Northern Lights

by Raymond Strom

  “Old Fashioned for the lady,” he said, setting the drink with the cherry in front of my mother. “And a splash of lake water for the Fisherman.” He raised his glass, my mother raised hers, then they both looked down at the tumbler before me. It would be a long weekend.

  We drank. The Fisherman poured another round, made mine with ice and cola. This one would sit on the bar. The shot burned warm in my stomach and I felt lighter, giving me a much better feeling about what was happening.

  “So this is your place?”

  “We have one dinner that costs sixty dollars,” she said. “We’re going to be rich as soon as we pay off this credit card.”

  “Credit card?” I asked, looking away, my good feelings leaving as quickly as they had arrived. “I thought it was a loan.”

  Above three levels of liquor bottles hung giant cocktail glasses. My mother followed my gaze.

  “Those are for family-sized margaritas,” she said. “Should we get out of here?”

  I nodded. I wanted to be as far from the Fisherman as possible but I wouldn’t get my wish.

  “We’re going drinking, baby,” my mother called to the Fisherman. “Get Susan to cover the bar.”

  Susan was a cousin I didn’t know I had, my mother’s brother’s daughter, half a pair of twins. She walked behind the bar and set to washing glasses, loose blond hair bouncing on her shoulders with the motion of her hands in the sink. The Fisherman stood behind her, staring. One of the ladies asked for the check but he didn’t even flinch.

  “Get your jacket, baby,” my mother shouted, startling him out of his trance. “We’re leaving now.”

  The Fisherman didn’t think to let me take the front seat so I climbed in back and tried to lean up into their conversation, only to be blocked by the Fisherman’s arm, as he kept his hand on my mother’s shoulder the entire drive. He told her about his day bartending and finished off his story by saying that all the women he had served in the bar that day were cows.

  “I swear it, dear,” he said. “Compared to you it was a real moo-fest in there today.”

  She laughed and swatted at his knee with her hand. The Fisherman knew how to talk to my mother.

  The bar was called The Laughing Heron, a dark place where the tables and chairs were made from raw lumber. We were at a high table along the wall, my mother and the Fisherman were seated and I stood. The area between the tables and the bar was packed with men who had spent most of their lives laboring—painters, fishermen, a man who worked either in a coal mine or a foundry—and another group that appeared to have spent much time lifting heavy things. This was as good a time as any.

  “So, I’ve come all this way to ask you to be a part of my life,” I said. “I want to forgive you.”

  The Fisherman laughed. My mother furrowed her brow, then looked away.

  “Forgive me for what?”

  “For abandoning him, I believe,” the Fisherman said.

  “I know it’s far,” I said. “But we could meet up once in a while. I could take the bus again sometime. And soon I’ll be living in Minneapolis in the dorms at the university. You could come visit on weekends. I’ll get a job and put you up in a hotel.”

  “Weekends are going to be pretty busy at the restaurant,” the Fisherman said, then under his breath: “College boy.”

  “What?”

  “I should get more drinks,” my mother said and made her way to the bar. The Fisherman and I looked at each other. He brushed my hair out of my eyes with a thick finger, then told me he had something he wanted to tell me later. My mother came back with a drink for the Fisherman and one for herself—I was still holding my first, unsipped, in my hand.

  “You have a brother,” my mother said, then dragged on her cigarette. “But you won’t get to see him. Because of Frank.”

  “Your mother’s a tornado, boy,” the Fisherman said, “leaving broken homes and crying children all over the Midwest.”

  I shot a dirty look at the Fisherman, then asked my mother where Frank was again.

  “He’s probably getting it from behind right now,” the Fisherman said and laughed. “Do you want me to tell this story for you?”

  My mother looked down into her brandy and nodded.

  “Well, your mother was at the restaurant and someone tossed melted butter all over her pants. She drove home quick, to find your stepdad bent over the kitchen table with a dick in his ass. I’ll spare you the details, but your mother changed her clothes and went back to work.”

