The Oblivion Society

by Marcus Alexander Hart

  The enclosed area was small, however, as the main draw of this place was the

  “beach.” Behind the wood-planked barroom was a large outdoor lot filled with white sand and errant cigarette butts. A crude mural of a sunset had been painted on the walls of the surrounding buildings. In the corner of the artificial beach were a small cabana stage where lousy bands played and more round plastic tables where people who hated themselves could sit to listen.

  On the other side of the beach, a submarine the size of a short bus sat with its keel buried in the sand at the end of a splintery boardwalk. Unlike the rest of the bar’s nautical novelties, the chunky vessel did not adhere to the appropriate laws of cliché. Its sides were not lined with round, bolt-studded portholes, there was no conning tower, and, perhaps most unforgivably, there was not even a hint of a periscope. As if to make up for these facts, the sub wore a peeling, sun-bleached coat of cheery yellow paint, complete with cartoonish blue waves permanently cresting along its sides. Large letters carved into a wooden plaque identified the vessel as the Stillwater Sawfish, but decades of weather had rendered the rest of its history unreadable. Not that anyone seemed to care.

  Bobby walked across the plank floor and sat on a creaking bamboo barstool. A girl behind the bar noticed him and slid up to get him a drink.

  “Heya, Bobby,” she said warmly.

  The girl was Sunny Sasaki, and she was the kind of bartender who knew every person on the continent on a first-name basis. She had a genuine, easy-going charm that was so sincere that it made you feel as if she was an old friend even upon first meeting. But her disarming personality was only half of the reason that she was the most highly tipped bartender in Stillwater County.

  “I’m glad you came in here tonight, Bobby,” she said silkily. “I’ve got something to show you that’s going to get you all hot and bothered.”

  “You seem to think I haven’t already noticed,” Bobby grinned. Sunny was, to put it mildly, an Asian goddess. Her broad, almond-shaped eyes sparkled as amber as the honey beers that she served with such smiling grace. A cascade of long, silky black hair poured down her back, glimmering in the dim light like a waterfall of liquid onyx. Her smooth caramel skin slid around a perfect hourglass of gentle feminine curves wrapped in nothing more than a green bikini top and a sarong slung low across her inviting hips. Regardless of one’s gender or sexual preference, it was a challenge to look at a woman as flawless as Sunny and not immediately picture her naked.

  “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” Bobby swooned. “When did you get it?” Sunny smiled into Bobby’s captivated eyes, which were staring not at her but straight over her shoulder.

  “We just got it installed this afternoon,” she smiled. “It gets over three hundred channels-in perfect digital clarity.”

  Sunny pulled a remote control from beneath the bar and turned her gaze to match Bobby’s. Attached to the wooden corner pillar of the bar, above a TV that was showing some boring Norwegian rocket launch, a tiny gray satellite dish pointed into the clear night sky.

  “What happened to the big dish?” Bobby asked.

  “The big dish is yesterday’s news. Analog. Crap,” Sunny said authoritatively.

  “This one gets over a hundred more channels, and you don’t ever have to rotate it to find different satellites.”

  “That’s all true,” Bobby said thoughtfully, “but the big dish isn’t subscription based. It can pick up all the wild feeds of newscasters picking their noses and yelling at their cameramen. I mean, you just can’t put a price on that kind of entertainment.”

  “Well, you’ve got me there,” Sunny nodded, setting down a foamy mug of Bobby’s favorite beer. “The big dish is in the Dumpster out back. You can always fish it out and take it home with you if you need to see newsies farming nose goblins.”

  “You know, I might just do that,” Bobby pondered. “It looks like I’m about to get my cable cut off next month, and I’m sure as hell not using rabbit ears.” Sunny laughed and touched Bobby’s hand.

  “You’ve always got a scheme cooking, Bobby Gray,” she said. “And that’s why I love you.”

  Bobby knew that this profession of love was merely Sunny’s routine chatter, but he blushed nonetheless. He made a mental note to leave her a big tip.

  “Well, I’ve got to get back to work,” Sunny continued, sticking out her pinky and her thumb. “Hang loose, channel surfer.”

  With that, she slid the remote across the bar to Bobby and disappeared toward the thirsty mouths and deep wallets on the other side of the bar.

