The Woman Hunched
Moths danced around the sign that sagged the roof of Whiskey’s All-Night Eats. Whiskey had made the sign years ago after learning how to wire neon from an ex-con in Memphis where Whiskey was stationed with the Marines. Even then, Whiskey knew his future. The sign was built to last. The roof not so much. Whiskey feared that rain would soon begin to leak into the sacred booth; the spot in his diner where Elvis and his boys sat after coming through in the middle of the night 50 years ago. Whiskey had been the only one there to see them. The next day he roped off the booth and yanked the toilet Elvis may have used and stored it in the back room under a shelf of tomato paste.
Everybody, especially the locals, respected the sacred booth – not because Elvis may have sat there, but because it was a shrine to the greatness that can come to ordinary life. In his weaker moments Whiskey wondered if it had really been Elvis or just some Elvis-loving wino. In the end, he decided to believe because belief is what a person needs most besides strong coffee and the love of a dog.
Whiskey stood behind the counter counting silverware and cursing tax law. Opposite him, a woman hunched stared down an empty coffee cup rearranging coffee grounds into The Milky Way.
Whiskey always let the woman stay as long as she wanted. He had known her since the trees outside his place were twigs. Besides, he was a dreamer himself, especially in the hours before the bakers came in. Whiskey had stared down many a coffee cup.
The screen door swung open. A tall, narrow man entered and slowly made his way to the counter. The woman paid no attention but Whiskey’s heart soared. It was The Pirate; the man who stopped in once a year on his way to Montreal for the annual “Ghost Dance” with his people whom he called, The Spirituals. He had been stopping at Whiskey’s for 10 years.
The tall man was a masterpiece in Whiskey’s eyes; 6 foot 10, covered in dust and tilted and wilted like there was no water left in him. The Pirate stood next to Grace. Whiskey had forgotten about his beef with tax law.
“Damn! You’re a sight!” Whiskey laughed.
The Pirate removed his hat and nodded at the back of Grace’s head.
“M’lady.”
He placed the hat on an empty stool. Grace looked up.
“Dark enough tonight,” The Pirate said, “…to have your legs stolen out from under you. Far too many miles, but I was determined to make it. Never disappoint ghosts. What have you done to the Lepidoptera? They’re positively out of their skulls. Do they have skulls?”
Whiskey placed a bottle of water on the counter. The Pirate put his finger tips on the cool.
“Stay long enough on the road and it’ll claim you,” The Pirate said to no one, “I used to think I was King of the Road. Imagine that? Youth. The road eventually takes your senses, splits your wonder like it was fire wood, rubs the shine right off your eyes. Things I never knew. Things we learn along the way.”
“Things we learn along the way,” Grace repeated, “Like how some people get cracked in a million places and still don’t die while others get knocked over by a breeze and, poof, they’re gone?”
“It’s just nature,” The Pirate noted.
“Mother Nature is no killer outright,” Whiskey interjected, “Can’t blame her, just like you can’t blame the wolf or the eagle or the mountain lion from doing what wolves, eagles and mountain lions do; what they’re born to do. Nature just does. It’s never personal.”
“Makes sense,” Grace nodded.
“Lou’s probably worrying about you,” Whiskey said.
“She knows where I am,” Grace mumbled.
The Pirate put a boot to the bottom rung of the stool.
“They fixed the road on the pass. Don’t seem the same now, like it’s lost a part of itself. Before, it was something an artist might paint, all cracked and weathered. Now it’s just a road.”
“I wanted to be an artist once,” Grace whispered, “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a bird artist. I saw birds differently. Still do.”
Whiskey laughed.
“Never too late.”
“When I was a boy,” the Pirate reflected, “I used to make pencil drawings of coy dogs. I was obsessed with them. I loved their music way up in those hills, the hills of my youth.”
Grace leaned towards The Pirate.
“I married a clown.”
The Pirate laughed.
“We all did.”
“No,” Whiskey said, tapping a knife on the counter, “She actually married a clown. Tootles!!”
The shine returned to The Pirate’s eyes.
“Tootles!” he shouted joyously, grabbing his hat, and waving it.
