Mary Hendrix smiled as she warmed the glass of white wine in the palm of her hand. With the other hand, her long spider fingers traced the glass’s edge. Her painted blue eyes rose. Frank Sinatra crooned one of his standards, “The Lady is a Tramp,” from speakers hidden in the ceiling of the bar. She raised her glass to her lips and took a sip. A smudge of lipstick lay on the glass like a stain. Why does Sinatra make me feel like I belong in bars?
“The first drink of the day,” she said with a smile. An old joke. The bartender looked up. Long threadlike hairs fell over his eyes. He hadn’t been listening. My God, he is ugly. Mary glanced around the small narrow room. She could have sworn there had been another customer in the place. Perhaps they’d gone downstairs to the washroom. Strange how people keep disappearing. It was one of the signs of alcoholism, she’d read somewhere. Thinking people around you were disappearing. Short-term memory loss. That’s what Hank had said, and wouldn’t he know.
“That’s quite an accomplishment,” Jack said with a laugh, the gaps in his teeth stained with cigarette smoke.
Mary nodded toward the bartender, accepting his accolades. He had been listening after all. Mary liked Jack. Everyone liked Jack. He never seemed to rub anyone the wrong way. But then, wasn’t that what made a good bartender? And Jack never made advances toward Mary. It was a relief to be able to talk to a man and not feel he wanted to sleep with her.
And it was comforting that he wasn’t attractive. You don’t want to sleep with your bartender. You can always find a lover. A good bartender is hard to find. Mary laughed to herself. Wasn’t that another sign? The bartender looked at her, waiting to hear what she found amusing.
“Well, it’s almost three o’clock, Jack.” I wonder if it’s started to rain?
“That’s better than yesterday. Two thirty. Everything in baby steps, Jack.
Got to wean myself off this stuff one drink at a time. Inside two weeks 3
I’ll be stone sober. Doesn’t do no good to go cold turkey. Just increases the appetite. That’s the trouble with all these diets people go on. Crash diets followed by binges. I lost twenty pounds, Jack. And how did I do it? Baby steps. And I’ve kept that weight off.” Mary slid off the stool and modeled for Jack. Jack smiled appreciat-ively. Mary laughed and climbed back on her stool. Still got my looks.
“They say it’s going to rain,” Jack said with a smile, cleaning a glass.
Jack was always polishing glasses.
“First the waistline. Then the drinking. Cigarettes will be next. One battle at a time.” Mary smiled, taking another sip of wine. Did he say I still had my looks?
“Slow at the office today?” Jack asked.
“Mr. Brennan don’t mind if I leave a little early on Friday. I mean, I’m in there six days a week. We got this new girl to look after the phones.
She spends a lot of time talking to her boyfriend, but I don’t say nothing.
The more incompetent she is, the more I’ll be appreciated.” Jack shook his head. “You’ve got all the angles covered, Mary.”
“You better believe it.” Mary nodded and laughed heartily, a smoker’s laugh with a cough added periodically for parenthesis.
“Brennan likes me.” Mary took out a cigarette. Jack grabbed a lighter from beneath the bar and lit her up. Mary liked that. She looked at Jack from beneath the first smoke of her cigarette. She wondered for a moment about Jack and shook her head. You can always find a man, but a good bartender is a real diamond.
“A lot of men like you, Mary.” Jack placed the polished glass daintily on a shelf. He took his rag and polished the bar.
“I know what men like.” She smiled, tapping her cigarette on the edge of an ashtray. The cigarette dangled like an acrobat in Mary’s fingers.
“And it isn’t a long list.”
“You still got your looks,” Jack said with a smile, shaking his head.
“You seen my kid in here lately?” she asked. Mary was always keeping tabs on Terry. He wasn’t going to be like his father. You can put that in the bank.
“You know I don’t serve minors,” Jack replied.
“I’ll let that one pass,” Mary looked around the bar, swinging slowly around on her stool. Deep in the corner, one of Jack’s regulars nursed a beer as he watched a tennis match on the television. How had she missed him? Did he just come in or had he been there all along? What about the one that had gone downstairs? Maybe he had left. The front door of the bar opened and a flood of light poured into the darkened tavern. Mary 4 shielded her eyes. Every time someone entered the bar it was like having your picture taken with a flash camera. Mary smiled.
“Who’s that?” Mary asked.
The Hole
Jack set the scotch down in front of the officer who laid his hat on the bar.
“Tough day?” Mary smiled from several stools away. She’d seen the cop before. He was a regular, though the two of them had not exchanged more than pleasantries. Jack had told her he was a cop, but even without a uniform Mary could tell. There was the cut of his hair, and the shoes he wore, and the cheap suit, and the way he always scanned the place when he took a seat at the bar. Tall and lean. I fancy that type. There was a nobil-ity about the officer’s face.
