William Gay: Time Done Been Won't Be No More

He went into a cool gloom that smelled of hops and cigarette smoke and all seemed touched by a silence so dense it was almost cloistral. A man seated at the bar watched him cross the room. Edgewater’s eyes were still full of the April light from outside and the room seemed a cave he was walking into, the drinkers seated at the tables troglodytes who’d laid aside momentarily their picks and were taking respite from their labors.

Let me have a draft, he told the barkeep. He withdrew a worn and folded five dollar bill from the watchpocket of his jeans. The barkeep filled a frosted mug from a tap and raked the foam into a slotted trough and slid the beer across the counter. The barkeep had vaselined red hair parted in the middle and a red freckled face and brownspotted fingers like sausages.

Edgewater took a long pull from the beer and lit a cigarette and sat just enjoying the silence. Even the drinkers at the tables were quiet, as if still contemplative of whatever had befallen them the night before. He could feel the silence like a comforter he’d drawn about him and he was glad that Claire and the motorcycle were rolling somewhere away from him.

There was something jittery about Claire that precluded calm. She was always in motion and always talking. He’d watched her sleep and even then her life went on, her face jerking in nervous tics at the side of her mouth, her iriscolored eyes moving beneath nightranslucent lids like swift blue waters. Her limbs stirred restlessly and he’d decided even her dreams were brighter and louder and faster than those allotted the rest of the world. Watching her sleep he felt he’d stolen something he did not want but nevertheless cold not be returned.

He felt eyes upon him and looked up. The man two stools downbar was watching him. He was a heavyset man in overalls whose tiny piglike eyes were studying Edgewater in drunken fixation. He seemed to be trying to remember where he’d seen Edgewater or perhaps someone like him. He made some gesture near indecipherable to the barkeep and the barkeep brought up from the cooler a dripping brown bottle and opened it and set it before the man then refilled his shotglass with something akin to ceremony.

What are you lookin at? the man asked Edgewater.

Nothing, Edgewater said. He looked away, to the mirror behind the aligned green bottles. His reflection dark and thin and twisted in the wonky glass.

He took up three of the dollar bills and slid them across the bar. Let me have some change for the telephone, he said.

Was you in the war? The man downbar asked him.

Edgewater thought of the concussion of the shotgun, the drifting shreds of willow leaves. Not in one of the official ones, he said.

Change rattled on the bar.

What the hell’s that supposed to mean?

He raked the change and cupping it in a palm went past a silent jukebox to the rear wall where a telephone hung. He stood watching it for a time as if puzzled by its function or manner of operation, the fisted change heavy in his hand and he could feel sweat in his armpits and tracking coldly down his ribcage. He turned and went through a door marked MEN and urinated in a discolored trough and washed his hands and face at the sink and toweled dry on a length of fabric he unreeled from its metal container. Above the sink there was no mirror, just four brackets where a mirror had been. On the spackled plaster some wag with a black marker had written: you look just fine.

He went out and used the phone, heard it ring in what by now seemed some other world entire. Yet the room where the phone rang and rang was real in his mind and he wondered idly was anything missing, anything added, had they painted the living room walls.

Finally a young woman answered he phone. Edgewater’s sister.

I’d about give up on you, Edgewater said.

Billy? Is that you? Where in the world are you at?

How is he?

He’s how I said he was the last time you called. He’s dying. Why ain’t you here?

I’m on the way, he said. I’ll be there. I ran into a little bad luck.

She knew him, she didn’t even want details. You’d better get here, she said. He has to see you. Has to. He wants to make it right. He’s tryin to hang on until you get here.

He said that? He said he’s trying to hang on until I get there?

You know some things without them bein said, she told him. Or ought to. Would you want to go before your maker carryin all that?

I’m not looking forward to it carrying it or emptyhanded either, Edgewater said.

Well. You and your smart mouth.

I’ve got to go, Edgewater said.

There’s something wrong with you, she said. If you weren’t so–

He quietly broke the connection and cradled the phone. Then he took it up again and held it to his ear and it seemed a wonder that there was only the dialtone. No news good or bad, just a monotonous onenote electrical drone, sourceless yet all around him, the eternal hum of whatever powers the world slowly diminishing. He recradled the phone.

The man at the bar had swiveled his stool to watch Edgewater and Edgewater had seen the look on his face on other faces and he thought: Fuck this. He picked up his beer and what remained of his change and moved to the corner of the bar.

You’re out of uniform, the man called after him.

I’m discharged, Edgewater said. I’m not in the service.

The man struggled off the stool and drained the shotglass and turned up his chaser and drank, adam’s apple pumping spasmodically. He set the bottle back and lumbered heavily toward Edgewater like a gracelorn dancing bear. Edgewater wished for a pool cue, magic winged shoes. A motorcycle.

You disrespectin that uniform whether you in or out. Them’s Navy workclothes, don’t think I don’t recognize them. What I wore all durin the war. You got on them clothes and you’re not even covered.

I got discharged, Edgewater said carefully, straining for clarity. In Long Beach, California. I’m out. I served four years and I’m on my way home.

He picked up his mug and cigarettes. He pocketed the Luckies and moved farther up the bar. Let me have another draft, he said.

Don’t fuck with Ed, the barkeep said. He’s bad news.

He damn sure is, Edgewater said. But I’m hoping it’s for somebody else.

How about you fuckers? The man asked. He’d approached again and was leaning forward into Edgewater’s face. Edgewater could smell him, see the cratered pores of his skin, veins like tiny exploded faultlines in his nose, feel his angry pyorrheic breath.

While I was over there across the waters fightin and dyin you fuckers was over here drinkin all our whiskey and screwin our wives. What about that?

Hellfire, Edgwater said. I wasn’t even old enough for that war. How about leavin me the hell alone?

Fought and died for you fuckers. Got medals to prove it.

How about that beer, Edgewater said.

Maybe you ought to just to drink up and move along, the barkeep said. His head gleamed like a metallic cap. You’re not a regular customer.

I might become one, Edgewater said.

Then again you might not.

You was probably one of them, one of them conscious objectors, Ed said.

Edgewater drained the mug and set it gently atop the bar. He turned to go but before he’d taken the first step a heavy hand fixed on his shirt collar and jerked hard and he felt the buttons pop away and the shirt rip down the back. It all happened very quickly. He whirled and grasped the mug and slammed Ed in the side of the head with it. It didn’t even break and while he was looking at it in a sort of wonder the barkeep disdaining normal means of approach vaulted the bar with a weighted length of sawnoff pool cue and slapped Edgewater hard above the left ear. Edgewater’s knees went to water and he pooled on the floor. The world went light then dark. Somebody kicked him in the side and a wave of nausea rocked him. His vision darkened gray to black and after a while when he came to he could hear sirens. The old man is finally dead and here comes the ambulance, he thought. He looked about. Ed was at the bar downing a shot and the barkeep was at his station and the troglodytes seemed not to have glanced up. Whoop whoop whoop the siren went. A wave of vomit lapped at his feet. Edgewater spat blood and pillowed his head on his arm and closed his eyes.