  “I knew something was up,” my mother said. “He never cared when I gained weight. Said he would love me anyways.”

  “Maybe he loved you for who you are,” I said.

  “That guy only loves cock,” the Fisherman said. “I’m going to piss.”

  He got up and his chair fell backwards. He looked down at it, then up at my mother before he walked off toward the bathroom. My mother stood and righted it for him.

  “I’m not too lucky, Shane. First, there was your father, of course. Then Donald, who you met, the biker—damn, what a mistake he was. And now this business with Frank. It’s not too easy for a woman, you know.”

  “You really fucked up when you left my father,” I yelled, having lost what goodwill I had built up for my mother until then. “He was a rock.” People at nearby tables turned toward us.

  My mother looked into her drink for a moment, tapped at a floating ice cube with her finger. “He was a rock,” she said, looking up from her glass. “You’re right about that. But rocks are cold, Shane. People don’t need rocks, they need warmth and love. I’m sorry, but when that’s gone you shouldn’t be tied to someone cold and unloving.”

  “That’s what marriage is, Mother,” I said. “A lifelong commitment. ’Til death do us part.”

  “This doesn’t sound much like forgiveness,” she said. “And you know nothing about it anyways. You’re coming up on that time in your life when you’re going to become something, Shane. You’ll soon be who you are for the rest of your life. If you’re going to be anything, don’t be a rock.”

  “He’s dead now so it doesn’t matter either way, does it?” I asked. “But let me ask you one thing: Is that story about Frank true?”

  The look in her eyes told me it was a lie but before she could answer, the man next to me swung his arm and knocked my drink out of my hand. Brandy and cola splashed on my mother and the man. The tumbler shattered, sending long shards of glass sliding across the floor.

  “You better watch where you’re going there, pretty boy,” the man said. His sideburns continued down his jawline and up into a mustache. His chin was clean shaven.

  My mother rose from her seat.

  “What did you say to my son?” she yelled.

  “I told your faggot son to watch what the fuck he was doing,” the man snarled.

  “We’re going to leave,” the Fisherman said from behind us, “but you better hope we don’t meet again.”

  The man told us all to fuck off and turned back to the group he was with. The Fisherman sucked down his drink in one long pull, then my mother paid our tab and we left.

  * * *

  The Fisherman and I sat in the dining room after my mother had gone to bed. Six candle flame bulbs burned dimly in the chandelier overhead. A bottle of brandy and a bottle of cola sat on the table and some crooner played on a portable radio that followed the Fisherman around the house. He often sang along.

  “Old Dino was my godfather,” the Fisherman said. “Nicest guy you’ll ever meet.”

  “Who?”

  “Dino,” he said, leaning toward me with a furrowed brow. “Dean Martin! The guy singing. Famous Dean Martin? Shit!”

  “I thought this was Frank Sinatra,” I said.

  “Naw!” he yelled. “No, no, no, no, no! Sinatra is a pussy! He poked a hole in his eardrum to get out of the army. Old Dino never saw combat but at least he went where he was assigned.”

  I didn’t care at all. I had no idea why I was still up, sitting with this m
an I hardly knew. I had taken a seat at the table upon our return from the bar, expecting that my mother would join us but, after the Fisherman and I poured drinks for ourselves, she had swept through the room claiming she was tired, then went to bed alone.

  “Sinatra stayed behind to fuck everyone’s wives.”

  “Well, that sounds familiar,” I said.

  A new song started up and the Fisherman garbled the words so badly I had no idea what he or Dean Martin were singing. At the second verse he pointed to the radio and smiled as Old Dino told us how he had been a rover, but now that was over.

  “I once had sex with five women at the same time,” the Fisherman told me as the song ended. “Five girls, one boy,” he sang, mutilating the final lyric, “no grief, much joy.”

  Startled, I sipped my drink. I had been planning to let my drink sit untouched, but I reached for it every time the Fisherman made me uncomfortable.