The detective smiled politely and downed his scotch. Jack took a bottle of Red Cap out of the cooler under the bar and snapped it open, pouring half its content into a glass and setting the glass and bottle in front of the police officer.
“I thought I was having a near death experience when you opened the door and all that afternoon light poured in.” Mary laughed and added as explanation, “Walking toward the light.” Near death experience.
The officer nodded with a smile, then took a long sip of the beer. He never looks at me. It’s like I don’t exist. Would it be such an effort to glance my way? Other cops look. I’m not a bad-looking woman. And they’d laugh at Jack’s stories. He never laughs.
Jack was a great storyteller. If a customer told Jack about something that had happened to them, that tale became Jack’s story for the day. It was as if his whole life was a collage of other people’s experiences. The week before, Jack had told a real wild tale to one of the rookies on the force. The rookie swallowed every word Jack uttered. I almost died laughing.
“The white light at the end of the dark tunnel,” Mary repeated-then wished she hadn’t. “People say that’s what you see when you’re dying.
Like the escalator at the airport. Don’t believe any of that myself. When you’re dead, you’re dead. No heaven, no hell, just a lot of nothing.” Mary swept the long blonde hair away from her eyes with her long painted fingers. Lauren Bacall, they used to call me.
“You’re not religious, Mary?” The detective furrowed his eyebrows impatiently.
He knows my name. That surprised Mary. Jack must have told him. He must have asked.
“Nothing against religion, Detective. I was baptized myself but I just can’t see that there is anything else. You do what you can in this life and then you’re gone, swatted off the planet like a mosquito on your arm.”
“I went up to the Mackenzie farm,” the detective said to Jack, ignoring Mary’s remark.
“Joe Mackenzie?” Mary asked. Wonder if he’s married.
The detective nodded.
“Up by Echo Valley?” Jack added. “I thought they closed the place down. Passed there the other day and it looked boarded up.”
“Nope. Still occupied. They’re letting old Joe live out his last days there. Hydro bought it off the Mackenzies years ago but they had some kind of agreement with the old man about letting Joe live out his days.
Joe’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer but looks to me like he pulled one over on the commission. Free rent for life.” The detective and the bartender shared a laugh.
“Joe Mackenzie,” Mary declared. “I went to school with Joe. He was in grade eight, a couple years older than the rest of the class. Nice-looking fellow. He had a scar on his left cheek. Something he picked up from his old man. The father was always whacking those kids around. I was in his younger sister’s class. Joe was pretty smart. Everybody said so. Just didn’t take to school.”
“Police business?” Jack asked.
The detective nodded, glancing over at Mary, expecting her to add something.
“Joe’s complaining that his neighbors have been dumping garbage down his well.”
The bartender wiped the surface of the bar. “A well? Doesn’t Joe have running water?”
The officer nodded. “Doesn’t use the well for water. I’m surprised that the city hasn’t forced Joe to fill it in.”
“Didn’t Joe get married?” Mary asked.
“Don’t you remember?” The bartender turned to Mary. “His wife disappeared about ten years ago. Folks figured she ran off with someone.
She was pretty wild as I recall. One of the Hare sisters. She’d been sleeping around on Joe ever since they tied the knot. Used to come in here when I first started, came on to any pair of trousers that walked in the door. Nice figure. Loved to dance. Put a dime in the jukebox and ask 6 anyone who was available to dance. Women like that are asking for trouble.”
“Nancy Hare?” Mary asked. Women like what?
“June, her name was June,” Jack replied, then turned back to the detective. “So people are throwing garbage in Joe’s well. Why the hell would they do that to Joe?”
“Joe said they’ve been doing it for months. Started during the garbage strike last winter. I checked out the well. You’d expect it to be overflow-ing with garbage, but I couldn’t find anything.”
“No garbage?” Jack asked.
The detective shook his head.
“There wasn’t even the smell of garbage,” the officer continued.
“Maybe Joe’s lost whatever marbles he had,” Jack suggested. “Just looking for attention. Pretty lonely up there all by yourself.”
“That’s what I figured,” the detective said, rubbing the side of his nose with his finger. “But Joe was insistent. I took a stone and dropped it down the well. Figured to hear a splash, or a thud if the well was dry.”
“And?” Mary asked.
The detective shrugged. “There wasn’t anything.”
“What do you mean, there wasn’t anything?” An ash dropped off the end of Mary’s cigarette.
“Silence,” the officer replied.
“It would have to be one hell of a deep well if you can’t hear a rock hit the bottom.” Jack slid Mary’s ashtray closer to her cigarette.
“I asked Joe how deep the well was. Joe didn’t know. Said his father hadn’t dug the well, that it had always been there. Joe couldn’t recall if there had ever been any water in it.”
