The Problem with Murmur Lee

by Connie May Fowler

  I arrived at 9:58 A.M. The place was locked up tight. I peered through the front window. A woman—let us say in her fifties, a peroxide blonde with a bosom to match—stood behind the bar, smoking, watching TV. I tried to push open the side door. She glanced at me, stone-faced, and then back at the tube. Well, that wasn’t very polite. I knocked on the glass and flashed a quick smile. She shook her head. We’re not open: She mouthed the words, exaggerating each shape, as if she were sure I was a moron.

  Pointing at myself the way a person would if they were trying to communicate with an orangutan, I said slowly, taking care with each fragile syllable, “I’m Charlee.”

  She rolled her eyes, shook her head the way people do when they’re faced with a hopeless situation, picked up her cigarettes and coffee cup, and disappeared into a back room.

  Somebody in an old ruby Buick sped by, honking. A minivan family with Ohio plates pulled into the public parking lot and began unloading beach chairs, coolers, a boom box, and sundry other items. It looked as if they were moving in. A small boy kept screaming, “Mama, I have to pee! Now!”

  The father, with his stork white legs, wrinkle-free khaki shorts, and penny loafers complete with brown socks, looked totally unprepared for his Florida vacation. The mother, on the other hand, was ready for nuclear attack: beach cover-up, chemical tan (which actually should be called a chemical orange, since the people who use that stuff appear jaundiced), floppy hat, shades, enormous striped bag, and jewel-encrusted flip-flops. The four children squealed and squabbled. The little boy who needed to pee was jumping up and down, holding himself. Mom looked in the side-view mirror and ran her tongue over her upper lip.

  Dad shouted, “Shut up or we’re leaving.” Then he rummaged in a cooler, retrieved a Bud, flipped the pop top, took a good long fortifying swig, wiped his mouth, and said, “Let’s go.”

  By now, it was 10:08 and the place still wasn’t open. The sign on the door indicated that Salty’s opened at ten o’clock. Eight minutes late. I’d have to make a note of that. I banged on the door and shouted, “Hey, it’s Charlee Mudd. Let me in!”—to no avail. So I said, To hell with you, too, then followed the family down to the beach. The wind was brisk and I was cold. Toll takers were set up at the ramp, and I wondered why the folks from Ohio hadn’t simply driven onto the beach, rather than lug all their stuff from the parking lot. I asked the tollbooth operator, an elderly woman with Pepto pink lipstick and leathery skin what time Salty’s usually opened. “Well, their sign says ten. But they mean eleven. Eleven Crescent Beach time.”

  “That’s no way to run a business,” I said, to which she responded by shrugging her shoulders.

  With my arms wrapped tight for warmth, I walked toward the Atlantic. The rollers were breaking evenly, in rhythm with the wind, and I knew that even though the water was cool for my tastes, the surfers would be unable to resist the even, slow swells. I turned around and surveyed the beachfront. So much had changed. Where once there had been dunes and sea oats and pin oaks shaped by the easterly breeze, condos rose, piercing the eggshell sky, their empty-eyed windows mocking those of us who equated progress with destruction. As I stood with my back to the wind, looking first north, then south, I decided every single condominium on every single shoreline in America should be named Tree Hugger, You Can’t Win.

  A late-model brown Chevy Caprice with Virginia tags barreled onto the beach and lurched to a stop. Before the driver, a seventy-something man with thin gray hair, had turned off the motor, an equally old passenger in the back flung open the door, toddled a few steps, bent over, and picked up fistfuls of sand, a look of wonderment lighting his gnarly face. He watched as the wind whipped the white crystals from his fingers. He patted the sand, laughed, and tossed more handfuls through the sky. I thought, Oh my gosh, this beach, this ocean, this place, has transformed him into a child. I fell prey to my sentimental streak, batting back tears as the visitors from Virginia—one woman, two men, all of them in the twilight of their lives, linked arms and stumbled in a ragged circle, laughing and reconnecting with—I decided—a youthful joy they thought they’d long ago lost.

