Chapter 26 - Part 1
First, I want to apologize for taking so long to resume posting. That's been due to some urgent personal issues that have come up (including but not limited to my car dying and illnesses in the family), but also to the fact that this is a transitional chapter that was unusually difficult for me to write. Most of the chapters in this part of the story have taken unusually long, as these are the ones where I don’t have a rough draft to work from. Not everyone in this scene will play a major role in Ennis' life later on, but they'll all have their roles and input.
The next few chapters are already partially written, so they WILL be posted soon and a summary of the previous chapters is at http://talkstocoyotes.livejournal.com/8106.html And to the readers who wrote to ask -- yes, Ennis' and David's relationship is about to change, though there will be some roadblocks along the way.
Canal Park was just across the Aerial Bridge, as was Grandma’s Saloon; which stood close enough to it for patrons sitting at a window to read the names of the larger boats passing by. Much of the old industrial neighborhood matched Ennis’ vague growing-up impressions of big cities: dank and neglected streets lined with buildings not designed for beauty when new and now surrounded by litter and fragments of brick, mortar and broken glass; and with the blind look that buildings with empty or boarded-up windows always have. But on other streets David had pointed out signs of recovery: roofs and windows being replaced, a few new-looking signs on formerly anonymous buildings, a row of flower pots in an open second-floor window, their bright red flowers like ribbons in the hair of a convalescent. “It’s gonna be a good neighborhood one day,” David had said. “When I first moved here, you coulda built a whole fleet of cars outta parts from all the junked ones lying around.”
Ennis had dropped Maggie off at Grandma’s Saloon a few times but had never gone in, and was immediately smacked with an arresting chorus of noise and scents: the rattling of dishes and cutlery, a vaguely musical tinkling of glasses, scents of frying meat, hot bread and onions and a rising and falling cacophony of human voices in full Friday-afternoon form.
The combination bar and dining room reminded him somewhat of the artful clutter in Maggie’s apartment, with things hung up as decorations that seemed outlandishly out of place. Wooden rolling pins, ladles, wooden spoons, even parts of an old meat grinder hung from one wall while another was covered with framed newspaper articles, yellowish and gray photographs of men with handlebar mustaches and corseted women with stiffly coiffed hair, and old advertisements proclaiming the virtues of Satin Skin Cream, Badger Pure Barley Malt Extract and Emilia Garcia Havana cigars. Several naked and oddly quizzical-looking dolls perched at the edge of the suspended platform over the bar, flanked by old chairs, a butter churn and an old yarn winding wheel.
Maggie hurried up to them as soon as they entered. “Hey, Doctor D, over here!” Like the other workers she was dressed in jeans and tee shirt, and with the addition of a pair of colorful suspenders. She led them over to a table near the bank of windows overlooking the Aerial Bridge, “You remember Sam,” she said, setting a bottle of beer in front of him. Ennis greeted him with ”Evenin,” getting an amiable grunt in reply, and David introduced the other man at the table as Jeff Friedman, the tenant who leased out the back of the store for snowmobile repairs. In his late 20s, Jeff was the exact physical opposite from Sam: somewhat shorter and with unruly dark hair that curled around a face with a broad nose and sharp features.
David pulled out his chair with an emphatic thump and pretended to collapse into it. “It’s been a long day, Maggie, we’re hungry. What’ll you have, Ennis?”
“Whatever you’re havin ‘ll be okay.”
“Two Godfathers then, and a few bottles of Bud.” He turned toward Jeff. “So, how’re you takin up your time now summer’s here?”
“Got some work ‘way up the shore, close to Grand Marais,” Jeff answered. “Buddy of mine got me a part-time job with his old man, they repair jetskis, an’ some ATVs too. This is the first I’ve been down here in a month.”
“Yeah?” The pitch of David’s voice slid upward. “You’re still around tomorrow, stop by the store.”
“Actually I did, about an hour ago. Kelly was just lockin’ up, she said you’d left early. And a guy showed up right after I did - said his name was Vic. He was a little surprised you weren’t there.”
David looked startled. “Vic? That’s my silent partner in Des Moines, owns about one-fourth interest. He’d said he’d be in town next week.”
“Yeah, he mentioned that, said somethin else came up for next week. Kelly told us you’d be headin’ over here, he said he’d catch you later. The store’s in good shape,” Jeff added. “You got it organized good, lotsa new stock too.”
David glanced over toward Ennis and smiled. “Well, I got good help this year.”
“You’ll see plenty of me in August ‘n’ September - that’s when snowmobilers start to make plans,” Jeff commented to Ennis. “Around here, the winters are so long ‘n’ cold a lotta people just figure they can’t beat it so they might as well get out ‘n’ join it. But David told me you’re from Wyoming,” he added. “You must get some winter tourists.” Ennis nodded without commenting. He’d long been mystified at the annual migration of people to places like Jackson Hole, eager for frostbite and the annual addition to their collections of broken bones.
