Living and Dying, after coffee
claz
People just talk too much over at that dang coffee house. What a tiny
shot'a joe won't do. After years of the hard stuff, I thought I was
immune to somethin like that.
So, the upshot of that was, one of my neighbors painted a red sombrero
on the wall.
It'll come back. What goes around, comes around, Women, sombreros,
the Humboldt Crud. Like a merry-go-round. Like Two Street.
My head's spinning. Java time.
claz
hand, cuppa java in the left.
Peering through the blinds out onto Two Street, I didn't see nuthin
moving. No scraggly-bearded mystery man coming up the steps to plop
his nickels into the miners pan on the porch. No woman plastered into
a dress decorated with a thousand and three red sequins and a bright
red stolen sombrero on her head. My sombrero. It had red and gold
sequins. Damn.
I must look like an elderly frightened female checking for for
intruders and Bible salesmen. Y'know, Huck, I tell myself, maybe you
are like that. Maybe you got Alzheimers, maybe mad cow. Maybe Huck,
you just a mad son-of-a-bitch, tired of bein' used, bein' nice about
it,
women in and outta here, bringing, taking.
Can't wait here like a fool kid on a merry-go-round sittin' in one
place watching the world spin. Old Town, get ready. Watch out, you
little red shiny sequins. Huck's steppin' out.
Sam
Ruby and why she ran off like that. Sure, I shoulda tuned her banjo
for her, but it was against my nature to mess with a gal as strung out
as
she was.
I got up early the next morning and headed down toward the marina.
The air was thick and wet and smelled of the bay. It was like walking
through fish chowder, but it didn't make me hungry. I stopped to
roll myself a cigarette and in the stillness I could hear what sounded
like the mournful cry of some creature that had risen from the depths
of the ocean and wandered, lost and lonely, into the bay looking for a
mate - the hopeless love song of the last sea serpent stirring the
thick soupy air. I ambled out onto the long pier, and as I approached
the end, the fog began to rise and drift apart, and the sound came
breaking through, clearer and sweeter - the melancholy notes of a
great sleazy sax.
There was a boat that I hadn't seen before moored at the end of the
pier. It had once been a fishing boat, but now the decks were cleared
and cleaned; the gear removed and replaced with comfortable chairs and
small tables. The name on the side of the boat read "The Floating
Banjo Café". I started up the railed gangplank, following the siren
call of the sax and its music coming from inside the boat's cabin.
Then...... "A-Plunk-a, plunk-a, plunk-a, plunk,"......the sax slid
up and down as it tried to meet that infernal banjo challenge.
"Plunk-a-plunk, plunk, plunk"......the sax blew one sour and
twisted squawk and came to a screeching halt.
I quickly flipped open the leather holster on my belt, and withdrew the
fine American-made piece that it held. With a leap on deck and a
couple of long strides, I was in the cabin, and there she was. She was
sitting in the corner of the room in a lavender prom dress, her face
hidden by my red sombrero. Not only had she found another banjo,
she'd joined the Red Hat Society.
"All right, Ruby," I said, "The jig's up. Don't make any
funny moves; just hand over the sombrero."
"Sorry, Huck," she raised her head and looked up at me defiantly
from under the wide brim of the hat, "Can't do that. It's a new
day now, and I've changed, and a girl's gotta do what a girl's
gotta do." Her fingers hovered menacingly over the banjo strings.
"I'm sorry too, Ruby," I saw her dare and raised the ante, "And
I hate to hafta to do this, but you're leaving me no choice." The
morning sun suddenly peered through the cabin window, and flashed
silver off of the cold metal object that I was pointing at Ruby.
"Nooooo," she gasped, and she closed her eyes and bowed her head
again in surrender as I raised my hand to my lips and blew a nice
steady hum on my kazoo.
claz
Damn! The fuzz was fast today. Some idiot probably called it in as an
emergency. Crime in progress. Probably a 101: caterwauling in a
public place.
While the three fuckin' pigs huddled over whether to call it a 101 or
a 707 (interfering with a loaded barge on a county waterway), I
grabbed for the sombrero before she could make the move I sensed
coming. I got hold of the brim just as she and saxman jumped ship.
I could see they have had trouble with the law before. Well, they
thunk wrong when they thunk they would be safe caterwauling on the
water. A place like Humboldt County, with a fishing fleet, and chip
and log barges coming and going... the heat is on in a flash. Coppers
let me go with a warning since it was only a kazoo.
I was feeling grimly satisfied when I jumped up the steps to my
pad,hat in hand. Noticed the coins in the collection plate were gone.
Patrick was sitting on the stairs in the entry, with a banjo case on
his knee. He looked grim. I invited him in for joe. I put the
coffee pot on the burner and reheated what was left from this morning.
When he sat the banjo case down without
opening it, I breathed easier. I was beginning to suffer from PTSD.
Post-twang-stress-disorder.
We both sunk into the old couch, sipping and slurping the old black
joe. I could tell something was bothering him. I broke the ice.
"Where's the collection plate money, you mother-fucking thief?"