  The sun had traveled to God’s belly button—that’s what my mother always said about high noon—before I ventured back to Salty’s. The wind had turned my carefully tossed strawberry curls into Medusa ringlets. I smelled like a dead fish that had been dipped in perfume. Thanks to an errant wave and my lack of attention, my jeans were wet from the knee down and I squished when I walked. But I no longer cared about making a good impression or what the skeletons might say (my confidence was fleeting, I knew, but at least I’d found some). I’d had a lovely stroll along the beach, and my irritation at having been ignored upon my arrival at Salty’s had not abated. Indeed, it had mushroomed. So while I am an extremely pliant person when unperturbed, once annoyed, I can get very, very grumpy. The cold, the wet, the lack of dignity—all of it took on greater significance in light of the snubbing. Oh yes, I had a thing or two to say to the peroxide blonde.

  Two pickups were parked out front. The garage doors were open. A black man and a bearded white man sat opposite one another. The peroxide blonde held court between them. Thank God, I thought, I don’t know any of you. Both men drank beer out of icy mugs. The bar was U-shaped. I pulled up a stool on the short end.

  The peroxide blonde tossed a Budweiser coaster in front of me. Rhinestone studs—pink, white, and baby blue—sparkled along the outer curve of her left ear. She was, I suppose, the kind of woman that some men call “handsome,” meaning it as a compliment. Here’s the snapshot: big bosom, good legs, well preserved, bones like a bull, the air of a good-natured middle-aged whore.

  “What can I get you?” she asked, looking not at me but at the TV. I had expected a southern accent, but what I heard was South Philly.

  “Budweiser. Draft.” Why blow my cover right away? It might be fun to sit here incognito. I might learn a thing or two. The two men shifted on their stools. The bartender set the mug down, wiped her hand on the towel tucked into her waistband, and eyed me as she backed up to her position between the men. The white guy sneezed, wiped his nose with his giant hand, and rubbed it across his T-shirt. My, how couth. I sipped my beer, miserable, wondering how best to confront the peroxide babe. Rude behavior is inexcusable. I set my jaw hard and looked at her straight on. She turned away. The black man studied his nails. The white guy huffed as if it were the end of the world and he didn’t care. No one looked at anyone. I became increasingly self-conscious. My crazy hair, my wet jeans, my body odor. No one would take me seriously as the boss of this joint. No one would respect me. Murmur, what have you gotten me into? The four of us remained locked in an unnatural silence—I was obviously ruining the party. The only sounds were A1A traffic and the country twang from the CMT channel the bartender was glued to.

  After about five minutes, which ticked by with the speed of a boulder on flat ground, the white guy erupted. “Well, fuck, man”—he punched the air—“whaddya gonna do?”

  I had no idea whom he was talking to. And I was afraid. I glanced over at the black man, whose skin was much lighter than that of my former fiancé’s. He rubbed a small scarred hand over his knobby cheekbones—the tip of his middle finger was missing—drained his beer, stared into the empty mug, and said flatly but with iron resignation, “Sell the boat. Head south.”

  “Now, Paul Hiers, you are going to do no such thing.” The bartender pulled a cold mug out of a cooler and poured him another draft. “You’ll hate it down there,” she said, exchanging the empty mug for the full one.

  “Yeah, asshole, what do they have down there that we don’t?”

  Paul Hiers took a healthy drink, let it settle, looked out at the road, and squinted his Byzantine eyes. “Jobs.”

  “Huh!” The white guy slapped the bar, as if Paul Hiers’s answer was the most fascinating news he’d heard all day. He swung around—his beard was kinky and not as clean as I would have liked—and planted his elbow on the bar. I believe I saw him t
eeter. “What do you think?” he demanded, pointing a half-cocked finger in my direction.

  Despite my syncopated heartbeat, I was determined to play it cool. Seemed the peroxide blonde was the least of my worries. I slowly lifted the mug to my lips and took a deliberate sip. I knew I was being tested, and I didn’t much like it. In fact, the part of me that wasn’t scared found it boring. Academia is ripe with such schoolyard behavior. I tried to bluff my own damn self by silently wagering that this guy—mean eyes, bushy beard, and all—was no match for me.

  “Silas,” the bartender said in a tone that was both scolding and amused.