  “You could probably do that,” he said and I sank into my seat, crossed my arms. “You could be a male escort. You’ve got the face, but you’d have to cut that fucking hair away from it.”

  Outside, the rain dripped from the eaves, tapped on the windows, and I tried to imagine anyplace other than where I was. I wondered if it was raining in Holm, if the sheriff had taken the evidence from Jenny and made a move on Svenson.

  “I’d have to see your cock, of course. To be sure.”

  I sipped my drink and when I set it down my hands moved to the brandy and the cola, setting a bottle to each side of my drink, a wall of liquid between us.

  “I love blondes,” he said. “Blondes with Heavenly Bodies. That’s the name of my club in Chicago. I’m part owner.”

  The Fisherman stood and walked into the kitchen. Opened the freezer.

  “Blondes get me into trouble with your mother,” he called from the kitchen. “There are a couple at your mom’s restaurant that I’d like to fuck. Your cousin Susan, for one. Her sister I haven’t met yet, but I’m sure I’d do her too—they are twins, after all. She probably looks just like her.”

  I heard the rattle of an ice tray being emptied into a bowl and then water from the tap. Refilling the tray. The Fisherman may have been a drunk but he was a man with priorities. He came back with the ice and finished his drink. He took one cube and filled the rest of his glass with brandy. I took three and added cola. He raised his and downed half the glass in one pull.

  “I’m a bad man,” the Fisherman said. “Do you know why they call me the Fisherman? ’Cause I throw people in the lake.”

  I sipped my drink and absentmindedly shook my head.

  “You don’t believe me?” he asked, chair screeching across the floor as he stood up. He looked hurt by my betrayal. “I’m actually on the run right now, staying here while things cool down. My club’s going through a bankruptcy. I stopped at this bar on my way out of town, met this woman, and walked into this.”

  “My mother knows about this?” I asked. “You remember that you’re talking about my mother, right?”

  But he wasn’t talking to me anymore. Maybe he was recounting his life to himself, stacking up his feats of manhood, justifying his presence to the world. The song on the radio changed and he sat back down, singing along to snippets of Old Dino; sometimes he knew the words, sometimes he didn’t. His bravado reminded me of Russell’s stories about girls from the days before our night together behind the Aurora and, horrified, I came to understand one thing I had inherited from my mother: her taste in men.

  “People in Chicago know that if you’re giving someone cement shoes I’m the man to call.”

  His eyes cut at me with the same hungry look he had set on my cousin earlier. I picked up my glass but didn’t drink, held it for a moment, then set it back on the table. The phone in the kitchen rang but the Fisherman didn’t notice.

  “Five women at the same time and they paid me to do it. You could make a thousand dollars a weekend and all you would be doing is fucking women.”

  “I don’t think I could do that,” I said but he didn’t answer. He leaned back into his chair and his head lolled on his neck, his eyes fluttered, and his mouth popped open just enough for his tongue to slip out. When his unseeing eyes stared off at the wall beyond me for a moment I thought he had passed out sitting up, but then he shivered back to consciousness and smiled so wide I could see that one of his frontmost molars was missing.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I don’t think I could do that.”

  I reached for my drink and the Fisherman came out of his chair, wrapped his hand around my bicep, dug his fingernails into the soft skin on the inside of my arm. He pulled me out of my seat and pushed me backwards until I was against the wall. His strength made me weak and I folded into his arms.

  “Show me your cock,” he said through clenched teeth. His brandy breath tickled my ear and sent goose bumps up all over my body.

  My free hand went to my belt and he let go of the other. I undid my pants and closed my eyes. When I opened them, the Fisherman was now in my chair, brandy in his hand, staring. The phone was still ringing in the kitchen.

  “You couldn’t even please one woman with that little thing,” he said and laughed. “And look! Your little guy is standing up! Your mom was right—you are a faggot. Just like Frank.”

  It took me a moment to understand that he was mocking me. I looked down at myself, now fully aroused, then pulled up my pants, walked past the Fisherman into the kitchen, and picked up the receiver.

