The bartender looked at me like something was bothering him, and he closed his eyes and started rubbing his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger. Then he asked, “Uh, can I make a quick recommendation, man?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, I don’t normally interfere with people’s drinking and whatnot, but I think you should drop the soda.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you see, when you drink that much soda with your whiskey, you need to go to the bathroom frequently, and that wonderful lavatory of ours isn’t exactly a place you want to visit more than is absolutely necessary. It’s for your own good, if you know what I mean.”
I thought about his words for a moment and asked, “OK, so what is your recommendation, Mr. Bartender?”
“A godfather.”
“A what?”
“A godfather. It’s a short drink that has a shot of whiskey and a shot of Amaretto in it. It’s sort of like Italy meets Kentucky, and they have unprotected sex. Good stuff, trust me.”
“OK, bring me one, and we’ll see.”
The dirty man walked to his precious bottles and started mixing the drink in earnest. After about two minutes of pouring and stirring, he came back with a small glass full of amber liquid and handed the glorious concoction to me enthusiastically.
I raised the glass to my lips and tasted the curious creation gingerly while the bartender was watching me with quiet anticipation.
“So?” he said excitedly after I put the glass down.
“I like it,” I said.
“Good,” he said and walked to the sink and started washing beer glasses with a brand-new bar-top rinser that looked totally out of place in the filthy bar. The man was whistling and smiling victoriously like a man who had just introduced Alaskan king crab to a seafood virgin.
I took an elegant sip of my godfather and turned my head 180 degrees when I heard someone entering the bar with a loud bang. The room was dark and smoky, but I could still recognize the bony figure of the crazed man I had choked unconscious the night before. The putrid zombie was back, and my pulse was rising rapidly.
The sordid creature saw me immediately and sat on the barstool next to me. He looked weak and sick, and paranoia and fear had overpowered all the rage and foolhardiness that had ruled his body less than twenty-four hours ago. He was like a retired bodybuilder who had lost all his muscles, strength, and self-confidence, and I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the man.
I looked into his hollow eyes and asked, “How are your balls?”
He gazed at me with confused eyes and said, “What? My balls, what?”
“Oh, forget it,” I said.
The slim man lowered his head and said quietly, “Look, Ramses told me what happened last night, and I’m sorry.”
“Who is Ramses?”
“The boss man, the barkeeper.”
“Ah, I see,” I said and took a swig of my drink.
“Well, I just wanted to apologize about the knife and all the other shit that happened. I am on probation and, fuck, I shouldn’t be doing this crap anymore.”
I looked at him listlessly and said, “Look, I don’t give a damn about apologies or forgiveness or whatever. I don’t give a rat’s ass about what happened last night, and the whole thing is totally meaningless to me. You can apologize all you want, but it doesn’t do anything. You could have just sat there and pretended that nothing happened last night, and I would have been just fine.”
“So we are good?”
“Yeah, we are good, we are bad, we are whatever the hell you want us to be. I really don’t care.”
The slim man seemed relieved, and he ordered a beer and a shot of rye and started watching a boxing match on TV.
I looked at the dirty, mangled ten-dollar bill in his scaly addict’s hand and said, “If you are going to sit there and pretend that I invited you to drink with me, I might as well give you advice.”
The slim man turned his head and said, “OK, whatever.” Then he turned back to the TV and started tapping the counter nervously with his fingers.
I took a sip of my drink and said, “Look at me when I talk to you.”
He turned back again and said, “OK, OK, calm down, man. You can give your advice now.”
I looked at him coldly and said, “Well, let me just start by stating the obvious. You are a professional drug addict, and you pump any shit you can get your hands on in your veins, right?”
“More or less, yeah,” he said and continued tapping the counter and started bouncing his right knee up and down.
“Well, then own up to your deep entanglement with the druggie lifestyle. Be a fucking junkie and don’t apologize to anybody for what you do. I mean, you do crazy shit every single day, and when, or if, you wake up in the morning, you know that you are going to do crazy shit again, right?”
“I guess, yeah.”
“Well, you see, when I go to Kroger and buy a gallon of nonfat milk and a piece of cheap salami, it is a normal thing for me to do. I don’t run around apologizing for my milk and salami. You know what I mean?”
The slim man looked confused, so I continued, “What I mean is that when you pull a knife on someone, or do some other stuff that normal people find, uh, a little unconventional, just try to remember that it is a totally normal thing for you to do. You don’t have to apologize for that because it’s your life, and you have accepted that unconventional stuff like that is going to happen when you choose to become a junkie. Be authentic, man. That’s all I’m saying here.”
“You should never become a therapist,” the slim man said and started watching the TV again.
“Well, you know as well as I do that if you don’t stop torturing your veins, you will not make it. Therapy won’t save you. Your friends and family won’t save you. Only you can save yourself, and it would be better if you would just accept that nobody gives a shit about you or your future. My honest guess is that you are going to be dead within a year. So have fun, enjoy your madness, and forget your pathetic apologies. Being an addict is your life, and you need to embrace it and start loving it.”
The slim man looked at me with a pensive smile and said, “Maybe you should be a therapist.”
“So you agree with me?”
