Ann Beattie - Chilly Scenes of Winter

“Neighborhood’s getting bad,” Sam says.

“It is,” J.D. says.

The waitress comes to their booth with the beer, puts it down on Miller’s coasters.

“How about joining us?” Charles says.

J.D. nods, moves his almost entirely empty mug to their table, sits next to Charles.

“Who’s that clown who’s always shouting for Maria Muldaur?” Charles asks.

“He’s a sociology professor. I kid you not. He takes a new one home every night The way he operates, he’ll get Maria Muldaur home eventually.”

“Shit,” Sam says. “I wish I was still a goon back in college.”

“Fine goon you were. Phi Beta Kappa,” Charles says.

“Yeah, but I acted goony. I hollered in bars.”

“You should have been there last night,” J.D. says. “Some drunk kept flicking matches at the ceiling speakers, and damn if he didn’t launch one high enough to set it on fire.”

“You’d think it would burn out before it got up there,” Charles says.

“I can’t understand it either, and I was in physics,” J.D. says. “If I had the money, I’d sit around bars again,” Sam says. “I used to have a good time sitting around bars.”

“What do you do?” J.D. asks. “Unemployed jacket salesman.” J.D. shakes his head, drains his beer.

“Hey, you guys do me a favor? Loan me fifty cents so I can get another one of these things. I’ll give it to you next time you’re in the bar.”

“Sure,” Charles says. “Just go ahead and order.”

“I was supposed to have a date tonight,” J.D. says, “but when I called she said — you’re not going to believe this — she said, ‘I’m not going to be ready at seven.’ I said, ‘What time should I come by?’ She said, ‘I’m not going to be ready ever.’ Then she hung up.”

“Why’d she do that?” Sam says.

“Beats me. She asked me if I’d take her to the movies. Called me and asked me if I’d take her. Hell, I’m better off not being with her, I guess, if I’ve got to sit through Paul Newman.”

“Hey,” Sam says. “Did you hear anything about Rod Stewart being dead?” J.D. shakes his head.

“He’s not dead,” Sam says. “That girl was putting me on.”

“Somebody told you he was dead?”

“Yeah. Girl I used to work with.”

“Nuts. Women are all nuts. Another time this same girl, the one who called me to ask if I’d take her to a Paul Newman movie, had me take her to the zoo. She had me buy her an ice cream cone and a balloon, then she said she wanted to go home. ‘Don’t you want to do anything else while we’re here?’ I said, and she said, ‘Yeah. Buy postcards.’ That was it. We went home.”

“She sounds like a million laughs,” Charles says. “I don’t know. I don’t have any luck finding nice chicks,” J.D. says. “I don’t either,” Sam says. The waitress puts down their dinners. “One more beer,” J.D. says. She nods and goes away.

“She’s married to the guy behind the raw bar,” J.D. says. “I saw them having a fight out in the parking lot one night.”

“She’s a beauty,” Sam says. “There’s just not many good-looking women around any more.”

“They all wear brassieres now too,” J.D. says.

“Yeah. What the hell’s happening?” Sam says, spooning out some crab imperial.

“It’s the fucking end of the world is what’s happening,” J.D. says.

The waitress comes back to the table with J.D.’s beer.

“When women put their brassieres back on and want you to take them to Paul Newman movies. I used to live with a woman in New Mexico. I wish I’d never left New Mexico. Small stuff pissed me off. I got tired of looking at roosters. She hasn’t put any goddamn brassiere on.”

“I don’t care if they wear brassieres or not,” Sam says, “as long as they’ve got tits. They sure don’t act like they’ve got tits any more.”

“Everything’s going to hell,” J.D. says. He swirls the beer in his mug. “I sure am glad I ran into you guys.”

“I don’t think we’ll prove too uplifting,” Charles says.

“You’re making this beer possible. That’s uplifting.”

Somebody starts the jukebox. Tammy Wynette sings “Stand By Your Man.”

“That’s all that’s left that thinks right,” J.D. says. “Redneck women.”

“You see that movie?” Charles asks. “That was a great movie.”

“ Five Easy Pieces . Yeah. I was so goddamn happy when Jack Nicholson gave that waitress a hard time, even if it was just a movie.”

“I should think you’d sympathize with the waitress, being a waiter and all.”

“No. She deserved it” J.D. points to Charles’s piece of lemon. “Are you planning to use that?”

“No. Go ahead.”

J.D. squirts lemon juice in his mouth, swallows beer. “I’m pretending it’s tequila,” he smiles.

“Have a tequila,” Charles says. “You can pay me back next time I see you.”

“That’s mighty nice of you. It was a real break running into you guys.”

“A tequila, please,” Charles says to the waitress.

She gives no sign that she heard. In a few minutes she returns with a shot of tequila.

“To sticking together,” J.D. says, downing the tequila.

“Whether we stick together or not, I’ve got the feeling we’re screwed,” Sam says. “Take my friend here: his last lady visitor was a lesbian.”

J.D. makes the sour face he didn’t make when swallowing the tequila.

“But she’s not my true love,” Charles says. “My true love lies across the city, in the arms of her true love, a builder of A-frames.”

“What’s that?” J.D. says.

“You mean what’s an A-frame?”

“Yeah.”

“A house. A pointed house.”

“Oh. She’s in love with an architect?”

“So much in love that she’s married the chap,” Sam says. “You wouldn’t like her,” Charles says. “She wears brassieres.”

Charles orders three more beers.

Sam and J.D. have a long discussion of women’s legs. They can not decide between short and lean and long and lean. “Just so the legs go over my shoulders,” J.D. says. Sam laughs. Charles smiles. The next naked woman he will see will be his mother, screaming in the tub on Saturday. He starts to feel very tired again. J.D. sings a song about a black woman, to the tune of “On Top Of Old Smokey.” It gradually becomes apparent that J.D. is drunk and in no shape to get himself out — not that he’s making any motion to leave. Charles tries to make a sign to Sam that he should stop encouraging J.D., but Sam’s eyes are squeezed shut with laughter. Charles looks at the smiling fish. The fish is a goner, but smiling. That is the way artist Al M. conceptualizes it. Artists are all crazy. Everybody is crazy. Charles wants to go home and go to bed.

“J.D., how far away do you live?” he asks.

“Why?” J.D. says. “I don’t have a thing to drink at my place. Cranberry juice. For my bad kidneys. That’s absolutely all. You can’t even drink the water.”

“I was just thinking that we’d give you a lift on our way. You don’t want to drive.”

“Last person who gave me a lift was a queer. He said, ‘I’d like to bury my head in that.’ ”

Charles winces. “We just want to get you home,” he says.

“I didn’t mean anything personal,” J.D. says.

“What do you think, Sam? Can’t we give him a ride home easy enough?”

“Sure,” Sam says. “You come back for your car tomorrow. We’ll take you home.”

“I don’t have my car. I took a bus. My car is still sitting there with slit tires.”

“You left it there on the street?”

“What else was I going to do? I had just worked eleven hours. I was dead tired. What the hell did I care? Junk. Detroit junk. They could make tires that were indestructible if they wanted to.”