Under the gun metal gray skies of a falling afternoon, water slushed down the streets looking for an exit. Rain slid down the windows of this 28th street tavern, trying to get at the neon Guinness sign. Inside, couples both young and old were caught in various stages of infatuation trying to avoid what happens next by distancing themselves from what was happening now. The bar stretches away from the street in a dark faux-mahogany lifeline for the regulars who inhabit this corner of the lower south side. The door squeals when it's opened, allowing a breath of fresh air to be poisoned by the decaying stench of long ago smoked cigarettes and stale booze.
Sam's Hideaway serves a purpose, fills a void, empties pockets and is quickly becoming a chic place to be, much to the chagrin of big nose Fred, Roger, Smokin' Joe and the fat man. What was once a place to roll dice, shoot pool, argue baseball, get a decent pour and run a tab, was slowly but surely turning into all things American, or in today's terms, generic.
The Hideaway only has sixteen or so stools but you would never know it on a Saturday night when uptown slid downtown and downtown moved over to this side of the tracks. Not that that was a bad thing, as the till rang like gangbusters, but to most of its sorry inhabitants, the Hideaway was going the way of the Wagonwheel, Elmo's, and Shakey Jake's. That is, changing the face to change with the times. Nothing stays the same but everything is still the same.
The sign over the till informing customers that hangovers installed and serviced here said it all. Sam's opened at eight in the morning and closed whenever it was time to go, or whenever Madjack felt like it. Jack looked like a Russian cossack, large meaty hands that could swallow a highball, a big flagrant handlebar moustache that spoiled his Guinness shifter, beady black eyes that missed nothing while giving nothing away, and a belly that pushed his infamous aloha shirts into the home side of the plank. Jack was everybody's friend and nobody's favorite enemy as he spoke with clipped sharp sentences, poured stiff drinks, took the tip right out of your pocket (if there was one), and never failed to have a hearty laugh at a good drunk. Bartenders usually come and go, switching allegiances like today's ballplayers, but Jack was from the old school when bars were sanctuaries and drinkers relied on the person on that side of the bar for friendship, jokes, and sarcasm as much as his steady pour.
There wasn't much to the job here as there was no blender, no computer, and no credit card machine, which also meant no daiquiries, mudslides, pina coladas or any other tropical variant that sullied liquor's good name. Back in the day of Sam, it was a cash bar, still is, though with the tab box filling up these days like rats at a buffet, it was getting harder to service with a smile. Then the kids would come blowing through on the weekends with rolls of twenties, all bright eyes and eager ears, lapping up the trampled yesterdays that the walls would tell to anyone who would listen. The kids were the wobbly legs that the Hideaway found itself standing on as more and more of these types of establishments would be expected to either fade into history or, like Elmo's, get karaoke and a blender.
She loved the tobacco stained walls, the faded rock and roll posters advertising lineups too good to be true, the leather stools in red that leaned haphazardly even without an occupant, the two pool tables under dimlit Rainier and Hamm's lights, and, especially the worn and cracked tile floor. The weight of years carried from the door down the bar in a foot worn trough that shadowed light even as it held it.
As a child of the industry, growing up playing liar's dice and thirteen aces with her dad's fives, and Morello, Dominic, Santo and Mr. Miller sitting around the horseshoe of Logan's, she was used to the smell, the language, the grit, the taste of bars like this. Logan's had been her father's, a working class bar situated deep within the city's little Italy where European rejects of Italian and Irish descent could sit elbow to elbow matching shots with stories about Dimaggio, Mantle, Musial and Williams.
Though she was Paul Tordello's daughter, Sadie never made it her business to be in the business. Knowing how it worked, why it worked and with whom it worked was enough to push her out. The empty ash tray-spilled beer-old air musk that permeated her clothes, her hair, even her skin after a night crawling through the city's brotherhood of iniquity were like a shadow, never far behind or far away, as much as she tried to leave them where she found them.
When she asked Jack for a Beam and coke, she felt his eyes caressing her hips as he raised his bushy eyebrows with an "and?" expression, while grabbing a bucket and reaching for the Beam bottle. Glancing toward him, Sadie decide Jimmy was a CC man, lots of CC and and splash of water. If he didn't like it, he could buy his own drink. One talent that is inevitably cultivated in this business is the ability to read people and to make them play your game your way, and Sadie was good at this. Despite being young, brassy, smart and loaded from the top down, Sadie's weakness' were never far from the surface.
Her flecked brown eyes came to rest on the drinks, two glasses of piece of mind that would hopefully ease the awkwardness of Jimmy's twitching hands. Sadie knew that Jimmy didn't like these kinds of places which is exactly why she brought him in, to see a man squirm in his own insecurities.
The echo of a cracked break reverberated across their table along with the excited voices of new bets placed on old felt and the dim recollections of Jethro Tull's "locomotive breath". High, dark pock-marked booths ringed the pool tables, far enough aside to avoid interference yet close enough to scrutinize the action.
Jimmy was a pool player, a hustler that knew better but didn't know why. He played by accident, caught up in the symmetry of the game, the perfectly round multi-colored balls caroming out of a triangle to be bounced around a rectangle only to fall into round pockets. He loved the angles, the banks, the straightaways, the walkin-the-dogs, and those soft cushions as friends and enemies. To Jimmy, pool was a game that matched his life, with the balls being his friends, scattering to the four corners, some coming back around while others disappeared forever.
