John Brandon - Further Joy

“Why do you get to judge who’s boring or interesting?” she said. “I think you’re kind of boring. I think writing magazine articles is boring. I wish you’d just come out and ask for what you want. I’ve already decided the answer, so you might as well ask.”

Herbie laughed through his nose, his straight white teeth lined up in a showy smile, but Pauline had cracked his cool veneer. He tried to think of what to say, fooling with a stack of coasters on the bar. “Hey, take it easy with the insults,” he told her. “Maybe I’m just in need of a pal. I been on the road a long time. It gets lonesome. I need characters, but I need a pal too.”

The lights in the restaurant dimmed a little and Herbie traded out his glasses for a pair he pulled from a pocket in his shorts. The new ones had less tint in the lenses. Pauline’s heart was beating fast and she could feel that she was holding her shoulders tense.

“We don’t even got to talk if you don’t want,” Herbie said. “I can learn plenty about a person without talking to her. Just by observing with the five senses.”

Pauline kept looking ahead into the bottles, thankful there wasn’t a mirror behind them. She liked being able to look away from Herbie and know he was looking at her. Men were certainly cunning. He had smelled the recklessness on Pauline. They did have their senses, men, and not just the five. Now he was doing something with his hands, sign language or something. He kept tapping the side of his head, then tracing his jawline with his finger. Pauline didn’t believe he was really a writer. She didn’t believe a word he said. She felt disoriented by him — his accent seemed to thicken and thin, and his grin had something sinister in it.

“What’s the first line of the story you’re writing? What’s the first sentence?”

“I’ve done South Carolina and Georgia. Now I’m on Florida, obviously. The Georgia part’s about this guy from Australia who opened a Civil War restaurant. It’s called The Hardtack. They serve legal moonshine. Let’s see, the first line. It’s something about how in the South fun and trouble have something in common: you can’t plan when you’re going to have either. I can’t remember exactly how I put it.”

Pauline adjusted her sleeve and her bra strap. “So basically you’re getting paid to mess around in bars for weeks on end? They pay people to do that? In this economy?”

“They do if your grandfather founded the magazine. He passed last year and I inherited his big old Cadillac. I was his favorite. Everybody wanted somebody from the Crontcow family to be associated with the magazine, so I quit science and became a writer.”

“Science?”

“Herpetology, to be precise. I studied enzymes in snake venom. I always had a thing for snakes. That’s a misunderstood, maligned creature right there. You work up compassion for snakes, you really did something. That compassion’s hard-earned.”

They were looking at each other and Herbie reached over very calmly and touched Pauline’s wrist. His fingers were callused, but his touch was gentle. She waited a moment before she took his hand and moved it back to his beer.

“Your name isn’t Herbie Crontcow. There’s just no way that’s somebody’s name.”

“What difference is it what my name is? A lot of people have a few separate names. In Georgia I was Sonny Martin. If anybody goes looking for me they’ll be looking for Sonny Martin. I have a pen name too.”

The bartender had brought Herbie another beer without his asking for it, and he was already more than half done with it. He raised it to Pauline, like he was happy she was coming around to his viewpoints, whatever those viewpoints were.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Pauline asked him. “What’s the worst single act in your history?”

He looked at her deliberately, not ready for the question, filling his chest with a breath. He finished the rest of his beer with an easy swallow and then held his hand up to stop the bartender, who was getting ready to get him another. He rested his hands on the black wood of the bar. There was a ring on his left hand featuring a silver scorpion. His arms were wiry. The sleeves of his T-shirt were short enough that Pauline could see his hard, oval-shaped biceps.

Looking at Pauline with an overly mild expression, he said, “Oh, I’ve always been pretty sweet.” His eyes behind his glasses were meek. “I wouldn’t have much to report in the way of evil acts. I never been too wieldy in a fight. And I don’t believe in revenge. Somebody gets the best of me, I tip my hat to them. I have my interests and I pretty much just stick to those.” He stroked his cheek, which hadn’t been shaved in a few days. “Not that I’m self-righteous. I know people got their problems. Sometimes things get out of hand. I’m fully aware about that phenomenon. Sometimes you think you’re heading for a good time and then you realize you got on some other road, and it’s too late.”

Pauline wondered where this guy was from. He could be from Virginia or Texas or from a mile down the road. She felt the familiar alarm she’d always depended on droning in the back of her mind, but it wasn’t difficult to ignore.

“You want another light beer?” he asked. “Or you want a margarita or something, like when in Rome? What’s a gal like you drink? We could get a bottle of wine. I don’t reckon they have an extensive cellar, but they’ll have something made out of grapes.”

“Not wine,” Pauline said. “I’ll order something, though. Let me think about it.”

“I’m going to pee and you think about it, but if you get anything, put it on my tab.”

“It’s all right,” Pauline said. “I have a tab of my own.”

“No, I’m serious. Whatever you get, it’s on me. Well, it’s actually on the magazine.”

“Gotcha,” said Pauline.

“I’m not messing around now.”

“Message received. Not messing around.”

“Look here, if you get something else to drink and don’t let me pay for it, I’ll make a scene. I’ll embarrass us both.”

“You’re pretty much doing that now.”

Herbie chuckled. He arose from his stool, patted a couple of his shorts pockets, then disappeared down a hallway that led to the bathrooms.

Pauline set her empty beer bottle down on the bar, and the bartender approached her immediately. She asked him for a shot of whiskey. The bartender asked her what kind and she said whatever was the most expensive. He nodded and pulled down an ornate round bottle with a cork in it, filled a shot glass, and set it in front of Pauline. “Put it on his tab,” she said, motioning toward the empty stool beside her. “Put my beer on there too.” She hadn’t done a shot in a long time but she remembered that the wrong approach was thinking about the shot or smelling it or staring at it. She threw the whiskey back with her eyes closed, swallowing through the burn, and managed to get it down and keep it down.

She’d performed well in her encounter with Herbie and she thought the thing to do now was make a striking exit, to preserve some mystery. She asked for a pen and wrote her phone number on a drink napkin, then instructed the bartender to give the napkin to Herbie. “Tell him I had something better to do, but if he wants to call me sometime he can feel free.”

The bartender bowed toward Pauline, his face hinting at a smile. Pauline gathered herself and began moving toward the front doors of the restaurant, wanting to slip out before Herbie returned from the bathroom. She sidestepped a waitress carrying a tray of full plates and then went around a huge party that had pushed some tables together, a celebration of some kind. She was steps from the door when she glanced down toward a little alcove of the waiting area and saw Herbie jabbing his finger huffily at an old man. They were standing in front of a cigarette machine. Herbie was doing the talking, the old man’s posture recalcitrant but resigned. The old man, about half the size of Herbie, had on worn-out sneakers and a corduroy shirt. He was shaking his head stubbornly and Herbie was hissing at him, his left hand clenched in a fist by his side. Pauline found the handle of the door and pushed on outside before one of them could turn and notice her. She had no idea what there was to yell at an old man in a Mexican restaurant about, not the first inkling. She hurried down the front walk, eyes searching out her car in the lot.