| Letter from the Editor: Adventures Begin |
| Featured Artist: Storyteller Murray Dunlap |
| Featured: Original Fiction "The Black Oyster" |
| Recipe: Tortillas! |
| Rooting for Rubyeyes |
| Welcome to the Ptero Heart of Luna Taylor |
................................The Black Oyster...............................
Murray Dunlap
I step into the Black Oyster. Cigarette smoke hangs in the
stale, bone dry air. Barstools creak beneath a handful of
heavyset regulars. A blanket of dust covers the pool table and
the jukebox sits unplugged. Photocopied pictures of missing
children hang by thumbtacks on the wall next to the door. I read
the names—Rhonda Spencer, Cindy Oates, Bart Wiseman, Holly
Dorn—and my stomach turns. My leather shoes stick to the
floor as I make for the bar. I wear a white oxford button-down
and beige chino slacks. The regulars sit with raised elbows in T-
shirts and studded leather. An old sign behind the bar reads:
Great Service Deserves a Great Tip!
I take a stool at the nearest end while the bartender eyes me.
My neck is tight and I massage it with one hand. It’s only mid-
afternoon, but I’m already drunk.
“A Glenfiddich, neat.”
“Say again.”
“Glenfiddich, scotch.”
“We ain’t got Glen-anything, pal.”
“Talisker?”
“Nope.”
“Dewar’s. Surely you have Dewar’s.”
“No.”
“Well. What do you have?”
“White Horse.”
“All right. White Horse.”
The bartender pours my drink and snaps it down dead
center on a crisp square napkin. He looks to an over-muscled,
middle-aged white man with a wide forehead and ZZ-Top
beard. The bartender methodically refills his beer mug without
spills. The foam rises a quarter inch above the rim.
“You want a Glen-itch?”
“Nah Chuck, I already got one Glen-itch. I don’t need
another.”
Chuck laughs in a way I’ve heard serial killers laugh on the
Biography channel.
“You’ve never heard of Glenfiddich?”
I ask the question sincerely enough, but even drunk, I know
what I’m getting into. Everyone stares.
“What about Johnnie Walker Blue?”
The regulars look to ZZ-Top and wait. I swallow my scotch.
“No, I ain’t familiar with it. Is it any good?”
“Well, yes. It’s better than White Horse. And I don’t know
what you’ve got for rail scotch, but I know it’s much better than
that.”
Chuck’s hands disappear under the bar. ZZ-Top shakes his
head. Chuck steps back and quickly wipes the oak with an
immaculate towel. Trapezius muscles rise from under his black t-
shirt and bulge around his neck like twisted rope. ZZ-Top picks
up his mug with three thick fingers. His pinkie knuckle is a knot
of scar tissue. The finger is gone. He grinds out his cigarette,
walks over, and takes a stool next to me.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
ZZ-Top is at least six-four and smells like the inside of a bait
well. His tattooed bicep is the size of my thigh.
“I’m having a White Horse, neat.”
“You’re looking to get killed.”
“Something like that.”
“Look smart-ass, get the hell out of here before I beat you like
a dog.”
I finish the glass of scotch here in the bar, but I’m somewhere
else with Heather. We sit in her grandfather’s house overlooking
Mobile Bay, the house her great grandfather built between wars.
Rain comes down in sheets and the surface of the water is
impossible to see. It looks like static. Heather pulls her thick
twist of hair back tight. Her green eyes distend with tears. I’m
not trying again, she says. I won’t. I hold my head in my
hands. The wine bottle between us sits empty. A cigarette butt
floats in her glass. It’s dead, she says. There’s nothing else to
talk about. She makes for the door. I know I should stop her,
but I don’t. I sit there. Here at the bar. There on the floor.
“White Horse, neat,” I say.
“Ok, you had your chance.”
ZZ-Top steps back to his stool and drains a beer. Next to him,
a short, bald albino man coughs and wheezes into a crimson red
bandanna. He wears a black leather vest so tight that the seam
arches between buttons. He sips what looks like milk from a beer
mug. Chuck brings my scotch and smiles as he thumps the glass
down on the bar. Fresh napkin, dead center. Surgical precision.
“That’ll be... everything.”
“What?”
ZZ-top and the albino laugh hard. The albino’s laugh squeaks
like a girl and his pallid cheeks turn pink. The dog collar around
his neck flashes with chrome spikes.
“Everything in your wallet. That’s your bill.”
“What if I don’t have anything in my wallet?”
Chuck leans in so close I can see each red vein crawling in his
eyes.
“Then we’ll have to make other arrangements.”
Chuck’s hand emerges from under the bar with a black billy
club. The club is two feet long, slick with polish, and the words
Kill Stick have been professionally engraved across the shaft. He
stands stone-faced with the club in his hands while I produce my
wallet. Chuck’s eyes, dark and recessed in his skull, do not
blink. I shuck four twenties and lay them on the bar.
