A few days later we were in the middle of an afternoon of integration of analytic functions and Mrs. W was explaining the nature of simply-connected domains when she looked at her watch in alarm in the middle of a sentence.
“Ah, shit,” she said. “Stoney, what’s planned for dinner tonight?”
“The veal didn’t look good so I fell back on spaghetti Bolognese,” he said. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Have you started the bread?” she asked.
“No, ma’am. The sourdough starter is still a day or two away, so I’ll be working with Mr. Fleishmann, and I can start that in, maybe an hour or two, as hot as it is.”
“How do you do this?” I asked.
“Do what?” he answered.
“Cook anything that comes up in conversation,” I said.
“You could, too, if you’d get off your dead ass and give it a try,” said Stoney.
“Hush, boys. First, I’m going to be late for a garden club meeting, so I’m leaving. Stoney, won’t those spaghetti ingredients keep to tomorrow night?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answerd.
“Second thing is, tomorrow night we’re going to be joined for dinner by my sisters’s son, Clarence. Ginny is playing in tennis tournaments and such and Winnie’s going to take her around. I’m a little surprised that she wants to go along.”
“Ginny’s part of a mixed doubles pair,” I said.
“Oh, with whom?” she asked.
“Cisco’s friend Walter.”
“That snobby boy from Atlanta?” she asked,
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, that explains it,” said Mrs. W.
“She’s trying to protect Ginny from Walt?” I asked.
“It’s more complicated than that,” she answered, lighting a cigarette. “You said he was from Atlanta. Do you know if his parents are in the Piedmont Driving Club?”
“Yes, ma’am, I think they are,” I answered, after thinking a second. “I think Cisco mentioned it on the way down either Christmas or Thanksgiving. I didn’t understand what it meant.”
“It’s a posh kind of country club in Atlanta. It used to be outside of town, so you had to drive to it, but the town’s grown. If Walt’s nice and his parents are rich, Winnie’s been waiting for this,” she said.
“Hmmm,” I said.
“Is this that Peabody girl that was all over you outside the Campus Grill?” asked Stoney, somewhat awkwardly.
“Later, Stoney,” I said. Mrs. W cocked an eyebrow at me and took a drag off her cigarette.
“I am late for Garden Club. After that I may have dinner with a friend. You boys should take yourselves out to someplace to have dinner and a beer.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Stoney. “What time will you be back?”
“Hard to say,” said Mrs. W.
“We’ll leave the porch light on,” said Stoney. With that she departed abruptly. Usually when she left she gave us a problem to work on, but she didn’t this time, so Stoney and I looked at each other and shrugged. It was a few minutes after four. We looked at each other, then returned our attention to the problem on the blackboard. She’d posed it without letting us know where she was headed, and we soon realized we didn’t know as enough about multi-variable differentiation to solve the problem once we’d stated it. We could state it as
let f :Rn R,
and
let a Rn
and then
let u Rn be a vector such that |u|1.
So we figured that the directional derivative of f at a in the direction of the vector u would be defined to be
which we could not solve. Clueless. Completely empty. Translating Linear A to Urdu. We shook our heads at it, then shrugged.
“Okay,” said Stoney. “Time for a beer. Where can we get a good burger around here?”
“The closest place on this side of the river is over on Frazier, just down from the Oddfellows Hall.”
“What’s it called?”
“Can’t remember. It changes hands about every six months. Sometimes they have a pool table, sometimes they don’t, but whoever buys it seems to hire the same cook. A guy named Rocky. Good burgers, good fries, good chili. A good muffaletta, if you like them.”
“Sounds promising. What are the chances of scoring some dope there?”
“Couldn’t tell you.”
“What are the chances that there will be a television in the bar showing a baseball game?”
“High.”
“What are the chances they will be showing the Tigers play the Angels tonight?”
“Slim to none.”
“This anti-Detroit bias must be stamped out,” he said.
“Not that. The Braves will be playing the Expos. ”
“Rank regionalism. Let’s go,” he said.
We got there just before 5:00, a little earlier than I would usually have dropped in. The pool table had been removed from the back room in favor of a few more tables. Petey and Rex, two guys who were in this same bar the last time I came in, when I was in high school, were at the bar and had obviously been there for some time. Petey was wearing a summer sailor suit—white crackerjack and bell-bottoms with those really shiny shoes sailors wore in the Cold War. I waved as Stoney and I took seats at the bar. They lurched over. I knew Petey from playing pool and knew Rex from somewhere vaguer than that. Church? Our mothers were friends? Anyway before I’d left town I’d bumped into them in bars all the time.
