Bluestone's Blog

The Outpost Restaurant was on top of a small rise; surrounded by an oasis of green foliage Frank figured was goosing the water bill to the max. Kind of thoughts a one-time barkeep with ideas of acquiring his own bar gets.

The restaurant was a low-slung ranch-style structure of dark green painted timber with a slightly peaked roof the color of sand. More western than southwestern. More Old West than Old Mexico.

The inside was simple, basic and elegant in an understated way: Wooden tables with white linen tablecloths. Cylindrical candles burning. Sterling silver flatware. Coffee cups as thick as your hand.

Leaning back in a sturdy wooden chair and taking it all in, Frank was thinking he’d made the right decision. The round of golf went better than he’d anticipated. Some of the weight from the past seemed off his shoulders. Today’s fun wasn’t exactly the type of thing the characters in Kerouac’s book had done—definitely more upscale and mainstream here—but it was something Frank would never have experienced if he’d gotten back on the road.

So he felt he’d done justice to his desires—at least temporarily—and was ready for an enjoyable but light hitting night on the town.

If he stayed disciplined and drank conservatively he’d still be in good shape to hit the highway.

One day’s drive and he’d be in California.

The thought made his gut jump.

He looked around the darkened interior of the restaurant for someone to take a drink order.

He caught the eye of a waitress dressed in black jeans and cowboy boots and a white, Western-style shirt.

Cook, Parker and Larry ordered Stoli martinis. Frank requested a bottle of Dos Equis. “I’m sorry, sir,” the waitress said. “We don’t carry Dos Equis. We have Budweiser on tap and in bottles, also Michelob, Miller, Pabst and Falstaff.”

Frank ordered a bottle of Budweiser and the waitress departed.

Cook and Parker got up to use the men’s room.

Frank glanced over at Richards, the man looking squeezed.

The needling from Cook and Parker—especially Parker, Bryce evidently greatly disappointed his team didn’t win the golf match—had continued on the drive to the restaurant. And just now before he left the table, Cook had stared at Richards like Larry was something stuck on his shoe, shooting Larry a look reminiscent of an overbearing schoolteacher as he extolled Richards to not forget the phone calls he needed to make.

Frank was trying to act as if he were unaware of the dynamic playing out in front of him. Shit was making Larry look like a fraternity whipping boy. So Frank said something meant to be innocent and neutral: “You know, man, I really liked that Dos Equis beer out at Rancho Deluxe. Surprised they don’t serve it here. That shit is good.”

“Take a look around,” Larry said. “They don’t serve any Mexican products here. No south-of-the-border influence whatsoever in this place. No Jose Cuervo, no Dos Equis—not even any Mex food on the menu. This place could be in Montana—and that’s the idea. You see anything tells you we’re close to the border here?”

Frank gazed around the room: comfortable, dark, elegant, and totally USA. Even the wait staff and the bartenders were white; something Frank thought had to be unusual down here. Had to be some kind of federal violation.

Larry said, “The owner of this place fronts a group that vows to never forget the Alamo. They also want to see the Phoenix area maintain its white majority. No “browning of America” fans here. Anti-immigration, anti-minimum wage increases, anti-welfare—anti-anything that might serve to build up the Mexican population. These people are active in regional politics and exert a not-insignificant influence in the Valley.”

Frank recalled seeing an aging sheet of newsprint in a frame on the wall behind the cash register. Headline: Remember the Alamo.  “But the Alamo was in Texas,” he said to Larry.

“Doesn’t seem to matter to these people. It’s their cause and they support it with near religious fervor.”

“Didn’t you say that Howard Parker had a fondness for Mexicans?”

“That’s the story that is told. But I suspect old Howie really liked Mexicans when they did work for him at a lower rate than American workers—and not so much in other times. Except for the women. Word has it that the old boy had more than one Mexican mistress over the years. Including one long-term liaison, according to Bryce. And Bryce still seems to harbor some resentment about it, if the way he looked at me the morning after he spilled the beans on that one is any indication. Man gets a little blow up his nose and a bellyful of Stoli and you can’t shut him up. Family and personal secrets come tumbling out like there’s no tomorrow. And then when tomorrow does come and he’s hung over and filled with regret, he wishes he hadn’t told the story so thoroughly.”

