“Hole in the World”
EXCERPT TWO
I’m thinking maybe I should get some food in my belly, until I hit the pavement and catch a breath of this stink in the air, like Limburger cheese. A real god-awful stench hangs thick in the air in this dirty old town.
The sound of the answering machine keeps echoing in my head as I walk. And the smell in the air is so bad that I go quickly to the yellow concrete box that is Mama’s Bar and Grill. I glance through the little parallelogram window on the red door for an instant and then push my way inside.
Pink.
Except for the obligatory Green Bay Packers poster and a couple of beer signs, the whole place is pink. Top of the bar is mahogany or cherry wood—some nice stuff— with pink vinyl padding around the edges. Behind three rows of pink-lit liquor bottles is a mirror ringed in fluffy, padded, pink satin. The faded red walls have little pink dots and bows painted on them. A pink hue clings to the window trim, the pool table felt, and the vinyl tops of the chrome barstools. Sugar sweet, like cotton candy.
I’m kind of overwhelmed at first, especially after I catch a gander of the aging, poof-haired broad with Howdy Doody cheeks and peroxide-silver hair standing behind the bar in a shiny white pantsuit with pink powder puff wristlets, her lips as big and red as her teeth are big and white.
I sit down and try not to look too fucking mind-blown. I order a shot of Wild Turkey and a Budweiser. The Bud comes in a can, the Turkey in a two ounce shot glass about three-quarters full. Mama’s perfume is strong and cheap. I whack down the shot and shove the tin can to my lips for a wash. Goddamn. Sonofabitch.
The fucking Mosers better answer their phone pretty goddamn soon.
A couple of stools to my left there’s an Indian guy wearing a wrinkled blue pinstriped dress shirt and jeans He’s got swarthy, lightly pockmarked skin, heavy lidded eyes and some kind of Coca-Cola drink sitting in front of him.. About five-ten and a middleweight, he’s checking out a fishing show on the wall tube behind the bar. His profile is exactly like the face on those old buffalo nickels, guy’s grandfather must’ve been the model.
There’s a blonde, bearded guy in a flannel shirt on the TV hammering the walleyes on some Canadian lake. I always liked fishing; my old man used to take me fishing. In fact that’s the last time I ever saw the asshole—the time he took me fishing—years ago, when I was eleven.
When you go after catfish in the summertime, you go at night. Build a fire by the river, boil a pot of coffee and throw out setlines with bells fastened to the rods so you can hear the fish take the bait. My old man always used a glob of chicken livers on a big hook.
We bagged a couple of nice cats that night. I fell asleep by the fire on an old canvas chaise lounge. Then at first light I woke up and my daddy was gone and one of the rods was busted, the line broken. At the time I don’t remember what pissed me off the most: having to walk all the way home, breaking the rod, or losing ol’ Bill. Couldn’t say I’d miss the Saturday night slap arounds so I guess it was the rod, walking home a close second.
(To be continued)
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