“Yo, cuz,” said Petey. “Long time, no see. Where ya’ been?”
“Out and about. Hey, Rex.” Rex was maybe six foot five and solid like a brick wall. Petey was reedy and flexible, like a drunken willow sapling.
“You still play pool? Petey asked.
“Not too much. I’ve been in college,” I said.
“Wow. That’s outta sight,” said Petey.
“Why are you dressed like a sailor?” I asked.
“I enlisted, man. I am a Seaman Apprentice in the United States fucking Navy man. What do you think about that?” he took a swig from his Budweiser longneck.
“Last time we talked you were dating a flower child,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cindy.”
“Sandy,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah, right. Sandy. Yeah, well, like, it didn’t work out.”
“You were opposed to the Viet Nam war.”
“Yeah, well, that’s over, man, didn’t you hear?” he said.
“Are you a Turtle?” Rex asked, looking at Stoney.
“What?” Stoney asked.
“Ignore him, Stoney,” I said. “Rex and Petey have this whole stupid schtick about being a member of a club called the Turtles. They usually do it on girls, but Rex must be bored. It’s stupid.”
“Why you gotta go fucking with it?” asked Rex. Petey signaled for another beer and laid his head on the bar. “How we gonna pay for this?” he asked Rex.
“I think I know his routine anyway,” said Stoney, knocking back a shot and taking a sip of beer. “Is this ‘name a word that starts with ‘f’ and ends in ‘u-c-k?” he asked. Rex looked deflated. The bartender, a pretty, trim woman in her thirties or forties whom I recognized as an alumnus of the Frosty Mug, cocked her head in bemused concern.
“Firetruck,” Stoney told her. “The other question is ‘What sticks out of a man’s pajamas?” She shook her head as she refilled his shot glass.
“His head!” bellowed Rex, too loud by half. Stoney knocked back his shot and took a pull of his beer. Rex was cackling to himself at the richness of the riddle.
“Club soda, please,” I said.
“Thought it was you,” said the bartender. “I used to work weeknights over at the Frosty Mug.”
“Sorry for not recognizing you,” I said. Petey had started snoring. It wasn’t yet six.
“You boys eatin’ or just drinkin’?” she asked.
“Oh, eating, most definitely,” said Stoney.
“I’ll get menus,” she said.
“Petey?” asked Rex, jostling him.
“What the fuck?” said Petey, sitting bolt upright. He looked confused for a minute, then took a swallow of his beer. “Jesus,” he said.
“You’re supposed to be in uniform?” I asked.
“I am in uniform,” he said proudly. “The uniform of the United States Navy.”
“Where’s your hat?” I asked. Petey felt on his head, then looked around, and a look of panic crept across his face.
“Oh, shit!” said Petey, and scuttled off of his barstool, beer in hand, to search seats they’d had before they came over to talk to us. Rex followed. After much pawing around on the floor, they decided he must have left his hat at the Brass Register, the last bar they’d attended.
Stony watched them flee, beers in hand, impassively, then pushed his shot glass towards our bartender for a refill. “They just stiffed you,” he remarked, as she filled his shot glass with bourbon.
“Not really,” she said. “Rex forgot his credit card. When I cash him out he’s gonna to give me a big tip. He’ll figure it all out tomorrow.”
“Is that ethical?” Stoney asked, knocking back another shot, and placing it within easy reach of a refill.
“Yes,” she said. “Rex is an asshole.”
“Speaking of which,” I said, “Grace, do you have Stoney’s credit card? If he passes out from all these shots you’re feeding him, I don’t want to get stuck with the tab.” Stoney smiled, retrieved his wallet, handed her a BankAmericard card, and pushed his shot glass forward for a re-fill. It was going on 6:30. I was about to suggest that we move to a table and order dinner when two young women came into the bar. They looked familiar, much as Rex and Petey had, but I couldn’t quite place them. The taller, blonder one took the stool next to Stoney, and the shorter, brunette one took the next stool down. They looked really familiar.
“What’ll you have?” Grace asked them.
“I think we’ll have two Cokes,” said the shorter, brunette one. The taller blonde seemed to look at the rows of liquor bottles behind the bar longingly. She may have licked her lips. At this point Stoney stopped staring at Grace and looked at the newcomers to his left.
“Christ on a crutch!” he said, softly. The taller blonde one smiled. She still looked familiar.
“What was that?” the brunette asked.
