NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Lou is subdued, slouched in his chair. We sit behind the H Bar’s bow window. The thunder storm pours off a broken gutter above. The torrent spreads and flattens on the big main pane, smudging points of red and green light flashing from emergency vehicles on Maxwell Avenue beyond the parking lot.
Lou glances at his phone and goes on watching the light show.
“Notice how quiet it is at home without the leaf blowers?”
“One of rain’s many benefits.”
It is getting so dark we see through our reflection in the window as we also see outside.
“Would have just gotten out of Church about now.”
“It’s past noon.”
“I have let all that go.” He slouches further down in his chair.
Mostly anyway.”
“Hi, my name is Oscar. May I bring you gentlemen another beer?”
The waiter bends toward Lou. His black hair is shaved on the sides, longer and spikey with mousse on top. He picks up our empties from the coffee table between our chairs and lingers for an answer. Lou is diverted from the view outside.
“Sure, and I’ll have a burger and fries with all the trimmings.”
“Make that two, please.”
“Right away!”
The waiter attends to a party arriving behind us.
“He better take time to cook ‘em!”
“A little steak tartare, Lou?”
“Raw meat! Not in the burger we’ll get here.”
“No reason to change our weekly lunch menu, even if it is Sunday rather than Wednesday!”
Lou raises himself and holds up his glass.
“The H Bar! My church!”
“Our temple to fermentation.”
“Vargas Llosa’s Cathedral.”
“I still haven’t read it.”
“You’ve had my copy of Conversations in the Catherdralfor years.”
“I know just where it is gathering dust, too.”
“Better hang on to it, Fred.”
“You notice, it was quiet up to now in here.”
“Time to chat and think …”
Lou swills the last of his amber pleasure.
“and a little of this elixir to help us along.”
Lark Bunlush walks over holding up a hand in silent greeting and smiling from beneath her deep hood of her purple rain cape. Augie joins us in matching rain cape. Lark pushes her hood back repeatedly but the fabric resists and slowly falls forward over her forehead. Augie, a foot taller, grabs the top of her hood and pulls the cape off over her head and drapes it on the back of a chair with his own. Before sitting down, Lark puts her arm around Lou’s neck and whispers in his ear and he turns to her.
“Thank you, Lark.”
“I saw it on Facebook this morning.”
“Yeah, the anniversary is marked. Haven’t looked on there for a while.”
“Veterans day, Armistice Day, whatever it’s called, it just past.”
Lou’s glasses have slipped down his nose.
“Yeah, Anna, my young marine …. Remembrance Day isn’t it?”
“I seem to remember it was Karabilah, wasn’t it?”
“Eight years ago, today, Fred …‘Operation: Steel Curtain.’”
Lark pulls her chair next to Lou.
“Anna did her duty to the country. To our country. Is it still ours?”
She looks at Augie. “I feel it has been heisted.”
Augie shakes his head.
“Well, is that anything new?”
“Heisted from my hopes, from our hopes, I feel safe to say.”
“Oh, I know what you mean, but beware of hype and Facebook and click bate and….”
Her head bent to the left, Lark spindles a strand of gray in the thick black hair falling like a curtain down the side of her face.
“Right Lou, and nonstop data gathering.”
“Of course, I have gathered my share, too.’
“Sorry, Lou, I mean…”
“Okay Lark, that business is on such a scale now. It isn’t what it seemed then.”
“They know a lot about us, alright.”
Augie leans forward with a gesture of his big hand.
“Fred, Edward Bernays, pointed out back in 1928 that most of us are unaware of our own motives.”
“Meaning?”
“Our motives Fred, behind buying or voting.”
“Much the same thing, but isn’t that now well known?”
“Right, motivation is notoriously complicated.”
“Well then?”
“So, we can also be manipulated by PR. Think of ‘Make America Great Again.’”
Lou is roused and pushes his glasses back up his nose.
“Rose-tinted nostalgia!”
“There you are, Lou, pluck a petal, savor the scent, and buy!”
“Right Augie, and so called, ‘social media’ can make it so personal.”
“Fred, you look skeptical”
“No Lark, no. Who is Bernays?
“He was Freud’s nephew.”
“Oh yes, he married a Bernays.”
Augie, shapes his phrases in the air with his hands.
“Bernays is one of the first ‘influencers’ as we call them now.”
“Oh, the ones who keep us all believing!”
“And believing so many different things, Augie!”
Lou looks at the ceiling.
“My daughter believed.”
“In our country, you mean, Lou?”
“Well, whatever I call it now will sound half baked, because she was full of idealism and I can’t find any.”
He searches his lap.
“Yes, we have been talking it over for years.”
“I admire the woman, Fred, but….”
Lou looks out side again.
“Then again, the girl, my daughter, that is the painful part ….”
He sinks back in his chair.
“Sometimes I hear the old hymns in my head, you know. Get that old religious feeling. You know, Alan Jackson did a TV special the other night, seemed like he sang them all.”
