Just North of Nowhere (6 page)

He breathed night air. Fresh, clear.

Oh, God
, he thought,
snakes. Them hissin’ shakers will be coming out by moon. But, shit. . .
He relaxed. They'd wait for him. They'd waited. . .
Why hell! Most of a century? Was it that long we all waited, me and them? A century? Oh, sweet night.

He looked to the moon, the light on the bluffs, listened to the distance, he heard the horses down by Daddy’s. A damn tear flowed and another damn one! “Oh, love!” he said to the world, shaking them off, “what a night for snake!”

A hound at noonday, soft, fleshy, melting, that was Herb. His ears, long, wide, and thick started the look. They weighed down each side of his head, leaving his pate looking stretched as though the tight thin skin was about to split to the bone. The illusion followed that the extra flesh from the top of him had flowed downward. His eyes bagged in opulent half-moons, his cheeks sagged to dewlaps, his lips drooped to a quiet pout – sad, like he'd just flopped the summer's only vanilla cone into the dirt.

His necktie seemed to stop the face meat from further slippage. He always wore a tie. Past the collar, his shoulders sloped so steeply they left an unclear distinction between where neck ended and arms began. His chest was nothing much. What flesh there seemed sagged to his gut-line adding to what already hung over his belt.

From there, he tapered, then disappeared, into two tiny shoes.

When it came right to it, Herb wasn't fat; loose-skinned was all – gravity's doing. What came of it was he looked like a hound dog drooping over the inevitability of another scorcher.

Herb wasn't old but didn’t look very young either. Nobody had ever seen him young: not in Chicago, or, if anyone ever asked, nobody from the little town back east, where he said he'd been before Chicago, would have known a young Herb either.

He didn’t stay long enough to be familiar, see? Herb was a quiet, droopy guy who traveled alone.

Every chance, Herb slipped into a car – he loved cars – and he’d drive to some small place he'd never been, never thought about or heard of, a place where nobody knew him and where he didn't know anyone. This world was full of these places and he loved them almost as much as he loved cars.

Bluffton was one such town. Driving, he saw the sign and off the road he went.

He motored slowly along Slaughterhouse Way – and what a name was
that
– past the stock pens. Thus, the name, he calculated. The sound, the scent, the narrow glint from the wide round eyes that stared from the dark sheds made him shudder. He shuddered aloud to the inside of the car and drove a little faster before pausing at Slaughterhouse and Commonwealth. He made a slow, wide left, checking ahead, to the side, to the rear – the way he'd been taught years and years ago – and when the turn was complete, he cruised the wide main street of the pretty little town. Two turns and he’d seen it.

Then he saw the Wagon Wheel Inn. He thought,
yes. A place to eat, drink, to watch people
.

Parking on Commonwealth was diagonal. He liked that and nosed his rented Pontiac into the middle space of three that were open in front of the bar. Herb was lucky about parking, always had been.

He took a moment to feel the stillness after so many hours of movement, then he opened the door and set one foot on asphalt.
One small step for Herb.
He smiled and, shifting himself with a grunt, took a second step.

. . .and took in Bluffton’s air: Perfume and bleach. With that was, what?

Fish?

Fish, yes, but fish dead.

In the Moleskine notebook he kept in his left trouser pocket he noted the specifics of the town’s aromal layers. He noted, also: the scents were not unpleasant, not unique, simply particular to the day and place. The Laundromat next door to the Wagon Wheel Inn was the source of the ozonic bleach and sweet warm dry perfume of softeners tumbled and toasted. It was also the source of the wee drift of snowy lint that gathered at the corner of the building and in the bushes that lined the path to the river. Between the Wagon Wheel and the laundry (“The Duds Sudsery” he noted in his Moleskine) he saw the glimmer of water, heard the stream’s flow and gargle.

Ah. Fish
, he said to himself.

He had followed that river (the Rolling, he’d noted from his map) for 43 miles along the road (County H he’d noted). Here in Bluffton, the Rolling passed almost beneath the Inn's back porch. Two red metal poles supported the porch (or perhaps there were three—or more—he couldn’t be sure from this angle). The pillars arose from concrete pilings set into the mud of the riverbank, quite simple, efficient. Nothing sagged. All looked solid.