“Hello, my name is Stoney,” he said. “This is my friend Henry. He specializes in being gay and making sure sailors remember where their hats are. Who are you?”
“Nadia,” said the blonde, and already there was an accent. Something eastern European.
“Kiki,” said the brunette, and there was an accent there, too. Georgia or Alabama, and not close to a big city. Grace gave them Cokes and was about to ask if they wanted to run a tab when Stoney volunteered that their drinks should be on his tab. They smiled, but they were drinking Coke, so the limits of his largesse were in plain sight.
“I have it,” I said. The three of them looked at me. Stoney motioned for another shot. “You’re the two girls who were sunbathing on your back porch two days ago. I waved at you and you waved back.”
“Oh! Yes!” said Kiki, then they went through one of those excited acknowledgements of recognition that young women do that young men don’t. Within a minute Stoney had established that Kiki’s grandmother lived two doors down from Mrs. W, that they were visiting her for two weeks, and that they were from Colquitt, Georgia. Stoney was unfamiliar with Colquitt, and Kiki’s explanation that it was near Albany didn’t help Stoney much at all. He looked at me.
“South Georgia. You have no landmarks for this. If you drove to Florida on I-75 you’d get within 40 miles, but you’ve never been there and you’re never going.”
“How do you know about it?” he asked.
“The Southside Pool Hall is there. Close, anyway. Nice place,” I said.
“And what is Colquitt?”
“That’s where they’re from. It’s down 91 from Albany a few miles.”
“So why did they even mention Albany?” he asked.
“Kiki knew you wouldn’t know where Colquitt was, so she mentioned Albany, because she thinks of it as a big town.”
“Why?”
“There’s an airport in Albany.”
“And why in the fuck do you know about Colquitt?” He gestured for another shot.
“Well, like I said, Southside Poll Hall is there. And head on down 91 to Donaldsonville and you find Ed’s Pool Hall.” Stoney knocked back a shot and thought for a minute.
“You’re no help whatsoever,” he concluded, and turned to face Nadia. “So Nadia,” he said. “Where are you from?’
“Boolgaaria,” said Nadia.
“She means she used to be from Bulgaria, but now she’s from Colquitt,” said Kiki.
“And Colquitt is in Georgia?” Stoney asked Nadia.
“Yes, of course,” Kiki answered.
“And what’s Colquitt famous for?” Stoney asked, looking directly at Nadia.
“Why our mayhaws, of course,” answered Kiki. Nadia frowned at Stoney intently.
“Mayhaw?” Stoney asked.
“Mayhaw iss small froot in middle of bolshoi swamp,” said Nadia. “Locals make syrup from fruit.”
“She means a fruit that grows wild in Georgia,” said Kiki. “What you call indigneous. We make them into jelly.” Nadia rolled her eyes and sipped her Coke.
“Well, so if your jelly is coming out too runny, maybe you should cook it longer,” said Stoney. “Get it hotter. Or maybe add some pectin. I’ve had good results…” he began. Nadia said something I couldn’t understand but it sounded unhappy and bitter.
“I need to run to the ladies’ room,” said Kiki. “Are you joining me?” she asked Nadia.
“Nyet,” she answered. “Fine where am.” Kiki looked a little provoked at this but went off towards the restrooms. Nadia watched her leave, and as soon as Kiki was outside of earshot, urgently beckoned Grace the bartender, who showed up immediately.
“Yes ma,am?” Grace asked.
“Must haff largest shoot vodka, pliss, fast,” said Nadia.
“Excuse me?” asked the bartender, not sure what she’d heard.
“Nadia wants a triple shot of Stoli,” said Stoney. “Neat.”
“Can I see your I.D. please?” asked Grace.
“No. Iss in tiny little town in South Georgia, not same Georgia I thought. Crazy Baptistses seized my wallet when my madre ran off and left me with thiss pipples to follow crazy artist with big … how you say …” there was a pause.
“Bank account?” asked Stoney. She shook her head.
“Car?” asked Grace.
“No, no,” said Nadia. “How you say … cook?”
“Ah,” said the bartender, smirking. “I still need an I.D.”
“Haff no ID,” she said. “You no been listen?”
“What’s your name?” Stoney asked the bartender.
“Grace,” she said, smiling.
“Hi, Grace,” he said. “Nadia appears to have mislaid her wallet, but I’m ready for a drink. I’d like a double shot of frozen Stoli. I’d like to order one for my friend Henry, too.”
“I don’t …” I started.
