by Peter Prasad
Jake had rolled into Sonya’s Tavern to get a cold beer after work. He thought maybe he might get more information about the dead goats, too. He’d been staying away from Sonya’s, waiting for a good moment to come with Wally. He knew that if he’d find Jerry’s ghost anywhere, it’d probably be on a bar stool inside. On the upside, the place reminded him of many a Thanksgiving meal from his childhood.
As he approached, he saw the black-haired man wave a ten dollar bill. That was odd, even for Sonoma. He could tell by the tilt of the woman’s head that she was reluctant. He flashed his headlights to let her know she had a choice. He slowed and let the truck creep toward the woman in the Prius and he kept flashing his lights. He felt like a cop cruising the local make-out spot.
The bright flashing headlights triggered an explosion in Wild Bill’s head. Blinded and suddenly in pain, he jerked his hand from Vanessa’s head and stuffed the money into his jeans. He released the door and took several steps backward toward the safety of his van. He raised his arm to shield his eyes from the bright flashing lights. Jake pulled up alongside Vanessa’s open car door. He saw relief flood her face. “You all right,” he hollered over the engine rumble.
“I’m okay now, thank you. He said the creepiest thing.”
Jake nodded. He flashed his lights at Wild Bill and slowly rolled forward, pushing the man back toward his van. The guy looked drunk.
Wild Bill reached for the door handle and jumped into the driver’s seat. He kept shaking his head in an effort to stop the headache from driving him crazy. The truck stopped ten feet away and kept flashing its lights. Bill squeezed his eyes shut and fumbled for his keys. He cleared his head with a few violent shakes and started the engine. He wanted to throw up. He jerked the transmission into gear and without looking backward, he drove forward in a wide circle and sped for the freeway.
Jake watched the black delivery van depart. What was all that? He didn’t know. He did not make note of the license plate number.
In his rearview mirror, he watched Vanessa leaving her car. Jake decided he would skip the beer. He didn’t need hero-worship. He hated that shit like the plague. He also didn’t need to relive the event from the female perspective on a bar stool. He’d hit Sonya’s another night, with Wally.
***
Vanessa’s self-confidence returned as she entered the bar. She swayed her hips and puffed out her chest. Every good-looking cowboy watched her take a stool. She warmed in the attention, shaking off the memory of the parking lot run-in.
Tanya was right there and hugged her over the bar. They’d been in the same class at Cardinal and then lost touch.
“What’s my bud drinking?” Tanya set a coaster on the bar.
Vannie ogled the twelve radiant orchid tattoos on Tanya’s arm. She ached to get a tat of her own but needles scared her.
“Hey doll. Animals out howling. I’m bi-coastal. Make me a Mojito and a Manhattan. Slip me pepper spray and a carton of condoms. Celebrate; I got a frickin’ job.”
Tanya laughed so hard she got the hiccups.
A girl needs an oasis to shake her bangs with minimal tit-gawking. Tanya was transforming the vibe of Sonya’s and the Sonoma beverage trade. Like a flash, she and Vannie were buds again.
Two drinks later Vannie whirled a finger in the air and Tanya mixed the next round. She doused fresh mint with cane syrup and lime juice, crushed it and splashed in rum, sparkling water and ice. Before the drink glinted green, Vannie gave the wrong phone number to two guys. Tanya brought her a basket of kale chips. “So tell me…”
“I’m wine marketing at Fransec; you know, the old Shawn place. For this genius, Doctor Semper. Kinda sexy, kinda weird, sharp dresser, and monster-smart.”
“He the owner?”
“Acts like it. He’s blended in both valleys.”
“A quirk or a jerk?”
“He drinks Earl Grey. Very posh. Acts scared of dirt. Maybe he’s a long dong. Maybe a kinkster. Who cares? I got W-I-N-E on my resume.” Vannie savored her Manhattan. “You make it mean, mama.”
“Gurl power.”
“Gurl power.” Vannie and Tanya bumped fists.
“Is he worth a fling?”
“He’s an oldie-goldie. If he hits the right spot, I’m a goner. My vibrator never says ‘I love you’.”
Tanya shrugged. Vannie chewed on a mint leaf. “Say, Tan, you seeing anyone these days?”