“Ha! I think you are adorable. You don’t know much about addiction, huh?”
“I know enough.”
“Yeah, well, let’s get one thing perfectly clear, old man. I use heroin because it’s the only painkiller that works, OK? Something horrible happened to me when I was young, and it scarred me for life. I have to numb my brain every morning, or I won’t make it through the day. Drugs saved me, and without them, I would be dead already. You see, I would have killed myself if I hadn’t discovered heroin. It takes the pain away. Of course I would take fucking Tylenol instead of smack if it worked, but it doesn’t.”
“So you blame someone else for your addiction?”
“Damn right I do. If you cut a leg off a talented racehorse before its first race, it ain’t gonna be a winner, no matter how much people are rooting for it.”
“Uh, I guess not,” I said. Then the slim man’s phone started ringing, and he walked away in a hurry.
After about ten minutes of rare tranquility, Ramses brought me a small plate of stale peanuts and said, “We do have food here if you fancy, sir.”
“Well, in fact, my dinner was cut short tonight. What do you have for me, Chieftain?”
“Bratwurst.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, and fries—maybe.”
“OK, give me one bratwurst, two godfathers, and a glass of ice water. No fries. They are unhealthy.”
“Coming right up, Boss,” he said and seemed surprisingly happy to serve me. Maybe I was, after all, a customer he could tolerate.
Soon the white Bavarian wonder arrived, and I started savoring its beautiful Germanic flavors like it was my last meal. The sausage was amazingly tasty, and I was pleased to learn that th
e mighty banger from faraway lands complemented the godfather quite nicely—or maybe it was vice versa; I don’t know.
The evening progressed absolutely magnificently, and I enjoyed observing the unimaginable misbehavior that had engulfed Johnny D’s, once again. The unscripted human freak show had a slight therapeutic effect on me, and I had to admit that I was much happier there than in some sterile hotel lobby bar where the faceless owners charged twelve bucks for a sugary drink, and where people tried their very best to look successful, cool, and pretty. I liked unpredictable nights better than dullness and silly pretentiousness, and at least at Johnny D’s everything was possible—everything screwed-up, that is. Good things rarely happened in that sordid bar, and I liked it that way. Bad was the new good, and I was becoming the master of filth.
Before I knew it, I was the only customer in the bar. Ramses had kicked the rest of the crazies out, and he started cleaning the soda guns lethargically with a dirty rag. For some reason, the man didn’t seem to be in a hurry to tell me to piss off, too, but I was getting tired and decided to take a quick bathroom break before heading home.
I got up and stretched my stiff arms and legs a little before heading to the powder room. I opened the dirty, germ-ridden door with the tip of my index finger and stepped in. The place was nasty, as always, and I walked reluctantly to the urinal that was littered with wet smokeless tobacco and cigarette butts. I opened my zipper and released the bitter effluent that my body no longer wanted in its dominion. There was a lot of sewage in my pipes, and I closed my eyes and enjoyed the healthy stream of strong urine that filled the clogged bowl fast. Then I washed my hands carefully with soap and hot water and winked at the valiant man staring at me in the dirty mirror.
As I was about to leave the stinky bathroom behind, I noticed a blue shoe peeking out of one of the graffiti-filled toilet booths. I shrugged and approached the curious sight cautiously and pushed the door open with my right boot. There was a man lying on the floor next to the dirty toilet bowl. It was the slim man. Dead.
I closed the door, washed my hands again—more carefully this time—and left the bathroom. Then I walked to Ramses and said, “There is a corpse in the snorting room. It’s the knife avenger. Overdose. No question about it. Dirty needle still hanging from his arm.”
Ramses looked at me skeptically and asked, “What the fuck?”
“Yeah, the slim man cashed his chips.”
“No, no, fuck no!” Ramses shouted and ran into the bathroom.
After a minute or two, he came back and said in a drained voice, “Goddamn, they are going to shut me down now. This is the second time in six months.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Jesus Christ! I try so hard to make this place work, but it’s like running in a swimming pool. I am not making any progress, and now I will finally drown.”
I was quiet for a moment and asked, “What are you going to do?”
Ramses didn’t answer. He was just massaging his forehead with his right hand and looking distraught and depressed.
“Are you going to call the cops?” I asked.
He looked at me lifelessly and said, “I have to because you are here.”
“Maybe you don’t,” I said.
“What do you mean? You can’t get involved in this shit.”
“Maybe not, but what if I want to?”
“What are you saying, man?”
“Look, I am bored to death, and I feel like I owe something to that poor bastard. I want to give him at least a proper funeral. The coroner will just throw his broke ass in the morgue, and he will get a crappy public funeral at some depressing cemetery that nobody ever visits. Let me take care of this one, man.”
Ramses looked at me incredulously and asked, “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” I said firmly.
The dirty man was quiet for a moment and said, “So tell me your plan then, Mr. Undertaker. How are you exactly going to take care of this?”
I finished my drink and said, “Well, I assume you have a back door for deliveries?”
“Yes.”
“And it’s van accessible?”
“That’s right.”
“Shovel?”
“In the storage room.”
“OK, then. Give me a minute, and I will park my van in the back and we load the cargo, OK?”
