Signs of Struggle (12 page)

I walked up to the bar, every eye in the joint on me. I told Cher I’d like a beer. She was adorned in a short pink tank top without the benefit of an appropriate undergarment, and low-slung, greasy black jeans. Her belly was bare, and a color tattoo of a large, bloodshot eyeball surrounded her navel. Because of her lack of abdominal definition, the eye looked puffy and sore, as if it had been in a fight. I wondered if it would follow me around the room.

She shoved a cold bottle of Schlitz at me, no glass. I said, “Ah, my beverage of choice. You must be clairvoyant.”

“No, I ain’t,” she snapped, tilting her head back and running her hands through her hair. “This color’s natcherl.”

“Forgive me,” I said, taking the beer and giving her a fiver, which she kept. I realized that Shlop's reminded me of a bar I had frequented in the Philippines, when I was stationed Temporary Duty at Clark Air Base a long time ago. A rat had run across the bar then, spilling my beer into my lap. A friend grabbed the rat as it scampered by, bit off its head, spit it out, then threw the headless corpse of the rodent against the mirror behind the bar and snapped at the astonished barkeep, “You need to clean up this place!” I wished that same buddy were with me right now, but he had disappeared into Costa Rica ten years ago.

“Would you like a menu?” the silver-maned bartender asked sweetly. I nodded. She turned away.

I took a pull from the sweaty bottle and had barely swallowed when two of the men arose from their tables and approached. My heartbeat picked up.
You really are too old for this
, I reminded myself.

When the men reached me, one sat on the stool to my right, and the other took up residence immediately to my left. Each leaned a little toward me, crowding in. I felt like a Dodge Neon between a pair of gravel trucks.

“Evening, gentlemen. How ya doin’?” I asked.

The men said nothing. They just swished the beer around in their bottles and stared at me. They smelled bad and their breath was worse.

“You’re that new guy, ain’tcha?” the lady behind the bar said, handing me a menu and hooking her thumbs into the empty belt loops of her low riding jeans.

“At my age, how new could I be?” I smiled. They didn’t. Advantage, regular patrons. “My name’s Thomas O’Shea, Miss…?”

“Steele, with an ‘e’,” she said. “First name’s ‘Bunza’ with a ‘z’.”

“But her name ain’t none a your business, bub,” the land mass to my right said. He did not sound as if he were trying to get to know me or manifest, in any way, the gift of hospitality. In fact, I thought with some alarm, he sounded a little adversarial. I was becoming less joyful by the minute.

On the left, a voice from an old mine shaft, said, “What else you wanna know, slick?”

I took another slug of Schlitz, swallowed, not tasting it. “Actually, I was wondering if you could tell me where I could find Larry Soderstrom. He came over to my house this afternoon, but didn’t stay for the lovely English teatime I had prepared. I was wondering if I had done something wrong, of if he feared a lack of marmalade for the crumpets.”

“You ought not be askin’ questions ‘bout Larry,” Mineshaft said.

“So, where can I find him?”

“That’s your last question for the evenin’,” the man on the right said, drawing himself up and turning slowly toward me.

Ever the wiseass, I said, “Wanna bet?” and it began.

M
ineshaft grabbed my shoulder, spinning me so that we were facing each other. Figuring his move wasn’t preparation for a hug, I called on dormant skills to bail me out.

I grabbed the neck of my own beer and backhanded the bottle across the nose of the landmass behind me. Shards of glass and beer bounced off the man's face as he yelped in pain and surprise. He slipped halfway off his stool, spurting blood from his broken nose and his eyebrows. He moaned and brought both hands to his face. This took maybe two seconds.

I ducked and grabbed the long neck of my victim’s bottle, still on the bar, and brought it down as hard as I could, tomahawk style, on the bleeding man’s forehead. The bottle exploded in beerspray and bloodsplatter. Sometimes they don’t break, especially if they have beer in them. It’s not like in the movies.

He dropped to the floor, loose-limbed and slack, as if his muscles had gone liquid. The fallen man’s pal clamped onto me from behind in a sweaty, smelly bear hug, pinning my arms to my sides. I snapped my head back to pop him in the nose, but the man’s face was buried in my back above the shoulder blades. Mineshaft grunted, his breath bad enough to divert a comet. I wondered about his stamina. Instant power, yes; continued power, maybe not. I felt elated over being able to even up the sides so quickly, at the same time wondering if the establishment’s habitués would provide them reinforcements.

