While the detective novel is going through its edits, you're invited to take a look at a short story from my collection ''Still life in the Rear-View Mirror.''
Friday at the Hotel Bar
Mike Benton knew that so far, it had been a bad
day. He just hoped, and prayed, that it wasn't a sign of things to come.
He really had prayed. From his long-ago
Catholic childhood he remembered the prayer to the Virgin Mary. And he wasn't
being a smartass when he began saying, "Hell, Mary, full of grace, the
lord is with you... ." He wasn't aware of his slip-up. It was just a
reflection of his mood.
He had just been to see where he would be
working, the job he took sight unseen, the agreement to take the job a verbal
handshake over the phone. What he saw left him shaken. Then he went to the bar
of the hotel, at least the only hotel he could find, that had a sign that said
'bar', and to be honest, after an hour or so in town, he really didn't know
where he was going. But he knew it was late in the afternoon, his wife and baby
boy were at the hotel taking a long, late nap, and there wasn't any reason to
go wake them up.
So he stepped into the bar, attached to hotel
that looked like a set for a bad ’70s Western. It had that late afternoon look
to it, not quite open, not quite busy, the walls, a blond-colored paneling,
faded and probably sticky to the touch, the floor, linoleum with Olympic-sized
cracks, whole chunks missing, and the tables and chairs, well, the tables and
chairs that shit-brown color and in a state that indicated they were at least
secondhand when they found their way here.
There were fluorescent lights on the
ceiling but they weren't turned on. That moment usually came at closing time. A
huge swath of late afternoon sun was catching four or five panes of dirty glass
and it was amazing at how well lit the room was because of it. There looked
what appeared to be heavy velour curtains that, at some point, would be drawn
shut. Beyond the far curtain, a funny shade of black with a brown tint, was a
small stage, probably big enough for four band mates, but definitely crowded if
there was a fifth.
A bartender and a couple of old-timers at
the other end of the bar were the only other people in the place. The old-timers
took no notice of Mike, who sat on a stool and ordered the first beer he recognized.
Not being from those parts, the beers had different names. When the beer
arrived, the bartender put the beer in front of him and then returned to his
post in the middle of the bar, half listening to the old timers, half thinking
to himself. A short man with wavy brown hair that looked suspiciously like it
was dyed that color, the bartender didn't once look at Mike again until Mike
asked for another beer. The first beer had taken a painfully slow 15 minutes to
drink. A reformed smoker, Mike had nothing to do with his hands except flip
over matchbooks and coasters. It was one of three reasons why he didn't go into
bars anymore. The second and third reasons were asleep in a motel three blocks
away.
+
