Alix Ohlin - Babylon and Other Stories

What happened was this: on a Friday night — Friday nights at the Edgewater were an institution, and as usual the place was packed — Kelly looked around and counted nine men she'd slept or fooled around with. It wasn't the number that bothered her but that, looking at them, she couldn't stop picturing them all naked, and it was not an arousing picture. She was walking around trying to serve drinks and hear people's orders over the music and all the while seeing naked men, pale-skinned, dark-skinned, potbellied, muscled or flabby, hairy-chested or bare, hairy-backed or not, leaning against doors, sitting back in chairs, everywhere their freckled, spotted, rough or smooth skin. There was just too much skin. She took a deep breath and thought, No more.

That was last July, and she hadn't been with a man since. The chastity thing drove Manny crazy and he was always trying to set her up with somebody, most recently with his cousin from Kitchener who was coming to town for a visit. Manny's interest in her was by turns paternal, platonic, and sleazy. He often encouraged her to go back to school, patting her on the shoulder and telling her she was too smart for this dump, too young, too something; he'd also, every once in a while, look down her shirt or squeeze her butt. When he brought up his cousin, she was wiping down the bar while he flipped through catalogs of restaurant equipment. Manny dreamed about making the Edgewater more upscale, a thought that was wishful in the extreme. He wanted to put in stainless-steel chairs and sell microbrews. He also wanted to institute a no-jeans dress code, an idea that, when he floated it by a couple of regular customers, made them snort Miller Genuine Draft out their noses.

“He's a very interesting person, Kel,” Manny said. “You guys would have interesting conversations, I bet.”

“Okay, so I'll talk to him when he comes in. But that's it, talking.”

“Well, okay, but really talk to him. Get to know him.”

“Manny.”

“What?”

“You know I'm off men.”

“Off men? What does that even mean?” He looked around as if he had an audience for this question, but it was Tuesday night at seven-thirty and the place was almost deserted. “It's not normal, a girl your age. Hey, do you like these stools?”

She looked at the catalog. The stools were four feet high and upholstered in a black-and-white cow print. “Looks comfy.”

“You know what else?”

“What else, Manny?”

“My cousin? He's only got one leg.”

“Poor guy,” Kelly said. “How'd he lose it?”

Manny looked at her over the catalog. “Motorcycle accident.”

“Oh.”

“It's not the whole leg that's gone, it's actually cut off at the knee. The left one.”

“Poor guy.”

“Well, it's not the whole leg.”

When she came back from taking the order of the only occupied table, Manny still hadn't gone back to the catalog.

“So, that doesn't interest you at all?”

“What doesn't?”

“The leg.”

“What do you mean, interest me?”

Manny shrugged and studied a page of light fixtures, chrome and colored plastic descending from some invisible ceiling. “He says girls love the leg, that's all.”

“Great,” said Kelly. “Then he doesn't need me to talk to, does he?”

Manny's cousin's name was Lone. At first she thought she'd misheard, and that his name was Lorne, like Lorne Green, but no, it was Lone. A nickname, Manny explained, that referred to his one intact leg. He came into the bar around nine-thirty, while Manny was in the back. By now there were a few more customers, including a guy who'd never been in before and who therefore thought the name Edgewater Bar & Grill implied that food was being served. Which it kind of did. But Manny had just added the “& Grill” to the sign a couple of years ago because he thought it sounded better.

“You can't even make me a sandwich?” the guy said. “Some fries?”

“I think we have some chips by the register,” Kelly told him. “Do you want regular or barbecue?”

“If I wanted some goddamn chips I'd go to a goddamn store.”

“Feel free,” Kelly said.

“Hey, why don't you just leave her alone,” said a voice behind her.

Turning around she saw a man walk up close, very close, to the guy's table and jab a finger at his face. He was thick-armed and barrel-chested, definitely a weight lifter, wearing a black Metallica T-shirt. Below, his body turned slim at the hips, and then there were his legs. He was wearing jeans, and the leg that wasn't whole was wearing jeans too, with only a hollowness below the knee, an airy, smooth sort of quality in the fabric, to signal what was missing.

“You must be Lone.”

“And you must be Manny,” he said, and smiled. “Just kidding.”

“What's this, a reunion?” said the guy who wanted food.

“Shut up,” Lone said.

“I'm handling this,” Kelly told him.

“Not very well,” the other guy said.

“That's enough,” Lone said, turning to hit him, hard, in the face.

The guy howled, clutched his cheekbone, swore, promised to call the police, swore again, and left. Conversation at the other tables resumed.

“That really wasn't necessary,” Kelly said, wiping down the table.

“He was a jerk.”

“A jerk who hadn't paid yet.”

“Lone, my man!” Manny shouted, coming out from the back, and they exchanged an elaborate handclasp. Kelly could see a family resemblance: both were stout and thick-chested, although Lone's chest had a lot more definition than Manny's, and both had bushy dark eyebrows and stubble-shadowed chins.

“Lone, Kelly, Kelly, Lone.”

“We just met,” Kelly said.

“Great,” Manny said, clasping his hands together as if he couldn't stand that the handshaking was now over. “Let's sit down. Kelly, could you get Lone a beer?”

“Sure.”

When she came back, they were sitting at her old table by the window, looking at the lights of the neighborhood reflected over the water, red from a traffic light punctuating the paler yellows.

“So, how's Aunt Linda?” said Manny. “Thanks, Kel. Come, sit down and join us.”

“I don't know. She's okay, I guess.”

“Yeah? How's Mark?”

“He's on drugs.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, it's too bad,” said Lone, scratching his neck and looking around the bar. “So, Kelly, tell me about yourself.”

“Not much to tell, I don't think.”

“Manny tells me you're, what, studying commerce?”

“I was. I'm not in school right now, though.”

Lone shook his head and looked concerned. “Shouldn't quit school, Kelly. You miss a lot of opportunities. For example. I'm looking, maybe, for like a business partner? I'm thinking of opening a bar just like this one right here.”

“Really,” Kelly said.

“Yes, really,” he said with exaggerated seriousness. His eyes were dark and small and bright. “I really am. And I'm going to need someone to, you know, keep my books.”

“I bet you'd like her to keep your books,” said Manny. “Since when are you opening up a bar?”

“It's an idea I have.”

“I can't believe it. You never mentioned that till just now.”

“I appreciate the suggestion,” Kelly said, “but I don't think I want to move to Kitchener.”

“Smart girl. See, Lone, I told you she had a good head on her shoulders.”

“Is that what you told him?” Kelly said.

Marie-Claire said, “Cool.”

She turned it over in her hands, the foot in one hand, the open, fluted top of the leg in the other. She'd come over as soon as she saw Luz sticking her own foot into the plastic leg, as if it were a boot. Luz had discovered it wasn't hollow all the way down when she looked up and saw Marie-Claire towering over her. That was the thing about Marie-Claire. She might be a stoner but she wasn't out of it. She grabbed the leg right away.