“That’s what I’ve got.”
Chuck takes the cash and shoves it in his pocket.
“Now get out.”
“For eighty dollars, I think I’ll sit and finish my drink.”
The albino calls out a childish, ‘Ooooooh.’ He clutches the
bandana at his face. ZZ-Top sighs in disbelief. Chuck outweighs
me by seventy pounds. His hands attempt to wring water from
the club.
“I don’t think you understand. Get out, now.”
I take another deep swallow of scotch. I’m in her empty
house. The Alabama sun mops the bay windows in orange
afternoon light. Heather is here, reading. Her skin and hair
seem to turn gold. She reads until the sun hangs just above the
water and then slinks outside to sit on the fishing dock. I’m
walking out to join her. I wish I could join her.
But Heather isn’t really here, of course. She hasn’t been for a
year. One year exactly. Heather is in Virginia. As we speak, she’
s taking the Steele’s Tavern exit through a cut of tall swaying
pines, turning right at Steadman’s Grill and following the
winding black asphalt into the Saint Mary’s wilderness. The
orange sun clings to the needled treetops. She parks in the dirt
circle and takes off her shoes. The ground is cold, but soft
enough, and she finds the trail by memory.
Gurgling river babble drifts in from somewhere beyond the
trail and she picks her way through the brush to the water’s
edge. Slivers of light reflect off the water in curling arcs. The
eddies swirl in violets and pink. Heather traveled here with her
father as a girl. She collected flowers while he fished. Her
favorite, bigleaf magnolia blossoms, are rare in these woods, but
she finds an early bloom on a low branch. She thumbs the white
petals. She removes her clothes and eases down into the bitter
cold. This time of year, the river swells with melted snow. She
lies face up, watching the light shrink away from the tree tops
while she sings, humming and crooning her mother’s favorite
Lightnin’ Hopkins tune: Long gone, like a turkey through the
corn. Long gone, with my long pajamas on. Whoa look a
yonder, whoa I see. That red-eyed captain, he’s comin’ after
me. She digs her heels in against a boulder, knees up, and holds
herself in place against the rushing current. Her voice shudders
in the cold, her fingers lost among the slick, moss-covered
stones. Heather sings until she no longer feels her body. She
sings until her empty body floats up and out of the water, rising
into cirrus and stars.
The club hits my left eye, instantly swelling shut. I fall
backward and land on my tailbone. I hear something pop deep
inside me. My head swarms with angry bees and a vision
appears. Heather’s hair, Chuck’s eyes, and the muscles of ZZ-
Top assemble into an imagined monster, beating me savagely. I
imagine the sound of Heather making love, soft and delicate
moans and gasps. The fall knocks the wind from me and I’m
sucking for air. I roll over. From the floor, I see that more
pictures of missing children cover the back wall. There must be
over a hundred faces. ZZ-Top lifts me by the crook of my arm
and drags me to the door. With my head lolling forward, I
glimpse blood on my shirt. The albino opens the door, waving
bye-bye with his bandana, and ZZ-Top throws me out.
I struggle to see with my good eye on the drive home and I
can barely turn my neck. This house, the house my grandfather
built for my mother, overlooks the Childress River. I head
straight for the bathroom. Pain radiates from my tailbone. My
eye is a perfectly round bulb of purple-black swelling. Some sort
of ooze has leaked from the socket and the entire darkened area
shines with glaze.
I shower, drape on a robe, and walk to the kitchen for another
drink. The bottle on the counter lies empty. In the cabinet,
behind the vodka, I find a bottle of Glenfiddich and grin. I
break the seal and fill a glass. The last of the afternoon light
slants through the bay windows and I rush out the back door to
join Heather on the pier. She sits perfectly still, golden in the
setting sunlight with loose strands of fiery hair flitting at her
shoulders. She holds a book in her hand, something called Dog
Fight, and keeps her place among the pages with a finger.
Heather wears a white cotton top with thin straps, and beneath,
her black bathing suit clings to her skin. But this isn’t summer; it’
s mid April. I’m about to ask about the bathing suit when I
notice that she looks very much like a photograph I shot years
before. I sit down, and as the bay swallows the sun, I realize
this is the photo. From the black bathing suit to faint crow’s feet
at Heather’s eyes, every detail of the photograph sits before me.
Heather doesn’t smile. She squints, but doesn’t blink. I reach
out with one hand to touch her. The sun dips beneath the
horizon, the light changes, and Heather disappears.