He noted the mud and fish smell of the river in his book as he did the rich contrapuntal outpouring from the trees, greens, and mosses, the decaying woodland that climbed the bluff across the river. That, too, mixed in the Bluffton air. That, too, entered the book.

A truck rumbled in the street. He turned in time to see eyes, the same shiny glints from the darkness that he’d seen in the pens on Slaughterhouse Way. Closer now, the eyes passed fixed on Herb from between the trailer’s shit-spattered metal slats. The bellows of the eyes called to him as the rig snorted, rounded the corner, ground through the gears climbing Slaughterhouse Way and was gone.

Herb shivered again, took another note and rushed to the door of the Wagon Wheel Inn.

Inside was autumn night in deer country. The day hadn’t been hot, but the bar was Air Konditioned KOOL. Waterfall beer signs cascaded. Neon bright rats in lederhosen and Bavarian hats raised electric beer steins to distant oompahs of the mind. Herb smiled. He’d seen that ad on the television, remembered it fondly. And there was juke music, too.
Good sound
, he thought,
these people appreciate music. That’s a start!

The Wagon Wheel air was brewed hops, malt, old cigarette smoke of varied blends and aromatic mixtures tumbled with bubbly pizza—cheese and sausage and sharp pepper oils. The bar also smelled of floor wax and sweat. Sweaty people drank here and, yes, played American shuffleboard. The Wagon Wheel utterly erased the street, the laundry, and the eyes’ gleaming.

Animal heads hung everywhere beer art and dartboards didn’t. Generations of dust had grayed the fur, softened the antlers. Eyes flicked light at him, but they were eyes of glass! And skins of snakes! His eyes opened to the permanent twilight of the Wheel. Yes: snakes, displayed. Some in frames, others curled, suspended inches in front of dust-coated backing that covered the yellowed plaster above raw wooden wainscoting. A power of heat and dry age radiated from the snakes.

Herb stood in the doorway taking it in.

Then the door sucked open. Daylight exploded behind him and a fierce rush of a man caromed off Herb and toward the bar.

“Hey Bunch,” the man behind the bar called, “watch yourself, there. Elbowing paying customers you know!”

The newcomer –
Bunch?
– turned back but still kept on his bar heading. He wore torn denim jeans and was barefoot. His shirt was flannel holes over haired skin. He was unshaved – not bearded – and his hair was long, greasy. He added a measurable counterpoint to the bar’s friendly reek.

Herb smiled. “That’s all right. I haven’t paid yet!”

Bunch’s eyes widened.

He’s surprised
, Herb realized. No fear bristled from the man, just a sudden jolt of something like curious caution crackled around him.

“Early for terrorists, ain't it?” Bunch said to the room in general.

That was it. The man Bunch made his way to the bar, hauling with him the scent of the world, an olfactory collage of wild places, steeped mud, meat, sweat, and engine oil. Herb breathed it in along with bar’s smoky hop-laden ambience and the mingling of bleach, softener, diesel fume, cow death, darkness, mud, moss, and dead fish that wafted in from the bar’s back door.

Herb liked the place. He perched at a tall two-top near the curtained front window. The table felt just right under his elbow. “Moo,” Herb said quietly to the leather-covered chair.

“Elvie ain't come yet, Mister” the bartender called to Herb as he drew a draft for the man called Bunch. “We don't have the table service yet, okay? So what can I do you for?”

“Ah,” Herb said. “I'm in no hurry. No hurry. Nope. Just breathing a little.”

Bunch spun on his stool and jerked a stare at Herb. “Here to breathe?” he said. The man sucking salt from pretzel rods and working his way through a ledger book at the end of the bar raised his head and squinted in Herb's direction.

“Man comes into a bar to breathe?” Bunch said again and shook his greasy head.

“For just a moment,” Herb said. He reached toward him with his smile.

Bunch blinked, then came back to the there and then!

“Crying out loud, Ivan” he said at the foaming brew. “Tap less air and draw more beer! Look a’ this!” He sucked deep suds until the foam stopped flowing down the side of the Pilsner.

Herb almost felt the cool glass, the wet suds flowing over Bunch’s fingers, the sudden bitter taste of air and beer.

“Yeah, well,” the bartender – Ivan? – said to the room in general, “breaths is free!” He shot a glance at the pretzel sucker at the end of the bar. “’Less the gov'ment starts taxin' me for the air used on premises. Then I gotta charge. Okay, there, with you?”