“That’s okay, Henry,” said Stoney. “Actually, make Henry’s a triple. And put it on my tab. And I’d like another beer.” The bartender cocked an eyebrow at me as she left to fill our orders, and my expression may have conveyed a shrug. My triple shot and Stoney’s double shot arrived before Kiki returned from the restroom. Stoney took a sip of his vodka, and as soon as Grace turned her back Nadia downed mine in a single gulp, then took a big swallow of her soft drink. She grinned a stylized grin at Stoney, then turned to me.
“Me am sex starved,” she said.
“Ah,” I said somewhat nonplussed.
“So you want to give sex to me?” she asked.
“I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree, there,” said Stoney. “Henry’s gay.” Grace showed back up just in time to hear this, and looked at me. I shook my head. She nodded, then frowned at the empty glass of Stoli she’d served me.
“I think my gay friend Henry needs another round,” said Stoney. I was trying to avoid eye contact with Grace so as to avoid making her complicit in our crime. As soon as she was gone, Stoney nudged his glass towards Nadia, and she bolted it back,” then smiled again at Stoney. She looked at me again, and leaned towards me a bit, then remembered to rinse out her mouth with Sprite.
“So,” she said, stroking my shirtsleeve. “What iss this gay?” I was about to answer when Grace showed back up. Stoney raised his glass for a refill, and asked for another beer as well. I avoided eye contact with all concerned.
“It means Henry isn’t interested in girls,” said Stoney. She frowned at me as she took the Stoli in front of me and drained about half of it.
“You are хомосексуален?” she asked me.
“I doubt it, but I don’t speak whatever language you just said,” I said.
“Iss Bulgarian,” she said. “You am гомосексуалист? Γомик? Πидор?”
“I don’t speak Bulgarian,” I said.
“We know. So I gift you Russian.”
“Don’t know that, either,” I said.
“So he iss гей?” she asked Stoney.
“Yess,” said Stoney, taking a sip of his new drink before she snatced it from his hand and downed it. “Gay.”
“Howdy, all,” said Kiki, returning. “Miss me?”
“Doess this man seems гей to you?” Nadia demanded of Kiki.
“Our Lord says that for a man to lie with another man is an abomination,” said Kiki. Nadia rolled her eyes.
“You?” she demanded of Grace.
“Henry’s always been a little hard to figure out,” said Grace, taking away various empty glasses for refills.
“If you are a homo, I implore you in the name of Jesus to rebuke your sinful ways and return to the bosom of Christ,” said Kiki.
“Thanks for your concern,” I said.
“Jesus has cured friends of mine who were completely sinful. There was this cheerleader at Miller County High who was deeply digging the lusts of the flesh. In a far out, overt the top kind of way. She was doing things that violated Georgia law, from what I’ve been told.”
“Dy-no-mite!” said Stoney.
“But she found Jesus and turned her back on her sinful ways. If it could work for her, whose lusts were … normal, I guess, even if they were … revved up too much, it can surely work for the abnormal, homo temptations you’re experiencing, Henry.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I said. Grace returned with various drinks, plopping a triple shot of Stoli down in front of me.
“I’ve been listening,” said Grace, grinning. “You may actually want this drink.”
“This is on Stoney’s tab, right?” I asked.
“The drink? Sure. Good luck with the Baptist.” She smiled and left. Stoney managed to place his drink near Nadia’s elbow, then took mine as his own.
“You can’t really hold it against Henry,” said Stoney. “Sinful as he may be, Henry was born this way.”
“Look!” said Nadia, pointing. “Iss Aquila chrysaetos!” she was pointing out the window as if at a bird. “Golden iggle. Look!” everybody turned to look except me, and she downed Stoney’s drink. I cocked an eyebrow at her and she shot me the bird, although she was smiling.
“Didn’t see it,” said Stoney.
“Neither me,” said Kiki. “Oh, look, there’s Louanne from Mrs. Simms’ Bible study group. I think I’ll go say hi.” She excused herself and left to go talk to a young woman at another table who seemed to have a very un-Baptist beer in front of her.
As soon as Kiki was gone, Nadia drained my triple Stoli and grabbed Stoney by the collar. “Thess pipple is driving me lunar,” she said. “All day long Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Church Sunday, Sunday night, Wednesday night, with all this ..how you say…awkward food. You life down street from me, yes?”
“That’s what Henry tells me, yes,” said Stoney, lighting a cigarette. Nadia immediately took it from him and took a drag.
“Then you call me, we make date. You sex me.” It seemed a little voyeuristic to eavesdrop on this, so I took a swallow of my club soda and turned to my left. And there was Ed Bork. It took me a minute, because his beard was gone and his funny-shaped, possibly dyed hair was much shorter. Mormon missionary short.
