Tending Bar
A tall tale of flirtation and fanaticism
Too wet to swim, too steamy for tennis, and the futbol fun is done. It’s the dog days here in the South, but fine reading and writing weather. Hope you enjoy this short-short fiction that grew out of a true-ish story I heard, well, somewhere.
“Which Wal-Mart?” asks my favorite bartender. He’s tough, troubled, keeps it close to the chest. “The one near that fancy car wash?”
“Bingo,” I say. It’s late afternoon. The place is empty save for an elderly couple in the back, their plates heaped with boiled vegetables. “I was parked in the last row. Nice and shady.”
“Oh, sure. Up under those elms in that big ass lot, couple football fields wide?”
“Yes!” I answer, though he didn’t ask. He smiles and I blush a little, tug at the hem of my skirt. He goes by Jimbo, which seems about right. I should mention he’s one-handed, my bartender, though you’d hardly notice. He flips up a glass, chucks in ice, pours and shakes, all with that one good hand.
“Anyways, it was a Saturday afternoon,” I go on. “July hot, wall-to-wall people, and this guy skids his pick-up into the spot beside me. He jumps out, opens his door, bumps mine so hard the car shakes. Big brawny guy, hard eyes …”
I pause to catch Jimbo’s gaze.
“And he’s wearing a horsehair shirt,” I add.
“Horsehair?” Jimbo wrings out the sponge, wipes down the bar in a single smooth motion. A starburst scar peeks out from under his collar. “What even is horsehair?”
“Right, I looked it up. It’s clothing made from the actual hair of a horse. Mane or tail, apparently, is most common.” I struggle not to wink, take a swig of wine. “So, the guy shuts his door. I climb out and give him a look. Get nada back. He’s wearing jeans, the horsehair, work boots if memory serves. He opens his tailgate and a length of wood bounces out and hits him in the chest, maybe a two by four? He slides it on out, and that’s when I noticed the crosspiece, a third of the way down.”
“Hot damn.” Jimbo’s eyes shine, a flawless blue. “You’re not telling me …”
“Yep. ‘Long and hard is the road to salvation!’ Guy howls it out. He’s facing the lot now and every head turns. Then he hefts that crosspiece over his shoulders and drapes his forearms over it. Thick arms, lined with scratches like maybe that cross was built using untreated pine? I got a good whiff of that pulpy, new wood smell.”
Jimbo chuckles, shakes out olives from a jar.
“So the guy puffs up his chest like he’s ready for a fight, then drags the cross clear across to the cart pen, that one right near the curb? Then he gets down on his knees and weeps, loud and sloppy. All I can think is the asphalt’s so hot he must be branding those knees.”
“Jesus H Christ.”
“For sure, bet that’s what he’s thinking, too. He glances up—he’s got a crowd now—and hoists the cross, marches back to his truck, and loads it in.”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that!” I throw out my arms. My stool swivels off-kilter.
“Come on now.” Jimbo narrows his eyes. “You said something about his hand?”
“Oh right.” A line of sweat runs along my hairline. I lace my fingers around my glass. “It’s pretty damn weird how I happened to witness, so to speak, all that at the Wal-Mart. Cause get this: My ex, he’s a surgeon, remember? Ortho. So he’s on-call last weekend and a man marches into the E.R. with his wrist—minus the hand mind you—wrapped in a bloody dishtowel.”
“Son of a bitch.” Jimbo’s cheek twitches, nose to ear. “Pardon my French.”
“No problem. Table-saw injury, and really the guy was lucky, or so says my ex. His wife managed to bring the hand along. In a mini-Igloo.”
Jimbo does a little swoon, catches himself against the bar.
“Things went pretty well,” I say. “Considering.”
“What, exactly, went well?”
“The surgery.” I pop an almond in my mouth. “Full re-plant. The cut was clean, which helps. Bizarrely clean.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning too clean, or so says my ex.” I touch my chapped lip. It stings from the salt. “The nerves and tendons are usually a mess from where they jerk, trying to pull their hand away from the blade? Oh, and get this. The guy accused my ex of sewing in a chip. Under his skin.”
Suspicious silence. Creased brow. Maybe I’ve gone too far. After those ten years of wedded medicinal bliss, gruesome scenarios like this hardly bother me.
“I know, right?” I press my hand to my heart. “Claimed the government ordered every surgeon in the US of A to implant microchips. So’s they can keep track.”
“Holy shit,” says Jimbo.
A new customer sidles on to a stool. Jimbo smiles, pulls him a Guinness.
“Go on?”
“That’s about it. Except the guy tried to yank the hand off again.”
“You’re pulling my leg.” Heat rises in Jimbo’s face.
“Nope. Happened in recovery. Seems he had things all planned out, meaning he ran his forearm through that saw on purpose. And guess which Bible verse he kept reciting, you know, while still delirious?”
“I give.”
“Matthew 5:30. If your right hand causes you to sin …”
“… Cut it off and throw it away,” Jimbo chimes in, eyes narrowed. “So he fuckin’ did.” His lips set in a thin line, he stretches the fingers of his good hand over the smooth polished wood of the bar, flexes, makes a fist. “And this was the same guy, with the parking lot cross?”
“One and the same. The Wal-Mart road to Calvary. Got a little write-up in the paper last week.”
I pull my cell from my handbag, click on the last column of Section B in The Sentinel, and set it on the bar.
“Son of a damn bitch.”
Jimbo opens his fist and rubs his palm over his nub with something like affection.
“And yours?” I ask.
“Roadside bomb. Iraq.”
“Holy Mother.”
For one skinny moment, we lock eyes, his blue gaze steady. Then he shakes his head once and flips up a snifter.
I order another Cabernet, and lean in.
More please!