Just North of Nowhere Read online

  Then he saw the Wagon Wheel Inn. He thought, yes. A place to eat, drink, to watch people.

  Parking on Commonwealth was diagonal. He liked that and nosed his rented Pontiac into the middle space of three that were open in front of the bar. Herb was lucky about parking, always had been.

  He took a moment to feel the stillness after so many hours of movement, then he opened the door and set one foot on asphalt. One small step for Herb. He smiled and, shifting himself with a grunt, took a second step.

  . . .and took in Bluffton’s air: Perfume and bleach. With that was, what?

  Fish?

  Fish, yes, but fish dead.

  In the Moleskine notebook he kept in his left trouser pocket he noted the specifics of the town’s aromal layers. He noted, also: the scents were not unpleasant, not unique, simply particular to the day and place. The Laundromat next door to the Wagon Wheel Inn was the source of the ozonic bleach and sweet warm dry perfume of softeners tumbled and toasted. It was also the source of the wee drift of snowy lint that gathered at the corner of the building and in the bushes that lined the path to the river. Between the Wagon Wheel and the laundry (“The Duds Sudsery” he noted in his Moleskine) he saw the glimmer of water, heard the stream’s flow and gargle.

  Ah. Fish, he said to himself.

  He had followed that river (the Rolling, he’d noted from his map) for 43 miles along the road (County H he’d noted). Here in Bluffton, the Rolling passed almost beneath the Inn's back porch. Two red metal poles supported the porch (or perhaps there were three—or more—he couldn’t be sure from this angle). The pillars arose from concrete pilings set into the mud of the riverbank, quite simple, efficient. Nothing sagged. All looked solid.

  He noted the mud and fish smell of the river in his book as he did the rich contrapuntal outpouring from the trees, greens, and mosses, the decaying woodland that climbed the bluff across the river. That, too, mixed in the Bluffton air. That, too, entered the book.

  A truck rumbled in the street. He turned in time to see eyes, the same shiny glints from the darkness that he’d seen in the pens on Slaughterhouse Way. Closer now, the eyes passed fixed on Herb from between the trailer’s shit-spattered metal slats. The bellows of the eyes called to him as the rig snorted, rounded the corner, ground through the gears climbing Slaughterhouse Way and was gone.

  Herb shivered again, took another note and rushed to the door of the Wagon Wheel Inn.

  Inside was autumn night in deer country. The day hadn’t been hot, but the bar was Air Konditioned KOOL. Waterfall beer signs cascaded. Neon bright rats in lederhosen and Bavarian hats raised electric beer steins to distant oompahs of the mind. Herb smiled. He’d seen that ad on the television, remembered it fondly. And there was juke music, too. Good sound, he thought, these people appreciate music. That’s a start!

  The Wagon Wheel air was brewed hops, malt, old cigarette smoke of varied blends and aromatic mixtures tumbled with bubbly pizza—cheese and sausage and sharp pepper oils. The bar also smelled of floor wax and sweat. Sweaty people drank here and, yes, played American shuffleboard. The Wagon Wheel utterly erased the street, the laundry, and the eyes’ gleaming.

  Animal heads hung everywhere beer art and dartboards didn’t. Generations of dust had grayed the fur, softened the antlers. Eyes flicked light at him, but they were eyes of glass! And skins of snakes! His eyes opened to the permanent twilight of the Wheel. Yes: snakes, displayed. Some in frames, others curled, suspended inches in front of dust-coated backing that covered the yellowed plaster above raw wooden wainscoting. A power of heat and dry age radiated from the snakes.

  Herb stood in the doorway taking it in.

  Then the door sucked open. Daylight exploded behind him and a fierce rush of a man caromed off Herb and toward the bar.

  “Hey Bunch,” the man behind the bar called, “watch yourself, there. Elbowing paying customers you know!”

  The newcomer – Bunch? – turned back but still kept on his bar heading. He wore torn denim jeans and was barefoot. His shirt was flannel holes over haired skin. He was unshaved – not bearded – and his hair was long, greasy. He added a measurable counterpoint to the bar’s friendly reek.

  Herb smiled. “That’s all right. I haven’t paid yet!”

  Bunch’s eyes widened.

  He’s surprised, Herb realized. No fear bristled from the man, just a sudden jolt of something like curious caution crackled around him.

  “Early for terrorists, ain't it?” Bunch said to the room in general.

