by Glover, Dan
Walking up a small rise the ocean greeted him… undulating as it pushed itself toward the shoreline to dash itself upon the rocks like a mad beast and then retreating only to build up its strength to do it again, a secret battle being fought forever. He thought about little Johnny’s words… scared of things hiding deep down in the waters of the ocean… and Billy wondered if the dark ocean of his psyche mirrored Johnny's thoughts… hiding deep down inside his mind… thoughts of the wolf.
Alex… the name meant something once…
The building squatted alone by the sea side, the paint fresh as if someone cared and shingles on the roof new in spots; Billy walked closer. Evergreen bushes grew to a height of four feet neatly trimmed and planted around the edges of the building. An enormous Sycamore tree threw naked arms into the air under which a concrete picnic table had been placed or perhaps grown there from a seed, like the tree… the table once painted green and now worn from use… whoever painted it perhaps thought better of repeating the task.
He sat at the table lighting another cigarette even though he really didn’t want one. When he finished it he flicked the butt away over the cliff into the rocks below, picking up his suitcase and venturing into the tavern. Billy’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim interior from the bright sunshine.
Inside the front door, the room opened up to a large space some forty feet square with a rectangular-shaped bar in the middle. Constructed of cherry wood on the bottom and a mahogany top, it looked to be hand-rubbed with rails in-laid with mother-of-pearl around the outside to match the doorknobs. The pine walls with indirect lighting fixtures shining up at the ceiling gleamed with a fresh coat of varnish and a half dozen tinted windows looked out two sides.
Glasses of varying sizes hung upside down on a wooden rack over the bar area. In the back three sets of doors greeted his eyes… two doors labeled men’s room and women’s room and the third saloon-style swinging both ways. Barstools hugged the bar with tables and chairs clotted about the room… along the walls comfortable booths offered privacy.
The walls were awash with autographed pictures of Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, some painted on velvet surrounded by wooden frames and some under glass set in chrome. Billy sensed that they were screwed onto the walls to make the pictures more difficult to steal. A juke box sat in one corner and a pool table in another. Billy walked to the bar and sat down setting his suitcase on a stool next to him like a familiar.
“What will it be?”
A pleasantly short round man with a full beard peppered gray and hair hanging over his ears popped up from behind the bar where he must have been stocking liquor.
“A beer, please... whatever’s cheapest?”
“Are you new in town?”
The man pointed to Billy’s suitcase with his chin as he drew a glass of draft beer before setting it in front of him on a cardboard coaster.
“I’m good with remembering faces and I know I haven’t seen yours around here before.”
“Yes, I am. I saw your building when I walked past. It caught my eye. I think it’s amazing the way it hugs the ocean. I walked around back to see the ocean and I couldn’t help but notice that someone takes good care of the place. It’s nice inside too. This bar top is amazing.” Billy said as he ran his hand over the mahogany. “It must have taken a long time to do this kind of work.”
“Well, thank you, son. It took three years, to be exact. It makes me happy when someone notices… most people don't.”
“Are you the owner? Did you do all this work?”
“Yes I am… my name is Roger… Roger Barnes… and yes, I’m also the one who did the renovations. The building was ready to fall in the ocean when I bought it… it took a lot of labor to bring it back. I intended to sell the place after I fixed it up but I fell in love with it… so I kept it. Some days it's hard to remember why, though."
"I like it here too."
Billy looked around the room and then at the menu board on the wall behind the counter.
"My name is Billy Austin. Could I get a hamburger when you have time, please?"
"Absolutely… we have the best cook in town working here."
Roger took a pad from under the bar and pulled a pencil from behind his ear to write on it.
"Give me a minute while I hand her your order… do you want fries with that?"
"No thank you."
Billy shook his head. He didn't have much money and even a burger strained his budget. He hadn't eaten though since leaving Oklahoma State… his belly rumbled like the bus he rode through the night to get here. The beer went to his head making him dizzy and a faint wave of nausea made him breathe deeply. Roger seemed to stay in the kitchen an inordinately long time giving Billy a chance to gather his wits.
"Your order will be up in a minute, Billy."
Roger reappeared with a furrow in his brow as if he was thinking about something he couldn’t quite make up his mind about.
"Say… it isn't any of my business… and you don't have to answer… but are you passing through? Or are you looking for a place to stay?"
"I'd like to stay. But I don’t know anyone around here and I don’t have much money either."
"Well… I might know of a place you can rent… it won't cost you much, and if you need a job maybe I can help in that department too.”
Billy thought it was surprising that Roger offered him a job so quickly but he put it off to the man's good nature. An old woman with white hair piled on top of her head backed her way through the swinging doors carrying a plate topped by an enormous hamburger alongside a large pile of French fries which she put down in front of him smiling as she did so, her eyes diamond blue. Billy thought how she must have been gorgeous in her youth.
"Thank you, ma'am... but I didn't order fries."
"It is okay."
The woman spoke to him in a thick Russian accent along with a wink of her left eye.