He reached down for the banjo case and flicked the latch open.
"Forget it," I said, pulling my kazoo out of my pocket. He froze,
eyes on the kazoo, and slowly sat back in the couch and suckled his
cuppa joe.
claz
"How was Louziana, Patrick?"
"It was OK, joined a cajun band... did some crabbin' and crawfishin',
'n during the flood we rowed around the Big Easy in a big ol' swamp
boat playin' two-step music to the people on their roofs...rescued a
cat from a tree. Met a crazy cajun broad. Say..have you heard
anything around here 'bout a woman name of Ruby new to town?"
"Patrick..you know whatever I hear is private cause I'm a private
ear ..."
"You..a privateer?...goin' after booty on boats?"
"If it's Ruby's booty, 'n her ship comes in, I say board it, hoard
it,
lord it.."
"That sounds sordid!"
"..'n do not report it.."
"Thanks Huck."
Patrick took off, dropping a handful of coins in the collection plate
on his way out.
Uh oh. Muffucker left the banjo. I stepped out on the porch...he was
out of sight already. I lit a cigarette, sat down on the top step,
and let the sun do its thing.
claz
Boink.
Bonk. Bonk.
Whomp. Whomp. Bang. Bonk.
I dreamed I was barenakid bonking a blonde boozed up bombshell beneath
a buckboard outside a barn dance..
Openin' my eyes to a bare squint spoiled the dream and drummed me into
the real world, which was stranger than fiction at the moment:
A plump frump of a grey-haired woman, with a white-haired toothless
old man next to her, was bomping away on my porch step wih a stout
stick. The old man held a big old tin washtub.
I sat up and shook my head to clear things up a bit...then took
another gander.
They were still there, and my insanity-prone landlord was behind
them. The woman handed the stout stick to the old man. "Hi there,
young fella! Sorry to waken you. M'husband cain't stand up fer too
long, an this flibbertigibbet b'hind me sez we got to talk to you bout
renting this here 'partment."
I stood up, blinked the sunshine outta my eyes,and saw the landlord
over their heads, nodding away. "Yep, that's right.", he said. "I
told ..ahem..Mr and Mrs Degginer..that you are my manager for this
building and had to give the final okay."
I invited them in to sit down. The lady commented "I see you got a
c'llection plate fer the poor. Thet's a fine thang t'do, Mr.. ah.."
"Huck. Just call me Huck. I'd be glad to have you tenant this
building, Mr and Mrs Degginer."
"Fine! Is't okay fer Daddy to set here on yer couch whilst ah tend
t'business, Mr Huck?"
she said it like it was a statement instead of a question. She went
off with the landlord to sign the papers. I offered the old man a
cuppa coffee.
"Daaagnabbit! Jes' what ah bin hankering fer! I'll have it black,
Huck."
He set the stick and tub on the floor and I could see they were
connected by a length of clothesline rope. It was a washtub bass. I
caught him eyeing the banjo case behind the chair.
Uh oh.
claz
old man sitting on my couch. "By
the way, my name is Bob, Bob Huck. You can call me just Huck."
I offered my right hand and he clasped it with a surprisingly strong
grip, gave a shake and said,
"Name's Jesse Daniel Dagner. I always pronounce the name "dag-ner"
cause I don't want the "gin" in it.
I been on th' wagon fer many years. Jes' call me Jess."
"So...Jess...how many kids you and the missus got?"
"I got seven. She's got four. Rose 'n me, we got nary a one
together."
"Too bad", I tried, trying to be appropriate.
"Fer th' best, Huck. Our'n offspring been more of a curse than a
blessing. I'm not a churchgoer, an' I
made moonshine fer many a decade, so mebbe God cursed me. But He's
goin' easy on me now. I got Rose,
Rose got me, an' we don't have no kids t' mess it up."
Jesse Dagner coughed one a' those coughs you don't wanna hear from
anyone, a cough that sounded like damage within. He looked to be not
far off from Death's Door, if truth be told.
An' also, to tell the truth, I had a hard time understanding what he
was saying. Without any teeth, his speech was somewhere between
garbled and mushmouth; t'was only my years of experience listening to
derelicts and drunks yakkin' that prepared me for such speech; Jesse
also had a pronounced hillbilly accent. When I inquired as to where
he was from, the answer was the hills of West Virginia. Rose, he
said, was from the Ohio Ozarks, and together they had a mule farm in
Arkansas, remote from civilization, took care of all their own needs
and that of their animals.
Now they had come west, after the selling off of the land they farmed;
as far west as possible, to get away from their no-good pesky grown-up
kids! proclaimed Jesse fervently, though weakly.
It was a sad sounding story, but I was relieved there wouldn't be a
trail of adult kids visiting and camping out on Ma and Pa's couch.
Then I'd be forced to rescind their rental agreement, cause I don't
cotton to people who take advantage of the old, and of me.
I stuck around for a while to see if the old couple needed help
getting their stuff in; then I would amble down by the bay and see if
anything fishy came ashore.