  That was it. The man Bunch made his way to the bar, hauling with him the scent of the world, an olfactory collage of wild places, steeped mud, meat, sweat, and engine oil. Herb breathed it in along with bar’s smoky hop-laden ambience and the mingling of bleach, softener, diesel fume, cow death, darkness, mud, moss, and dead fish that wafted in from the bar’s back door.

  Herb liked the place. He perched at a tall two-top near the curtained front window. The table felt just right under his elbow. “Moo,” Herb said quietly to the leather-covered chair.

  “Elvie ain't come yet, Mister” the bartender called to Herb as he drew a draft for the man called Bunch. “We don't have the table service yet, okay? So what can I do you for?”

  “Ah,” Herb said. “I'm in no hurry. No hurry. Nope. Just breathing a little.”

  Bunch spun on his stool and jerked a stare at Herb. “Here to breathe?” he said. The man sucking salt from pretzel rods and working his way through a ledger book at the end of the bar raised his head and squinted in Herb's direction.

  “Man comes into a bar to breathe?” Bunch said again and shook his greasy head.

  “For just a moment,” Herb said. He reached toward him with his smile.

  Bunch blinked, then came back to the there and then!

  “Crying out loud, Ivan” he said at the foaming brew. “Tap less air and draw more beer! Look a’ this!” He sucked deep suds until the foam stopped flowing down the side of the Pilsner.

  Herb almost felt the cool glass, the wet suds flowing over Bunch’s fingers, the sudden bitter taste of air and beer.

  “Yeah, well,” the bartender – Ivan? – said to the room in general, “breaths is free!” He shot a glance at the pretzel sucker at the end of the bar. “’Less the gov'ment starts taxin' me for the air used on premises. Then I gotta charge. Okay, there, with you?”

  Herb drew the corners of his mouth into a smile. It made him look droopier than when he just sagged, but what was he to do? It was the way he was built. He considered. “I'll have...a beer,” Herb said. Considering further he said, “Have what he's having,” he pointed to Bunch, “and I'll come to get it.”

  “Now beer there, I gotta charge you for.” Ivan said, already pulling a draft into another Pilsner. “Air's still free...” he muttered.

  “Ain’t so sure,” Bunch said, looking at the deep head on his beer.

  Herb took the glass in both hands. He pressed his lower lip to the rim; his upper lip slipped over the top and he sucked foam to the amber beer below.

  “Mmmmmm,” he said as the beer slid down his throat. “Good,” he said a good ten seconds later and put the glass down. He laid a fifty on the bar.

  The cash register made a satisfyingly aged ratchet clatter as Ivan cranked the ebony handle on the shiny brass lever. The drawer snapped open with a jangling clink. Ivan made change for the fifty.

  The century-old relic tickled Herb. History. He felt it in the air, years and years of it for sale in Bluffton. Pay-per-view.

  This Ivan. . . Herb felt him. Ivan did his local color riff – was doing it now for this droopy out of towner. The rod-sucker was something else, an owner, maybe. But he was for sale. The old blind man in back, color, too, part of the air, if he knew it, part of the color and good for business, all of them, important, all pieces of the town, but, essentially, part of the package.

  But Bunch? Bunch, no. He’s not for sale and not selling.

  “Could I share some tunes with you?” Herb said to t
he room. “What kind of music do you like?”

  Eyes blinked all around. Ivan, Bunch, the pretzel sucker. Herb could hear brain gears turning

  Bunch put down his glass and stared at the ceiling. “Music?” he said aloud. “Music?”

  “I like music!” Herb eye-checked the pretzel sucker. “Sure I do,” he said.

  “Music,” Bunch said again. “Music. Huh! See? I lost my bike. On the bike I had a damn good, near new, portable radio. I earned it working. I wired her to the handlebars.”

  “For cripes, Bunch!” Ivan said. He tapped a nickel glass and shoved it in front of him. “Go get yourself another goddamn bicycle for crineoutloud. And a radio... Or on second thought, don't! Riding up and down all day playing noise! How you ever get any work done?”

  The rod sucker laughed. “Still sore about that bike...”

  “Don't want to talk about it.” Bunch drained off the nickel-worth.

  Ivan turned back to Herb. “You don't look like a hippy, friend,” he said squinting. “Hippies in jeans come through, want to work off their drinks, their pizza-pops, and slim-jimmies playing guitar or fiddle or whatchacallit...?” He laid the change down on the bar. “Hippies don’t pay with fifties…” he said.

