writing from
Scars Publications

Audio/Video chapbooks cc&d magazine Down in the Dirt magazine books

 

This writing was accepted for publication
in the 96 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book...
a Rural Story
Down in the Dirt (v126) (the Nov./Dec. 2014 Issue)




You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:
order ISBN# book


a Rural Story

Order this writing in the book
Need to Know Basis
(redacted edition)

(the 2014 poetry, flash fiction
& short prose collection book)
Need to Know Basis (redacted edition) (2014 poetry, flash fiction and short collection book) get this poem
collection
6" x 9" ISBN#
paperback book:

order ISBN# book

Order this writing
in the book
What Must be Done
(a Down in the Dirt
July - Dec. 2014
collection book)
What Must be Done (Down in the Dirt issue collection book) get the 372 page
July - Dec. 2014
Down in the Dirt magazine
issue collection
6" x 9" ISBN#
paperback book:

order ISBN# book

There’s a Tavern in the Town

Matt LeShay

    Damnedest thing. Walked to the bar for cigarettes Saturday morning. Nothing strange about that. I get my smokes there because it’s the cheapest place in town. Also, because it’s a free standing building, no other building attached. Another law in the Sunshine State of Florida. You can smoke in a bar if it’s not hooked to another building. Nice law. So, as is my wont, I go to this bar where I can smoke one habit while I drink the other.
    I had a late night, drinking other people’s beer, smoking other people’s dope, and inhaling my own cigarettes. Saturday morning I’m out. So, I walk the two and a half blocks to the bar. It’s full. At 9 o’clock in the a.m. the bar’s packed. I buy smokes, order a draft, and go to a booth. As I say, the bar, you know, where normal drunks sit on tall stools, is elbow-to-elbow with people who do what they do best.
    The bar has four booths lining one wall. This is no man’s land. If you go into this bar room and sit at a booth when there’s space at the bar, two things will happen. One, you won’t get served, you gotta hustle your own beers. And, two, people will sneak glances at you. Contemptuous glances. No, you never want to sit in a booth when there’s room at the bar.
    I’m not of this bar or from this bar. My name’s not known here. I just go in, order a draft, sit, and listen to the regulars. Today the overly crowded bar is quiet, subdued, none of the usual banter. I notice the pool table is covered. It’s early, maybe Florida has a law you can’t play pool before 9 a.m. That would be a good law. Children couldn’t sneak in a fast game of 8-ball before first bell. The savings in millions of pool table quarters could then be used for the school’s coke and candy machines.
    But, I digress. I’m amazed to see this bar has a pool table cover as it seems to be lacking in other public house accoutrements. (Accoutrement being one of those college words, like mayonnaise or gabardine.) A broom would be nice, maybe even a mop, toilet brush, and something to wipe down the bar top. A dollar bill dropped on the bar is impossible to pick up. It tends to stick where it lands. If only NASA had this marvelous sticky stuff. The ‗O’ rings would never have failed and Christa McAuliffe would be getting her teacher’s pension.
    This drinking establishment is an eclectic grouping of people. (Eclectic is another one of those words but may be ignored as it’s used mostly in Ivy League schools.) There is no theme to this bar. There’s bikers but it’s not a biker bar. Whores, but not a pick-up bar. Druggies, retirees, fags, and dykes. Burnt out hippies and Vietnam Vets. Both locked in the 60’s. You can find welfare people, working people, people looking for work, and loafers. The owner of this bar doesn’t care who comes in. He just wants their money. And the patrons give it to him too. He deals in quantity not quality.
    Two middle age ladies come and sit across from me in my booth. The other three booths have filled up. One of the ladies looks sad. The other is sniffling and dabs her eyes with a Kleenex. Probably has, as they say in the T.V. commercial, a low grade allergy.
    The bar room door literally bursts open and in walks a little man. A scruffy little man in his mid-50’s. He’s dressed in a recently purchased brown Salvation Army suit. Under the suit coat he’s wearing a blue dress shirt with a wide burgundy tie. The tie has a sail boat painted on it that says, “West Palm Beach,” in script. The scruffy fellow has salt and pepper hair with matching beard. The hair is greased down so it covers his head like a skull cap. The unkempt beard hangs from his face. His trouser legs just barely reach his high-top tennis shoes. Behind him comes an elderly man attired in Scottish garb, red plaid kilt, Tam-o-shanter cap, white knee socks, and patton leather black shoes. And this is what really gets my attention; he’s playing “Amazing Grace” on bag pipes. Bag pipes! Saturday morning in a funky-ass bar! The scruffy man is importantly carrying a plastic vase above his head in a Eucharistic manner worthy of any bishop celebrating high mass. They both solemnly march to the pool table and the scruffy man sets the vase squarely in the middle of it. The sniffling lady now openly cries and the sad lady takes her place sniffling. I ask the newly sniffling lady what the hell’s going on here.
    “Evon died,” she whispers. “Those are his ashes.” She cocks a thumb to the crying lady and says, “This is Evon’s wife. Ah, ex-wife. No, wait. That’s not right.” She searches for the word. “Widow!” She says, no longer whispering, obviously proud of finding the correct term. “This is Evon’s widow!”
    This causes the crying lady to escalate to a wail. I couldn’t tell if it was from Evon’s demise or her new found title. The sniffling lady pats her friend’s shoulder and the wailing drops back to crying.
    “I guess it would be inappropriate for me to leave,” I said to the sniffling lady. “Just stopped for some smokes and a beer.”
    “You better stick around,” she said. “It wouldn’t be right to walk out on Evon’s funeral. Besides, there’s gonna be free food and a keg.”
    “I didn’t know him,” I said.
    “That’s awright. A lot of these people didn’t know him. Just came for the eats and beer. Evon would have liked this turn out.”
    “What’d he die from?”
    “Drugs.”
    “Overdose?”
    “Underdose. Couldn’t find any. Withdrawals. You can get gawd awful sick and die if you got a jones and can’t get no dope,” the sniffling lady explained.
    “Sorry.”
    “You wanna beer?”
    “During a funeral?” I ask.
    “It’s okay. We’ll have to pay for it. They haven’t opened the free keg.” She signals the bartender and he brings over three beers. I pay for them. The crying lady, Evon’s widow, takes a break from her mourning to drink her beer.
    “Got a light?” she asks, shaking out a Salem. I lit her smoke, shrugged, and had one myself.
    “That’s Cooter Rankin,” the sniffling lady points toward the scruffy man. “He’s a preacher. Got his preacher certificate back in the 80’s. Cost $75.00. I seen it too. He was gonna have a church and open up a bingo parlor. Said churches could do that. Even had a name picked out, ‗Blessed In Nature’s Glorified Order.’ First letter of each word spelled out Bingo. Just as he was getting geared up, the state let the Indians have gambling. That put the kibosh to Cooter’s plans. Damn shame. Could have been a real money maker.”
    Reverend Cooter said a few words about Evon. Said he liked Ozzie Osborn and maybe someone could put a quarter in the juke box and play some Black Sabbath. Someone did.
    No one ever explained the bag piper. Maybe, like me, he just stopped for a beer.
    The free keg was brought out and tapped. Three or four pounds of sliced baloney, loaves of wonder bread, a double bag box of potato chips, and French’s mustard in the squeeze bottle were tastefully arranged around the plastic vase.
    As the bar rushed the keg and baloney, I found my chance to slip out. Evon and I weren’t really that close.



Scars Publications


Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.




Problems with this page? Then deal with it...