunk in a bar to define his personality.
Plenty of everything, thought Rudd, getting drunk enough now to think clearly, and if it weren’t for Reagan then this place might never have existed. When you think about it. In a twisted sort of way. Or Hollydale. But more scotch, now J&B since our head is clearer, made that thought vanish quicker than a fart in a breeze.
RUDD seated himself at the head of this fine slate bar and felt alone and empowered in the room. The trick is winners and losers; those fucking kids outside can’t change that no matter how many guns they’ve got. It works best this way, a few men at the levers, those who can distinguish between good and bad scotch, cars, automobiles, so on. Hollydale had a limit on how many tee-offs they’d allow so that members were never crowded, and even in that there was a hierarchy, Rudd knowing for instance that he could be worked in ahead of lesser members who had maybe been waiting longer. This way the strong links were placed in the chain by a natural selection of sorts. They would click around that course-Pacemakers, or Pacesetters, is better-click around that course gently (and sometimes not so gently) nudging ahead or pulling along the lesser men, men who would likely in time step up to become the Pacesetters themselves by virtue of their very presence at and membership in Hollydale. A good world, a world that worked then and will work again.
And was working now, for chrissakes, it occurred to Rudd as the J&B flowed like water then some fine twenty-year-old Glensomethingorother into wine. Not his favorite stuff but hey: twenty years old, and who the hell in here is more likely to appreciate it than me. I, make that. Was working now, glitches aside, some green motherfucker stuck in the rough and taking six strokes out. Nudge him along, Pacesetter, shoot a ball his way or see that he waits a few hours for his next tee. There’s always a way. Up is still up, even a guy like Rudd couldn’t change that, not if he wanted to. Question is … but his thought trailed off.
“Power’s out,” announced Fenton, matter-of-fact son-of-a-bitch, brusquely, from elsewhere in the bar, a place where Rudd was not.
He flicked the switch again, Fenton did, the third one of his confirmatory circuit; across the room, this, and most certainly on a different breaker than dud number two in the kitchen. Wonder if Jill will have enough light in her bathroom, he thought for no reason and admittedly somewhat out of priority “Power’s out,” he said again, but softer like to himself. He stood there alone in the corner, a pricey ivory dimmer switch futiley awaiting the tickle of his pinkie.
Waiting, too, was Fenton, and didn’t care at all about the power. All things were summing to minor details for him, like he was standing too close to television or French Impressionism. Pointillism. Focus on the end though; he saw it coming, and it was really the only thing to grab for at this point. Best be a part of it. Best keep drinking, learn to catch up. A crash course, going well if you stayed with it and didn’t stand back. Fenton strode to the bar for drinks and discussion of power, its outage.
Miles turned curled in his booth and awakened spared the clutch of hangover, quite incredibly, yet cast into the morning’s bad news just a second too late to hope Fenton’s pronouncement had sprung from a dream. He wanted to panic but had grown accustomed to leaving that role to Osmond’s Costello and then playing things a bit cooler. Plus, no lights led to immediate drinking. Somewhat gratuitous perhaps at this point, like creating a flow chart after the program has been coded. Senior year of high school, BASIC, programming in the math lab, Miles remembered, and the only way for him to get the whole flow chart thing was to write the actual program (“Hello, World!”) then use it to draw the stupid triangle pictures and arrows. What a waste of time, but the only way he could do it. Hello, World! a BASIC statement.