"They are left-overs from another order… no charge… eat. You look hungry."
"Do I know you from somewhere?"
Billy couldn’t help but stare at the woman, the lines of her face exciting memories buried deep inside his mind.
"Have we met before? You look so familiar…"
"We have met many times."
The woman winked her left eye at him again.
"I have waited here for you a long time now."
"You waited for me?"
Billy was flabbergasted at the old woman. He couldn’t help but notice that her winking eye was nearly twice the size of her right. He looked back at Roger, who now stood apart from the two, polishing water spots from bar glasses with a cloth before hanging them on the rack overhead. He stood close enough to hear the conversation but said nothing.
"I don't understand… how did you know I'd be coming here? I had no idea this place existed an hour ago."
"Never mind. I am just a silly old woman."
She giggled while pointing to his plate with her eyes.
"Eat… Roger has said he will give you a job here and a place to stay… we will have many talks later."
Billy lived in the apartment above the two story tavern by the ocean with a sign over the door that read Twenty Nine Katz Bar and Grill and Roger took down the handwritten notices in the window that said Apartment for Rent and Help Wanted. The sounds of the waves breaking on the shore lulled Billy to sleep at night.
Though he had never seen the ocean before coming west, he felt an instant affinity for it… the tides flowing in and flowing out reminded him of an enormous blue-green beast’s white-capped feathered hide rising up and down as it breathed, sleeping peacefully, but when the beast woke it always seemed in a rage. A week passed before he realized the source of strange scent he smelled was the salty air blowing in from the ocean.
Roger gave Billy a job in the tavern below doing the only thing he knew how to do: cleaning up after others. He cleaned the restrooms where men would piss on the floor and he cleaned up the vom
it when they drank too much and puked under the tables. As Billy went about his work he noticed the light change in the eyes of the people drinking as they grew drunk with liquor, changing into something meaner, uglier, and unaccountable. Some of the men made messes on purpose just to watch him clean it up spilling beer on the floor and knocking over bowls of peanuts.
The worst of the bunch… a churlish man with a face like a ferret who always wore a work-shirt with a name tag on it that said Lester… who looked as though he worked as a laborer that never bothering to clean up before he came to Twenty Nine Katz.
“Get over here, boy.”
Lester called out to Billy, laughing as he poured beer on the floor rubbing his muddy shoes in it.
“Earn your wages.”
But Billy never showed his anger. He did what he did and he did it with a smile on his face… a smile only an insane man could properly wear. He thought of customers like Lester as little more than ghosts passing through the world on their way to oblivion… like little Johnny he noticed them out of the corners of his eyes but when he turned and looked they were gone.
Sometimes, he heard voices telling him that he didn’t have to take it. The wolf urged him, compelled him, to confront the man named Lester who seemed intent on bullying him… to follow him home, to take a baseball bat, to break into his house and beat the man about his head while he slept. He tried not to listen to the wolf. Still, he knew the power of the wolf. Its voice continued chipping away at his resistance until he all but succumbed. He didn't hear the wolf with his ears, for when he covered them with his hands he could still hear it: shouting, murmuring, whining, demanding. At times the wolf sounded smooth like silk… suave, endearing, loving, wise… other times the wolf sounded like a screaming baby thrown into a pit of razor blades… shrieking incessantly… though he sensed the voices were in his head he sometimes touched a finger to his ears to see if they bled from the sound.
Chapter 13—Allison Wonderland
It was easy to settle into life at Twenty Nine Katz.
“Billy… would you please clean out the big refrigerator in the kitchen this morning?” Roger's orders always sounded more like requests. It was Billy's first day at work. “There’s not much food in there right now. You can move everything into the smaller refrigerator next to it and give the big one a good once-over, if you don't mind. We’re getting a new shipment of perishables in this afternoon so now’s a good time to clean it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Going into the kitchen with a bucket of soapy water, a sponge, and a handful of rags he was surprised to see the lack of space … gleaming stainless steel appliances so large they jutted out into the aisle… large metal counters and sinks and massive stoves and ovens crowding the surrounding walls until there was barely room to walk around.
Billy expected the kitchen to be as large and roomy as the bar area… not cramped… not designed for only one person. He noticed someone there already… the old woman who brought him his hamburger the day before. She stood with her back to him slicing vegetables on a board and humming a song he didn’t recognize in an accent that seemed both strange and familiar at the same time.
“Hello… my name is Billy Austin. I saw you the other day but we didn’t get introduced.”
He didn’t want to startle the woman. When she turned and smiled he thought of the wind… gentle sometimes… wild at others. He put down the bucket dropping the sponge into it to hold out his hand the way he knew to do when formally meeting someone for the first time. Though they met briefly neither of them properly introduced themselves. He found it easy talking to this woman while the barmaids who worked at the tavern terrified Billy with their beauty… he lost his voice around them so he kept his distance.
“You already know that Roger just hired me to do the cleaning here. He wants me to clean out the big refrigerator this morning.”
“Hi Billy… my name is Yelena.”
