Джон Макдональд - A Flash of Green

“For us?” She sounded startled. “But why?”

“Why not?”

“No, Jimmy,” she said, her tone gentle. “There’s no place to start because there’s no place to go. What we used to be to each other, that doesn’t exist any more, does it? And whatever new thing we tried to be, that didn’t turn out to be much of anything either. And you shouldn’t look at me like that, because I think you’re trying to kid yourself a little, to make a justification. I don’t hate you. Or myself. I just think any relationship would be... sort of dreary. It would be like wearing an albatross, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.”

“Don’t you see that it doesn’t fit? I’m too terribly P.T.A., dear, and you don’t have enough self-esteem. We can’t adjust ourselves into anything, you know. We can’t neaten it up like a bad movie, because we can’t change ourselves or each other, and we’re both a little too wise to try.”

“You’re right, of course, but I didn’t want to admit it.” He smiled at her.

“Jimmy, you look pretty terrible. You look puffy. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ve got a good job lined up in Jacksonville.”

“That’s wonderful! When you get all settled, write me if you want to.”

“I’d like to, Kat.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Pretty soon, I guess.”

“Isn’t it definite?”

“Oh, it’s definite. Yes. A good job.”

She hesitated and put her hand out. “Good luck.”

“Thanks. And to you too.”

She winced slightly. “We need some. We haven’t had much lately, have we? We haven’t had much at all.”

After he left her, he drove to the mainland and turned south on the Bay Highway. From the mainland road he looked out across the bay through Turk’s Pass, and saw the dusky orange disk of the sun balanced precisely on the far clean edge of a purple sea. He drove slowly down through Everset and then through the twilight ranch land. He turned around in a ranch road, and it was night when he entered Everset again.

In the middle of the village he turned left toward the commercial dock area, and as he made the turn he had a strange feeling of inevitability. He felt as if a time of waiting was over. Barlow’s Towne Tavern was doing a good Saturday night business. The old cars and the pickup trucks were lined up in front of it. Inside, the juke was loud, and the sweaty weight of people had overpowered the air conditioning. There was a smell of fish and labor, beer and perfume. The juke thumped against the shouts and the laughter. He pushed through the crowd, smiling, looking directly at no one. He found a single vacant stool at the far end of the bar. He ordered a shot and a beer. He smiled directly ahead at the bottle rack, and he could hear the change in the kinds of sounds the people were making. He could feel their eyes. He ordered a second shot to go with the rest of the beer.

A man he did not know pushed in beside him and stared at him. The man was short and heavy, with a wide weathered face, sun-bleached brows, little pale eyes. “What the hell you doing around here, Wing?”

“Having a drink.”

“You know where you are?”

“Barlow’s. I’ve been here before.”

“Tell you where you are, you silly shit. You’re right in the middle of Bliss country. There’s anyway ten people here kin to Elmo. And the rest of us know he’s the finest man ever walked the earth. He got my brother set loose from Raiford one time when Lonny had to get home and he’p care for his sick wife. Ol’ Barcomb over there, Elmo he’ped him buy a boat when his old one got tore up in the hurricane.”

“Nice fella, that Elmo.”

“By now everybody in this here room knows who you are and they know you told a lot of stinking lies about the only man ever come into county government to he’p his own kind. Wing, you lost your damn mind?”

The last question was a shout. Barlow appeared suddenly on the other side of the bar and said, “Slack off, Walker. Nothing happens in here.”

“Harry, you don’t give a damn who you serve, do you?” Walker asked. He walked away, thick shoulders hunched.

Barlow leaned across the bar toward Jimmy Wing. “Could be you should git up and git, friend. There’s some went off to bring some others.”

“I like it here.”

“You’ll be all right here, inside, I gahrn-tee, but leaving is the thing. For leaving, a couple deputies might be a good thing.”

“Would they come if they knew?”

Barlow thought it over, his forehead deeply wrinkled. “Come to think on it, maybe not. But I sure wisht you’d go someplace else, or anyways try, before they get steamed up too damn much.”

“Another shot and another beer, Harry.”

Barlow hesitated, sighed. “Guess it would be cruel and unusual to refuse a man all the pain-softener he can hold.”

The flavor of the place continued to change. More men arrived. The women left. The juke was stilled. The stool beside Wing was empty. From time to time there was a low muttering of voices. Bar business was good. They were waiting for him with all the heavy patience men can learn from the sea.

“Let’s just take him on out,” somebody said in a complaining tone. The others hushed him.

Jimmy Wing could feel no effect from his drinks. At times his throat would feel constricted and the back of his neck would feel icy. But it would go away, and he would feel capable of making bad jokes. He would manage something very flashy, agile, gallant. He would flee the lumbering pack, wearing the sparkling, infectious grin of the hero, disappearing like magic into the hot dark night, leaving an echo of his jeering laugh.

He picked up his change with great care. He left a tip for Harry. He turned slowly on the bar stool and looked at them. Several faces were familiar. He smiled at them all and nodded his head several times.

“Elmo Bliss is a monster,” he said, articulating loudly and distinctly. There was no answer. “He is a smiler. He is a thief. He does cheap favors for meatballs like you, so you vote for him and pack his pockets with money. It’s a good thing you love him so dearly, boys. I fixed his wagon. He’s going to be your neighbor for the rest of his life.”

He made a sudden dash for the door. He felt as if he was running in slow motion. They were coming after him, but it did not feel like pursuit. It felt as if he were leading them. Just beyond the door his arms were grabbed. There was a man on each side of him. The power of their grip made him gasp. It took the strength out of him. He felt as if he were a ridiculous rag doll.

Then they were trotting him along, around the side of the building and down a narrow dark area. He heard the sounds of their feet, and heard them panting as they jogged along with him. They were in grass, and then on boards, and then up against the back wall of something that stank of fish.

“Now make him last,” somebody said softly, “or there’ll be some people getting no turn at all.”

The world slipped abruptly, and hammered his face. He was lifted and jounced, he was danced and dandled as the thuds landed, the sky burst and rocked, as his mouth swung loose and his heart flapped free. He bounced to their gruntings and tried to laugh, but they gave him no time, and the world turned gray and slowly moved away from him, like a holiday ship leaving a small broken wharf.

By January, as the new tourist season began to approach its peak, the Grassy Bay fill was beginning to take shape. The drag lines waddled above the shallows, atop the dikes they built as they moved. The big dredges worked around the clock. By the outlets of the big pipes, where the dredges spewed their black foam of water and bay bottom, the gulls and the children herded, to snatch the living shells and the small fish.