He played coolly, deliberately, and usually with a camel dangling between his lips. He shot smooth, slow and with precision, preferring to miss softly, if at all. Money slipped from his pocket like a stranger leaving a party when he got involved on the table. He liked to lose, liked the desperate feeling of falling, but what gave him the most pleasure was the turning point, that point in a hustler's game where the mark knows his days are numbered and there isn't thing one he can do about it.
Jimmy never said much during the game, or anytime else for that matter, as he let his smoldering eyes and magic wand of a cue do his talking. It was hard for him to sit and not play. Sadie knew this and also knew that with playing came money, and with money came Jimmy's demons. It had been six months for Jimmy since he had strayed off the path, six good months as he had found Sadie, had stayed clean, and now, for the fourth time in as many weeks, had sat on his hands while there was money to be made on this poor beat up old felt of Sam's Hideaway.
With his drink sitting in a pool of its own sweat, a camel drawing hesitatingly to a close, Jimmy fumbled the loose change in his pocket that was plenty to play with, to win with. Sadie squeezed his thigh and shot him the cool look of security, the tether to which he could grab a hold of. He questioned his weakness and leaned on his strength, sometimes in the same moment. Jimmy's devils were the angels that had kept him afloat in past years and as Sadie sat across from him, she knew who was getting the better of him tonight.
He got up and walked past the table, sliding his eyes across the green expanse, smelling the chalky haze and hearing the idle banter but not listening. Standing by the wall rack of cues, Sadie thought he looked like a teenage outcast peering into a room of cool to which he wasn't a part of. He lit another cigarette , exhaled in the direction of the teetering eight ball, game over, another sucker lost to idiocy and hypocracy and moved toward the bar. He caught Jack's eye, raised his near empty glass and within minutes had a refill waiting for him on the bar.
After making his round, it was all Jimmy could do to not just lean over and grab that john's fold of money and walk out. The bar was full of patsys, and he wondered why he'd never hit this place before. It was probably because of its history and age and the baggage of old pro's that that brings. There is nothing worse than getting eaten by one of your own kind as cannibalism in the world of hustling was legitimate and common. When the end of Sadie's drink was in sight, and his just a quick inhale away, he caught her eye as if to say," time's up, if we stay, I play".
With it being close to two a.m., and this being the third bar to which she had tortured him with tonight, Sadie knew that time was running out. In the glow of a burning streetlight she stood under the canopy of Sam's waiting. For what? a cab? an answer? another drink? She didn't know, but the answer wasn't going to be found in that drunk's pockets that Jimmy was rifling through across the street.
Sometimes character breaks down, crumbling into fragments unrecognizable to those closest to them. On a rainy night two streets over from nowhere, she watched with glazed eyes the decomposing moral fiber of a man she was beginning to know and love. The rain was pounding the street in a jittered hysteria that made Sadie nervous. The man crouched over the sprawled figure was now a stranger to her, a character in a crime novel that the reader is unsure of. The yellow light cast shadows over the two and Sadie could see Jimmy's quick hands work the pockets of the coat, then the pants, looking for something that wasn't his and wasn't supposed to be his.
On one knee now, he wiped his face, stood up quickly, turned, took one step back into the street and heard the scream.
When time slow, the clock becomes audible to reactionary people, the second hand moves desperately onward as real time events unfold in slow motion. Sadie's scream hurtled over the street and into Jimmy's ear a split second befor it happened. The rain continued to fall helplessly against now splintering glass, shattering dreams and the threads of a life slowly unravelling.
Her voice echoed across the empty void of night, becoming lost in the impact of american steel against american man that had just happened before her eyes. All of her senses flooded her brain; the visual shock and amazement of the carnage, the sound of shattering glass and crunching thud of impact, the taste of acid on her tongue from the rising bile, and the smell of the uncaring darkness mingling with the wet pavement.
Her hands turned white, ghostly, as they rose like fluttering birds to her face.
The screeching tires were a pair of illumined red eyes staring back at her and as they dulled she realized all too quickly that the car was pulling away, leaving. Just as quickly as they dissolved, disbelief entered the fray of emotions assaulting her, adding one more layer to this rapidly growing palette of pain she was developing.
Moving as only instinct can move a body after witnessing the impossible, Sadie rushes through the drops avoiding the humanity of getting wet and finds herself holding the wrong end of a .45. Standing in the calm fearlessness of nothing to lose , she fires at the receding beady eyes and hears for the second time tonight, shattering glass and crashing metal. Firing again because it feels too good not to, the echo bounces down the street like a golf ball on a cart path.
It's the silence she hears next. The silence of Jimmy lying still on the pavement, the silence of the smoldering gun in her hand, of the realization of the fading echoes, of the newly opened chapter in her life. Without even looking, Sadie knows that he is dead, knows that he stole the gun from the now approaching man, knows that tomorrow the sun will rise, and knows that all will not be OK.
"Is he alive?" The unknown man asks. "And what about him?"
He nods down the street toward the spectacle of broken vehicle and burst light, and for the first time, Sadie notices the open door with the body spilling out of the front seat. The gasp that tries to escape her diaphram is trapped by the narrowing of her world, the choking off of the outside so that the gasp is turned inward, into a scream that pierces her soul and drives a coffin cold nail into the bottom of her being.
He takes the gun from Sadie's shaking hands and in a soberly drunk purposeful walk, beats the street like he was being chased by ghosts.
It's been only fifteen minutes since she left the bar, a lifetime has passed, and now as she stands beside death she must decide between living and dying. To live means facing the consequences of her actions while trying to make sense of others', answering questions that will never know truth. The other alternative, escaping, provides the easiest reply to the hardest questions. When she left her apartment this evening, these were not the sort of questions she thought she would be asking herself at two in the morning, and now, faced with the dilemma of her future she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and ran.