Tanya’s cheeks colored. “I’m waiting to see this hunky guy back from Army. Home-grown dairy. Just looking so far. He was at Cardinal with us. Dating after college is too weird.”
“I got shorted then too. Mom points out church boys.”
“Sonya’s in love so I work all the time. Drunks pitch me every night. Not too much or I cut ‘em off. Why does a penis make you so stupid?”
In a deeper voice Vannie growled: “How ‘bout them Giants. Hey I read about your clit. Can I touch it?” Both women howled at that.
“So you might give him a treat?”
“I don’t know. He’s par-tic-u-lar.” She trilled the word to imitate Semper. Tanya stepped back and watched Vannie. “Don’t know. I’m no nymph. But kinda coulda.” Vannie bounced up and down on her bar stool. “Make me another, amiga. I have a wine job.”
They high-fived. Vannie scanned the talent at the bar. One drooled and the other pouted. She slipped off her stool and wandered into the Ladies. After washing her hands, she reached for her new red lipstick. She loved the name: Dominatrix Passion. She looked at herself in the mirror.
“Brave up and walk on the dark side.” Her red lips shimmered. “Bang on, Doc, but lick me first.” Vannie laughed at herself. She decided to head home; she started tomorrow morning. Tanya hugged her. Vannie got the Cardinal discount on her personal five-drink limit.
She decided to start her diet again in the morning. Outside she saw no ghosts beside her Prius. The creepy guy and her blinking lights hero had left the scene.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
Sonya’s Tavern had known several names in its 80-year history. Sonya had owned it for 25. Under her administration, the Ladies had become a safe space where a woman might actually want to powder her nose or have a good cry.
The Mens sported a few battered condom machines, illustrated with a diagram of the delights of a French Tickler and sold flavor condoms in grape and cherry. Back in the days when a high-school kid might carry a condom everywhere he went for nine months or a year, Jake had spent money there.
The wine-and-cheese crowd and the 20-something hipsters had discovered Sonya’s, but managed not to ruin its charm. The food was great; the beer was cold; Giants games played out on a big-screen TV. The juke box sang of heartache and pain at the junction of busted love and memory lane.
Inside, the decor was roadhouse raw, red-vinyl. The first cut redwood bar-top glowed in a warm ruby hue only found in the ancient forests of Sonoma. The black walnut back-bar had come around the Horn in the 1850s. Sonya’s joke was that Jack London had delivered it to pay his bar tab at the end of summer. Not in her day, of course.
Every window framed a bright neon beer sign, beckoning a replacement for sweat and tears. The knotted-pine walls were darkened by days when people smoked cigarettes. When the ‘No Smoking’ signs went up, the spittoons stayed on the floor.
The chalk board over the bar announced Sonya’s Sonoma Specials in neat script and bold outlines, the handiwork of her daughter Tanya, all the better to aid squinting, blood-shot eyes. Most folks ordered chili or a burger with fries.
There was a pool table in the back room where the battered juke box crooned an historic collection long on Waylon, Willie and Patsy Kline. Elvis, The Beach Boys and The Beatles had managed to sneak into the record vault; no cover charge. Cross-over Country, Jake called it.
Stepping into Sonya’s was like stepping into a time warp. Wally and Jake hadn’t been back there together since Jake had come home. Sonya had been a friend of Jerry’s. Maybe they’d once had a thing,
but in his last years Jerry romanced the bottle and Sonya’s had a wall long on liquor.
Sonya had been like an adopted mother to the Knight boys. Once a week, the family would chow down on her hot roast beef sandwiches, smothered in gravy, with an overflow of extra-crisp fries. Back then, Jerry had his drinking under control and he always made Sonya laugh. They ate Thanksgiving dinner at Sonya’s, Christmas and Easter too. It wasn’t exactly the gourmet organic style of cooking Sandy whipped up now at the dairy, but Jake missed this comfort-diner-cuisine.
Sonya’s daughter, Tanya, greeted them. She was a stunner now.
“Hey Jake, welcome home.” Tanya ran around the bar and hugged him hard.
She smelled like a deep well of clean water.
“Hoo-rah, honey bun.” She kissed him on the cheek.
Jake held her for an extra-long moment and marveled at how this once awkward little girl, then all knees and elbows, had ripened into a true Sonoma beauty.