“Ed?” I asked.
“Hi, Henry,” he answered.
“Long time, no see,” I said.
“I’ve been sent here to save your soul,” he said. “God has a plan for your life.”
“Ed?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“Ed Bork?”
“Yes?”
“The last time I saw you I think you were wearing a black velvet robe and handing out pamphlets about Satanism,” he answered.
“The Lord tells us that when we come to Jesus, we are washed in the blood of the lamb. All past sins are forgiven.”
“Didn’t you convert Jessie Longworth to Satanism? And Mildie Pinzey? And maybe a couple of other friends of theirs, too?”
“Yes. But I have no shame in my former sinful ways. St. Paul says…”
“Wait, so after converting them to one religion, you just cut them off and converted to another?”
“Yes, but certainly anyone could see that worshipping Satan was sinful.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s, you know, Satan,” said Ed.
“Yet you were convinced.”
“I don’t honestly know,” he said. “There were certain aspects of what we called Sabbaths, not to be confused in any way with a real Sabbath, that I found very enticing. Jessie and Mildie seemed to find black Sabbaths … entertaining, too. But that’s not why—“
“So you found Jesus, just like that? And turned your back on pagan ritual?”
“Yes. The power of Christ is profound.”
“This is just too weird.”
“I need to talk to you about God’s plan for your life,” said Ed.
“No you don’t. You need to talk to me about why I should believe you now any more than I did three years ago.”
“But this is completely different. I’m with Jesus now.”
“Leave Jesus out of it. Why should I believe the you that’s pushing Jesus any more than the you who was pushing Aleister Crowley?”
“Good recall,” said Ed.
“Thanks.”
“But I’ve got Jesus now,” Ed said.
“It’s not about Jesus, it’s about the messenger.”
“You should be able to rise above my flaws, if God can reach you,” he said.
“Why? What reason in the world is there for me to believe you?”
“The Truth is revealed on every page of the Bible. If you’d just read it, and accept Jesus, you would achieve everlasting life.
At this point Kiki showed back up. Grace was just refilling the glasses because Nadia had downed the first round singlehandedly. “Another club soda, please?” I asked.
Nadia took a mouthful of Sprite and swished it around to de-Stoli her breath on Kiki’s behalf.
“Kiki, meet my high school classmate Ed,” I said.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Ed. “Can I ask if you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?”
“Oh, yes! Totally and completely,” she said. Nadia rolled her eyes.
“I respect and honor your choice,” said Ed. “I have been talking to Henry about his spiritual journey.”
“Oh, are you saved, too?” Kiki asked me.
“Not so’s you’d notice,” I said.
“Henry has yet to repent of his sins,” said Ed.
“Ed, I have to say, given our respective backgrounds, seeing you on your high horse is a little hard to take,” I said.
“I think I’m going to show Nadia the view,” said Stoney. He and Nadia stood, each taking a vodka. Stoney also picked up his beer, but Nadia ignored her soft drink.
“View?” I asked. There was no view at this bar.
“See ya’ in a few, Henry,” said Stoney. He and Nadia left for the back of the bar, drinks in hand.
“I’d like to invite you to the Vine Street Christian Community,” said Ed. “I’ve been living there for the last six months and it’s really changed the way I look at Jesus and Christianity and Christian service.”
“Which church is that associated with?” Kiki asked,
“We’re kind of Jesus freak non-denominational,” he said.
“But Baptist?” she asked.
“A busload of our group went to services at First Baptist Church last Sunday,” he answered.
“Where did the rest of them go?” she asked.
“I don’t know about all of them, but I went to First Pres.”
“A Presbyterian church?” she asked, obviously irritated.
“Yes. Pastor Ben Haden is quite highly regarded around here. We at the Vine Street—“
“But he’s not a Baptist,” said Kiki.
“At the Vine Street Christian Community, we don’t think pastors are the essential ingredient of God’s message. We strive to live like the first Christians. Sharing, singing, loving. Gene tells us—“
“But you’re not Baptists?”
“No. But we’re not not Baptists, either. And Dr. McEwen is very nice to us,” he said. “We think the particular denomination is not as important as the Truth of God’s message.”
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Dr. McEwen.”
“He’s the pastor at First Baptist. He’s really smart, if you haven’t met him.”
“We go to First Baptist while we’re in town, but of course I haven’t met the pastor.”
“He’s a really neat guy. He really knows the Bible,” said Ed.
