SALOON
Is it this town that's such a sad ballad, brother, or is it the rain?
It was beginning to rain. We didn't care. It was night and we were walking along the road towards town. The rain looked like tiny silver minnows when it passed the streetlights. Like the minnows they sell at Kresge's. It was real rain and it felt like cool watermelon against my face.
On one side of the road ahead of us was an old train station. Only the platform lights were on and no one was there. The rain bounced off the roof of the train station like insane snow. Across from the train station was a bar, and by the time we reached it it was raining very hard and the rain was splattering against the ground. It was a good sound.
My brother and I went inside and sat at the bar. "Ye Tavern," it was named, and I suppose it should be called a cocktail lounge instead of a bar, but I feel too God damned stupid and important when I say "cocktail lounge."
There had been a bar in our town but they tore it down a few years ago. The guy who ran it had worn an old brown hat with trout flies in the brim, but they tore the place down anyway. I sure liked that hat.
My brother and I watched them build "Ye Tavern" last year. We watched them build it and we laughed very hard at the designer. He was an uninspiring man who wore shirt sleeves, a thin tie, and walked around with the building plans in front of his face. He tripped on things a lot, and one day he stepped on a nail and had to be driven to the hospital.
He believed in God, my brother guessed, bowled on Tuesday night, took his wife out to dinner once a week and fucked with his socks on.
It took about eleven days to build "Ye Tavern." They hired a group of four-year-olds, gave them carpenter overalls and hammers, and told them to change the face of America.
When it was finished they put boxes of plastic geraniums out front. I saw a yellow bee land on one of those plastic geraniums but he went right away. It wasn't very funny.
Also, they put a big electric sign above the door that cried, "Ye Tavern," every five seconds. I've always contended that signs like that should say, "Augh..........."
The inside was done in Formica and walnut paneling. I have a feeling that the last thing a walnut tree wants to be is walnut paneling but nevertheless it was on every wall.
I wonder if walnut trees go to Church on Sunday?
The bar and table tops were made from Formica. I hope I never turn into Formica. I hope no one gets the idea to make Formica out of writers, because I wouldn't want people to look at me and say I look like wood.
Anyway, my brother and I were sitting at the bar and our hair was wet from the rain. The bartender was wearing a short red jacket and looked as if he had come in a kit. He had a badge on his jacket that said, "Hi! I'm Bill."
"Hi, Bill, I'm Jeb," I said.
"How you doing there, Bill," said my brother, "I'm Pete."
"Can I see your fellows I.D.?" said Bill. That's all, and I decided then that if Bill ever called me up and wanted me to go fishing with him I'd tell him no.
There were a few lonesome looking people sitting at the bar and several small parties at the tables. There's always lonely looking people in bars on rainy nights, I thought. It must be the President's fault.
Bill looked at our identification cards and served us. He picked up our money and went snap, snap with it over to the cash register. He was whistling and being very cool, but he made a mistake and rang up our tab twice. He got very jumpy, as if the hero was dangling from a root over the edge of a cliff, and I thought he might cry.
"Don't worry about it, Bill," my brother said.
Once, my brother said that to a guy whose kid had just been flattened by the train near our house. Really. The kid looked like a squashed rabbit and my brother told the guy not to worry. My brother doesn't care about much.
"Don't tell me not to worry about it, son." Bill had been bothered by the remark as well as the mistake. "Don't tell me not to worry about it."
"O.K., Bill."
There were two men sitting at the table behind us. They looked like suit commercials.
"Oh, it's going to be a fascinating little place," said one of them. "A wonderful dress shop."
"Yes it will be, Bob."
"Art Shaw from St. Pete is behind it you know."
"Oh!"
I listened to the men behind us talking about progress in our community. They said that a car wash was going up next to the dress shop. They talked about a new shopping center being designed by Sphincter & Sons or somebody, that would be built on Hawthorne Park. I looked at my brother when they said that. My brother just shook his head.
Soon they will be drying up the rivers and the lakes to make room for shoe stores, I thought.
After awhile the men left. They had gotten some wrinkles in their suits and they were going home to iron them.
We ordered another drink.
By twelve o'clock we were the only customers left. Bill was washing glasses at the end of the bar. If I listened, I could hear it raining outside. My brother spit an ice cube back into his glass.
"Hey Bill," he said. Bill looked up. "What do you think of the new shopping center they're going to build?"
"Well, I think it's just great!" Bill said it like a senator. "It'll be the third largest in the state."
"Give us another round," I said quickly. I think I was sqeeezing my glass.
Bill shook the water off his hands and brought us fresh drinks.
"Sure, I think it'll be great," he said again.
"Why?" asked my brother. A very good question, I thought.
"Why? Well, hell. Just use your head. Shit." Bill took our money and went to the cash register, still talking. "Number one, it'll bring in people from your outlying communities." Ring-a-ling went the cash register.
"What outlying communities?" asked my brother.
"All your towns. All your towns around here." Bill pulled up a stool behind the bar in front of us. Good old Bill. "Look at it this way. Weretakinginhereatthisplacerightnowonaweekendmaybetwohundreddollars." That's how he said it. "You get your shopping in here and we'll make twice that easy. Easy."
I listened to Bill, but I wished I was somewhere else. I wished I was on the roof of the Hotel Madrid playing my guitar in the rain.
"Hell," Bill went on, "Mr. Snot already has plans for a dining room here."
"What are they going to call it, Bill?" My brother was grinning wryly.
"What, the dinig room?"
"Yeah."
"Well, we're going to call it the Beefeaters Room. Sure."
Bill had picked up the towel and was wiping the bar in front of us.
"The Beefeaters Room, eh?" said my brother. "What if you like fish, Bill? Are you going to have a fisheaters room, too?"
"They'll have fish. You can get fish." Bill was getting a little annoyed.
"And brass doorknobs?"
"And what?"
My brother was laughing. I had forgotten what a fine laugh he had. I started laughing too.
"And what?"
"Choo-choo trains," I laughed.
"With mustard ketchup relish," screamed my brother.
We laughed madly and Bill stared at us.
When we finally stopped Bill wouldn't talk to us any more. He was at the end of the bar drying glasses and looking at us now and then. He looked at us as if we were slowly turning into trolls. Maybe we were, but as I said to my friend, who gives a shit.
"You dry glasses real good," said my brother. We had gotten up to leave. "Just like a jeweler. I want you to keep it up."
The door of "Ye Tavern" closed behind us. It was still raining a little. There was a snazzy new car parked in front of us. Red convertible. Bill's car.
My brother said, "Where can we get handgrenades at this time of night?"
"Stupid bastard, wan't he," I said. I stepped on a puddle and splashed my brother. He called me a grapefruit. We pulled up our collars and started to walk home.
The train station across the street had not been moved or changed. I felt unnaturally content when I looked at it. It reminded me of a nice old chair.
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