Robert Stone - A Flag for Sunrise

Just anybody calls me anything and I sit still for it. I don’t know the fucking difference. He sat down again, unscrewed the cap on the aspirin bottle and tucked two Dex tabs in the pocket of his shirt. He swallowed two more with his Coke.

Now Breedlove, he thought, I’ll tell him again and that’ll be it. Breedlove’s old lady worked in the supermarket, a good-looking head.

Gimme a break, God, Tabor prayed going out. Gimme a rush and ease my mind. A little good feeling.

On his way to sign out with JOD, he remembered the Coke bottle in his hand, so he went back around to Search and Rescue to stack it in the rack that held empties. When he left the bottle off, he saw Breedlove watching him.

He walked over and leaned on the Operations counter until Breedlove came over.

“I want to tell you something, Breedlove,” he said, leaning close to the counter and speaking so softly that Breedlove had to incline his own head to hear him. “I want to tell you get off my case, man. Now if you don’t do it I’m gonna transport your ass over to Gulfstream Plaza and I’m gonna beat the living shit out of you in front of that big old supermarket window. So your old lady can watch from the cash register.”

Breedlove walked away pale, shaking his head.

Tabor checked out and went down the magnolia-lined walk that led to the gate and the parking lot. The lemon light was spreading across the sky, coloring the flat waters of the Gulf and the white hull of the fishery protection cutter that was tied up at the end of the pier. Eastward, night lights burned on the steel coils of the Escondido refinery and in the highway distance beyond it westbound headlights glowed snake eyes against the dawn.

“Gimme a rush, Jesus,” Tabor said. He walked to his Chewy with the keys in his hand. He put the key in the door lock, smiled and licked his lips. One of these times, he thought, I’ll have a car where you don’t turn the key upside down. “Contact,” he said. He was getting off a little and he turned to look at the sky over his shoulder.

“Gimme a rush, Jesus.” He put the car in gear and rolled to the edge of the highway. “If you want me for a sunbeam.”

A truck full of melons went by the gate and he smiled after it.

Gimme a rush if you truly want me for your personal sunbeam.

Once out of the gate, he ran in front of the drug, passing the melon truck with a grin.

Good morning, boys. What nice watermelons, yes indeed.

He cooled it at the town line, drove past the line of shrimp boats at the commercial pier, the fish market, the ceviche restaurant. First light hit the wide oily sidewalks of the main drag; a few Mexican women in tailored jeans walked toward the cannery.

He parked his Chevvy just down the block from the Sullivan hotel. The Sullivan was a three-story building with rounded corners of frosted glass and a sign beside the door that said “Locker Club, Servicemen Welcome.” Tabor went in and across the small dusty lobby to the lounge out back. In the lounge there was a bar on rollers and a few plastic tables and chairs but the jukebox was the treasure of the Sullivan; it dated from World War II like the “Locker Club” sign by the street door. Linda Ronstadt’s “Heart Like a Wheel” was spinning on it.

At one of the tables Mert McPhail, the station’s chief radioman, was sitting with two girls in pants suits. The girls were drinking Jax; McPhail had a bottle of bourbon and a cardboard cup of ice beside his glass. They all looked up when Tabor walked in.

The older of the two girls with McPhail was named Nancy.

“Haayy, Pablo,” she called as he walked toward them, “how’re you keepin’, keed?”

“Hey,” Pablo said.

“You want a drink, honey? Want a whiskey? A cocktail?”

“Just a beer be nice. Why don’t everybody have a beer?”

“ Gracias, amigo ,” Nancy said, and went to the cooler. Tabor pulled up a chair and sat down beside McPhail.

“What say, McPhail?”

McPhail had been in the hotel most of the night. He was tired and drunk, a huge balding man with a brown, lined face — sloped-shouldered, six-six or — seven. He glanced at Tabor with distaste. The girl with him watched them both with a spacy smile.

“Real good,” Tabor said. “Hey, you know,” he told them after a minute, “it’s such a nice morning I might just go after some birds. I got my Remington in the car. I might just go up back of the airport and get me a turk.”

The girl at the table looked down at Tabor’s feet.

“Gonna stomp through that old swamp with them pretty stitch boots on? Just get ’em all muddied up.”

“I don’t mind,” Tabor said.

Nancy brought the beers to the table and set them out.

“Don’t know about turkeys,” she said. “But I bet you could get you a alligator back there.”

“If I meet one I’ll rassle with him. Hey, you think I could rassle a alligator, McPhail?”

McPhail had been studying the bare wall beside him.

“How the hell would I know?” he said.

“You could bring me back a pocketbook,” Nancy said quickly. “But that’s against the law now, ain’t it? Alligator pocketbooks, they’re against the law now.”

“Ain’t no more against the law than what’s doin’ in here,” the younger girl said.

After a moment, McPhail stood up heavily and walked into the John. Tabor picked up his beer and drank half of it at a draw.

“Dry,” he said.

The girls laughed as though he had told a joke.

“Hey, Pablo,” Nancy said, “you goin’ hunting right away or you gonna hang around a while?”

“I don’t know,” Tabor said. He picked up his beer and walked into the men’s room after McPhail.

In the men’s room, he found McPhail flat-footed before the urinal, pissing contentedly. Holding the bottle in his hand, Tabor took up a position directly behind him and leaned against the wall.

“So I’m on report, huh, Chief?”

McPhail had turned his head as far to the side as he could, trying to see Tabor behind him.

“I did put you on report,” he said as though he had just remembered it. “Chit’s still on my desk. Straighten it out Monday.”

He left off pissing and hastened to zipper his fly.

“Sure,” Tabor said. “I’d really like to straighten it out, know what I mean, Chief?”

McPhail left quickly. When Tabor went back out, he found the chief radioman sitting on a barstool near the movable bar combing his thin black hair. Tabor watched him with what appeared to be good humor.

“What are you combing that with, McPhail? You combing it with piss? You didn’t wash your hands in there.”

The younger girl stood up at her place and walked straight out of the lounge into the lobby. McPhail struggled off his stool. His legs were trembling.

“I had just enough of you, you crazy son of a bitch,” McPhail said, advancing on Tabor. “You damn psycho.”

Tabor stood his ground, his hands by his sides.

“Don’t let nothing hold you back but fear, McPhail.”

Nancy moved between them, looking as though she were ready to duck.

“C’mon, now,” she said. “C’mon, you all.”

“What the hell’s the matter with you, Tabor?” McPhail demanded. “You lost your goddamn marbles or something?”

“Maybe a lot the matter from your point of view, Chief,” Tabor said. “But I don’t appreciate your point of view. You don’t even wash your hands when you go to the toilet.”

McPhail stared at him, blank-eyed, silent, a head taller than Tabor.

“You’re just nuts,” the chief said finally. He took a step toward the door and lumbered on out, like an oversized old man. “You better see a doctor,” he said.

Nancy fixed Pablo Tabor with a wise little mother look.