  As Bobby annoyed the other patrons with his incessant channel-flipping, a new face slipped in off the street through the thatched doorway behind him. The dark stranger pitched a set of rental-car keys to the valet and strutted toward the bar. It would have been impossible for a casual observer to determine this man’s ancestry. His skin was a nondescript shade of mocha, and his neutral features could have passed him off as a member of any race on the planet without taxing the imagination. With his greasy black hair, his sculptured sideburns, and a beaming smile of hubcap-sized teeth, the guy looked like the poor sap who didn’t get the callback for a GAP commercial.

  The stranger was fit, but not overwhelmingly so. His muscles were toned just well enough to make old acquaintances do a double take and inquire, “Say, have you been working out?” Over his broad chest he wore a classic wifebeater, covered with an unbuttoned silk rockabilly shirt-black with blue flames licking their way up its sides. His solid buttocks were showcased by his form-fitting khaki pants, and his feet were wrapped in a pair of black and white wingtips that looked fresh off a member of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.

  Although he was so over-styled as to look like a caricature of himself, the stranger carried with him a tangible self-confidence. He swaggered up to the bar and leaned casually upon it in front of Bobby.

  “Excuse me, miss?” he called to Sunny, whose back was turned at the moment. One of the other bartenders, Mike, noticed the new guy and stepped forward to serve him.

  “Hey buddy,” Mike said cheerfully. “What can I getcha?” The dark-skinned man’s smile took on an awkward quality, as if trying to hide his annoyance within a fortress of teeth.

  “I’m sorry, homeboy,” he said dismissively. “I gotta get my drink on from that lovely oriental flower over there.”

  “Well, how ‘bout I just take care of the first round for ya?” the bartender offered.

  “She’s busy right now.”

  “Well, I’m not,” the stranger said coldly. “And good things come for those who wait.”

  Mike shook his head and walked away.

  “Another one of these assholes,” he muttered. “How’s a guy supposed to make a living?”

  When Mike was gone, the stranger called out to Sunny once again. She turned, sending a wave through her hair that almost seemed to linger in a sensual slow motion. Her dazzling eyes slid over the new guy’s face as her tiny, sandaled feet padded silently to his end of the bar.

  “Heya, stranger,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”

  “You haven’t,” the newcomer smiled. “The good Lord only cast me in a cameo in this tiny town. I fly back to Los Angeles first thing in the a.m.” He said “Los Angeles” in the same tone of voice that someone might use to casually name-drop the Queen of England. To his obvious disappointment, neither Sunny nor Bobby looked the slightest bit impressed. He lowered his voice confidentially and continued.

  “I’m just in town for a bit of personal enhancement. Tracked down the same guy who did Affleck. For real. I guess sometimes you gotta get down with the small town to get the job done right, you know?”

  He waggled his eyebrows and gazed into Sunny’s almond eyes with a grin as broad and toothy as that of a great white shark. Again, whatever impression of awe that he was trying to create completely failed to congeal.

  “Well, good for you, tiger,” Sunny said noncommittally. “What can I get you to drink
tonight?”

  The stranger leaned in farther and raised an eyebrow.

  “Girl, if you’d get me some milk, I’d pour it over you and make you a part of my complete breakfast.”

  Bobby burst out laughing, spitting beer on the bar.

  “Very subtle, Casanova,” he said, wiping his chin.

  “We don’t serve milk here,” Sunny noted coolly. “How about I get you a beer instead?”

  “A beer would be the bomb,” the stranger smiled. “Do you have anything English? I just spent some time in London and now I’m so spoiled I can’t choke down domestic swill anymore. For real.”

  Sunny put her hands on her hips, cocked her pretty head to the side, and pretended to think about it. “English, English …” she mulled. “I’d say our best English beer is Red Stripe.”

  “That’s the stuff, girl!” the oily coifed man replied. “They brew that right in London, yo. One of the locals took me on a brewery tour when I was across the pond. ”

  “The Red Stripe brewery?” Bobby asked skeptically.