She sported a row of tats, orchids, from shoulder to arm that looked like she’d side-swiped a rainbow.
Tanya slipped from his arms and returned to the beer taps. She pulled an IPA and placed it on the bar for him.
“The first time I ever got drunk, I was with you. Remember, Jake?” She turned to Wally and added: “I puked all over him. He hosed me off and put me to bed. He was a perfect gentleman.” She giggled.
“Now for you, Wally, I have something special. Just in. A pre-release case of Anchor Steam Holiday Ale. Ice-cold.” She popped the top and poured the beer into a glass, and slid it in Wally’s direction.
Jake sipped his beer and wondered what he might say. The first three things he thought of were entirely wrong. How had this rail of a girl in pig tails grown into this beauty? He played it safe.
“Great to see you, too, Tanya. You look great.” They beamed at each other. He had forgotten she had emerald-green eyes. He hadn’t seen her for almost a decade. Her thick dark blond hair was tied in a practical pony tail. She wore no make-up. She didn’t need any.
“Thank God you’re home safe. Wally told me you caught a sniper’s bullet and received a Bronze Star. Home again and a hero. That deserves free beer all year, stud muffin.” She beamed at him, more than a ten-year shine.
She wiped the already spotless bar in front of him and let him study her. She felt warm all over. Her dream boat had docked.
Jake and Wally felt like her brothers as a kid, but Jake had opened her heart in his senior year. Maybe it was a sophomore crush, but she crumbled and never let on.
He looked lean, frail and a little pale. Her heart just wanted to help him. And undress him. His military crew cut was growing out shaggy brown, a frame for his chiseled features, straight nose and liquid deep brown eyes. He had the face she wanted to see in her children. It was late afternoon and the tavern had yet to fill with locals.
She rambled on: “Your Dad always kept me and Sonya up on where you were. San Diego, then the Army, then Afghanistan. Wally told me about your three months in the hospital. Bet that was no fun.”
Now she was wiping her hands and leaning against the back bar, smiling. “Do you plan to stay awhile?” She watched Jake fumble for words.
“Wally, how’s that Anchor Steam? It’s seasonal, just came out.” She smiled at him too.
“Great beer,” Wally replied. “I taste pumpkin and cinnamon. Bold. Full-bodied. Frothy fantastic.” He raised his half-empty glass and toasted her. “Happy holidays.”
Jake was deep into a daydream about exotic orchids, like Tanya’s. He hoped they’d prove to be the man-eating kind. Tanya stepped away to get a bowl of pretzels. While she was gone, Wally elbowed him in the ribs and smacked Jake’s leg. The bullet hole didn’t hurt any more.
“I thought you might enjoy coming back here. Tanya asks about you every time I come in. Honest, bro.” Wally grinned. Hell, his brother deserved a good time. This might be it.
Tanya placed a bowl of pretzels on the bar for them to share. She took one and nibbled at it. She had beautiful hands, with strong unpainted nails. She wore a dozen multicolored bracelets on her right wrist, but no rings on her fingers. She looked at Jake and sighed. She put her hand over her mouth without thinking, and then decided to change the subject.
“I have something new. I’ve been experimenting in the kitchen. Try these.” She set a bowl of home-made toasted kale chips on the bar. Each was a dehydrated clump of green, frosted white with spices and cheese.
“Think of them as hipster potato chips,” Tanya said. “They’re just for me. No one else will eat them.” She shrugged.
Jake and Wally nibbled. “I like them,” Jake announced to Tanya’s pleasure.
“I coat the fresh leaves in olive oil, sprinkled with cashew crumbs and a dusting of cheese. They dehydrate in the over at 225-degrees for about an hour.” Tanya watched Jake and Wally empty the bowl.
“So you hear about the dead goats?” she asked.
The comment popped Jake out of his orchid reverie and back into his body. He swallowed a gulp of ale. “Yep. I found another one yesterday morning. What’s with that?”
Tanya and Wally were shaking their heads when Jake’s cell phone chimed, “Great Balls of Fire,” his Jerry Lee Lewis favorite. He slid off the bar stool and wandered into the back room where it was quieter in order to answer the call.