I twisted hard to my left to try to break free. My lower left arm was now pressed against Mineshaft’s soft, fat abdomen, so I could rotate my hand against the flab until I acquired a significant grip on the biker’s future offspring. Then I did my best to make jelly of his jujubes.

The bearhugger, head buried between my shoulders, screamed something unintelligible, but he did not let go. He did let up a little. Why the man continued with his approach, I will never know, but his resolve chipped away at my confidence. Was I dealing with some kind of mutant? The need for the biker to escape my grip was obvious, but he did not make any attempt.

Why do people loop poisonous snakes around their necks, tease sharks from flimsy aluminum cages, and goad 400-pound tigers in zoos? My best guess is stupidity. I squeezed again, focusing all my strength into my left hand, determined to overcome stupidity with agony. It had to work. And it did.

The man’s grunts shifted into a truly impressive single-note shriek, which reached an altitude that, frankly, surprised me, not to mention the patrons of Shlop’s Roadhouse. Mineshaft let go and doubled over, covering his crotch with both hands. This, of course, left me free to retaliate. In anger, I might add.

I took his head in both my hands to steady him, pulled down hard, and brought my knee up into his face. I let go as I connected, allowing him to drop to the floor as his friend had, helplessly woozy.

Fueled with righteous indignation, I considered challenging anyone else in the place to come forward, but wisdom overcame adrenalin. I was breathing hard, and I felt ashamed about it, but did not notice anyone who looked ready to tease me about being out of shape. I leaned against the bar and said, “Bunza, may I have another bottle of Schlitz, please?”

No one moved. No one laughed. They went back to whatever they had been doing before the battle. Just another night at Shlop’s?

Miss Steele silently pushed toward me the menu already on the bar, a laminated and folded sheet with a cover displaying a smaller version of the motorcycle momma road sign. Apparently the publicist for Shlop's Roadhouse was up to speed on the importance of consistency in advertising.

I opened the menu. Shlop's offered barbequed beef, pork and chicken; burgers; fried fish; chicken fingers; buffalo wings; fries; pizza with a variety of toppings; fried cheese; chili, and a plethora of additional treats, mostly fried. Shlop's also offered domestic and imported beers, soft drinks, and wine coolers.

“Surprised, ain’tcha?” Bunza said, smiling.

“Yes,” I said, shaking off the beads of beer scattered across the menu. “I thought people just knew what you had, and then ordered.”

“Most do, but you’re a newby. What’ll it be, then?”

I heard a noise behind me, glanced back at the two breathing throw rugs.

“They won’t bother you again. Shlop don’t allow no fightin’ in here.”

“So, what was that that I just experienced?”

“Well, there are exceptions, but that there you had was more of a tussle, not a real fight. Normally, Bob and Ray are fine. I don’t know what got into ‘em. Most fightin’ goes on outside or down the end of the road by the dumpsters, and they know it. I expect them to just get up and leave soon’s they able. Crystal!” Bunza shouted. I jumped a foot, the decibel level of her voice capable of penetrating Cheyenne Mountain during an alert. And from such a petite thing, too.

A girl emerged, skinny, early twenties with no hips or confidence, but well-scrubbed with intelligent eyes peering out from under her sprayed-in-place carbon-black hair. She looked like one of the group home kids Karen and I once worked with in western North Carolina, only older, abused and neglected, smacked around and ridiculed, dropped out and skill-free and ready to take on the world, and not all that surprised, just sullen and bitter, when the world defeated them, taking away their dreams of a double-wide, a Trans Am, and a satellite dish all financed by minimum wage lifetime jobs.

“Clean up the mess, willya, hon?” Bunza said sweetly, her voice soft and pleasant in direct contrast to the phlegm-lifting shout from mere seconds earlier.

Crystal nodded and left and returned with a broom, a dustpan, and several big, heavy rags, which took care of the majority of the mess. She disappeared and appeared again with a damp mop that completed the job after she rolled each of the groaning men a couple of rotations away from their point of impact. The floor that resulted from Crystal’s efforts was several shades lighter than the floor around it.

“Now she’s going to have to mop the whole thing at quitting time, just to make it all the same shade,” I said.

“You got that right, cutie,” said Bunza. “But that’s okay, because we ain’t done the whole floor since Reagan was president.”

At that point, Landmass sat up on the floor, one leg straight out in front of him, the other bent at the knee. He was hugging the bent knee. Then he touched his face and felt the blood and looked at his shirt and looked at his hand and then glanced around until he saw me. There was no fight in his face, only swelling and blood and little pieces of glass. There was, however, sudden recollection, and fear.