“Well, of course he does, if he’s a Baptist minister.”
“That’s not as much true as you’d think. I asked the pastor over to East Ridge Baptist Church a question about the difference about the Old Testament Passages referring to ‘Elohim’ and the ones referring to ‘Yahweh’ and all I got was a nasty look. Dr. McEwen was all excited about that kind of sh— … stuff.”
“So why were you going to a Presbyterian church? And where has that long-hair Stoney taken my sister Nadia?”
“You’re sisters?” I asked.
“In the sense that my family has taken her in as a foster child, and I am also a child of the same family, we are sisters, yes. Plus the Lord has charged me with seeing to her spiritual wellbeing. Where is she?”
“Stoney’s showing her the view. They’ll be back in a minute,” I said, hoping this to be true.
“Jesus came to earth to establish the Baptist Church. Why are you going over to the Presbyterians?” she asked Ed.
“Why don’t you ask him?” Ed asked, pointing to me. “I think you and me are on the same side.”
“He doesn’t claim to be born again,” she said. “Being born again means you’re Baptist.”
I heard a chuckle over my left ear and turned to find Grace, the bartender, pretty as ever, smiling at the discourse between Ed and Kiki. “Ready to take up drinking yet, Henry?” she asked me, with a semi-flirtatious smirk.
“Maybe next time. If there’s still no pool table,” I said. At this point Stoney and Nadia showed back up, paying attention to each other in that way that people who are dating do, but with empty glasses.
“Another round, please,” said Stoney.
“I’ll still need to see some I.D. from Miss Romania,” Grace said.
“I mean, another round for me and Henry,” said Stoney. “And it’s Bulgaria.”
“Maybe you better try this on a different bartender,” she said.
“Is there another one on duty?” he asked, hopefully.
“Not tonight.”
“Ah, shit.”
“I think we need to be going anyway,” said Kiki. “I think your long-haired friend is a bad influence on Nadia.” Nadia rolled her eyes. “Nadia, let’s boogie,” she said, and marched off. As she did, I noticed that Nadia had left her purse. I started to call out, but Stoney silenced me with a hand.
“Grace?” said Stoney, “they’re gone, so could I get a big Stoli, please?” She filled his glass with vodka without measuring shots almost immediately. A few minutes later Nadia came running back into the bar. Without any greeting between her and Stoney she bolted back the Stoli, drained Stoney’s beer in three gulps, gargled with the remains of her Sprite, grabbed her purse, and French-kissed Stoney in a desperate, deep embrace.
“Your undersands my needs,” she said, kissing him again, then sprinted to the door, purse in hand. Stoney smiled as he watched her go.
“She’s a keeper,” he said, and waved the empty glass at Grace. “I think I’ve been brought up to date on the subject of vodka and feel like branching out a bit. How do you feel about Jack Daniel’s?” he asked, earnestly.
“Green or black?” asked Grace.
“Green Jack Daniels?” he asked. “I never heard of such a thing. Let’s try that. While Grace went to get a clean glass and pour the drink, Stoney sighed and looked at the ceiling. Grace brought the drink. He looked at it with a quizzical expression. “I may have neglected to mention that I require a beer. Perhaps a draft beer. A Lowenbrau, unless you have Guiness.” They didn’t have Guiness, of course, so Stoney had a Lowenbrau in a few seconds. I don’t drink, but I have to admit that the sight of a draft beer in an ice cold glass looks like it ought to taste really good. Stoney looked up from his whiskey at Grace as she brought his beer. “It’s not green,” he said.
“Yes it is,” she said.
“No, it’s amber. An agreeable nut-brown, perhaps.”
“Green is the color of the label,” she said.
“Aha!” he said. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Why don’t you leave me to my experimentation, and I will divine the mysteries of green label.” She left, he sipped it, and made a noncommittally agreeable tasting face. “So how do you know,” he asked me, a little over-dreamily, “when you’ve found the one?”
“The one what? Whiskey?”
“No, no. The love of your life,” he said.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Stoney.”
“What?”
“She’s a thirsty teenager you met in a bar. You spent a half an hour with her, ten minutes of which you were alone, feeding her vodka.”
“Okay, guys, I gotta go,” said Ed. “I’d like to invite you to the Vine Street Christian Community any time you have some free time. It’s a far out, happenin’ kind of Jesus place. We’ll feed you, put you up if you need a place to stay.”
“Thanks. Good luck with the Christian deal,” I said. “Where are you off to?”
“My shift is about to start at the Yellow Deli,” he said.