  “Hippies?” pretzel man said. “Cripes on a stick we ain’t seen no hippies here in an age! They all gone?”

  “Ah, they’re around Karl! Hair and smelly, wanting to work for beer and jimmies. . .”

  “Cripes, that’s Bunch, Ivan!” Karl shouted.

  “Music!” Bunch scratched his head.

  “Not hippies, Ivan!” Karl said.

  “They’re sometimes,” Ivan said.

  “Not no more!”

  “Saxophone?” said Ivan after a moment’s thought. “There was that guy wanted to play saxophone in here. He didn’t have long hair!”

  “Yeah ,” Karl said, “a suit and tie, too...? Like this fellow.” His silence looked to Herb.

  “So, figure you’re a what?” Ivan said, “a salesman, right? With that fifty bucks,” Ivan glanced over to the jukebox, near where the old blind man sat. “Salesmen always got fifties. Sorry. Got all the music I need. Ain't I?” he threw the question to Karl.

  “Kinda light on that, where you call it? Reggie? Raygay? Whatchacall?”

  “Music?” Bunch squinted toward the open hole of the back door. He was still working his face.

  Herb followed Bunch’s gaze. The door opened onto a view of the green bluff on the far bank.

  “I liked that damn bike and box.” Bunch shook his head, “Goddamn music, anyway.”

  Herb looked down. He couldn't see his feet until he edged one toe forward and caught a glint of barlight in the soft brown leather. “No, no. No, no, no. I'm not a salesman. No, I have some music in the car. I thought you might like it. Free! I share things.”

  “Goddamn Music anyway,” Bunch said. “I found that bike but I earned that radio. Had all the music I needed and didn’t need no sharing.”

  Ivan stared.

  “Nothin’s free, there friend,” Karl said.

  Herb tapped his Pilsner. “Another, if you would. I'll be back.” He slid a ten in Ivan’s direction and was out the front door.

  Herb blinked at the white sun. He breathed dead fish, softener, and soap. He opened the Pontiac’s trunk and clicked open a worn leather case. Inside were a million things. He sorted among them and in a blink had gathered a handful of sharp black discs. Then back into the cool dark bar where beer and sweat could be breathed and friendship drawn through the nose.

  “These are warm.” He handed three discs to Ivan. “This,” he gave him a fourth. “This will be pleasant in the summer. Yes,” his jowls quivered, “when it’s hot.”

  Ivan shuffled the discs, squinted the labels in flowing beer light.

  “What’s them?” Bunch asked.

  “45’s.” Ivan said, looking at Herb.

  “Play one,” Herb said, trying to make himself the least droopy he could. “If you like. If you don't, that's okay. The red labels are hot, the orange, warm. It goes like that. The blues are cool.”

  Ivan reached for the key ring beneath the bar. “Where you from, there. . .?”

  “Herb,” Herb said.

  Ivan clicked among a hundred or so keys to find the one to the Mighty Wurlitzer. “You sound like you’re from somewhere, Herb.”

  “Chicago,” Herb said. His eye flaps quivered.

  “Well, what the hell?” Ivan said, separating a barrel key from the rest, “it ain’t exactly jumping in here. I’ll spin one up.”

  “What the hell!” Herb said.

  Bunch stared into the mirror behind the bar. “Damn Goddamn music anyhow.”

  Herb felt Bunch’s reflected eyes on him. They squinted, washed him with interest.

  In the same mirror, Herb watched Ivan at the jukebox. In white light, Ivan worked among bourbon, Irish, Scotch, and gin bottles.

  Herb also saw Herb. The rolling neon glow from the bar soaked him, a sagged disaster, a pitiful wreck. A man? “Hell no!” as men might say.

  Ivan closed and latched the juke. “Requests?” he said.

  Herb smiled. “Warm, warmer, hot, or cool. ‘S up to you.”

  “Warm!” The old blind man shouted from the rear of the bar.

  “Ken’s call! Warm it is...” Ivan pressed a button. The machine clunked.

