Drinking With the Locals

After spreading Anne’s ashes, Angela and I stayed another night on Cape Cod before returning to Boston. We stopped for dinner in Salem, Massachusetts (at least I think it was Salem. I wasn’t very coherent at the time) and met some very friendly folks.

I don’t remember the name of the restaurant but it was in a two-storied wood-framed building that overlooked the bay. Angela and I went upstairs to a room that featured a large picture window affording a wonderful view of the boats moored in the marina. The bar wrapped around in a 360 degree oval and was manned by a friendly waiter that introduced himself as Matt. Affable darkness draped the room with comforting shadows.

At least twenty-five feet long, the bar was expansive enough to seat fifty patrons. It was nearly empty but we weren’t alone. I ordered a Sam Adams when Matt asked us what we wanted.

“I don’t usually drink beer but I think I might like one tonight,” Angela said. “Do you have a suggestion, Matthew?”

Angela is an attractive woman and she instantly enamored Matt with the flash of her eyes and tone of her voice. “Why don’t I let you taste some samples,” he said.

Matt, a slender young man with wavy brown hair was youthful enough to be Angela’s son. It didn’t matter because Angela exercises, watches what she eats and usually passes as someone at least twenty years younger than she is. In addition to her youthful good looks and expressive eyes, she has the wonderful resonating voice of a radio talk show host (which she was at the time).

Matt proceeded to open a selection of different beers and then pour small samples into shot glasses. Angela sipped each proffered selection, turning her nose up at all of them. Matt didn’t seem to mind. He just kept smiling and pouring. She finally decided on a glass of chardonnay instead of beer.

Matt gave me what she didn’t drink and I was soon feeling eerily loose. Never at a loss for words, I asked, “Where is everybody?”

“We don’t get many tourists after Labor Day,” the man across the bar answered.

“We’re not from around here but we’re not tourists,” I said, already tipsy enough to explain our mission on the Cape to the stranger.

The couple introduced themselves as Beth and Dutch. After my story, they became immediately friendlier. “I could tell by your accent that you aren’t from here,” Beth said.

At first glance the couple looked to be in their fifties but the timbre of their voices suggested they were both much older, Beth’s well coiffed and bouffant hair popular during a decade past. I had the notion that her highlighted brown tresses had cost a bundle at an expensive salon and the big diamond on her finger did nothing to belie my observation. She was shoe-horned into a low-cut slinky black dress that went perfectly with expensive accessory jewelry adorning her slender bod. I couldn’t see her legs but imagined she was wearing black, fishnet stockings.

Dutch’s hair was also perfect – maybe a bit too perfect. The diamond encrusted Rolex on his wrist clashed with his diamond pinkie ring. The cut of his handmade shirt indicated wealth and my fiction author’s mind surmised he could have attended Harvard with the Kennedy’s.

“Born in Louisiana,” I told her, “But I’ve lived in Oklahoma so long now that I call it home.”

Jay and Linda were sitting to the left of us. A burly man with dark wavy hair, Jay had a small tattoo visible beneath the sleeve of his flowered Hawaiian shirt. He looked younger than he probably was because Linda’s hair had gone totally gray. Their shorts revealed athletic legs that likely took many long walks along the beach.

“I was in Louisiana during Vietnam,” Jay said. “Fort Polk.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Basic training,” he explained without being asked. “I was on my way to Nam but blew out a knee. They sent me home after that.

“Where in Oklahoma are you from?” the man sitting to the right of Angela asked.

“Oklahoma City,” I told him, along with a brief description of my past twenty years.

His name was Ray, his wife’s Sandra. They were also garbed in shorts, and matching tee shirts featuring a procession of ships sailing into New York harbor. The caption said “Tall Ships.” They were drinking draw beers and eating bowls of chowder. Ray had a Wyatt Earp moustache that drooped to his chin. Sandra was a pretty blonde whose blue eyes twinkled when she smiled, even in the interminable darkness of the bar.

Matt had implanted himself in front of Angela, his elbows on the bar and his chin resting in the palms of his hand as he hung on every word she uttered.

“This is wonderful,” she said. “The view is gorgeous. I wish I lived here.”

“It’s hell until after Labor Day,” Dutch said. “We rarely get out during tourist season.”

The three couples had lived in Salem their entire lives. They knew each other and all hated tourists. Angela and I dined on lobster thermidor, drank more beer and wine than either of us needed, and continued to kibbutz with the locals. Before the evening ended, it seemed as if we had known each other all our lives. I invited them to visit me in Oklahoma and they asked Angela and me to call them next time we were in the area. Finally, it was time to leave.

Matt held Angela’s hand, beseeching her to stay until he got off work.

“I’m married,” she said, showing him her wedding ring.

I have never returned to Salem since that night and Angela now lives in California. Still, I’m grateful to the wonderful folks we met in the bar that night because they momentarily took my mind off Anne’s passing.

Driving as if unimpaired, Angela returned us to Boston. I sat in moody silence, battling without success as aching melancholy crept slowly back into my soul.

Fiction South