Mary ground her cigarette out in the ashtray.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Mary said. “You don’t dig a well if there’s no water.”
“I asked Joe why his father didn’t fill the well in if there wasn’t any water.”
Jack nodded as he reached over to light Mary’s fresh cigarette.
The detective smiled. “Joe told me his father had tried to fill the well in but after several days of trying and no discernible change, he gave up.
He figured the well was too deep.”
Mary smiled. “I remember June Hare. She got knocked up in grade seven. Haven’t thought about her in years. Funny how that happens.
Someone in your past whom you could never remember suddenly pops 7 up in your head. Makes you wonder what else is hidden in your head.
Like the memories of a life you’ve clean forgotten.” Assassins
Detective Kelly toured the walls of Joe Mackenzie’s kitchen. The walls were papered with newspaper clippings that had long since yellowed or faded. Some clippings overlapped others with no design or recognizable pattern. The detective stepped up to the wall and read one particular article, a description of two assassins, identified as Puerto Rican nationalists who had attempted to murder President Truman. Didn’t even know there were such things as Puerto Rican nationalists. Another clipping announced that Pope Pius XII had declared the Assumption of Mary as Roman Catholic dogma. All this nonsense about Mary ascending into heaven. People just don’t disappear off the face of the planet.
“Pa thought we should be up on our current events,” Joe Mackenzie said as he placed two coffees on the kitchen table. Joe was a small man with a few wisps of hair on a bald head. There was a faint scar on his cheek. A black stain filled in the gap between his teeth.
“Who’s that a picture of?” Detective Kelly asked.
“William Faulkner,” Joe responded, then added, “You take sugar?” Kelly nodded. Looks like a bank teller. “Is he important?”
“He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950,” Joe replied.
Kelly smiled. He’d been led to believe that Joe was retarded. He’d been misled. Didn’t that blonde in the bar say that Joe was smart?
“No, 1949,” Joe corrected. “Bertrand Russell won in 1950, although I don’t know why a physicist would win in literature. Have you read The Sound and The Fury?”
“No,” the detective responded, taking a seat at the table. Everything looks familiar-like I’ve been here before.
“I could lend you a copy,” Joe offered.
Kelly shook his head. The last novel the detective had read had been in high school. He couldn’t remember anything about the book except its title- Mr. Blue. Solve the homeless problem by having people live on rooftops.
Wasn’t that Mr. Blue’s great insight? The suicide rate would soar.
Joe added, “I’ve got a pretty good library upstairs if you’d like to browse around. Dickens, the Bronte sisters, Thomas Hardy, Camus. You should read Crime and Punishment. Right up your aisle.”
“I’m not much of a reader,” Kelly confessed. “Maybe you could give me a tour some other time.”
“I guess solving the mystery of disappearing garbage isn’t exactly what you hoped for.” Joe spoke so softly that the detective found himself leaning over the table to hear.
“What do you mean?” Kelly asked.
“The crowning achievement of a long career,” Joe explained. “I heard you were retiring.”
The detective nodded.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t offer you something with a bigger bang,” Joe added.
“No one goes out with a bang.” The detective smiled. Everyone wants to make my life more interesting.
Joe smiled uncomfortably as if he had touched a nerve with the officer and regretted it.
“So how deep is it?” Joe asked.
Didn’t the blonde say something about a younger sister?
The detective looked past Joe at the wall behind him. He’d seen walls like it in 52 Division when there was a big murder case going on. He’d never worked on a big case.
Joe smiled. “Pa used to quiz us every week on the new clippings. He was a self-taught man. Didn’t think too much of the educational system.
Said it produced morons and lawyers. Some say there’s not much to choose between the two.”
The detective laughed.
“Do you know a woman named Mary Hendrix?” he asked.
“Should I?”
“She knew your wife.” Did she say that? Or was it something about a sister?
Joe rubbed his finger across his nose. He’s going to lie, Kelly thought.
“Possible,” Joe responded. “June had a lot of friends before we were married. Can’t remember anyone named Mary Hendrix.” The detective wondered if he should mention the unwanted pregnancy. Perhaps Joe had never been told. Must have been years before he knew her.
“What did she say about June?”
The detective tapped his finger on the table. It caught Joe’s attention.
“Said she didn’t like school.”
Joe laughed. “That sounds like June. She hated books. I think the house tortured her. She told me that books were a collection of lies and wishful thinking. June believed in reality. She liked to have a good time.
June was unfaithful. I didn’t like it but not much I could do about it.
Maybe it was my fault. Never had any ambition. Never wanted to become anything. June wanted me to become rich. You ever feel guilty for being yourself?”
“Can I ask another question?” Kelly ignored Joe’s inquest. Don’t get sidetracked. Don’t let someone else set the table.
Joe nodded.