  “You know it, dawg,” the man bragged, not turning away from Sunny. “Maybe some day you and I could go back there and I could show you where the trucks leave the factory loaded down with all those tall green bottles.” Sunny put a squat brown bottle of Jamaican Red Stripe on the bar with a knowing look that said as much to call the stranger’s bluff as any words could. A normal person would have taken this hint that his farcical meanderings would not stand up to the scrutiny of this particular barmaid-but not this stranger.

  “Oh, Red Stripe, ” he said. “I was thinking of Red Dog, yo. That’s what they were brewing in London.”

  Sunny glanced at the brown bottle of domestic Red Dog among the beers lined up behind her, but didn’t bother with it. The stranger continued.

  “Girl, you got to tell me your name so I know what to write on the thank-you card I send to God.”

  Sunny rolled her eyes.

  “It’s Sun, but everybody calls me Sunny.”

  “And I can see why,” the stranger nodded. “You light up this whole place with your radiance.”

  Bobby turned and drew an invisible line on an invisible tote board on the side of the bar.

  “‘I can see why, you light up the place’ gets another point,” he said dully. “Now it’s only three behind ‘They must call you Sunny because you have a heavenly body.’”

  “Damn, look at Mr. Smart Guy over here,” the swarthy smooth talker said. “If he was any more nosy, we’d have to call him Pinocchio. Why don’t you keep it to yourself, homes?”

  “I’m sorry, maestro,” Bobby conceded. “Go on with your work.”

  “So what do they call you, slick?” Sunny asked, feigning interest for the sake of a bigger tip.

  “The name is Terence Trent DeLaRosa, meaning ‘of the rose,’” he said, rolling the R with a flourish. “My friends call me Trent, but you can call me whatever you like.”

  “How about Terence Trent DeLaMerde?” Bobby suggested. “Meaning ‘of the bullshit.’”

  Terence Trent DeLaRosa’s eyes narrowed into frustrated slits as he turned on Bobby.

  “Look, friend,” he said, putting his hand on Bobby’s ample shoulder in a gesture that was meant to be intimidating, “I don’t need you making a running commentary over here and disturbing this lovely young lady.”

  Bobby stiffened and looked straight ahead as he spoke in a low, threatening voice.

  “I think that you should take your hand off of me now.”

  “And why is that, dawg?” Trent said, puffing out his chest. Bobby turned with a coy flutter of his lashes.

  “Because it’s really starting to turn me on.”

  Trent let go of Bobby with a shove and turned back to Sunny.

  “What a comedian this guy is,” he said to the empty air.

  Sunny had long since left the two bickering egos in favor of a cuter guy on the other side of the bar.

  “Keep it up, Romeo,” Bobby said. “I think she really likes you.” Without a word, Trent sat down at the bar and stared at Sunny’s perfect, apple-shaped bottom, imagining exactly what he would like to do to it. The rigid hose slipped into the snug opening and began vigorously pumping away.

  At a twilit gas station just off of Stillwater Bay, Vivian was filling her Rabbit’s tank. Through the magic of a long shower and a short reconnaissance mission into the back of her closet, she had metamorphosed from a weary wage slave into a budding wallflower.

  A black polyester cocktail dress hugged her long, minimal curves, terminating two conservative inches below her knees. At its other end, the gown’s neckline hovered above her modest cleavage in a manner that would have been suitable for a funeral. She was waiting until she got to the restaurant to put on her high heels-the Rabbit’s worn-out clutch was difficult enough to operate as it was. In the meantime, Vivian’s slender legs ended in her ragged, ruby-colored Airwalks. Her blazing red hair was pulled up in a frayed knot that was impaled with a crossed pair of disposable take-out chopsticks.

  There were many things that Vivian Gray could do well. Dressing with flair was not among them.

  She leaned on the fender and waited while the gas pump chugged away. The sun had finally disappeared behind the horizon, making the temperature balmy and comfortable for the first time that day. Vivian could see, between the towers of two high-rise hotels, the pounded coral pattern of the abandoned white sand beach beyond. As always, the tourists had ignorantly retreated to their hotels as soon as the blistering summer sun had been extinguished beneath the waves, leaving the beach’s finest moments to the seagulls and sandpipers.

  She had a secret place on the waterfront that she liked to go to be alone on nights like this. Unfortunately, on this particular night she would not have the opportunity to enjoy solitude.