  “What? I’m just trying to get the lady involved in the conversation.” His face opened in mock innocence.

  I rubbed the tip of my ear, acting as if I were lost in thought. Then I shot a sideways glance. “Well, before I tell you what I think, I need to know the problem.”

  “Is that right?” An eager smirk cracked the darkness of all that crazy facial hair. He sat up straight, stared at the ceiling while his barrel chest expanded with the intake of a deep breath. Then he took turns with his unfriendly gaze, aiming first at Paul Hiers, then the bartender, and finally me. “Paul Hiers here is a fourth-generation shrimper. It’s all the motherfucker knows how to do. And just because we’ve fucked up the fishing around here and there ain’t no damn shrimp, he wants to throw in the towel and get himself a job carrying luggage for rich white folks visiting Miami. But what he don’t know is that nobody is gonna give his black ass a job because he don’t speak S-span-nole. Ain’t that right, Paul Hiers? Ain’t that the problem?”

  Paul Hiers nodded as if his head were a vertical metronome. “I reckon that’s about it.”

  The bartender watched me through the swirl of her cigarette smoke. Silas leveled a deadly glare. Paul Hiers thoughtfully nursed his beer.

  “Well, sir,” I said to Paul Hiers, trying to muster my old southern moxie, “if this gentleman’s assessment of your dilemma is accurate, then I have to say with all due respect, you’re fucked.”

  Even the bartender cracked up. Silas, his glower suddenly transformed into a puckish glow, howled as he again slapped the bar. Paul Hiers finally looked at me straight on and grinned.

  “Honey, what’s your name?” the bartender asked.

  “Charlee Mudd. I grew up around here and, well, I’m looking for Hazel Bing.”

  The bartender’s eyes betrayed a sudden tear. She rushed over, grabbed my hands, and said, “Oh my God, you’re Charlee?”

  I’m sure that for a moment or two my face betrayed me as it dropped into that elongated, slack-jawed repose of the dumbfounded. “Don’t tell me. Hazel?”

  “Yeah!” she said, smiling wide, her teeth perfect and white except for the glint of gold crowning a molar. “Jesus H. Christ, it’s good to meet you.”

  “You, too,” I said. And we both meant it. We meant it for Murmur. Because she had loved both of us.

  We ate greasy hamburgers that afternoon and laughed a lot as we recounted our favorite Murmur memories. Customers came and went. I was thrilled, because I didn’t know a soul. The afternoon took on a rosy glow. Croley, an eighteen-year-old sun-bleached surfer showed up for work at four o’clock. His duties were many: bar back, cook, janitor.

  When Hazel introduced us, he shook my hand and said, “It’s wonderful to meet you, ma’am. I’m so sorry for your loss. We all miss Murmur terribly.” Other than for the “ma’am” reference, I was immediately charmed.

  Silas remained bombastic, with an edge that glinted mean, defensive, and overly friendly, having the scintillating speed of light spinning off a disco ball.

  Paul Hiers struck me as shy, kind, with lots to hide. And I wondered, but did not ask, why he traveled to Crescent Beach to drink, when he lived thirty minutes north up in Lincolnville.

  Hazel seemed eager to share with me all she knew about the operational end of Salty’s, and I promised her that I wouldn’t change a thing. “Why fix something that’s not broken?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” she said. And then she leaned against the bar, sighed, and whispered, “At least she went out the way she wanted. I mean, she loved that river, that place. It would have killed her to die, say, on the highway or in a hospital.”

  “Shit,” Silas said, and his face clouded.

  “Shit what?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “No, what?” I leaned over to him. He scared me, but there was an intensity playing right below the surface that pulled me in.

  “It’s just that there ain’t no fucking way she died by drowning. Not Murmur. I don’t believe it for one flat second.”

  “Oh, don’t start this again, Silas. Please don’t,” Hazel said, shutting her eyes as if to force away his words.

  I reached over and patted her arm. “No, no, I want to hear why he thinks that. Silas, what do you mean?” I couldn’t tell him that I knew it, too, that my friend, who grew up loving that water, swimming in it as if she were half fish, could never have drowned. But I couldn’t give voice to this because I could not deal with the alternatives. Maybe Silas could do it for me.