I return to the house charged with energy. I pour another
drink and pad toward the bedroom. My heart pumps in my
throat and I incorporate dance steps into my walk. By the time I
get there, I’ve begun to dance in earnest. I twist, spin, and give
the bedpost a kiss. I throw off the robe and rifle through my
hanging clothes. Nothing strikes me, so I run to the hall and jerk
down the attic steps with a string. The steps unfold in the
manner and sound of a tuneless accordion. I turn my head and
climb into the darkness good eye forward. At the top, I pull a
second string and flood the attic with light. I step a few paces
forward to a gray metal rack. Formal dresses, costumes, and
unworn winter coats hang from the rack in clear dry-cleaner
bags. I pull a strapless black dress from its bag and dance into
the Civic Center Grand Ballroom. Heather and I foxtrot on
polished marble and I nod hello to friends and family. The
Ballroom is dotted with debutantes, encircled by white-haired
patrons, and rings of society ladies loop gossip from one end to
the other. A forty-something redhead in an emerald sequin
gown whispers to a platinum-blonde in purple velvet, You’ve
had your eyes done. They look wonderful. She sips gin and
tonic while the blonde nods up and down. The blonde attempts
an exaggerated wink, but her face contorts into something
vaguely painful.
The King of Mardi Gras steps carefully through the crowd.
When he smiles, his eyes close. He grabs Heather’s ass, then
mine. The King looks as if every drop of blood in his entire
body has risen to fill his puffy head. I turn back to Heather. She
laughs, pointing to a drunken Knight’s leg and boot emerging
from beneath a dinner table. I laugh too, but stop when I realize
I’m falling. Hitting, and then falling again. I could swear I hear
an accordion play. The dresses and costumes fall with me, and I
find myself lying on the floor of the hall, naked in a heap of regal
attire.
Despite my now throbbing back and burning knee, I pick a
set of white-tie tails from the pile and clamor to get them on. I
also manage to retrieve an eye patch from an old pirate costume
and gingerly cover my swollen eye. I take a deep swallow of
scotch and soldier myself into the living room. Heather giggles
and flicks on the stereo. The house fills with Lead Belly. I dance
with Heather again, but this time we’re alone. She smells of
southern magnolia. We listen to her old blues recordings, drink
scotch, and dance barefoot on a hand-woven Persian. The rug
was a wedding gift from her father. Rich colors jump up to
dance with us, swirling and rolling like waves. I begin to spin
and ask Heather to help me. I grab for her, striking out with my
hands in the air. I can’t see anything clearly. Only flashes of hair
catching gold light from the corner of my eye. The spinning
quickens and the colors leap up to meet me, burning the right
side of my face. I cry out over furious guitar rifts and raspy
crooning, but Heather is gone.
I awake face down on the living room floor next to Lead
Belly. He thumbs out a ballad, humming softly. I stand up, find
my drink, and pour another. It is fully dark outside, and when I
turn to face the bay windows, I can’t see the river. I can only see
my reflection in the glass. The eye patch has slid up and off my
rug-burned face. The elastic string now pulls my hair into a
violent, twisting crown. I raise my drink to the window and
toast the new me.
Midnight at the Black Oyster. The regulars have not
moved. They stare like wolves as I limp to a stool. By now,
every inch of wall space is covered with missing children. In
places, they overlap three deep. Some hang from the ceiling.
Hundreds of shy little boys and girls watch my every move. The
albino sucks down his milk by turning up the glass with both
hands. He wipes his mouth with the bandana and coughs. His
pudgy upturned nose runs beneath watery green eyes.
I hunch over and release two bulging paper bags from under my
arms. Chuck reaches for the club, but ZZ-Top speaks up.
“What’s in the bags?”
“Glenfiddich and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. Help
yourself.”
I pull a half dozen bottles from the bags and pass them down
the bar. I keep the bottle of Blue and ask Chuck for three
glasses. He plays along, producing the tumblers. He lays them
out side by side on evenly spaced, clean white napkins. I pour
scotch for myself, Chuck, and ZZ-Top. The albino keeps both
hands wrapped around his milk.
“This is top shelf, gentlemen.”
“There ain’t a single goddamn gentleman in here.”
“I disagree.”
“This here bastard is crazy. Do you know that?”
“All I know is pain and scotch.”
To my surprise, ZZ-Top lifts his glass in a silent toast, and
swallows down his scotch. The rest of the bar, including Chuck
and the albino, do the same. I watch the group toast through a
mirror behind the bar. Standing in disheveled formal wear with
a blackened eye and rug-burned face, I join a circle of wild men.
On the other side of the room, Heather sits in a booth with a
small child. They wear glittered party hats and hold balloons.
Heather is cutting a slice from a birthday cake when she catches
my eye. She stops and blows me a kiss. I relax my shoulders
and neck. And I stay relaxed, even as I see Chuck sliding out Kill
Stick in the mirror. The albino hides behind his stool, but he’s
not watching us. He’s watching the birthday party. Chuck
assumes a well-rehearsed fighting stance and ZZ-top cocks back
with an empty bottle. But even now, even as ZZ-top takes a
swing, I smile. I’ve come to the Black Oyster for something
awful, and the service is great.
................................................................
| ________________ |
| Ptotem: Ptero-soar |