Out of the spilled light of Sam's, straggling customers made their way into the unfolding circle of chaos in the street. From somewhere a long way away, the unmistakeable sounds of emergency start to slowly fill the ears of those standing outside. There is no movement anywhere but the doorway as people continue to leave, to gather and then disappear into tomorrow like thieves in the night. There are no witnesses, no exaggerated stories, no braggadocio, just two dead bodies and a wrecked car.
Two blocks down and one over, Sadie sits in a glassed-in phone booth staring down at her pride lying amid the stubbed out butts and societal debris that had gathered in this cubicle. Nothing about anything felt right and she couldn't tell if it was tears, sweat, or rain that was washing down her cheeks at the moment.
The booth became her sanctuary, a quiet place to sit out the shit storm that was brewing a few blocks away. The sirens echoed through the cascading thoughts and images in her mind like lost voices in a canyon. Slumping against the glass, bathed in a flourescent glow, Sadie saw the life she had been cultivating slowly eddying down her self made drain. By running away she was taking the first painful steps of an eternal marathon. Always moving, sometimes jogging, often times walking and occasionally running, she would be looking over her shoulder every day and night into the unknown eyes of strangers that had the potential to ruin her.
Nobody would remember the black haired brown eyed raven with the fast smile, leather jacket and tight jeans. Nobody would remember the slick moving, quiet guy in the pullover with the scar running under his eye. Nobody would remember them at Sam's and as Sadie came to rest on the thought that after 28 years of living her life, she was about to begin living someone elses she was oddly comforted in the blanket of anxiety that was now wrapping itself around her shoulders.
It's easy for three people to keep a secret if two of them are dead, Ben Franklin once said, and as far as Sadie knew, only herself and the lonely drunk that was Jimmy's last stand knew what went down on 28th street. Sadie was intent on keeping her end of the deal but needed to know about the other guy.
They called him Red because of the color of his cheeks (and his eyes), not his nose or his hair and he was a good time drinker with a penchant for falling down, sleeping it off and starting over again. He had been on regular government checks since the mid-'70's when he returned from Vietnam with an honorable discharge, a pharmaceutical drug habit and a knack for staying just to the edge of trouble. Problems seem to happen around Red and not to him, as he was always on the periphery of fights, of accidents, and of the law. He was not a stranger to the idiosyncracies of bars and their inhabitants, and that is why a loaded .45 was kept on his hip at almost all times. It was always the first thing muggers tried to take from him as he kept most of his money pushed down deep into his sock. The piece was his father's, a relic from his family that was the only thread that sewed him to the fabric of having actually had a family at one time.
Some people carried a lucky coin, a rabbit's foot or some other pocket size idol that became their religion, their belief system. Red carried a gun. It wasn't a belief in cold hard steel that Red stood by, but the implication of what that belief could do that he hung his worn ballcap on. An empty gun is as effective as a loaded one in situations where neither is needed, thereby blurring perception and reality.
Red enjoyed the power of his loaded gun theory, often times offering it up on the bar at Sam's as some sort of beacon, watching heads turn, mouths drop and eyes grow wide at the sight of a "loaded" gun in a room full of potentially innocent people.
Was it loaded?
It didn't matter because you had to respect its power, and this is what Red believed in.
Red lived on the second floor of a two story walkup with a dirty view of the street below. He liked to sit in a beat up folding chair with his socked feet up at an angle on the sill, smoking a King Edward's cigar while the world slowly turned outside. Tapping ash into a rusty Folger's can, he usually drank his Old Granddad out of one of the two buckets he had acquired from the Hideaway.
During the heavy summer days when the humidity pushed the city in on itself, Red's radio would be tuned to his favorite pasttime, Dodger baseball. It wasn't so much the Dodgers that he liked, as it was the voice that came out of the radio, that sandpapery rasp of the legendary Vin Scully. Red had been listening to Scully for as far back as he had coherent memories. His father would set up the transistor on the roof of the family plymouth while he fiddled under the hood and Red handed him wrenches.
The simple sounds of baseball carried over time and distance, bringing the past into the present with the ease of a Sunday morning when the game was in the very capable hands of Vin Scully. Red had always been carried away by the lilting rhythms of passing innings that Scully called, transported to a far away place that was the calmest and most peaceful state of mind that he had ever known.
Baseball in Vin Scully's voice was like paint to Picasso. To Red, there was no better Saturday afternoon than a fresh fifth, an unlit cigar, a Dodger-Giant matinee and a warm breeze blowing down the street.
At three in the morning he was still awake, still at the window, still smoking and still thinking about the accident, the shooting and that woman with his gun in her hand.
It had happened slowly, like a migraine, coming into focus only after he heard the gun shots, and then only because he had recognized the tell-tale thunder that a .45 carries.
Since the rain had let up, the wet pavement sent shivers of smell up into the night, permeating the disaster with an unkind sweetness. Sadie pulled her jacket tighter around her shoulders to keep the devils of the night at bay and to give her some sort of comfort against the persistent chills running laps up and down her spine.
The night was still and inactive with only distant sounds breaking the low wattage hum of the persistent street lamps. Coming to rest under the glow, Sadie looked up at the darkened buildings surrounding her and felt their unknowing peace work its way into her head, her shoulders and her back. The anonymity of an apartment complex loomed upwards with several lights on, like a gap toothed jack-o-lantern smiling down at her. The love she felt for the empty streets went back to her childhood, when she would imagine the secrets behind the closed doors and shuttered windows. Keeping the world out and the reality in, pictures of domesticity, of loneliness, of sex, of perversion would entertain the imagination of Sadie's nights walking the avenues of a deserted city. Often the "blue glow" of a TV would replace the imaginations best kept stories and the faded lives of taped fables would play to unlistening walls. Sadie hated the "blue glow" that came with the vertical city because it was numbing the populace and dumbing down the creativity that is the lifeblood of society. Looking up, and not seeing evidence of this gave her hope and triggered another round of shivers that kept coming and going.
