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

Karmic Highway

I never believed my wife Anne would lose her battle with cancer but she must have had an inkling. “Cremate me and spread my ashes on that beach I liked so much on Cape Cod.” Five or so months after she died, I flew to Boston to do just that.

My Cousin Angela and her then husband Bob accompanied me to Cape Cod. They had a vacation cottage on John’s Pond and we spent the night there, spreading her ashes the following day. Bob had to return to Boston but Angela and I stayed at the cottage.

“There’s a very good movie playing at the theatre. It’s gotten great reviews and I think we should see it. It will take our minds off everything.”

I wasn’t up for a movie but I decided to go anyway because I really wasn’t up for anything. The movie was called Smoke Signals and those of you that saw the movie will probably know where I’m going with this story.

The movie received many accolades and was the first film ever created totally by Native Americans. Two young men live on a reservation in Idaho. The drunken, abusive father of one of the men has just died in Phoenix, Arizona and the two heroes set out to return his ashes and belongings to the Rez. Both men are conflicted by their relationships with the older man and the trip becomes a journey of self discovery.

I won’t ruin the movie for everyone because it is worth seeing. The final scene was unexpected and traumatic for me. The two young men stopped at a river the father always admired. Standing on the rustic bridge, they dumped his ashes into the water. I can not begin to tell you how the scene affected me.

One of the stages of grief is denial and yes, my mind had latched on firmly to that particular stage and was refusing to let go. As the father’s ashes wafted off the bridge and into the rapidly moving water, the sledgehammer of realization crashed unexpectedly into the back of my head. I began to sob like a baby and I couldn’t shut up, even though every person in the darkened theatre turned to see what fool was causing such an embarrassing scene.

I’m positive that my poor cousin Angela had no idea what was about to occur. Even though the mother of two, she had no frame of reference to deal with the blubbering man beside her. She patted my hand but I know she’d have rather taken a quick trip to the ladies room.

I finally got a grip, just as the credits began scrolling across the screen. Grabbing Angela’s wrist, I said, “I’m not leaving here until everyone is gone.” We finally hurried out of the theatre, my face red with both tears and embarrassment.

Even today, I can’t explain the coincidence of having spread Anne’s ashes the same day I saw the movie Smoke Signals, but I know that it jolted me out of denial and into yet another stage of grief. When tragedy hits you upside the head it often leaves you dazed and mired for months in a muddy ditch beside your life’s path. Like me, you’ll remain there until something quite unexpected happens – like seeing Smoke Signals - and propels you, once again, down life’s karmic highway.

Louisiana Mystery Writer