“Reinforcements!” Maggie set down two bottles and pushed a basket of chips and two smaller bowls of “Top The Tater” dip toward the center of the table. “You came in at just the right time, my break just started.” She sat down next to Sam and beamed at Ennis in a way that made him think fleetingly of a fond aunt. “Ennis is already a real Minnesotan,” she told Jeff. “He’s been swimming in the Lake since last month. Didn’t think anything of it, and me ‘n’ Doctor D woulda thought he’d be wearing blocks of ice for shoes by the time he got in the house.” Jeff swallowed the latest mouthful of a large hamburger. “You goin swimming by yourself? Better be careful - Superior’s real bad for rip tides.”
“Already know about that,” Ennis answered, rather enjoying Maggie’s look of surprise. On his beach walks he’d become intrigued with the multicolored, water-polished pebbles locally referred to as “Lake Superior seashells,” filling up a tall glass he kept on the windowsill in his room. The contents glowing in early-morning light appealed to a nature that reacted to intense color in much the same way that many people react to music. He’d been standing in icy water halfway to his knees, scooping up pebbles in the transparent water and sorting through them to keep only the brightest ones when “this old guy came out yellin,” he told Jeff. “I thought he was mad ‘cause I was on his beach but he went on an’ on about swimming by myself. Started talkin about rip tides, told me ta stay outa the water if I saw smooth spots on waves.”
“That guy two doors down? Oh, that’s Mr. Bailey,” Maggie put in. “His wife was still alive when we moved here, we useta see her once in awhile. Me and Doctor D went to the funeral when she died, first time we’d ever spoken to him actually. Hardly ever seen him since then, he never was too friendly.” “Wasn’t friendly exactly,” was all Ennis answered, but he was feeling more at ease than he’d expected. The music, clothes and food were different than at the Black and Blue Eagle Bar but the clink and clatter of glasses, the tangled fragments of conversation lurching around them and the atmosphere of nervous conviviality were the same.
“Dave says you’ve always worked on ranches,” Jeff commented. “Do ya miss it? This must be quite a change for ya.”
“Well, it’s hard work, ain’t always like the movies. Sometimes I gotta spend a whole afternoon doin things like castratin calves.” The grimaces this produced from Maggie and Jeff, though not Sam, were comically identical to the look on Cassie’s face when she’d waylaid him with ‘so, Ennis del Mar, what do you do?’ “But yeah, I miss bein outdoors, and I miss my horses.”
“You got your own horses?”
“I rode one of ‘em. Sincie and Ace, right, Ennis?” David put in. Ennis only nodded but was a little surprised that David had saved this small detail.
“Well,” Sam offered. “My work takes me up to Clover Valley sometimes. That’s part of Duluth, northeast part of town, but it’s still pretty country, most of their roads up there aren’t even paved yet. I know at least one place where they got stables, I can see if they’ll rent you a couple.”
Ennis felt a slight disquiet at the casual assumption that he and David did everything together, but Sam’s mention of his work made him remember something he was still wondering about. “Say, you know if there’s any kinda wild cats near the beach?”
“Minnesota Point, you mean? We get calls about bobcats every once in awhile, you seeing ‘em out there?”
“Little bigger’n a bobcat.” Ennis described what he’d seen on the Park Point trail, and Sam thought for a moment, looking puzzled. “Say you saw a tag on it?”
“Can’t be sure, it looked like somethin metal. Brass, maybe, or copper.”
Sam shook his head. “I’ll see if I c’n find out. Don’t know of anyplace around here usin pet tags like that, they’re usually plain old aluminum.”
“Maybe somebody was keepin’ a wild animal, like a lynx and it got loose,” Jeff suggested. “No matter what it is, there’s always some damfool who’ll buy it.”
Feeling her eyes on him, Ennis glanced up at Maggie and wondered why she was looking at him with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. Seeing him looking back at her, she smiled briefly and looked away; and he would have wondered about her reaction if a new voice nearby hadn’t called “David! Andrea told me you’d be here.”
David got up and shook hands with the man who’d just joined them. “Sorry I missed ya, Vic.” He glanced quickly around the table, giving Ennis an almost-imperceptible smile, and for a brief but unmistakable moment Ennis felt as if he’d been brought home to meet the family. “You know Maggie an’ Jeff, he just said he saw you at the store… and this here’s Sam Madsen, he’s a friend of Maggie’s. This is Vic Broncato, Ennis - he’s the silent partner I told ya about.”
Vic was a large man, still solid and muscular although with the kind of build that would descend into fat in a few years. But he was still good-looking enough for a few women at nearby tables to notice him as he passed: dark hair that was still thick, though slowly retreating in two estuaries on either side of his forehead. His broad nose and jaw, and prominent pale blue eyes, defined a face whose features were just oversized enough to give him a slightly pugnacious look. He pulled out a chair with an emphatic scrape and sat down across from Ennis.