  With a forlorn look in her eye, she pulled a beige, backpack-style purse from the back seat of her perpetually open convertible. She dug through its contents but couldn’t find what she was looking for. Admittedly she hadn’t used it in a while, but she knew it had to be in there somewhere. After a long moment of fruitless rummaging, she finally set the purse on the hood, pulled out a tiny plastic flashlight, and shined its yellow beam into the opening.

  In the deepest, darkest depths of the purse she found it: a dried-out tube of lipstick. She twisted a crumbling pink shaft from the tube and began applying it to her lips with a clumsy, unpracticed stroke. This face-painting was just to fit in at the Banyan Terrace, she reminded herself. It was all just a part of the blackmail process. It was to get her job back. It was not to impress Nick.

  “I hope you don’t have to go too far with that fella tonight.” Vivian jumped and spun around guiltily, as if she had been caught in some unwholesome act. The unexpected voice belonged to an avuncular man fueling up an age-beaten Winnebago with Pennsylvania license plates.

  “Excuse me?” Vivian squeaked, wiping an errant streak of pink off her chin. The man ambled over and pointed to the Rabbit’s comically undersized spare tire.

  “That fella there. The donut. I hope you don’t have to go too far with it,” he repeated. “You better get that replaced or it’ll blow at the worst possible time. Believe me, I know what I’m talkin’ about when it comes to cars.”

  “Oh, right. Thanks,” Vivian said. “I know. Don’t worry, I won’t go too far. Ever.” The man nodded in agreement.

  “If I were you I’d never go too far neither. Every time we come down to Florida the wife gets to wantin’ to close up the farm and move here permanent. Stillwater is just like paradise, ain’t it?”

  Vivian flashed an insincere smile at the man and nodded. She didn’t want to get into it. The man looked her up and down with a twinkle in his eye like a proud uncle on prom night.

  “You’re all dressed up mighty purdy, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so,” he said.

  “You goin’ someplace fancy with your fella?”

  Vivian sighed and spoke in a surrendered monotone.


  “I’m going on a date with a guy that I don’t like in order to save a job that I don’t want so that I can afford to pay bills that aren’t mine.”

  The man let out a long, low whistle and leaned up against the Rabbit next to Vivian. Apparently he was in as much of a hurry to get back to his motor home as he was to get back to his farm.

  “Well, that don’t seem fair, does it?” he said. “Listen, I figger I can help you out a little.”

  He shifted his weight on his hips and wrestled a misshapen old wallet from the back pocket of his oil-stained shorts.

  “Oh, no no. I’m okay, really,” Vivian said shaking her head. “I couldn’t take your mon-”

  Before Vivian could complete her protest the man pulled a wrinkled photograph from his wallet and shoved it under her nose.

  “What do you think of that?” he said reverently. “Ain’t she a beaut? ” Vivian struggled to focus her eyes on the photo that hovered inches from her glasses. It depicted a bright yellow classic convertible, with the gregarious man behind the wheel wearing an embroidered black jacket and smiling from ear to ear. The photograph reeked of old leather and butt sweat. Vivian pulled her head back with an affronted squint.

  “That there’s a 1953 Cadillac Eldorado,” the man said proudly. “Beautiful, beautiful machine. I restored her myself.”

  “That’s … nice?” Vivian ventured.

  “She’s more than nice! She’s an absolute gem!” the man said defensively, stabbing his finger into the photo. ” That’s the kind of car you drive to paradise!” He sighed and tucked the photo back into his wallet tenderly before continuing.

  “But the wife, Lord love ‘er, she don’t like to stay in hotels. Says she don’t like Bernice sleepin’ on unfamiliar beddin’. Not that there’s much of a chance of that happening, if you know whut I mean.”

  The man shook his head heavily and looked at the dilapidated motor home. Vivian peered through its sooty windshield to see a lanky, underweight teenage girl with dirty blond hair and the most homely face that she’d ever had the misfortune of laying eyes upon. The girl’s mouth hung open like the leaf trap on a dingy motel swimming pool, displaying two rows of teeth that seemed to be arguing about directions. She had a nose like an overripe radish and her eyes were neither the same size nor color. Vivian suppressed a horrified gasp, which collapsed into a feeling of overwhelming shame in her stomach.