PART 2....SADIE
With the shaking hands of a sleepless junkie, Sadie fumbled with the clasp on her wallet and pulled out a paid off creditcard, she handing it through the window of the train station asking for a one way to Seattle. With her packed bags, empty eyes and forlorn shoulders, Sadie possessed all of the elements of a runaway taking flight from her known world. It was only a matter of time before she landed on her decision to move on. Without any immediate family holding her close, friends as mere acquaintances and a job that was going nowhere fast, a fresh start in a fresh city seemed to be the best move.
Seattle (or Portland, who knew) fit the bill as a young urban trendy metropolis where blending in would be as easy as arriving. Walking the streets in a daze the past few days, Sadie had barely eaten, hardly slept and only went to her apartment to assure herself that she exisited. With each successive sunrise after the accident she became more and more attached to the idea of leaving it behind and starting over. She had talent, looks, a little bit of money, no debt, no boyfriend (anymore), no bills and nothing substantial to keep her in lock step with this miserable city quickly sinking to the bottom of her favorites list.
On the fourth day after, she arrived at Amtrak ready to be lulled by the rails into unconsciousness. From here it was the California Zephyr to Denver, then Oakland, change trains to the Coast Starlight and up the coast to Seattle (or Portland). A place of wet hope, damp enthusiasm,and a foggy sense of individuality. With Starbucks, the Mariners and fishing the rule, she was sure she could sit down and make herself comfortable.
The windows of the mostly empty train were streaked with the grime of this worn out city and its seeping tunnels of darkness it pulled through on its retreat from the reaches of poverty, filth and despair. Sadie eased her chair back to half-recline, putting her shoeless feet up on the chair in front of her so that she could feel like she was escaping the ties flying by below. Reaching into her bag, the familiar smoothness of a lonely pint of Beam caressed her searching hands she grabbed it by the throat thereby freeing it from its dark confines. Twisting its neck, the cap cracked a friendly"how do you do?", immediately wafting a smell of of Kentucky into her inhaling nostrils. The first pulll of a new bottle is always the best, akin to the first drag of the first cigarette in the morning, it luxuriates and placates, reaching those places in the brain that need soothing.
Tipping the bottle to her lips, the amber slid down her throat, dragging a bit of tension, stress, and fear with it. Spreading outward to her extremities with each successive pull, Sadie felt the warm glow start to envelop her like a favorite blanket, as she leaned her head back, closed her eyes and felt the rhythm of the tracks start to lull her into an empty space.
Space was what she needed and craved, in her mind, in the train car, in the soon to be wide open country ahead of her, and most importantly, as much of it as possible between her and 28th street. Taking refuge in the lee of the bottle, it was easy to see the whys, who's, what's and the how's. The trotting pace of 20/20 hindsight, allows one to fixate on specific points of interest and examine the impending results of spur of the moment decisions. Why did she fire that gun? Who was that man walking away? What did he do with the gun with her fingerprints on them? How many people were dead? and why was she scared of staying and facing the music?
Her imagination ran wild in those moments of near disbelief following the accident. The police had found nothing but the dirty residue of two dead bodies, a wrecked car, a bar full of empty leads and an interest level below the curb. Memories of Jimmy at the pool tables were vague as the cops showed pictures around the neighborhood to try and indentify the girl who was with the shy man who died. Jack could place her at the bar, recalling what she drank, that she paid with cash and that she was hot. Other than that, it was blank. Bartenders have memories for certain things; a too loud order, a bizarre drink, a sexy dress, a haughty laugh, a big tip (or no), distinguishable characteristics that makes one stand out in a disorderly room full of loud people. They make caricatures of their patrons, preying on their insecurities by referring to them by their most attractive, dominant, or ugliest feature. It becomes a game to guys like Madjack, keeping tabs open on a sheet of paper next to the register with names like 'moleface', 'three earring man', 'leather asshole', that nobody but him will see or know about.
So he fills them in on 'CC and water' and 'Beam and coke' as best he can, finally recalling that 'CC' didnt pay for his second drink.
Call it on the house, Jack chuckled, as the poor fuck is dead.
Through heavily lidded eyes and the enveloping warmth of whiskey, Sadie Tordello felt the weighty pull of sleep. Leaving the city, as well as the day's sun, she can feel, albeit only slightly, the past receding behind her on those tracks. She wants to leave it among the spikes, the hobos, the grease and tar, abandon it on the rails and yards of industry, the comfort of steel parallels stretching forward and backward. Leaving behind her pieces of a life willingly left to be scavenged by authorities, landlords, employers, random people with a curiosity, and a society with a penchant for not letting mysteries die.
Opening up in her polluted dreams were scenes of domesticity, normalcy, and a sunny day at the park with her husband, two kids and abby the dog. The kids, a boy and a girl, being pushed on the swing by a figure she didnt recognize, an amalgram of her last few boyfriends with his face obscured by the cloudy sun filtering over the soap opera sappy scene. Off to one side, Sadie could see herself as a stranger, taller and heavier with a spray of moles across her jawline. Placidly smiling this woman who was her but not, stood detached from the scene as if observing the beauty of a regular family in all its quaint Rockwellian poses.