After what seemed a few seconds of hesitation she took his hand in hers and promptly collapsed. If Billy hadn’t caught her she would have hit the floor hard. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she spoke in a strange voice different from her own.
“You think you’re God’s favorite but you’re not. You can die quickly by your own hand or suffer a cruel death lying in your own filth and save the life of girl you know well… a jewel of girl. Either way, you will die… choose well, Billy Austin.”
Billy eased Yelena to the floor laying a jacket under her head before running to get Roger.
“Call an ambulance, Billy. I’ll go see how she’s doing.”
A few seconds later Roger came back to the bar telling Billy to forget the ambulance… Yelena was fine.
"What happened back there, Billy?"
“She sounded weird, Roger. As soon as we shook hands she collapsed and her eyes rolled back in her head… I thought she might be having a stroke or a fit.”
“Yelena is a wise old woman… she senses things about people when she touches them, Billy. I should have warned you. She’s a Russian Gypsy. Some of the employees here say she can see the future.”
“All I did was to introduce myself. When she took my hand in hers she fell over. If I didn’t catch her she would have landed right on the floor. And then she mumbled something about me dying.”
“Well, that’s no surprise, Billy. You don’t need a fortune teller to know that’s going to happen. We all die.”
“It was the way she said it though… she said I had a choice how to die.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Billy. Why don’t you get back to doing what you were doing before all this happened?”
On his second afternoon at work Billy noticed Yelena Ivanoff sitting at the bar having a few shots of vodka and a beer to chase them. He assumed her shift was over. He worked at mopping the floor in the kitchen taking advantage of the mid-day slowdown when he heard her calling out to him.
“Billy! Come on out here, please… I need to introduce you to someone.”
There was urgency in her voice that made Billy hurry to respond.
He put his mop in the bucket to soak and went to see what Yelena wanted… he was vaguely frightened of the old woman after what she’d said to him the day before… afraid she’d fall down and start talking again in that strange voice and roll her eyes back in her head. But she acted as if nothing had happened… as if she didn’t remember a thing.
She looked at him as he exited the kitchen, her eyes blue diamonds. Looking at her, he again thought of the wind… ever-changing, always moving, and never remembering what she touched or what touched her. A beautiful young woman with long blonde hair and an apron around her midsection stood beside Yelena looking at Billy as he walked out of the kitchen.
“Billy, this is Allison Johns."
Yelena spoke up like a matchmaker when he made his way to the bar.
“Allison, please meet Billy Austin. This is the man I told you about. You two are going to be great friends.”
Billy held out his hand. Allison took it in hers immediately with a smile that lighted up her whole face and especially her eyes… her hand was so soft… he held it lightly in his, just touching her skin… taking care not to squeeze too tightly. Billy couldn’t help but smile back at her. Her eyes were the most lucent blue, her beauty almost unbearable to look at, like newly-fallen snow in bright sunshine.
He had noticed her working in the tavern the day before but since he was too shy to go up to her to introduce himself as he had done with Yelena he'd ignored the blonde girl… she was unquestionably one of the most attractive women Billy had ever met… he always found himself speechless around such gorgeous creatures.
“Hi, Billy… it’s good to meet you. You just started working here yesterday, right?”
“Yes, I did. It’s nice to meet you too, Allison.”
“You do smell like the ocean.”
Allison purred to him as she stood very close inhaling deeply through her nose, flaring her nostrils.
“I like that.”
“I told you.”
Yelena downed another shot of vodka and chuckled to herself as if over some private joke.
“And he’s not bad looking either, is he, Allison?”
“No, he’s not bad looking at all, Yelena.”
Allison giggled with the old woman while throwing back a shot of vodka herself.
“I sit out back on the shoreline in the morning and watch the waves rolling in… before I start work.”
Billy felt his face blushing at Yelena’s words. The top of Allison’s head came up to his chin. She smelled good too… of strawberries and bananas.
“That’s why I came out here to California… to be close to the ocean.”
“I love the ocean, Billy. I grew up in a house on the sea side in southern California. The ocean is different here… more wild and restless. There we lived on a bay with white sandy beaches. We didn’t have the waves like we do here… or the rocky cliffs.”
“I never saw the ocean before yesterday. As a boy I used to think I could hear the ocean in a conch shell my mother kept on her coffee table. When I got older and quit believing in magic I knew I couldn't hear the ocean in the shell… I knew the echoes of the room made me think it was the noise of the ocean. But I still liked to hold it to my ear and listen to it anyway.”
“What do you think, Billy? Is Allison Johns the most beautiful woman you’ve seen since you arrived in California?”
“She’s sunshine, Yelena.”
Billy heard himself speaking the words without thinking and then blushed again at being so forward as he saw Allison look at him questioningly.
“I mean, yes… she is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.”
“What are you doing later… when you get off work?”
Allison stepped close to him laying a soft hand on his arm.
“Do you live around here?”
“I live upstairs. Roger rents me the apartment as part of my pay for working here.”