  “Hey Jim,” a woman’s voice asked. “Have you put her to bed yet?”

  “What?”

  “Jim?” The voice grew flustered. “Come over here and fuck me right now.”

  I cut the connection and dialed Jenny’s number. It rang ten times with no answer. It was late—maybe she was sleeping. When I hung up, my mother was behind me, eyes heavy with sleep, creases on her face from her pillow.

  “Who was that?”

  “It was nothing,” I said. “Wrong number, then I tried to call my friend.”

  “A friend in Minnesota? Long distance?”

  “Yeah, no one answered.”

  “You could’ve asked.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “I’m going to bed.”

  My mother made her way to the dining room but, before I could hear what she said to the Fisherman, I climbed the stairs. The guest room was quiet and cold, rain tapping at the window, so I got under the blankets and shivered until I warmed the bed with my body. I was on the edge of sleep when the phone rang again. A crash came from the kitchen and my mother started yelling. The Fisherman’s voice grew just as loud. I thought for a moment that I should go break them up but then it was morning.

  My sleep a mere second of restless darkness, I stumbled downstairs to find the Fisherman was still awake, still drinking, the same Dean Martin songs playing on the portable radio. He smiled at me over his liquid breakfast. Red eyes and messy hair but otherwise unfazed.

  “I told your mother you showed me your cock last night,” he said. “We had a good laugh about it when I drove her to the restaurant this morning.” He lifted his glass, toasting me, and then drained it.

  I walked past him to go to the bathroom.

  “And you need a fucking haircut,” he said, holding a twenty-dollar bill in the air. “Your mother gave me this for your barber.”

  * * *

  On the way to the barber shop, the Fisherman stopped at the bar on the ground floor of the big white hotel that overlooked the lake. He ordered me a Bloody Mary and for himself, of course, brandy and water. He drank in silence until he was halfway done with his second drink. My first sat sweating before us.

  “You need to start taking care of yourself,” he said. “You’re all mousy and queer-looking. You need to look sharp. Get a haircut every two weeks. I mean short hair, not any of this hippy bullshit. Clip your fingernails and use a file. That’s important. No woman wants to be all clawed up on the inside.”

  The bartender was sorry to
interrupt but wondered if the Fisherman had paged someone. He said yes and ordered another drink.

  “Probably the barber,” he said. “Told him to call when a spot opened up.”

  “You paged a barber?” I asked but the Fisherman didn’t answer. He finished his drink and went off to the phone.

  The bartender came back with the drink and set it down. Then he picked up the empty, looked over at the Fisherman and back at me.

  “Your old man always drink three of these before noon?”

  “It’s likely,” I said. Then, in a moment of genius that I haven’t matched since, I told him he wasn’t my old man, rather that I was a prostitute from Chicago and we had a room upstairs. The bartender stepped away when the Fisherman returned, tapped the other bartender on the shoulder, and they both looked our way for a while.

  “You gotta go to where the pussy is,” he said. “Go dancing. Trim your pubic hair, for God’s sake, and get a suntan.”

  The Fisherman tossed his drink back in one big swallow. He set the twenty my mother had given him for my haircut on the bar and we left. Outside was gray, raining again. The Fisherman drove two blocks and pointed. Said he would be back to pick me up in twenty-five minutes.

  I ran through the rain to the door. A bell jangled when I entered and a woman with blond hair and bangs asked if she could help me.

  “Someone called and said there was an opening,” I told her.

  “I’m the only one here,” she said, “and I haven’t called anyone. No matter, there’s no one waiting.”

  She put me in the chair and faced me toward the mirror so I could watch my hair fall in long swaths to the floor. The change was immediate and, as she made her way around me from one side to the other, I could see side-by-side how my long hair had made me look like a girl. It didn’t help me understand why it had led some people to the edge of their wits, but I could see the cause for confusion in a way that I hadn’t before. I had always been me, as far as I could tell, the change in my hair so subtle from day to day that I had grown into my own vision of myself over the years it took to get that long.