“It strikes me as odd that you have all these electrical outlets, lights, and appliances. So why are we using a Coleman lantern to light up the room?”
“I like the smell.”
“Do you have a television?”
Joe shook his head. “No radio or toaster. Hooked my refrigerator up to a battery when I could no longer buy ice. Got nothing against technology. Just don’t see why we have to keep changing it.” Joe took a sip of his coffee. “Tell me about my well.”
“I lowered a rope down the hole,” Kelly began. “I had about a hundred feet. Didn’t reach the bottom. I’ll have to get some more rope but there’s no telling if the line hasn’t just curled up on the bottom without me knowing.” Left the rope out by the well. Got to remember to get it back.
“Wouldn’t the line go slack if you’d reached the bottom?”
“Possibly,” the officer answered. Of course he’s right. The blonde was right. Joe is no moron.
“There’s got to be a bottom,” Joe said.
Kelly stirred his coffee. “Doesn’t it bother you, Joe, that you have a hole next to your house that is that deep? Aren’t you afraid of falling in it?”
“Pa built the brick wall around it to keep us kids away. I think he called it a well to alleviate our fears. We got used to it being there. He used to tell us that the night sky was also a hole. If you look up at it, it goes on forever. Pa never saw much use in space flight. ‘Going to the moon,’ he used to say. ‘Might as well throw money down a hole.’ The hole did bother June. She’d have nightmares about something crawling out of it. ‘The gates to hell,’ she used to say. June had a hell of an imagination. Talked about shadow people. Ever heard of them, Detective?” Kelly shook his head.
“June saw figures around the house in the shadows. Not people, but blobs that resembled humans.”
“Teenagers,” the detective suggested.
Joe nodded. “That’s what I told her. Always after me to move.
Wouldn’t stay home alone. Scared her to be here by herself. Maybe that’s 10 why she ran off. I guess I should have moved, but she married me when I was living here and I figured that was part of the bargain. And I had all these books. I could never bring myself to pack them up in boxes. They were like children.”
“Did you have children?”
Joe took a sip of coffee then reached over to the cupboard and pulled out a bottle of brandy. He poured a few drops into his coffee and offered some to Kelly. The detective accepted. Joe reached behind him and grabbed a cup for the officer.
“Two kids.” Joe passed the cup to Kelly. “One of each. The boy was as smart as a whip. The girl was slow, but quite a beauty, like her mother.
She took them with her when she left. June never wanted kids but she took them. Never had much use for them while she was living here. Let them run wild. Maybe she was too young for kids and I was too old. I miss them. June wasn’t a happy woman, Officer. She was miserable when she married me and I guess I wasn’t the type to cure her of that.
You got any kids, Detective?”
Kelly shook his head.
“Can you stop my neighbors from dumping their garbage into my well?” Joe asked.
“Yes, I think so. It might be easier if we put a lid on the hole though.”
“I tried that,” Joe responded. “Teenagers took it off. June said it was the shadow people.”
“I mean seal it permanently,” Kelly suggested.
Joe finished his coffee. “Permanently?”
“Well, we could try to fill it in,” Kelly said. “But if it’s as deep as it seems that could be quite an expense and I’m not sure the city would pay for it. But they might go for a cap if I can prove that it’s dangerous.” Joe leaned across the table and smiled.
“I know that this is going to seem rather odd,” Joe said, “but I’ve become attached to that hole. It’s like an old friend. After June left with the kids, I used to go out in the evening and sit beside it, smoke a cigarette and talk to it. It was like an ear for me. It’s the closest thing to church that I’ve ever had.”
“But it’s a hole, Joe,” Kelly responded. “It isn’t anything at all.” Joe laughed. “If you think about it, it isn’t even that.” The Apple Tree
Joe Mackenzie didn’t see the giant at first. Afterward he wondered how he could have missed him. Joe had never seen a human that large in his life. He thought his boyhood friend Jack Funk had been big, but Funk would have been dwarfed by the creature. The giant was standing by the apple tree, his head in among the branches, eating an apple.
“I hope you don’t mind,” the giant said. “It was on top of the tree and I figured you’d never get to it. If you want, I’ll pay you for it. Delicious apples.”
“That’s all right.” Joe stepped off his porch and walked toward the stranger.
“There used to be huge orchards in this area,” the giant said.
“Developers cut them down when they started building these homes.
Paradise lost. It’s a crime.”
“Is there something I can do for you?” Joe asked.
“Just out for a walk,” the giant responded. “Getting a lay of the land.
Any place around here a fellow could get a drink?” Joe mentioned the Zig Zag and gave the giant directions toward the Six Points Plaza. The giant began to move down the long lane that led away from Joe’s house. He turned.
“You ever hear of a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses who disappeared in these parts?” the giant asked.
Joe shook his head.
The rough beast nodded, turned, and slouched toward the Six Points.