Michael Koryta - So Cold the River

“Can I get that channel changed?” Josiah said. “These boys don’t mind at all.”

“In a minute, maybe,” Becky said, not even glancing at him as she continued with her joke. “Well, the wife keeps him from drinking, but she has to go out of town for a few days, visit her sister. Leaves him with clear instructions-you don’t even think about going to the pub, buddy.”

“I wouldn’t last long with a woman like that,” Josiah said, and then he turned away from the bar. When he did it, his shoulder collided with Kellen’s. Hard. Too hard for accidental contact.

“Watch it, Josiah,” Becky snapped, and Kellen just looked up at him and didn’t say a word, didn’t change his expression.

“Oh, he’s big enough it didn’t hurt him,” Josiah said. “Ain’t you big enough?”

Kellen held his eyes for a moment, then said, “Sure,” and turned back to Becky. “Let’s hear the rest of that joke.”

Josiah seemed disappointed.

“Okay,” Becky said. “So the old guy, he figures, how’s she gonna know, right? First night she’s gone, he heads up the street. Place is only a block away. Goes in and has a few, then a few more, and a few more after that. By the end of the night it’s catching up with him and the room’s starting to spin. Decides he better head on home. So he stands up to pay the bill and almost falls on his face, has to hold on to the bar to keep himself up. Puts his money down, takes a few steps and, whap, he falls down, smack on the floor. Has a hard time getting up, and now he knows he’s had too much. Good thing his wife won’t know. So he crawls to the door, pulls himself up, and steps outside and falls over again.”

Kellen was smiling, watching her, but Eric kept his eyes on Josiah. That shoulder move didn’t promise good things.

“Old guy has to crawl on his belly whole way home,” Becky was saying. “Drags his butt into bed. Next morning he’s hardly awake when the phone rings. Wife calling. Starts yelling at him for going drinking and he says, ‘How do you know?’ And she tells him, ‘Bartender called. Said you left your wheelchair down there again.’”

Kellen and Eric both gave it more of a laugh than it deserved and Josiah stood in silence. Waited until they’d stopped laughing before he said, “I got a joke.”

Nobody reacted. Not even Becky. Eric didn’t like the guy’s tone at all, and he twisted his bar stool just a touch so he was facing him, then cleared his feet from the rail.

“Bunch of good ol’ boys are down at their bar, gettin’ lit up,” Josiah said. “Big-ass bear comes into the parking lot, looking for food. Knocks the door open, goes inside. Shit’s in the fan then, old boys running around, bear growling and knocking tables and chairs and shit over. Bear wrecks the place, then breaks the door down and goes away.”

He paused for a long, dramatic drink of his beer.

“The drunk boys stand up, dust themselves off, and one says to his buddy, ‘Damn. Put a nigger in a fur coat and he acts like he owns the place.’”

Eric got to his feet and Becky said, “Shut your fool mouth, Josiah,” as Josiah smiled, looking at Kellen.

“Get the hell out of here,” Becky said. “Now.”

Josiah flicked his dark eyes up to Eric, just a cursory glance, and then back down at Kellen.

“What? Don’t like my joke?”

Eric moved another step away from his stool, sure now that a fight was coming. Kellen reached out, though, put up a warning hand.

“It’s fine,” he said. “We’re all telling jokes, right? Just having some fun.”

The look that crossed Josiah’s face was disgusted and disappointed. He snorted.

“Oh, you like that joke? Well, I got a few more like it. Might enjoy them, too.”

“Let me tell one first,” Kellen said.

Josiah waited, feet spread, hands at belt level.

“You hear the one about the redneck with a hard-on who ran into a wall?” Kellen said. Paused one beat, then finished: “He broke his nose.”

Josiah threw the first punch, but Eric was already coming at him, knocked him off balance so that the blow missed Kellen’s head. Eric slammed him into the bar and then leaned back just enough to throw the uppercut he wanted to put into the son of a bitch’s jaw. He didn’t get it there, though. Caught a knee directly in his groin first and then his lungs turned to vacuums as bright, shining agony radiated through his abdomen and filled his chest. He took a stumbling step back and managed to get his head down to avoid Josiah’s fist and catch the bottom of his forearm instead. The blow landed flush on his nose, which promptly opened up and leaked blood over his lips and onto his chin as Josiah just missed with another punch, his fist sliding across Eric’s face, a streak of his blood showing bright on Josiah’s hand now. All this happening as Becky shouted at them from behind the bar and Kellen Cage slipped off his stool without a word.

Josiah seemed to have lost interest in Eric, turned from him back to Kellen with a wide grin on his face and said, “Come on, boy.”

Kellen hit him. A flicking left that looked more like a snakebite than a punch, and Josiah’s head snapped back as Kellen easily deflected the return punch and then hit him again, this time in the stomach.

Josiah’s knees sagged as he stumbled backward, but he took it better than most could have and was coming back for more as Kellen waited on him quietly and Eric straightened with an effort and Becky chambered a round into a shotgun with a ratcheting sound as loud as a bell choir.

Everybody stopped. For the first time Eric was aware that two men had risen from a booth and were advancing-toward Josiah. Now they stopped short, too.

“You want to wait on the police,” Becky said, her voice soft and steady as she braced the Remington twelve-gauge on the bar, “that’s fine by me. Otherwise, you better get the hell out of here, Josiah.”

He gave her a sneer and then turned to the rest of the room, saw no support there. Looked back at Kellen and said, “We’ll finish this’n later.”

“If you do,” said one of the men from the booth, “he’ll have you swallowing your teeth, Josiah. Now listen to the lady and get your sorry ass out the door.”

Josiah shoved past Eric, holding the stare with Kellen for a moment before turning to the door. He kicked it open with the heel of his boot and then stepped outside as the door banged off the wall and shuddered slowly back and Eric’s blood dripped onto the floor.

BACK IN THE PORSCHE, after getting Eric’s nose to stop bleeding and then drinking one more beer to assure Becky that they were at peace with the bar, Kellen turned to him.

“Well, I’m sorry that happened, because that idiot is in no way representative of my experience in this town.”

“Shouldn’t have dragged you out to a place like that.”

“No, man, that’s what I’m saying-it wasn’t the place. I’ve been in there before. In fact, I’ve been in this town a lot, and that’s the first time I’ve ever had anything like that pulled. Which was, to be honest, against my expectation.”

“Yeah?”

Kellen nodded as he started the engine. “Some racist history to this state, really. First hotel down here was built by a guy named William Bowles, who was tried for treason because he was involved with something called the Knights of the Golden Circle, which was pro-Confederacy and a forerunner to the KKK. He was a real good guy-indicted for grave robbery, of all things. Wasn’t all him, though. Back when the area was really booming, blacks weren’t allowed to stay in these hotels. Joe Louis wasn’t allowed to stay in these hotels. All the local tourism stuff uses his name today, brags on him being a frequent visitor, but the reality is, he always stayed at the Waddy.”