“Are you fucking sure about this, man?”
“Yes. And don’t forget the shovel.”
Ramses thought about his options for a moment and said, “OK, fuck, get the van.”
I walked outside and drove the Econoline to the dark alley, where the graffiti-stained backdoor was waiting for me like hell’s secret escapeway, and I took a deep breath. Ramses was standing by the door with a sturdy steel shovel, and he seemed anxious and a little hesitant, too. He was biting his nails with his rodent’s teeth and holding a bottle of Bud Light in his right hand. I figured that his previous encounters with law enforcement had made him a little too apprehensive about the men and women in blue. Or maybe I was the one who was a little too relaxed in such a situation because of my inexperience; I wasn’t sure.
I stepped out and said a cheery hello to Ramses. He didn’t say anything, and we walked silently into the bar and laid the knife avenger on a dusty carpet and rolled him up inside. Then we carried the giant Tootsie Roll outside and lifted it into my van.
After taking a short respite, Ramses handed me the shovel and said, “You know what you are doing, right?”
“Stop worrying, Ramses. I will take care of this.”
“Can I fucking trust you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you absolutely sure?”
I looked into his suspicious eyes sternly and said, “Look, Ramses, there are two kinds of people in this world: people who piss in the shower and people who lie. I piss in the shower.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes, I am. I don’t fucking lie. Not anymore. In fact, I’m so goddamn honest that most people would prefer if I lied.”
“Fair enough,” he said and pulled a wrinkled pack of Marlboros from the front pocket of his dirty shirt. Then he put two bent cigarettes into his mouth and started sucking on them in earnest. The red tips of the little cancerous bones started glowing brightly in the gloomy night like the nose of Santa’s favorite reindeer. I thought that he looked stupid with those damn Marlboros in his mouth, but I didn’t say anything.
I grew tired quickly of watching Ramses smoke and eject murky saliva out of his stinky mouth, and I said, “OK, I will leave now and come back tomorrow. I’m coming back because I want to drink alcohol, not because I need to talk to you about what happened here tonight. What I will do with the slim man is no longer your concern. I guarantee you that he will get a proper and respectful funeral—a private one where none of his so-called friends can see his sad cadaver and dwell in their superiority and lie about how they tried to help him, OK?”
“OK, Mr. Undertaker, I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” he said in a voice that sounded borderline relieved. “And, uh, thanks.”
“No problem, man. But before I go, could you bring me a couple of those bratwursts and a cold beer?”
“Sure,” he said and quickly disappeared into the bar. After a couple of minutes, he came back with two sausages in a Ziploc bag and a sweaty bottle of Miller Lite in his hand and said, “Here you go, man. The sausages are already cooked, and the beer is colder than a polar bear’s cunt. Enjoy.”
I took the sausages and the beer and jumped into the van without thanking him. Then I placed the gorgeous white bangers respectfully on the passenger seat, put the beer in a cupholder, and drove into the unforgiving darkness.
I could see the familiar lake basking in the beautiful moonlight in the distance. It was a place I had visited many times before, but never with a dead body in tow. I had gone there to fish bass and just enjoy the cruel indifference of wilderness and the timeless splendor of nature. It was my favorite national park in the United Stat
es, and I loved visiting its forests and lakes because they were always quiet, and most people didn’t even know that they existed. The park was grossly neglected and horribly underfunded, and it closed its gates to the public at 6:00 p.m. It wasn’t, by any means, the coolest or the most exciting national park in the world, but it was still a nice place to take your family for a swim or a stroll in the beautiful forest. It was also a nice place to bury a slim man.
I entered the dark forest with anticipation boiling in my blood and started removing the chains from the rusty entrance gate with steady hands. It wasn’t much of a challenge to break into the park, because the gate was old and tired, and the dying chain was ready to retire. Even the lock was missing, and I figured that someone had lost the key and had been too lazy to buy a new one. That thought made me smile because it was proven, once again, that laziness was the main reason why crime sometimes paid off.
I passed the placid lake, thinking about the hungry eels that were hiding in the dark abyss, and turned left at an old dilapidated ranger station that had been abandoned when that part of the forest had burned down seven years ago. I increased my speed to thirty miles per hour and followed the narrow dirt road all the way to the most remote part of the park and smiled nervously when the impenetrable blackness welcomed me with its open, nonjudgmental arms. Nobody visited that part of the forest even during the day because there was simply nothing interesting to see or do there. Everybody knew that the north side was cursed, or blessed, with some truly difficult terrain, and hunting, off-roading, and all other leisure activities were banned there because the forest was an important flying squirrel habitat—or at least that was the official story. The flying squirrels were abundant everywhere in the park, but, for some reason, the north side was off-limits to the public. Some people said that the government had a secret underground facility there where they drew blood from aliens, but I personally believed that it had been closed for financial reasons. I was, however, ready to put a green head in a chokehold if it ever came to that.
I reached the end of the road after ten minutes of patient driving, and the Econoline’s headlights revealed the scaly bark of a majestic oak that had been saved from the road builders’ chainsaws simply by being born in the right place.
The Sapphire Express Page 7