“You have a job?” Ed, even saved, did not look to me to be employee material.
“It’s not so much a job, as a way to serve Jesus.”
“At a Deli?” Stoney and I asked together.
“The Vine Street Christian Community, as a way to integrate ourselves into the community and to give us a productive, happy way to serve the Lord, has started several restaurants where we serve wholesome food at a reasonable price.” Stoney looked at me, dubious.
“I’ve been to Yellow Delis a couple of times. Food’s decent. Not expensive. Clean, smells good.” I said.
“Beer?” Stoney asked.
“No, of course not. Jesus doesn’t like alcohol,” said Ed. Stoney crossed it off of his “places I might eat” list.
“What about Jesus turning the water—” Stoney started.
“Don’t start, Stoney,” I said. “They always have an answer for that one. And it takes a long time to explain.” Stoney frowned.
“Anyway I have to go now, to catch the bus to my job, but I invite you to join us at the Vine Street Christian Community any time. Or come to one of our Yellow Deli restaurants and introduce yourselves. Everyone working at each Yellow Deli is imbued with the grace of Christ. Goodbye now.” He smiled and weakly grasped each of our hands in turn, kind of bowing and smiling shyly as he did so. He left and Stoney sipped his whiskey again.
“This stuff is pretty good,” he said. Grace came by to check on us. She refilled my soda, and squeezed lime in it, which she hadn’t been doing earlier. Stoney watched her leave, then drained his double shot of Jack green impassively. “She seems to like you,” he said.
“We’re old friends. She used to tend at the Frosty Mug.”
“You don’t think she’s cute?” He waved his glass for a refill. She came back pretty fast, then looked at Stoney with her hands on her hips.
“Do I need to administer an FST?” she asked.
“A what?” I asked.
“Field Sobriety Test,” Stoney said. “No, I’m fine. I promise. Just two or three more,” he said to Grace. She frowned a bit but got him another drink.
“Give me your car keys, Stoney,” I said, after he took his first sip.
“What is it with you and my car?” he asked. “You always seem to be wanting to drive it.”
“Look at it this way. If you give me your keys, Grace will continue to serve you until you pass out. Otherwise, she’s about to cut you off.”
“That would be rude,” he said. He was getting a little foggy, but I wouldn’t have been able to recognize it if he hadn’t been sober for the last few weeks. He polished off his glass and waved his glass for a refill. Grace frowned at him and shook her head from about twenty feet away. He sighed, then demonstratively pulled out his key ring and made a show of handing it to me. I put the keys in my pocket. Grace brought him a new Old Fashioned glass brimming with sour mash. She patted me on the cheek.
“See, she seems to truly love you,” said Stoney. “Like Nadia loves me.”
“Stoney, what’s going on between you and Nadia is rooted in vodka and hormones, not eternal love.”
“No, I think she’s the one for me,” he said, draining about half his bourbon. He followed it with a swallow of beer. “Sometimes you just know.”
“You met a pretty teenaged girl and got her drunk,” I said.
“Oh, no. I’m sure she was of age,” he said. Grace, who was hovering nearby waiting for him to finish his seventh drink, cocked an eyebrow at me.
“And you’re sure of this because of the fact that she had a strangely concocted-sounding story about the whereabouts of her passport, or because in your experience nineteen year-olds generally don’t have drivers licenses?” I asked.
“Why would she lie?” he asked, draining his whiskey glass. He gestured for anotherdrink.
“Show me the keys,” said Grace. I pulled them out and jangled them and she refilled his glass. I put them back in my pocket.
“Stoney, she’s a teenager. She wants to party and have fun.”
“One need not dissemble to party. Or to have fun. There was lots of fun and partying at my high school and we didn’t have to concoct stories to go about it,” he said, taking a somber sip of his sour mash. “Did we eat yet?” he asked.
“No. Grace, how are the burgers?”
“Good. Rocky’s in the kitchen.” Sale old same old, but he knows what he’s doing.
“Bacon cheddar cheese for me. I like mayo,” I said. Fries.” She nodded and smiled. Stoney discussed his burger options with her and eventually settled on a mushroom burger with bacon and Gulden’s mustard with German potato salad rather than fries. “And another beaker of this excellent green whiskey,” he added. “And perhaps another beer as well.”
“This guy has a hollow leg,” she said, and left to place the food order.
“I thought you said this place had a TV,” said Stoney.
“It does, it’s just not on.”
Stoney looked up, surprised. “I’ll be damned.” Grace showed up with another glass of bourbon. “Do you mind if I call you Grace?” he asked.