The kids were nearing three and five, bubbly giggly packages of life oblivious to guns, accidents,dreams, trains, and tomorrow. The man pushed the swings with a determined yet carefree effort, his boots shuffling in the cedar bark of the enclosure as his eyes wandered over the park and into the far off street. A siren sang distantly but all Sadie heard was the muffled cries of the kids and the singsong of fluttering birds. It woke her up and the blurring line between dream and reality took seconds to erase.
Darkness had fallen outside the train and city lights receded into the background. Wiping her bloody eyes with dirty hands , Sadie realized she needed a shower and a long uninterrupted sleep in an empty bed stuffed with pillows and blankets. Dreams would make an attempt at friendship but she couldnt shake off the drowsiness caused by mr. Beam and too many sleepless nights.
Falling over the cliff, muscles twitching, she was unable to stop the surging power of fatigue and exhaustion, and sank more heavily into the uncomfortably hard seat of a lonely Amtrak train heading south by southwest. This time, blackness filled the space of dreams, as her consciousness plummeted right through the levels of coherent REM and into that dark place of anaesthesia. Turning inward on herself, her conscious mind dove deep down into her soul, swimming among the discarded values, lost morals, and the handicapped ideals of youth. A mosaic of abstract emotional art suffuse in the dreary glow of a crescent moon. Wandering the corridors of Sadie's unconscious, guilt,pain,sadness, and remorse try to duck behind closed doors hoping to avoid the light of truth threatening to expose them. Running from yourself, it is impossible to hide among self erected barriers. Sadie's interior defense, made of 12th century Italian marble , was beginning to crumble under the persistent water torture of her own mind.
Hours passed in the blink of an eye and they were pulling into Cheyenne. The wind swept morning spread far and wide over the emptiness of central Wyoming. Bands of clouds raced over the early light, chasing the receding dawn into morning. Sadie woke to find aches in muscles she forgot she had, cursing her cheapness for not getting a sleeper. Looking around the nearly empty car, a couple she saw last night was getting ready to debark, the woman worn hard while her husband was straight Ivy League. What were they doing in Wyoming? The man had some garish class ring on his right hand and signs of pre mature balding, while his wife fortified her paid for boobs with expensive lingerie and enough makeup for the entire state of Texas. What would it be like to live in Cheyenne, Sadie wondered. Cowboys, tumbleweeds, hoedowns, cattle, rodeo and emptiness. It was certainly a place you could lose yourself, including your sanity.
She stayed on the train and went to look for a cup of coffee. Maybe the bar is open, she thought, and I could back that caffeine with a bloody mary. Stumbling like a teetering drunk, she made her way to the exit and opened the partition door searching for an employee or the sanctity of the bar. Finding neither, she continued her pursuit down the line as the train slowed noticeably the closer it got to the station. Beyond the flickering windows she saw a city like any other, with cars, traffic, stop lights, but with one little difference. Cheyenne had an over abundance of cowboy hats.
As the train neared its morning terminus, so too did Sadie eventually find what she was looking for. Another empty car save for a man wiping down a linoleum bar with six stools in front of it and a shelf of good times behind it. His name was Arnold and his bald black head shined like a fresh eight ball, contrasted with his ivory white smile, he was instantly Sadie's new friend.Are you open? are the three most hopeful words to a thirsty woman looking to salve her wounded being and parched throat.
Arnold grinned slightly and said, not til ten my dear.
Sadie's internal clock realized it was close, but apparently not close enough for Arnold.
Coffee,? she asked.
Of course, milk or sugar?
Sweet and creamy. So yes on both counts.
Having never taken to the bitterness of black coffee, like her father had, she preferred the doctored method of additives. Bailey's was the top choice but as a last resort she would accept cream and sugar.
Settling onto the stool, she wanted to make conversation with this stranger, if for no other reason than to hear her own voice. Loneliness had taken a hold of her overnight and the weight of what she was doing was slowly sinking in. It wasnt the loneliness of being alone that was creeping up her spine, but the newly discovered and realized abandonment of Sadie Tordello.And the slow transformation she would undergo in the upcoming months and years to another woman with another story trying to make her way in a new town. Pushing aside those fears of survival, she let herself get excited over the prospect of starting over. New friends, new life, new job, new state, new attitude, and a brand new pair of eyes to which the world would color.
Her eyes, once an innocent mottled brown, had hardened, become darker, yet still retained their magnetism. Off to the corners of both irises, lay five black dots, freckles she called them, that truly showed in indirect sunlight. They were a point of pride as she had never seen anyone else with anything similar and it was one facet of individuality nobody would ever be able to take away.
Sipping her coffee, she hadnt noticed the moving hands of the clock walk right by ten and into 10;15.
Can I have a bloody mary please?
And with artful precision, Arnold hand crafted one of the finest Stoli bloodys she had ever had, complete with celery, pickled asparagus and two tear drop tomatos bookending a skewered pimiento olive.
Outside, the train had pulled to a stop and passengers were waddling along the platform, including the irrascible couple from earlier. She tried to imagine their conversation in the rental car heading into the morning for breakfast at Polly's Diner, Hungry Joe's or the local IHOP. Putting words in peoples mouths, giving them a story and playing on stereotypes was something that amused and entertained her. Whether at bus stops, bars, elevators, laundromats or any other public convenience where people meet by chance and circumstance is fair game to her imagination.