The voice of Tim Stoddard, the animal-control officer, greeted him. “Say, Jake, remember that 80-yard punt return you made our senior year to win the county title? That’s still the best giddy-up-and-go Sonoma has ever seen.” Jake laughed out loud, harder than he had laughed for months.
Tim rattled on: “The lab report came back on that dead goat. Arsenic again. Not from water. Injected. A syringe into the neck. Dropped it dead. The liver was missing but arsenic leaves a tell-tale sign. The goat’s gums turned bright red.”
“Who the hell would bother to do that?”
“We got a sicko, for sure, Jake. Even migrant workers don’t kill goats that way. No one wants an arsenic barbecue.” Stoddard wrapped up his report: “It’s happening out your way. Maybe you’ll see something. If so, let me know.”
Jake agreed and returned to his beer. Tanya saw the look of disgust on his face, but didn’t say anything. Jake decided not to ruin the good vibe. No need to feed the rumor mill, anyway.
He remembered the stench of goat guts on the road and the swarm of carrion birds. Injecting goats with poison and dumping the carcasses made no sense. Audra at the gas station had been angry. Tim said the County was investigating, whatever that meant. And now Jake was getting angry too. If someone poisoned the spring on his property, the sheep herd and cheese-making operation could be wiped out.
He joined the conversation between Wally and Tanya. She was showing off a new vintage red wine. “It’s called Fransec. Made here in Sonoma. Some millionaire bought the winery and changed the label.” She reached for long-stemmed bulbous wine glasses and poured them each a healthy taste. “Do you like it?”
Wally was the wine expert so Jake waited for him to express an opinion. He swirled the wine in his glass and held it up to the light. It looked dark purple in the glass, not the more common ruby red color he had expected. The color suggested the wine might taste fruity or what wine lovers call jammy. Wally swirled his sample and sniffed. “Nice nose,” he said.
Wally sipped and swished the taste of wine across his tongue. “This is not great, way too tannic.” He sipped again. “The fruit forward is good but it doesn’t hold up… too bitter on the back end…tastes like they soaked it in oak chips.” He made a face. Jake remembered that U.C. Davis was famous for its wine-making program. Jake knew Wally had taken a few courses. Wally was curious about everything.
Jake read the label in his presentation-voice. “Fransec. Estate bottled. Sonoma Red Wine. No date.” He held the stem of his glass at a tilted angle and swirled the wine in lazy loops around the inside of the glass. “Nice legs,” indicating the runnels of alcohol in thin vertical lines that ran do
wn the inside of the glass. “Does that suggest a higher level of alcohol?”
“Not necessarily,” Wally chimed in. “Most wines are in the twelve to fourteen-percent alcohol range, though the trend is to make bigger wines above fifteen-percent that sell better. Often it’s a trade out for higher alcohol over complex flavor. Everyone is in a hurry these days.”
Jake sipped. “I taste black berries.” He noticed the flavor lingered on his tongue and there was also a note of bitterness on the back of his tongue. “Lots of tannins. It should improve with age. Fruit forward now but bitter.”
Wally agreed. “Someone is pushing their wine out on the market ahead of its time.” He sipped from his glass again. “Too bad, this wine can’t be saved. The flavor components are all wrong. More aging won’t help. It’s two years old and the fruit is strong but doesn’t last on the back of the palate.” He pushed his sample back at Tanya.
She sipped from Jake’s glass. “I don’t know. It tasted good yesterday, fresh and fruity. This bottle has been open for a day. Maybe it doesn’t breathe well. I got a case in the back, from a delivery guy that drank too much and couldn’t pay his bill. For less than five dollars a bottle.”
“House wine,” Jake and Wally volunteered together, and both laughed. “Put it in a carafe and sell it by the bucket,” Wally added.
Tanya fiddled with her pony tail. “It’ll be gone in a long weekend.”
“Let me take a bottle back to the lab and run an analysis on it?” Wally suggested. Tanya agreed and left the bottle of Fransec on the bar. Jake and Wally finished their beers. Jake needed a few swallows of his draft IPA to get the taste of Fransec out of his mouth.
The bar began to fill with customers, local agriculture workers and a couple of dairymen getting a jump on the weekend. Tanya strolled to the other end of the bar to serve them. Jake eyed the chalk-board menu but Wally said he wanted to grab a quick burger and get back to the lab.
