The faded wooden walls of the bar exuded the aroma of a pile of seaweed washed up on shore and allowed to dry in the sun, only to be reconstituted by the piss of a vagrant
alcoholic. On the west wall there was a large rectangle stained glass window; dusty and nicotine stained, still letting in chunks of prismatic red, blue and yellow. Behind the massive wood bar was a counter cluttered with the year’s bills, tabs, invoices, and miscellaneous paperwork. The wall of mirrors along the back counter reflected the dinginess of the bar and the patrons themselves.
The patrons inside didn’t notice Celeste as she waved good-bye to the man in the maroon Ford Escape Hybrid. No one flinched as she pushed her petite stature through the cumbersome redwood front door. Clicking on five inch heels across the uneven floorboards, she came to perch on a barstool next to Scurvy Ivan. She winked at him attempting a perky gesture through mascara thick eyelashes. It still smarted though the plum- purple circle around her eye had faded to a greenish-yellow.
“I’d be delighted,” said Scurvy Ivan when the slender Latina asked if she could take the empty stool next to him.
“Aren’t you kind,” said Celeste and turned his direction. His bulky body was covered in Levi, from his jeans to his jacket over the faded red flannel. His rubber boots were crusted with now dried bits of once gooey fish; the soles resembled dangerously bald tires. A navy blue beanie sat upon a salt and peppered wad of sweat matted curls. His face was dusted with the white whiskers of a five-o-clock shadow, sprinkled atop deeply tanned skin. She took a long look at his face waiting to catch his eye. His gaze remained straight ahead only darting to catch snippets of her eyes scanning him.
She hooked her heels on the rung of the stool, anchoring herself in place and ordered a strawberry Pucker with milk.
“I’ll get that, Jimmy,” said Scurvy Ivan and pointed to his stack of cash lying on the bar.
“Do you make a good living crabbing?” said Celeste.
“It ebbs and flows,” he said and laughed a chuckle deep inside his barrel chest.
“You are funny,” Celeste said and introduced herself, shaking his catcher’s mitt of a hand.
He smelled the same perfume on Celeste as he’d smelled on the most popular girl in high school. The teen girl’s long hair brushed across his flannel sleeve and as she passed he was left to linger in the intoxicating aroma of strawberry shakes and lilac bushes. Sitting in Jimmy Dunn’s bar he was a helpless fish strung between two times in life; one thirty-some years ago, the other in the immediate soft glow of the suns setting rays filtering through the stained glass window.
Customers came and went, all the while Celeste and Scurvy Ivan stayed, and stayed. Celeste had seen him in the bar many times when the other fishermen were in for drinks to ease the pain of the solitary lives they led on the sea. He would play pool against some of the young Yurok Indian men that worked in the fish canneries, but he mostly kept to himself. He’d mostly sit staring at the news as it squawked from the t.v.’s. She felt as if she was let into an exclusive club that only the president knew the criteria to enter.
By the time “last call” was bellowed their way, ten hours had flown by and they were in a tight embrace after sharing one of many lingering kisses. Scurvy Ivan was no longer averting his eyes, he was staring intently at her as he asked her to marry him. He wound Scotch tape around the band of his ruby class ring and slipped it onto her finger. They’d decided then and there they’d head out to sea on his modest fishing boat to return to Celeste’s fishing village in the Gulf of Mexico. The night and the next morning would be the only thing between them and their future.
Scurvy Ivan returned to Jimmy Dunn’s at precisely 3 o’clock; the predetermined time. When 4 o’clock came and went he began to feel a bit queasy.
Returning to old habits, he turned and fixed his eyes on the 5 o’clock news. The top story bared a gruesome find. An early morning jogger had seen her arm dangling from under a dumpster lid and said that the glint from a ruby ring had caught her eye. The news anchor noted the woman had a history of drug charges and was a known prostitute.
Scurvy Ivan numbly slid from his stool and turned toward the heavy front door.
“Where you going?” called Jimmy.
“To get my wife. I’m taking her home to her family in Mexico,” he said sliding his beanie from his sweat drenched hair, and crammed it into his Levi’s back pocket.
Written by: Fawn Rich, January 2010