Alone in the barcar, her head and in her life, Sadie knew what it meant to face an unknown future. Her hard charging father had never slowed down from his twenties, providing enough fodder for ridicule and humor long into his forties. Paul had died five years ago come May in a blindly random car accident that ended his days painlessly. Her mother passed away from cancer when she was a little girl, almost nine, and Sadie remembered vaguely the far away look in her eyes as she lay pale and decomposed on the hospital bed. With no sisters or brothers, Paul was left shouldering the nine year old by himself. He went about his business, running the bar called Logan's in little Italy. She was his sidekick, confidant, co-worker, best friend and, among other things, his chick magnet. Sadie was bred from attractive stock and Paul was ever the player in the ladie's game. And what's more attractive than a good looking man who owned his own business, raising a daughter single handedly and had a personality to boot? During that day and age, Paul had the city in his hand, economic times were up and he was having his slice of pie.
But all good things do come to an end and though Logan's remains a beacon for the displaced and unpossessed, Paul was forced to sell to fend off the collection agencies that eventually started coming for his dead wife's hospital bills. He called it 'morbid money', collecting from the grave like that. A curiously obscene practice which he believed cultivates the dog eat dog world of today's politics, businesses, and even friendships. To pay off a dead man's debt with a living man's life made about as much sense as frosty the snowman standing post at the gates of Hell. Sadie had inherited her father's penchant for good times, good tliquor, and sense of humor while gleaning from her mother a sense of responsibility, honesty and a flair for the dramatic. She was the perfect combination of grace and grit, grunge and style, equally comfortable in a four star restaurant or hotel as in a two bit hostel or low cieling dive bar.
With the clock pushing eleven, and departure still thirty minutes away, she paid Arnold, slipped him a smile and a few ones, and said she'd see him later.
At Denver she would upgrade to a sleeper, but for now, her corner of the train with her possessions spread upon the four seats, would do. She thought about the possibilities, the promise and the anticipation of her not yet adopted home. Bartending, waitressing, bike courier, teaching, computer teching were all options, all ways to a means. But the most lucrative and most quickly attainable was tending bar. Her back stash of money was cushion enough to float on for a month or two, but the need for a bed and a tidy place to prop her feet up would take a fair bite out of her pocket. Finding solace in her thoughts for the first time in a week relaxed her to the point of heaving a sigh of unguarded relief.In the rear view of her memory's eye she recalled the phone booth that was home to her tears and where the seeds for her fateful decision to leave were sown. That enclosed glass box, protected from the wind, rain, sun and dark, proved to be the beginnning of her journey to today. Walkiing along the platform, the whistle for embarkation blew, and with that she took one more step in walking away from her past.
PART 3...RED
Broken grey light filtered in through dirty windows over strewn clothes, a tossed about bed and boots that had walked many miles. Red Bilodeaux stood at the enamel sink in his bare feet filling the capless teapot, a cigarette between his lips and sleep still in his eyes. Cigarette before coffee, coffee before breakfast, breakfast before lunch. Routine was a comfortable sameness, a blanket he had wrapped himself in a few years ago when he discovered this little niche in the city. There was a corner market, a few drinking establishments where he had been known to frequent, a laundromat, a bowling alley and a park all within walking distance.
And he liked to walk. Red hadnt owned a car in ten years and found no reason to have a license. The streets were his home, a familiar face walking the blocks, he said hello but not much else. He liked to keep moving, keeping his eyes open and his ears alert to what the city had to offer. Each day, rain or shine, he walked at least a little, maybe down to the market for a fifth or smokes from the Filipino named Rosy. And then, of course, if there was a game on the radio, he'd pick up a 5-pak of King Edwards and laze his way through nine with the radio.
Today was a different day, he thought, looking at himself in the mirror trying to decide whether to shave or not. Coffee on the sink edge, steam wafting up, Red looked deep into his eyes, searching for any guilt or remorse. Finding none, he picked up the soap and turned the hot water on, preparing to scrape the shadow off his face with a new twin blade.
A fresh blade for a fresh day because a feeling had come over him while brewing coffee that there was something in the air. He had talked with Madjack and some of the other Hideaway regulars as well as the cops over the past few days to no avail. He wasnt suspected of anything yet the reports being heard on the street were that the shells found were those from a .45. And those who knew Red, knew his .45. They also knew Red to be drunk that night, usually the case at that hour if he was out wandering around. What they didnt know, was that it wasnt his hand on the trigger nor was it his fault that the kid on the oiled street was dead.
The girl's face was seared into his memory, while the mangled body of the kid was an amorphous shape clouding vision of that night. He remembered well enough to know he did nothing wrong but not enough to know what happened. His gun in her hand, a crash and another body, lights, darkness, sirens, hot metal in his pocket and an urgent but steady beat to his feet. The rain had been falling and he was wet and shaky, rousted from a drunken stupor in the exact moment of time hell seemed to be shaking loose.
He recalled her face. A look of shock, despair, fear, pain, dismay and utter sexiness that he felt ashamed for thinking of. But the woman's eyes sparkled in the wetness and as he reached for his gun, her hand raised in the firing position away from him, he paused just to stare at her. The radiant beauty of this woman transcended the moment to a fixed point in his universe. The action slowed as she wilted when ceding the gun, sapping her apparent strength and leaving Red suddenly unable to move. That's what he recalled, not the broken bodies or crashed car, but the face of the girl. And since the cops didnt ask about her, he didnt tell them. Hers was a story he wanted to know, but not at the expense of the law bringing its inept and inane practices into the equation. She would be around again and maybe he would talk to her, ask her the story, buy her a drink and share a laugh.