“He has such an easy voice!”
“Are you a fan, Lark?”
“No, Country isn’t my thing, Lou, but I do like his gentle effortless voice.”
“The old minister told me when I was back home, ‘Don’t hate god’, and also, ‘God never sends us more than we can bear.’ Or something like that.”
“What does that mean?”
Lou’s bristly eyebrows meet in a frown and entangle the gold frames of his glasses.
“Lark, it is intended to give one strength, but it makes me mad as hell, to tell you the truth.”
“You mean the gift idea?”
“Damn right, Augie.”
“You know, the loss is there, an emotional pit of hell. Calling that a gift… no, I call it loss. Let’s not kid ourselves!”
“Well, if you can’t accept loss, then there’s all that stuff.”
“I know, I know, I think it over and over, and it fades over time, unless something brings it all back!”
The waiter brings us two burgers buried in buns with a green frill of lettuce around the equator. His nose jewel sparkles above the right nostril. Fries spill off the plates as he puts them down.
“Sorry about that.”
“Not a problem!”
Lark grabs them.
“Got any ketchup?”
“Right away, ma’m.”
The waiter steps over to a vacant table and brings us a tomato shaped red plastic container with a green stalk on top.
“Just squeeze it. The stalk pours.”
Augie points at Lou’s plate.
“I’ll have a planet burger like that, with a ring of orbiting green, no onions and a coleslaw moon!”
“Ma’m, you want some fries of your own?”
“No, I’ll have a house salad and whatever I can steal.”
“Okay, that’s one burger, no onions, with a side of slaw, one salad and a get-out-of- jail-free for theft, right?”
“You got it, buddy!”
“Oh, and a draft for me and a cider for her.”
Oscar, acknowledges with a nod as flash of lightning illuminates his nasal rock.
Augie gives Lark a mock punch on the arm, as thunder rolls in.
“Politics is a good way to get out of jail free.”
“and a way to end up there, too.”
Lark picks up her vibrating phone from the table and waves it for emphasis.
“Don’t forget the power to pardon.”
Lou leans forward to eat.
“The pols all make much of serving our country.”
“Kind of an empty remark, really.”
Augie shows us emptiness with his palms up.
“Well, think of who gets served, Lou!”
“Yes, and they are all part of the country.”
Lou drops a shred of green from his chewing.
“Except those who aren’t.”
“Like who?”
“Russians, Chinese, Saudis, Israel, etc. Take your pick, take a look at the PR firms like Macadamia’s and their clientele.”
“My old customer, good ol’ Fibonacci Corporation, Augie!”
Mr. Hoffman walks over to greet Lou. A police suv pulls up outside as he introduces us. The lights flash into the room through the bow window, disco-like. We hear the revolving doors rumble and two officers rush in, dripping. Everyone looks up and Mr. Hoffman walks over. He brings them to the bar as they talk. He then climbs on top while the officers stand by in black, draped with their paraphernalia like utility poles.
“We have to clear the parking lot right away, folks. Please move your cars next door, to the Safeway lot. Officers are outside to direct you.”
“Did you drive, Lou?”
“No, I have my SnazE rainware hanging over there.”
He points toward the lobby where people are pushing through the revolving doors.
Augie goes to talk to one of the cops. A man with red beard shouts from near the doors.
“It’s the fucking terrorists, get out!”
Two women with long scarves smile at us and walk slowly to the door, covering their heads. People crowd into the lobby. Lark puts her phone in her bag and keeps the straps in hand.
“What is going on over there, Lou?”
“Just another storm, Lark. I have a meal to finish!”
“This has been the wettest year I can remember.”
He points at the crowd, a fry, red with ketchup, in hand.
More lighting comes through the rain like a nearby camera flash.
Some one shouts out, “There’s a gas leak out there, let’s get out of here!”
Mr. Hoffman has climbed on the bar again.
“Folks, there are….” Thunder rolls over his voice, so he stops and waits grinning at the few customers still unmoved. Lou has finished and sits back listening with arms folded.
“Okay, ah, Folks, there are no terrorists, no gas, just a downed tree and streetlight and live wire on the ground.”
The cops have stopped the beard, and we can see him talking to them outside under the awning.
Oscar brings Lark’s and Augies’ drinks.
“No biggie, folks. Hang in. Your order will be right up, okay?”
Lark stands to wave at Augie across the room.
“Are you closing, Oscar?”
“Mr. Hoffman’s on top of it. He won’t close.”
Augie returns to his seat.
“That jerk shouldn’t be shouting, ‘terror’ Lou.”
“He probably subscribes to various hysterical news feeds!”
“Fred, are you staying?”
“I am, Lark. Look there’s a big rig coming into the parking lot.”
“What?”
“Look out the window.”
Lou looks up at Lark.
“You all just relax. I have been watching for the past 90 minutes.”
