Chapter

4

Inside, the place was jammed. All of the numerous seats were occupied by one - sometimes two - locals hooting and hollering at the football game. An old Stromberg Carlson TV hung from the ceiling. Could have been the whole town in there for all I knew.

The girl was busy popping quarters into the phone as I moved to the counter to order a drink.

“What’ll ya have, sir?”

“Something cold.”

“Somethin’ cold’s hard to come by today, sir, ‘less you got...

I pulled a hundred-dollar bill from my shirt.

“I got.”

The short-order-cook-turned-bartender-for-the-game quickly hauled out an ice-cold 6-pack. “Other five’s on the house, sir.”

I glanced over toward the girl who was having a frustrating time with her calls. “Send one of these twenty-dollar ‘on the house’ beers to the lady.”

“No problem.” He grabbed a dirty glass from the counter and quickly rinsed it. “With a glass, on the house.”

“On the house,” I repeated, and took a look at the game that had the assorted sampling of town folk worked up into Super Bowl frenzy. A number of them were placing quarter bets on plays, while others were being taken in by the local hustler for some small-town big numbers on the final score. Though football was brand new to me, I felt strangely familiar with the sport. But at that moment, my mind wasn’t equipped to think that one through.

Even though my perfectly ripped jeans allowed some ventilation, I was cooking. The wall thermometer was stuck on ninety-five degrees, and it was sitting right in front of the whirling air conditioner.

The girl was getting nowhere with the telephone. As the bartender walked away from her, she acknowledged me with a toast, although I could see she wasn’t in any kind of party mood. Something about her face belied the language she had been using outside. I wondered what her name could be. Nancy? No, too old-maidish. Kristy? Too much the other way. Maybe a more formal name. She was dressed well, groomed like a professional. Could be an Elizabeth… Liz. I laughed at my inside joke.  Could even be an Annette. Florence?

Suddenly, I had an elbow in my side. Somebody had scored and the idiot next to me had fallen off his stool, dropping both his body and his latest glass of beer into my lap.

“Ah shit,” he pouted, running his drunken hand down my pant leg trying to catch the beer trickling toward the floor. “Sorry...Shit, sorry buddy.”

I grabbed him to keep his two hundred pounds from falling on my feet. “No problem.”

He retched and lost it all over my sneakers.  “I’m okay,” he said.  “I’m okay.”

I helped him up to his stool. He was sobering up fast, and he appeared to be genuinely embarrassed.

“God, I’m sorry, buddy,” he said as he grabbed some napkins and leaned over to wipe the mess from my shoes.

“No, no, no,” I said. “I’m fine. You just sit here.” I took the napkins and blotted the mess as he continued apologizing. “It’s OK,” I assured him. I dropped the napkins in the wastebasket. “Hey, bartender. Got some ‘on the house’ coffee for my friend here?”

“On the house, comin’ up.” He grinned and leaned over the counter. “Hey, wanna clean up in back? Got a bathroom to your left.”

I nodded in thanks and started toward the men’s room, which was on the other side of the phone booth.

“Oh God, Sherry, it was ugly,” the girl blurted into the mouthpiece. “Threw my case all over the lot, silkies went everywhere. What? How do I know? Just so he keeps going. Well, I’ll keep trying...I know you would, but a car in the shop is a car in the shop.”

I pushed open the men’s room door thinking what a schmuck Dick was, leaving her out here.

I stepped up to the sink, wondered whether to wash my shoes on or off my feet, then realized that the sink was one of those miniature basins with barely enough room to put one hand in at a time. That wasn’t going to work. Only one thing to do with my revolting mess.

After taking a deep breath from over my shoulder, I slipped them off, put them in the toilet, and quickly flushed several times, sloshing the sneakers up and down, up and down. This wasn’t pleasant.

As I returned to the bar, my feet made a unique sound as I passed her. She was still making calls. This girl knew enough people to fill a phone book, but she was having trouble finding someone to help her. As she dialed, she glanced down at my plight and grinned to herself. I found an empty stool, now that the game had ended.

My friend with the active elbows was having a cup of coffee. He glanced at my shoes. “Can I buy you a cup?”

I patted him on the back, “Don’t worry about it. A few miles on the bike, they’ll be good as new.”

Still embarrassed, he smiled to himself. “Bullshit, buddy. Them sneaks never gonna see ‘new’ again.” We both looked down and laughed.

His eyes wandered onto my knee that was realizing about 5 inches of open air from the custom rip and tattered threads of the jeans. “Nasty break you had there,” he said.

“Break?” I said.

He pointed, “Yeah, the knee. Cartilage removal maybe.” He leaned in for a closer look. “Yeah, definitely cartilage removal. What position did you play?”

“Play?”

“Yeah. Position. Football, wasn’t it?”

I felt myself beginning to panic. With Doc Mathews, questions like this happened every minute, but with this guy? Obviously, he knew something about sports and sports medicine. He might be able to tell me more about my knee than I knew myself. I didn’t know what I was talking about, but I blindly picked a position. “Yeah. Tight end.”

“Tight end?” He laughed. “You too good lookin’ for tight end. How much you weigh?”

“Hundred seventy-five.”

“Too small for pro, too big for high school. What college?”

“Uh...UCLA,” I responded. I felt like I had created my own trial, but couldn’t take the fifth.

He paused a moment, then burst into laughter. “It’s OK if you never made college, buddy. Hell, it took me six years to get through, and look at me now.”

I jumped in to save myself. He was making me crazy. “Yeah, I really screwed myself up in high school… sand lot stuff… sliding into third.”

“Well,” he put his arm around me as he stood up, “wanna take care you don’t over do it. Can’t all be as lucky as Namath, makin’ millions with a bum knee. Gotta get back to work.” He looked down at my sneakers again, and chuckled. “Sure sorry ‘bout that.” As he took his last sip of coffee, he asked, “Where you headin’?”

“Well,” I glanced back at the phone booth, but she wasn’t there. I looked around. “Where did she go?” I asked the bartender.

“Bathroom.”

My friend persisted. “Where?”

“He said the bathroom,” I responded.

“No,” he laughed. “You. Where are you headin’ from here?”

“Oh, I’m not sure. East, the Valley, somewhere in the Valley.”

“Somewhere in the Valley?” he said.

I took a deep breath and popped the cap on another bottle of beer. “Yeah.”

He looked at me like I was the drunk one. He glanced over my shoulder. “Sweet on the girl?”

I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t know why I was so concerned with her. “No, just curious,” I answered.

He winked. “They can fuck you up worse than that sandlot slide.” He made his way to the front door.

“How do you know so much about injuries?”

“Long story,” he said. “You take care.” He was out the door.

I turned to the bartender who was cleaning up. “Know him?” I asked.

“Who? Jacob? Sure. Town wouldn’t be a town without that old drunk. Takes care of the horses and all the stray dogs and cats we’ve accumulated over the years.”

“Veterinarian?” I asked.

He grinned. “Kinda. Before he came here ten or so years ago, he was the trainer for the Rams. Got caught up in some illegal, you know, the painkillers they’re not supposed to use. Loved his team. Took too good a care of them. Saved some ball games and some lives nobody even knows about.”

As I watched Jacob shuffle across the lot and disappear, I heard the bathroom door open behind me. I looked in the mirror and saw her emerge from the bathroom, looking beautiful and calm.