Finished with the morning bathroom rituals, he cracked a couple of eggs into a sizzling pan while waiting for his white bread to transform into brown toast. Over easy is how he liked to think of himself, having been worked over by the life the easy way, and as his eggs bubbled to a runny finish he smiled the smile of a man with nothing to lose. Up popped the toast onto the plate side by side they lay as the eggs slid from pan to toast in one fluid motion borne of years of friendship. Salt, pepper, fork, knife, coffee, chair, table, and his four star dining experience was about to begin.
Breaking the yolks, he quickly and absently thought of the little marshmallow Easter peeps popular in the spring. And then, with no aforethought, he decided to go down to the Hideaway for a couple of drinks and some banter with the other flies. He thought there might be a game on TV, but he really wanted to find out if there had been any developments in the so called 'case'.
Shuffling down the sidewalk in his haphazard way, Red tipped his ballcap up and let the air fill his nostrils as he closed his eyes. It was a nondescript day, neither warm or cold, in a nondescript part of the city where the long streets never changed character or acquired any. The street was buzzing with busses, cabs and horns, people and bicycles, but Red felt like he was walking in a bubble, unaffected by the commerce and activity surrounding him. Lighting a cigarette, he stopped at the corner of 28th and Haley, where shards of glass and splintered remains of head light covers lay spread out before him. The contemplative first drag of his winston brought him back to this corner five nights ago, in the rain and blur of an alcoholic fog.
Crossing the street, dodging traffic he found the unassuming door to the Hideaway, and, escaping the light of day ducked in with a sordid smile on his face.
Beer, Red?
Please.
What's new on the streets today?
Broken plastic, pieces of glass, same old gum and a couple of wrappers.
Same old shit then?
You got it.
Cops are poking around looking for you again. Seems they might think its shells from your .45 that shot out the window into that guy's brain.
Whaddaya mean, MY .45? that guy died?
Somebody pinned the .45 to you, and yeah, he died. The back of his head was pulp.
All of a sudden, Red's light mood had gone south. The last thing anybody wanted was the cops looking for him, especially in regards to a potential murder rap. The TV above the bar provided a respite from his now rapidly processing thoughts, watching with blank eyes a meaningless game between a pair of cellar dwellers in the American League, the Royals and Whitesox. The only sounds came from Jack riffling the paper and idle chatter from the two old timers at the other end of the bar.
Alone with his Winston, his Highlife and the silent ball game, Red knew he had nothing to fear, knew he hadnt done anything wrong, knew cops were crooked and knew they would try to pin this on him if they could. As the smoke traced up past his eyes, over the bill of his cap and into the musty stillness of the idling smokeeater above the bar, the door swung upen and in walked two plain clothes detectives. Just like that, Red saw parts of his life flash by in front of the liquor bottles lined up not six feet away.
As good a feeling as he had walking into this bar it was now trumped by the bad feeling he was getting from the two dicks at the door letting their eyes adjust to the light, but still looking straight at him. Cops seem to carry bad mojo with them in the pockets of their cheap jackets and button down Wal-Mart white dress shirts, doling it out as they see fit and to whomever they think looks like their having a good day.
I'm Detective Harrison and this is Detective Alvarez.
Perfect, a fat one and a skinny one, a tall one and a short one. Do they always have to be opposites, thought Red. He wondered if it was some guy's job at the academy to assign partners in this way.
What can I do for you?
Are you Red Bilodeaux?
Yep.Do you own a Colt .45?
Yep.
Is it registered?
Yep.
He felt an invitation for a ride to the station coming on, and so drafted his beer and pulled on the last of his cigarette, stubbing it out in the glass tray between him and Harrison. He had already answered the requisite questions from Saturday night so he knew that wasnt on their minds.
Where's the girl?
Coming from left field, the questions aroused his eyebrows in an accented arch.
What girl?
The girl that was with the dead kid who pinched your gun from your passed out ass.
Dont know.
Dont know what? the girl? the time? tell me something Red, you have anything to do with this business 'cause if you do and you're not telling me something, your days could become a little more trying if you know what I mean.
Listen, I dont know who the girl is, where she is or anything about her. I dont know the dead kid or anything about him either. What I do know is that you're interrupting my very pleasant afternoon of a beer and a ballgame. Now, if that's all, I wouldnt mind returning to both.
Hey Jack, could I have a whiskey water please?
Ok,OK Red. Watch your damn game, but this noise isnt going to die down anytime soon, hear me?
Ya Ya loud and clear.
As they finally began to leave and eventually shuffled out the door into the light, Red began to breathe again, a steady rhythm to slow his heart rate and calm his trembling hands. Cops always made his pulse race and his hands shake, came with the territory of always being just this side of the law, he guessed.
He had a feeling this day would be different and he was right. Nothing like being bullied by cops to put one in a mood, Red thought, looking at his nearly empty whiskey glass and wondering if he should pursue this line of reasoning. Deciding against it, he threw a few dollars on the bar for Jack and asked him to put those on his tab. A nod was all he got in return as he straightened his hat, pulled up his pants, and strolled toward the door.
The bright light of early afternoon shocked his eyes and he blinked back the black spots at the edge of his vision, trying to squint away the uncomfortableness. Red knew what they wanted but it wasnt his to give, and so the barking up of his tree wasnt going to get them anywhere.
The longer he walked, past the railyards, and down to the industrial heart of the city, the more he wanted grist to feed his mill of curiosity about the dark haired raven of that night. As much as the cops wanted this same information, there were different reasons behind their respective searches. Red only wanted to be around her, hear her speak of that night, smell the shampoo of her hair, and see the wrinkles of her mouth as she smiled. Cops, they just wanted to make her life miserable.