“Maybe you should make a recording. Hold it over his head if he starts to give you too much shit. Which, from what I’ve seen, is a real possibility.”

“Hey, Frank, these guys are my friends. I respect their secrets like my own.”

Of which, he has a few, Frank thought to himself.

“And their shit giving is harmless, really. No blood no foul. I give it right back, tit for tat.”

Frank hadn’t seen much of the pushback. But if Larry was cool with it, Frank was too. Although, to paraphrase his old classmate, he suspected Larry liked his two “friends” more when they were investing their money in his projects—and not so much at other times.

And who knew about the other members of Larry’s so-called consortium?

(End of Chapter 21)

PAPERBACK + EBOOK AVAILABLE

Summer Reading Ebook Special $1.99 (June – August)

Bookshop.org:  https://bit.ly/3XG682t

Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/3sBA5SZ

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3DEFkYz

https://books2read.com/u/mlEM1B 

SEE ALL T.K. O’NEILL’S BOOKS HERE: https://bluestonesblog.com/

To contact Bluestone Press or T.K. O’Neill, email bluestonepress@outlook.com or call 218.724.5806

Read Full Post »

Cruising across the desert in the classic old Lincoln, dust cloud billowing out behind like a super long parachute, Clayton Cook pulled the glowing cigarette lighter from the dash and touched it to the tip of a large joint. He took a big drag and passed it to Frank in the back seat. Parker was driving and Cook was riding shotgun. Larry was in back with Frank.

The foursome was on the way to the country club.

Frank took a pull off the joint and passed it to Richards, who in turn passed it up front to Parker without taking a hit.

Shit tastes pretty good, Frank thought. And nine holes of golf might be a fun way to spend an afternoon, even in this heat.

He hadn’t totally committed to playing yet, but Clayton could be persuasive. A don’t-take-no-for-an-answer type of guy.

An hour later the four of them were at a table in the country club bar. Cook ordered a round of drinks and then asked Frank if he’d made up his mind. Frank said, “At this point, there’s not much I could say no to in the world. Yes is the answer. The word yes is the gateway to freedom and adventure.”

The other three shot him looks.

“Sorry,” Frank said. “The weed must’ve gotten to me. I was thinking about that Yoko Ono art project she was doing when she met John Lennon. Supposedly, you climbed up this ladder and on the ceiling there was a little folded piece of paper or something, and inside was just the word YES. YES kind of representing a door opening, much as NO would be a door closing.”

Smirking and looking down at his drink, Bryce Parker crooned a line from a Steve Miller song: “Space Cowboy, I bet you know where that’s at.”

Larry Richards was grinning. “Jesus, Frank. Didn’t know you were such a high flying hippie dippy.”

If you only knew, Frank thought, as he watched Cook lean forward across the table.

“So that means you’re going to play?” Cook said.

“YES,” Frank said with a grin.

“All right,” Cook said. “That’s great. How about you and I take on those two?”

“Larry and I will kick your ass,” Parker said.

“Twenty bucks a hole,” Cook said.

Richards, on Frank’s right, leaned over and mumbled in Frank’s ear: “They usually play for fifty.”

Frank wanted to beg off, say it was too rich for his blood. But since they’d scaled it down to something they likely thought was more on his level, he held his tongue. He’d played the game before. Not quite a rank beginner. Back in the days of the caddy shack they used to let the caddies play an occasional free round during the off-hours, like early mornings, rainy or cold days or Ladies Day. Few golfers wanted to follow the women around the course, the average time per round increasing exponentially when the ladies were out.

The round—if nine holes is considered a round—began pretty much as Frank expected.

He was all over the course. First left then right, his old slice still a problem.

Then skulling one along the ground for fifty yards—a worm burner.

Hitting one nearly straight up in the air, eliciting a “Gonna bring rain,” from Bryce Parker.     

Frank hoped Parker was right about the rain.

But it didn’t rain much in Arizona.