  Herb knew what they heard. What he heard wasn't much. But they! Well, at first, they heard just pootley-poop stuff no better than the average rinky-dink garage-band cover of some Jimmy Buffett island washed sweat and rum-fed dissolution lick. A guitar barrel roll, some ukes, maybe, maybe a couple dozen rainsticks. Or maybe steel drum ding-a-longs. Maybe something else. Maybe it was all voices feigning instrumental tootles. Maybe it was the rattling down of real rain on meaty palm leaves still on tropical trees; maybe it was the soft roll and hissing suck of distant surf on black sand… But something was there that made a shimmer inside the ears. There was song, but damned if you could make out the tune.

  Herb looked from face to face.

  Ivan? Ivan never bothered with words or melody. Herb saw that, but something had him. And Karl, down at the end of the bar, he had stopped sucking pretzels and toting fortunes in his head. He had surrendered the numbers in his heart to the heat of tropical noon. Herb saw that. Oh, yes.

  The blind man – Ken – his nose pointed toward the tin ceiling. His head scanned back and forth, nostrils open, the hairs of his ears quivering.

  Sound wrinkled from the juke, sound flowered from the light-filled liquid that burbled in tubes along the sides of the machine, it twinned out the grilles and up the walls, it soaked the floor like a wash of surf.

  The whole place listened, breathing.

  The smell: sea salt and coconut oiled body. A scent of sweat – not Bunch's greasy secretions.

  Herb sniffed the air near Bunch, caught. . .

  . . .the beer and meat-sweats he’d worked up roofing the Sons of Norway Lodge.

  That was not the song. The song’s sweat varied, person by person: Asbury Park, summer, 1941. Boy sweat, the boy wading against the pull of the ocean, a boy so young he had suddenly – that day, that evening, that minute – realized the strength of his legs. The first time ever, he’d felt the power in him! The sweat was a blossom on the boy’s face as the mighty Atlantic towed against his shins, calves, hips. It was the sweat of the fight he knew he’d win even against the whole damn world, forget this piddlin’ ocean! The sweat was the bloom of damp heat that coated the kid the minute he'd broken free of the undertow. It was the sweat of expectation as he ran the beach to the blanket, to the girl he knew waited beneath the blanket. It was the sweat as he forced his feet against the dry sand that tried to swallow him to the ankles, it was the sweat of his need to feel the girl's arms and her lotioned body around and under him before they sanded each other, naked as the moon’s lip pulling itself over the ocean’s horizon. It was the sweat as the boy looked into the face of the girl and saw forever there, o
ne forever ending right then, another forever stretching on and on.

  Juke music quivered beneath the surface, moonlight on water, it wrinkled a bit before popping solid in the night hot air of the bar.

  Ivan smiled.

  Herb thought the music was fine. They like it, he said to himself. Not to his taste but he knew what people liked.

  Herb slipped out the back door onto the rear deck overlooking the river.

  Summer waited in the air, rose from the cliffs across the way. The year was still cool and late afternoon covered the town. The shadows of the bluffs crawled across the water toward Herb standing above old muck and dead fish.

  He loved it all, this town, the people he’d met in the bar. Maybe he would not, finally. Maybe they would disappoint and he would not end the road trip here in Bluffton but Bluffton had offered a deal to remember.

  The jukebox nattered on, inside. A touch of its warmth carried to the porch. If people liked it – and so far they had – they'd like him. He loved being liked. He did. Being liked was rare. Rare, he guessed, for everyone anywhere.

  He looked upstream and down. On both sides of the Wagon Wheel, buildings overhung the riverbank. The bar, the laundromat, all the buildings all the way, both ways, stood on steel props.

  “Hmmmmm,” Herb put his gut to the railing and leaned over. Dark water rippled near the pillar. Over the plinky-tink from inside, he heard the river nibbling, felt its rush and thrum against his gutline. When rains came heavy and long, when the river flowed rich in anger and the dam upstream could not contain it all and it poured forth. . .

  Herb felt forward, backward, found a time when the stream raged and bowed the pillars of the porch, when the valley’s funneled wind torqued the deck, the Wagon Wheel with it. In that time, imagined, Herb felt the porch heave like a ship, heard the building’s long groans as wood strained against wood. Chairs, tables, brooms, juke box, shuffleboard, patrons leaned, rolled, or fell with the Wagon Wheel’s cant. In his mind, he crossed the floor, planks alive with wind and the river’s licks, felt their dance in his tiny feet. Then he let it go. The wind abated, the river sagged, recumbent. The Wagon Wheel eased, creaked to the vertical, floor boards settled, antlered heads found their plumb, bottles and brooms righted.