Herb drew the corners of his mouth into a smile. It made him look droopier than when he just sagged, but what was he to do? It was the way he was built. He considered. “I'll have...a beer,” Herb said. Considering further he said, “Have what he's having,” he pointed to Bunch, “and I'll come to get it.”

“Now beer there, I gotta charge you for.” Ivan said, already pulling a draft into another Pilsner. “Air's still free...” he muttered.

“Ain’t so sure,” Bunch said, looking at the deep head on his beer.

Herb took the glass in both hands. He pressed his lower lip to the rim; his upper lip slipped over the top and he sucked foam to the amber beer below.

“Mmmmmm,” he said as the beer slid down his throat. “Good,” he said a good ten seconds later and put the glass down. He laid a fifty on the bar.

The cash register made a satisfyingly aged ratchet clatter as Ivan cranked the ebony handle on the shiny brass lever. The drawer snapped open with a jangling clink. Ivan made change for the fifty.

The century-old relic tickled Herb.
History.
He felt it in the air, years and years of it for sale in Bluffton. Pay-per-view.

This Ivan. . .
Herb felt him. Ivan did his local color riff – was doing it now for this droopy out of towner. The rod-sucker was something else, an owner, maybe. But he was for sale. The old blind man in back, color, too, part of the air, if he knew it, part of the color and good for business, all of them, important, all pieces of the town, but, essentially, part of the package.

But Bunch? Bunch, no. He’s not for sale and not selling.

“Could I share some tunes with you?” Herb said to the room. “What kind of music do you like?”

Eyes blinked all around. Ivan, Bunch, the pretzel sucker. Herb could hear brain gears turning

Bunch put down his glass and stared at the ceiling. “Music?” he said aloud. “Music?”

“I like music!” Herb eye-checked the pretzel sucker. “Sure I do,” he said.

“Music,” Bunch said again. “Music. Huh! See? I lost my bike. On the bike I had a damn good, near new, portable radio. I earned it working. I wired her to the handlebars.”

“For cripes, Bunch!” Ivan said. He tapped a nickel glass and shoved it in front of him. “Go get yourself another goddamn bicycle for crineoutloud. And a radio... Or on second thought, don't! Riding up and down all day playing noise! How you ever get any work done?”

The rod sucker laughed. “Still sore about that bike...”

“Don't want to talk about it.” Bunch drained off the nickel-worth.

Ivan turned back to Herb. “You don't look like a hippy, friend,” he said squinting. “Hippies in jeans come through, want to work off their drinks, their pizza-pops, and slim-jimmies playing guitar or fiddle or whatchacallit...?” He laid the change down on the bar. “Hippies don’t pay with fifties…” he said.

“Hippies?” pretzel man said. “Cripes on a stick we ain’t seen no hippies here in an age! They all gone?”

“Ah, they’re around Karl! Hair and smelly, wanting to work for beer and jimmies. . .”

“Cripes, that’s Bunch, Ivan!” Karl shouted.

“Music!” Bunch scratched his head.

“Not hippies, Ivan!” Karl said.

“They’re sometimes,” Ivan said.

“Not no more!”

“Saxophone?” said Ivan after a moment’s thought. “There was that guy wanted to play saxophone in here. He didn’t have long hair!”

“Yeah ,” Karl said, “a suit and tie, too...? Like this fellow.” His silence looked to Herb.

“So, figure you’re a what?” Ivan said, “a salesman, right? With that fifty bucks,” Ivan glanced over to the jukebox, near where the old blind man sat. “Salesmen always got fifties. Sorry. Got all the music I need. Ain't I?” he threw the question to Karl.

“Kinda light on that, where you call it? Reggie? Raygay? Whatchacall?”

“Music?” Bunch squinted toward the open hole of the back door. He was still working his face.

Herb followed Bunch’s gaze. The door opened onto a view of the green bluff on the far bank.

“I liked that damn bike and box.” Bunch shook his head, “Goddamn music, anyway.”

Herb looked down. He couldn't see his feet until he edged one toe forward and caught a glint of barlight in the soft brown leather. “No, no. No, no, no. I'm not a salesman. No, I have some music in the car. I thought you might like it. Free! I share things.”