“You married Tootles?”
The Pirate squeezed the tip of his nose.
“Toot! Toot!”
Grace looked down.
“Fifty years.”
“That’s got to be what, 8, 9 in clown years?”
Everyone laughed.
“My kids loved Tootles.”
“You have kids?” Whiskey asked, “…a wife?”
“I didn’t know Tootles was from around here. The kids even got deputized. Tiny Toots. They were official. Got their certificates in the mail.”
“You were married?” Whiskey asked again.
“Twice. I owe my love of freedom to my exes. Never would’ve known I had it if I hadn’t been pushed off a cliff. Bird doesn’t know it can fly until it’s pushed, right?”
“I fly sometimes in my dreams,” Whiskey mused, “I was married once for a month. Thirty days.”
“Could have been worse, could’ve picked a month with 31,” The Pirate grinned, “You’re married to Elvis anyway.”
The Pirate turned towards the sacred booth.
“Has he showed you the toilet where he thinks The King may have drained his hose?”
Grace smiled.
“Have you ever seen a clown die…slow?”
The Pirate looked away, embarrassed.
“No.”
“It’s not pretty.”
“No, I suppose not.”
Whiskey wiped the counter, chuckled.
“I ate a mushroom once and thought I saw a giant clown. Turned
out to be the moon over a red tree. Scared the feathers out of me.”
Whiskey stared at The Pirate.
“Doesn’t seem like a year’s gone by.”
“Ghosts,” the Pirate, grinned, “They love their dance. The Spirituals. I can’t wait to see ‘em all. They’re tiny little folk you know. Not a one of them a whisker over 5 feet. You can pick me out from the window of an airplane.”
“My husband was a good man,” Grace said, “…for a clown.”
“I’m sure he was,” The Pirate acknowledged.
“He could light up a room, make a dying kid laugh from the belly. That ain’t easy.”
“No doubt.”
Whiskey lowered his head and scrubbed the sink.
“He could make me laugh,” Grace added, “That’s harder than teaching a bear to sing The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The Pirate rubbed his chin.
“The Spirituals, they’re not special. I mean everyone has a place I believe, a place where they can go and dance with their ghosts even if it’s just between their ears; a place where they can see all the beauty that came before them, before all the cracks. The Spirituals are no more special than anyone else.”
‘I like that,” Grace said, “I like the way you talk.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all a barrel of fun. Some would say a riot. Can they dance…and can they laugh! They love to laugh.”
“When we were kids,” Grace thought back, “…when my future husband was wooing me, he showed me his wooden dancing clown toy, the one on the end of the stick?”
“Flappy Feet!” the Pirate laughed.
“Yes, that’s the one. He made that toy dance, just for me. That was the night we fell in love. I still have it but I can’t make it do what he could.”
“No?”
“I tried, but for me it’s just an old piece of wood that’s lost all of its paint.”
“I’d love to see it sometime.”
Grace smiled and reached into a bag on the floor.
The Pirate smiled, “You have it with you?”
Grace proudly brought up the small wooden clown toy and snapped the stick in place on the clown’s back. The clown’s legs were on swivel hinges and one of its arms raised. It had indeed lost all its paint. She placed the clown in the Pirate’s hands. The Pirate, in turn, placed the clown on the counter, then walked behind the counter and crouched out of sight. Whiskey moved to one of the stools near Grace.
Within seconds, the wooden clown came to life, dancing a delightful jig that made Whiskey fear he might leak. Grace sat staring.
When the clown stopped dancing, Whiskey and Grace turned. To their shock, The Pirate was standing on the other side of the room, near the sacred booth.
Whiskey shook his head.
“I don’t want to know,” Grace giggled, “I just don’t.”
The Pirate laughed, clapped his hands then walked back.
“Marvelous toy!” he sang.
Whiskey looked sad.
“Do you think it was really him or did I just want it to be?”
“If you’re humble enough to ask,” the Pirate answered, “The King was here and left you a real gift.”
The Pirate then turned, took one step towards the door, and stopped.
“May we dance like we never had cracks.”
Grace touched his arm.
In his wake he left only dust and every moth stilled.