“You haven’t been up here in awhile, let me get you a drink - still with bourbon an soda?” He was standing beside the back of Vic’s chair, leaning over just enough to look at the other man directly. It was the kind of smooth movement Ennis was now used to seeing, suddenly in the role of attentive host and managing to give the impression that the newcomer’s getting the right drink was of utmost importance at the moment but without a touch of servility. The dancing shoes were back on, despite the damp spots on his shirt and his still-ruffled hair. “Hey, that’s what I’m here for, Doctor D,” Maggie protested, without making a move to get up. David waved her back, pretending that she had. “You’re on your break, Maggie, make the most of it.”
Vic glanced at David’s half-finished bottle of beer. “David being from the South, you’d think I’d ‘ve converted him to bourbon by now,” he said affably. “Um,” Ennis answered, “Doc likes beer better’n whiskey. An wine better’n beer.”
Vic looked at Ennis a little too long, eyes narrowing just slightly before they flickered downward from the other man’s face and back up again in a quick, appraising look. It was not a leering glance and even less a seductive one; and Ennis wasn’t sure what startled him more: the implication in the other man’s look or the fact it didn’t surprise him more than it did.
“I stopped by Andrea’s office, she was busy with a client but she said she might come by too. Had you met her?”
“No, but Doc told me about her, lawyer or somethin’.”
“That’s right,” Maggie put in. “She helped with all that paperwork stuff with the house, and the business too.”
“We go back a long way,” Vic continued. “I’ve lived in Des Moines a long time but I useta know her in Minneapolis years ago, I had a job with an engineering company there before I started my own business.”
“Water management,” Maggie remarked to Sam. “Get him talkin’ shop and you won’t understand one in ten words.”
Vic glanced out toward the Lake, and Ennis noticed a number of grayish clouds that had moved onto the horizon since they’d arrived at the restaurant. “Hard to imagine living here, but we’re gonna be hearing about water shortages more and more. I don’t expect to be hurting for business. Sorry I missed you and Dave but I’ll be by the store tomorrow.”
Ennis knew that Vic had put up much of the money for the store and the improvements David had made to it. “We’d been real busy lately, but things got quiet this afternoon so Doc figured we’d take a break. Been short a help too, with Jonathan out sick.”
Vic’s mouth twitched in a distasteful expression. “Well, I don’t envy you, havin to put up with that flamer every day. Can’t stand to be around him.”
Ennis wondered for a moment if his earlier impression had been illusory. “Hunh? He makes me mad sometimes.” Damn it, Jonathan, don’t call me ‘honey’…. “But Doc told me he’s had a pretty hard time of it, even his folks beat him up bad.”
Vic’s shoulders and eyebrows both went up slightly. “Well, that isn’t surprising is it? Dave told me you grew up on a ranch, I didn’t but my grandparents, my mom’s folks, they had a farm down in Missouri. So I know even animals cull out the weak ones in the litter, and I’ll bet you saw your dad drown more than one litter of kittens. Don’t get me wrong,” he added hastily, glancing toward the others. “I’m not for beatin’ up on anybody. But if men don’t act like men, what can you expect?”
Ennis thought of Jack, a man who acted like a man, and wondered what Vic would have said about his last hour of life. Another memory almost surfaced before being yanked back below the horizon: an unforgiving wall against his back, water dripping from a ceiling that wasn’t water and wasn’t coming from the ceiling but his own sweat trickling down his back; a split-second glimpse of something swinging in a punishing arc toward him: a belt, a fragment of a board or just a broad calloused hand: I don’t think you heard too good…. He almost saw a white flash in front of his eyes, like the reflection of an explosion, and the same kind of fearless anger at the other man’s casual, dismissive tone. It was the same feeling he’d had in the Black and Blue Eagle Bar, but in this setting trying to punch Vic out was not an option; and this seized his attention fully enough that he jumped when he heard David’s voice behind him.
“Jonathan is a good worker, Vic.” Resuming his seat, David slid a glassful of pale amber liquid and jostling ice cubes across the table. He didn’t sound angry but his voice had a flat, just-business tone that Ennis had heard him use a few times when dealing with irrationally quarrelsome customers. “I sent you one o’ my quarterly reports just last week, I don’t think you’ve got any cause for complaint.”
Vic raised both his hands slightly, palm out. “No complaints, Dave. From what I saw this afternoon the store’s in good shape, and who you hire is your business.” He gave Ennis the same just-between-us smile and dropped his voice slightly. “It’s just that guys like that - well, they do make it harder for the rest of us.” He was leaning forward slightly, nodding for emphasis and there was no physical resemblance to any of them but Joe Aguirre, Jack’s father and his own flitted through Ennis' mind. So queers have their stud ducks too.