Clayton, true to his promise, was consistently straight down the middle and near the greens in regulation. Cook and Parker were nearly equal in skill, both of them scratch golfers, and Larry was only slightly below their level. Richards was a tennis player, after all. But it looked to Frank like the man had put in some time on the links. Could be a requirement to pass the bar exam out here.

It took Frank a while to get his swing going. Started off the round with two double bogeys and a bogey. It was hot as blazes on the rock hard fairways of Thunderhook Country Club.

But then on hole four, a short par five, he nailed a five-iron pin high, ten feet right of the stick, and sank the putt for a birdie, winning the hole and tying the match at two holes apiece.

From then on Clayton held up his end, staving off Richards and Parker with booming drives and artful wedge shots, only shaky putting keeping his team from winning the match in a runaway.

As it was, the group came to the ninth green all even. Cook and Parker were facing difficult putts, while Richards, who’d been playing like a demon the last three holes—Frank thinking it was a matter of male pride—had a reasonable putt for birdie and the win.

Frank was just off the edge of the large rolling, multi-tiered green in two. Being the farthest from the hole, he was up first. He pulled the putter out of the bag of rental clubs and lined up the shot, calling on his old caddy instincts to somehow come back to him.

He didn’t look at it very long, just sighted it in and let ’er rip.   

The twisting, bending, sixty-footer, dropped right in the center of the hole.

Clayton Cook hooted and swung his putter in the air. Frank watched Richards and Parker’s shoulders sag as he went to remove the ball, being careful not to step in his opponents’ line.

Cook picked up his ball.

Parker missed his thirty-footer.

Richards stepped across the green and addressed his putt. Frank thought Larry looked a little pale all of a sudden.

Richards stood there motionless for the longest time, causing both Parker and Cook to begin pacing around nervously behind him.

Finally Larry drew back the putter and struck the ball.

Frank watched it start left and then bend back toward the cup. Saw it catch the lip of the cup and flutter there for an instant. 

Thing dropped in.

The hole and the match were halved.

A tie.

Seeing the relief on Larry’s face, Frank wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

The foursome retired to the nineteenth hole as Clayton and Bryce jawed with each other over bad shots and terrible putts. Richards looked pleased. Frank just wanted to get out of the heat. The sun-block stuff on his face was starting to run into his eyes.

Cook ordered a round of drinks and congratulated Larry on his final putt. Frank thought he heard a note of sarcasm in Cook’s voice. Golf had proved to be a fun experience but Frank hadn’t liked the way the two rich boys treated Larry.

They’d ridiculed Richards’ putting stance—Cook saying it looked like a cow taking a shit—and laughed at his bad shots, Larry’s partner Bryce even joining the onslaught at times. They also enjoyed bouts of hilarity over Larry’s plaid Bermuda shorts, which even Frank thought were more suited to a half-senile retiree then a practicing lawyer in the prime of his life.

It had all started out as innocent banter, the kind of stuff competitive guys do, but as it progressed and continued, Frank sensed an edge of meanness in the unrelenting criticism and snide remarks.

It was still going on even now, here in the bar.

Frank just wanted to spring for the next round of drinks.

Glad that he hadn’t lost any money in the match, he threw a fifty down on the table. But Cook pushed it back to him, saying, ”It’s all on my tab, partner, save your cash for later, you might need it.”

Frank shrugged and put the fifty in his pocket.

Clayton ordered another round.

They drained their glasses in a hurry and retired to the locker room for showers and a change of clothes. Frank had brought along one of his old white bartending shirts and the crisp new khakis.

(End of Chapter 20)

PAPERBACK + EBOOK AVAILABLE

Summer Reading Ebook Special $1.99 (June – August)

Bookshop.org:  https://bit.ly/3XG682t

Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/3sBA5SZ

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3DEFkYz

https://books2read.com/u/mlEM1B 

SEE ALL T.K. O’NEILL’S BOOKS HERE: https://bluestonesblog.com/

To contact Bluestone Press or T.K. O’Neill, email bluestonepress@outlook.com or call 218.724.5806

Read Full Post »