I kept looking up and down the bar for someone missing a hand, but I guess that’s a little on the nose. Maybe I’m just taking way too much pleasure in this.
Nothing happens here. So last night was a scream.
Sheriff Wilson was in … and John, too … John looked white as hell. The two of them were huddled at the end of the bar – I couldn’t hear what they were saying, it was too loud … which in and of itself was a scream.
I can’t stop saying “scream.”
Everyone was skittish … God, even Madam McMurtry was still sucking it down at 9, into her fourth Cosmo. She’s usually a day-drinker … doesn’t like to be spotted in public, and really doesn’t like John, so when I saw her in the back of the room that late observing the same huddle I had been tracking … well, it was just a shock, that’s all.
I’ve come to rely on John for information around here. He’s a regular, two drafts and out. He’s new, but he knows things, I think he’s a city guy. Sometimes he’ll order a salad or nachos. He’s not tense like other reporters, though.
My dad’s bar back in the city was a standing stop for politicos and media types and I remember them as being all hyper, working the room, shaking hands, whispering, leaning in to talk to whomever, but keeping one hand on the bar rail so they didn’t lose position. Such a damned game … Checking boxes in their head … talk to city councilman, check, talk to the budget director, check … I mean, how could they not go into a bar called the Printing Press?
John wasn’t like that. He was pretty down to Earth, so seeing him holed up with the Sheriff for that long was … unusual. I never thought he cared enough to fraternize. Probably why he’s here and not at my dad’s bar.
This place is simpler. No “see and be seen” scene here. I called it Riverside – because it is. On the side of the river. The lazy side, I might add, and walking distance to Ms. McMurtry’s mansion on River Road … and all the others down the block who were more than happy to replace their 3PM coffee run with a 3PM chardonnay. Or two.
John was the first paying customer I had after signing the papers. A single draft … Yingling. I still have the picture on my phone … somewhere … I’ll get it to you somehow … the receipt’s on the wall.
Madam McMurtry was the second customer. She told her son, Max, and he told his golfing buddy, Steve, who told his wife, Sherry, who called to reserve a table for seven that first week for her Book Club-slash-excuse-to-day-drink. That crew dropped $500 that day, sucked down 10 bottles of Bully Hill and bought the rest of the case at full markup along with appetizers and salads. I forget what book they were there to discuss, and I’ve a feeling they do too …
After that first week, it settled in to about 10 regulars and a pretty hefty lunch crowd. Cecil, the cook, is fabulous – just out of culinary school in Philadelphia. He was a find. Homesickness can be powerful, and he had it in spades. The city just plain freaked him out – I don’t know how else to describe it. All I know is I can’t pay him what he’s worth but he walks in every day with a smile on his face … that and he makes a killer grilled salmon.
His parents were pissed … I mean, what parent wouldn’t be? You send your kid off to a top-notch culinary school – CULINARY school!, not some weekend dumb-ass course in cooking vegan … CULINARY school! – and he decides to come back to Backwater Smallville and make food in a bar. Mind you, we don’t serve bar food – no, he’s created a fabulous menu – it even impressed the food critic from The New York Times who was vacationing here a few months back. His parents have been in a few times, and I comped them just to try and ease things for him a bit, but they’ve never said word one to me.
Anyway, back to the night on hand.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
When Wilson took his leave, I tried pumping Johnny a bit for details, but even a free draft – his third – didn’t loosen him up. He left when I offered the tequila shot. I think he was on to me.