  He clenched his teeth and his fists opened and closed, opened and closed, as if he was struggling not to punch something.

  “Silas?” I said, bearing down.

  “There’s just no fucking way, okay? The gal knew how to swim. She knew the river. Shit, I wouldn’t be surprised if she could have walked on water.”

  I felt myself—my fears and intuitions—slip toward something dark, something so awful, I refused to acknowledge its existence. “But Dr. Z said it was an accidental death. When he called me, that’s what he said.”

  “Look, Silas,” Hazel put both hands on the bar and tilted her head the way birds do when they are trying to listen to a faraway cry. “She went out there on that river on New Year’s Eve, got drunk, fell overboard, and that’s that. You’ve got to let this go.”

  “She’s right, Silas,” Paul Hiers said from his side of the bar. “Even if it isn’t what happened, she’s right.”

  Silas’s eyes lit with an old anger, an ancient anger, one that I suspected would never be extinguished until he felt the truth was served. I looked at the three of them, not understanding the undercurrents of this conversation. “But what about Dr. Z?”

  “Oh, fuck Dr. Z. He don’t give a flying flip.”

  Croley, who’d been lingering toward the back of the bar, piped up then. “You know, a lot of people say it was suicide. That something caught up with her and she just couldn’t keep going.”

  As if I were having an out-of-body experience, I heard myself say, “That’s not true, Croley. Murmur could never do anything like that. She wouldn’t. It had to be an accident. Somehow, it was an accident.”

  Hazel breathed out hard and whispered, “Great.”

  I heard a commotion behind me. Before I could check it out, the commotion sat down two stools over. He jingled a large ring of keys, mumbled under his breath, and took out a pen. He reached for a bev nap and scrawled something on it. His unkempt gray-streaked sandy hair smelled of Ivory soap. With more than his share of a five o’clock shadow, he appeared to be a portrait in studied sloppiness and noise. Yes, his hair was a mess and so was his face, but his smooth hands and neatly trimmed nails betrayed him. This guy was no blue-collar bloke.

  “What’ll it be?” Hazel asked, reverting back to her stone face.

  Paul Hiers whipped around on his stool, suddenly fascinated with the country-music video on the now-muted TV.

  Silas stood up. He was a big guy. I didn’t know what he did for a living, but his arms and chest brought to mind those beefcake boys of professional wrestling. And he was tall enough that he eclipsed the Florida Gator banner hanging on the wall behind him. He threw down money on the bar, then stared at the smooth-handed man with all the disgust one might convey when being forced to gaze upon an open sore.

  The man steadied his focus on the far wall.

  “I didn’t think so,” Silas said, hurl
ing the words as if they were fists. Then he walked out, patting my shoulder as he passed.

  “How much do I owe you?” Paul Hiers asked, not turning around.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll put it on your tab,” Hazel said. “Billy, I asked you before: What will you have?”

  “A Coors, I guess.”

  I caught Hazel’s eye. I mouthed Billy Speare? She gave one quick nod. Paul Hiers stood and said, “Later, ladies.”

  “Bye, sweetheart.” Hazel winked as he walked out.

  I don’t know if it was Silas’s insistence that Murmur’s death was not an accident, or his violent reaction to Billy Speare, or Croley claiming it was a suicide, or my inability to cope with the fact that Murmur’s last boyfriend had just stridden into the bar, but what is surely true is that the earth was rumbling beneath my feet. I had to get out of there. The day had gone on too long and the sunset was being crowded out by ugly questions that I could not, would not, contend with.

  “We’ll talk later, Hazel,” I said.

  “Sure, honey, anytime.” She set Billy’s beer in front of him and took his money.

  I walked out into the chill air of the dying day. Why hadn’t I introduced myself? Why didn’t I simply walk back into the bar and say, “Hello, I’m Charlee, Murmur’s best friend. She told me all about you”? I looked over my shoulder. Hazel was reaching for the remote. Croley was mopping the floor. And Billy . . . well, I had the strangest sensation that he was one of those ghosts—a reminder of a less-than-gentle past—who would extract from my flesh something excruciating, something damning, something that would propel me into an abyss both hollow and dark.