“Not at all. And you are?” she asked.
“Stoney.”
“Of course you are,” she said. He extended his hand and they shook.
“Miss Grace, I notice you have a TV mounted right up there and that it’s dark. Can it be activated? Stoney asked.
“Of course. What do you want to see?”
“The Detroit Tigers,” he said.
“I dunno, she said, picking up the remote and turning on the TV. “We get the Braves on TBS and the Cubs on WGN, but they’re both National League teams. I don’t think we get any American League channels. ” She flipped to the cable company’s schedule screen, and no American League games were listed. The Braves were playing the Expos and the Cubs were playing the Padres. “Cubbies or Braves?” she asked.
“How does this always seem to happen in the National League?” Stoney asked her.
“What?” she asked.
“The four worst teams in all of baseball are playing each other,” he answered, “and those are our only choices.”
“Name your poison.”
“Atlanta. And another beer. And perhaps some more green whiskey.”
On the way home, after burgers, lackluster pitching by both teams, middling offense by Henry Aaron and Davey Johnson, and a confused discussion about who was driving home, I brought up Nadia.
“What are you doing with that Bulgarian girl?” I asked.
“Nadia? I expect we’ll marry and settle down somewhere. Grosse Pointe, maybe. Or someplace near Princeton.”
“Stoney, she may be underage. You could get in trouble over this.” He frowned and thought and thought about it. He was remarkably coherent for someone who’d consumed enough alcohol to kill you and me both.
He shook his head. “No, no. She was very clear on this point. She’s nineteen and enrolled in some junior college down there.”
“Did it occur to you that she might be lying?”
“Why would she lie?” he asked.
“So you would buy her booze and have sex with her,” I said.
“I’d get her drunk and fuck her anyway,” said Stoney. “No need to lie for that.”
I decided to try a different tack. “Much of what you hear in bars isn’t true, at least in my experience,” I said. “Several pool players have told me they were All-State basketball players, in their prime. “Men who were five foot one. Six men in three different states have told me they know a woman whose maiden name was Fonda Beavers but whose married name was Fonda Cox.”
“That’s kinda funny,” said Stoney.
“But not at all true.”
“Yeah, well. Nadia’s this nice sweet country girl from south Georgia.”
“No, she’s not. She’s a gymnast from Bulgaria who grew too tall to compete.”
“I’m sure Colquitt is a nice place.”
“No, it’s not. It’s a wide spot in the road in Miller County, which is a slightly larger hole in the ground, although as farmland goes, it’s pretty. There’s nothing in Colquitt except a Baptist Church. The closest pool hall is in Donaldsonville, across the Georgia line. Colquitt is part of a very agricultural part of a pretty agricultural state, and its as much Alabama or Florida as Georgia.”
“Why are you so resistant to my dream of true love? She’s perfect in every way.”
“Because she drinks?”
“That is quite a turn-on,” he admitted. “And she’s very pretty. You have to admit that.” He was right, I guess. He wasn’t, say, in Melissa’s league, but she was cute.
“Pretty girls are good. But Stoney, she wasn’t just throwing herself at you, she was hurling herself at you like Mike Marshall throwing to Rod Carew.”
“Rod Carew is at Minnesota. He won’t ever face Mike Marshall,” said Stoney.
“And my larger point was …” I asked.
“That Nadia was easy?” he asked.
“Very good,” I said.
“Well, we don’t know that yet, do we?’ he said. “She certainly seems … cooperative, and engaging, but many girls seem … cooperative and then turn out not to be so,” he said.
“So your position is that she threw herself at you but might now withhold?”
“It’s certainly happened before. Once I dictated Fermat’s last theorem to this tall, hot math major and then I never heard from her again.”
And you thought that dictating a theorem to a woman would somehow engage her libido?”
“I did. Bu now that I hear it put that way, I see my approach lacked finesse.”
“And were you drunk, high, tripping, or otherwise loaded?” He frowned for a few minutes.
“That’s a very complicated question,” he said. “But I remember blacking out shortly after finishing the theorem, so the answer is more than likely ‘yes.’”
“I hear that girls are not keen on this,” I said.
“Why not?”
“They like company.”
“Well, fuck, I gave her Fermat’s last theorem,” he said. “Isn’t that worth something?” He nodded to himself several times. “You know, that Nadia, she’s really hot,” he said.
“I think she’s underage, Stoney,” I said.
“No, no. You worry too much,” he answered. “Why are you driving? This is my car.”
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