The city beat with a palpable pulse, winter had been taking a back seat lately but the heat of summer hadnt arrived yet. Leaves were turning green, grass was beginning to come back, the city wide beautification was underway putting flower boxes on street lamps and corners, and the sky was infinitely lighter. Women wore skirts and running shoes over business district pavement while men shed overcoats for sport jackets and wandering eyes. The 'roach coaches' litttered the corners again, flags flying, inflatable hot dogs wafting in the breeze and the smells of downtown mixed with these epicurious odors to give off a percolating aura.
As the city slowly awakened into summer leaving spring a sweet muddy blossoming memory, bikes appeared, windows were rolled down, the mood elevated and smiles became de rigeur. Winter grips cities, people and objects alike. Showing no regard to anything, the cold weather wraps around like a suffocating sweater, focussing inward and pulling the fringes in together. In small towns, neighbors get re-acquainted over shoveled drives, stops at the post office, lingering in the lines at the grocery store to chat, anywhere social, while cities push people away, away from idle talk and into the hurried lives of not having enough time in the dwindling day.
With the changing seasons came changes in Red's routine. Still walking in winter, albeit shorter, he would find the sharp edges of industry, and see the greyness spread out from here infecting the streets and avenues. The noise of winter was muted, the bars darker, the buildings harder, the sun dimmer. In this way Red found depression an easy companion, but come spring, sadness, for whatever reason anyone has, leaves town by its own freewill and everywhere, everyone breathes a little easier.
With spring springing, and pigeons dessicating the potential cleanliness of sidewalks everywhere, a warmish breeze blowing down Lexington, Red felt conflicted. On one hand, he had the law breathing down his neck making him uneasy for no reason. But on the other, he had a figment of a woman beginning to haunt his days and nights, giving him an 'unbearable lightness of being'.
A smile eased across his wrinkled face on this day, ignoring the weight the law was trying to strap to his ankles and imagining the pursuit of "raven" in the coming weeks. Not being a man of impulse, Red surprised himself by his desire to follow through on a flying chance. Granted, nothing as yet had come of it, but he felt the layers of ennui peeling off his psyche the longer he walked and thought. She was out there and he would find her, sometime, somewhere so Red put this in his backpocket and slid into a bar called the 'LooseNut" wearing a kind of smile he hadnt worn in years.
The LooseNut was a renaissance bar on the edge of the trendy part of town, that had been re-energized by the makeover of its surrounding neighborhood. With the newly realized in flow of money, people , and construction, the Nut also took a step up. Knocking walls down, carving out more windows, removing twenty years of tobacco stains, tiling the floor, installing new lighting, the owners of the Nut wanted a comfortable bar with a neighborly feel that would attract the diverse crowd that was populating the area. And to a degree, they had accomplished this but to Red, any bar that didnt open before noon didnt deserve to be called a bar.
The Nut opened at two most days, ten on sunday mornings during footballl season, and closed at two every night. It wasnt a busy bar but it held its own and with the upscale stools, the few island tables and a worn cedar plank to lean your elbows on and a foot rest running its length, it fit the bill for an afternoon visit by a smiling, walking thirsty man.
Two women sat at one of the islands, an ashtray between them with a smoking butt hanging off the edge, talking quietly but animatedly about a girlfriend of theirs. A bowl of unshellled peanuts sat next to a Budlite table tent advertising drink specials at happy hour. Peanut shells were'nt littering the floor yet, but at the end of a busy night it was not wise to walk around barefoot. Van Morrison sang something melodic in the background, his music blending into any surrounding.
Red swung the door open and dropped his hands into his pockets, noticing the women turning to look him up one side and down the other, then returning to their bloody marys and their chatter. He looked around at the football pennants, the game day posters, the pool table under a beat up Coors light, the sombrers hanging in the corner and a street lamp at the end of the rail with a green light on, and decided to spend some of his handed out money. Slipping onto a stool, he spun a little on its axis, turning to the woman walking toward him with a smile and a bevnap in her hand.
What'll it be boss?
Whiskey water please.
Conversation from the table drifted over him like cigarette smoke, mingling with the other two guys down a few stools sipping Buds and watching the same game Red had been eyeing two hours ago at the Hideaway. Kansas City was up 5-2 at the end of eight.
Unintentionally eavesdropping on the bloody marys, he picked up a fragmented account of some kid being shot or run over or mugged that was Sadie's newest boyfriend. He heard the name Sadie again, and with his ears now effectively tuned to the right station, he surmised that Sadie was his night raven and that she had left town yesterday, heading west, either Portland or Seattle.
Buoyed by a random dash of hope he tried to sort fact from fiction, hearing in strange voices a clue as to what his next step toward finding Sadie the raven would be. He had no business anywhere, and only assorted friends to keep track of so as long as his checks could find him he'd be OK. Lighting up and inhaling deeply, the smoke filled his lungs, puffing out his chest in a bravado that didnt really exist. Red was not a spur of the moment guy, a man addicted to patience and routine. It's why baseball so appealed to him, the slow methodical rhythms of the game, the starting point and end goal all within the lines of the playing field that could seemingly stretch out infinitely. Baseball was a game of inches, of strategy, of mind, of grace and beauty, and of childhood never abandoned.
Planning his return to the ethos of baseball, Red began to use a manager's mind to get inside her head, trying to figure out what she would do next, where she would go, how she would get there, and by what means could he accomplish these tasks. In a sense he was beginning a treasure hunt with only a few very indefinite clues, that only provided a teaser of the many more miles he would traverse in those lonesome boots .