He rolled to his hands and knees, grunting, staggered to his feet one leg at a time, keeping an eye on me as if I were going to whale into him again. He lurched over to his friend and began dragging Mineshaft out of the bar, backing his way out until they disappeared through the army blanket.

“Now what will it be?” Bunza asked, wiggling her eyebrows in a manner that I feared was intended to be seductive.

I glanced around Shlop's while I considered my order. Maybe Larry would show up. I looked back at Bunza and ordered fried mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers with fries. And another beer.

“No charge on the Schlitz,” Bunza said, “on account of environmental issues for which we accept limited responsibility.” She smiled sweetly, then turned and shouted through the half-door that led to the kitchen, “Ordera fried sticks and hendigits, Max!”

She turned back to me. “Anything else?”

“Hendigits?”

She looked sheepish and just shrugged her shoulders in response. “Shlop's word.”

I said, “Bunza, do you know where I could find Larry Soderstrom? Does he come in here? If he does, are there any nights in particular that one could count on him appearing? Where does he live if I can’t find him elsewhere?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“I have a thirst for knowledge.”

“You talk funny, too.”

“A symptom of the aforementioned affliction.”

Bunza laughed and shook her head, arching her back. Her nipples strained against her pink tank top like living Binkies. I averted my gaze after I’d seen enough. She said, “Any other questions?”

“You haven’t answered my first batch.” Outside, the reverb of a big bike cranked up and then another engine throbbed into life. Faint, shouted threats followed, then revving of engines, followed by fading motorcycle noise.

Bunza said, “When I have all your questions, I’ll think about ’em and answer those what I can.”

“Two last questions before you make your selections,” I said. “Who is ‘Shlop’? And, is ‘Bunza Steele’ your real name?”

She squealed with delight, rolled her eyes and clapped her hands and I, ever victim to her vocal stimuli, jumped again. I could not get any more used to her fortissimo than I could grow comfy with a taser going off in my Fruit of the Looms.

“I
knew
you’d ask me that question!” she chortled in triumph. “Everbuddy does.”

She placed her hands palms down in front of her on the bar as if to calm herself. “My birth name was ‘Brandy Steele’ with an ‘e,’ but after I got older and bigger and I got into workin’ out, Shlop said I should legally change my name to ‘Bunza’ Steele, because they are. See?” Stepping back from the bar, she turned around. Over her shoulder she said, “I’m wearin’ a thong so’s not to break up the picture.”

Her slick Levi’s were as one with her epidermis. Bunza looked over her shoulder at me and moved from one foot to the other, allowing the opportunity to see how a butt changes shape. She then stood flat-footed, feet a little apart, and flexed her gluteus maximus
en extremis
. They truly appeared to be buns of steel, or at least reinforced aluminum.

“So,” she said happily, turning around to face me, “Shlop got his lawyer to change my name, and he did it ‘pro boner,’ which means ‘for free,’ and that should answer one of your questions, shouldn’t it?” She looked very pleased with herself, and I wondered how many times she had gone through her routine for others. Not that I was jealous.

“My name change was done so I would have somethin’ unique when I start rasslin’ pro, with Shlop as my manager, of course.”

“Of course.”

“I’ve been pumpin’ iron and Shlop's been showin’ me some holds, and when I save up enough, I’ll be going down to Atlanta to rasslin’ school to get me goin’. Also,” she said, acting as coy as her profession, environment, and appearance would allow, “I might be goin’ to medical school to be a brain surgeon. Shlop says that women what use their figures in the entertainment industry sell more tickets if they’re
intellectural
,” she said, emphasizing the word she pronounced imperfectly to prove that she was. “That’s why strippers who go to law school get more Franklins pushed into their panties.”

Properly educated, I breathed deeply, relieved when my order showed up on the cook’s counter. Bunza fetched it and brought it over. It actually looked well prepared. I began to eat.

I dipped a mozzarella stick into the little bowl of sauce and took a bite. It was good. Greasy. Bunza said, “I don’t know where Larry lives, but he comes in here several nights in a row, sometimes by hisself, sometimes with his friends, and sometimes with some of the wildest-lookin’ women I ever seen.”

She leaned over the bar in a confidential pose when she told me about the women. When she tipped forward she displayed a cleavage that might have led to another name change, but after a quick glance downward, I gritted my teeth and made eye contact.

“So, when was the last time he was here?” I asked.