B Cafe Society

Caf? Society

Parker faced Fortis across their usual table, looking past his superior
at the nicotine-stained wall. Though it had only been two months, his
acquaintanceship with that wall was already overly familiar. There was
something about it...something drawing him closer each time he stared
at it...something he...could not...and yet...he wanted... to lick his
right index finger and rub the wall, seeking the top layer of paint. He
doubted being able to reach it with one lick of one finger. It could
take a whole hand, maybe two. He might never get there. That could be a
lot of licking and rubbing for nothing, he thought. Parker felt a
tensing sensation, something vaguely forbidden.....thoughts.... He
pushed them away by leaning slightly forward to inspect the wall,
steadying himself gently on the table, hoping Fortis had not noticed
anything amiss.

He squinted, searching for evidence that the wall had ever been washed.
Even in the dim light, he could see congealed dirt swirls mixed in with
the paint, suggesting they had simply painted over whatever was on the
wall and let it go at that. He estimated the probable number of layers
of paint at eight. Once every 15 years made sense for an old place like
this, he thought. He briefly wondered how much of the wall's lumpiness
could be attributed to the successive paint jobs and how much to an
amateurish plastering job in the first place. In some places he could
tell that they had tried to use thick globs of paint to cover areas
that should have been re-plastered. Elsewhere he could see that someone
had slathered a brush full of paint horizontally on the wall and then
walked away, letting the paint run down the wall like rivulets of
petrified mucus tonguing their way to the floor.

Parker lost his concentration as he pictured the tongues alive,
straining towards the floor, licking.....He shook his head and
refocused, now on the color. He speculated that it might have been
beige or yellow originally, but it was all yellowish brown or brownish
yellow-beige now. In the dark, it never matters anyway, he thought,
recalling an old locker room joke. His wall, he thought of it as his
wall, was quite a landscape, vaguely obscene ....repulsive and magnetic
at the same time. Parker was wedded to his wall. He hoped no one
noticed. He did not want to share it with anyone.

His eyes followed a long diagonal crack up to the left and then down to
the right, as far as he could see, squinting slightly. Much of it was
hidden, mostly by Fortis and the furniture. Just above and to the left
of his superior's right shoulder, a small print covered an eight-inch
section of the crack. The frame was black. Parker examined the print
looking for any important detail he may have missed during previous
visits. It was a black and white drawing of two medics running into a
maze carrying an accident victim on a stretcher between them. The wall
at the entrance had the word "URGENCES" painted on it in red with a
black arrow pointing into the maze. The medics had no way to know what
lay ahead, but from Parker's vantage point, he could see the maze
extending endlessly into the distance. The artist's signature appeared
in the lower right-hand corner: Serre. He wondered how long that print
had been there. He could account for two months, though the greasy film
on the glass suggested much longer. The print itself looked to be from
the late Sixties or early Seventies.

He wondered which had come first, the crack or the print. He made a
mental note to look underneath the print one day when no one was
watching to find where the nail entered the wall. This would probably
not yield a conclusive answer to the origin of the crack, but it might
tell him if there had been a smaller print hanging there earlier.
Perhaps his predecessor had smudged the wall years ago, and instead of
cleaning the whole wall, the owner had simply hung a larger print to
cover it up. Parker considered the end game of that logic, wondering
who his predecessor may have been. Perhaps there had been more than
one. Better yet, maybe there had been no one and he was the first. A
slight smirk involuntarily formed on his lips. Parker found that notion
comforting, even if unlikely. This wall is much too old to be a virgin,
he thought. The smirk vanished uneasily as it occurred to him that
there might be a successor, or even worse, there might be someone else
right now! He did not like either of those ideas, not one bit. Parker
wanted everything in his world to be his, forever. History ended the
day he was born, or so he wanted to believe.

Fortis faced into the caf?, looking over Parker's shoulder at the
bottles behind the bar. He noted the incipient smirk on Parker's face,
then the guilty glance and the forced concentration. Fortis smiled
inwardly. He'd seen this all before, many times, even experienced it
himself long ago. He let it all pass without comment, even the cloud
formation on Parker's brow just now. There was still time.

A small unlit lamp rested on the table between them. The bulb nestled
between two upright brass shells like a pearl in an oyster. The bulb
looked burned out, brownish-gray and greasy. A dead bee lay next to the
bulb, legs up. Both had accumulated dust. Fortis pressed down on the
switch. A wall of light shot up between them. Parker jolted back in his
chair and stared into his superior's eyes through the wall of
light.

Fortis did not return the gaze. Instead, he watched the lights dancing
off the bottles behind the bar. It was a magical sight, especially for
the little boy he knew the lonely man at the end of the bar had once
been. Fortis had known Kenny his whole life, though from a distance to
be sure. Tonight Kenny occupied his usual stool, elbows on the bar,
head supported in his hands, an empty shot glass in front of
him....as....

?the bartender smiled down at the little boy. "Come here," he said,
gesturing. The little boy walked to the opening at the left end of the
bar. The bartender lifted the barrier, crouched down, and handed him a
pretzel.

"There you go, Kenny," he said. "Now go back to your mom and
dad."

He took the pretzel, looked down at the wooden floor, so bare and
dirty, then to the back of the room. His parents were at a table with
their friends, three other couples. They were all drinking and eating
and laughing about something, probably one of his dad's jokes or some
story about the old days. His dad was always talking about the old
days, when they were all in high school during the Great Depression.
Kenny liked the loud music and the loud laughing voices. Even his
mother looked happy. That was rare at home. His dad complained about
the jukebox being too loud, and everyone clacked in agreement and kept
on talking. It was another one of his dad's rituals, always followed by
the supposedly true story about the guy who made a fortune selling a
record with no sound so you could buy 3 minutes of silence on the juke
box.

Kenny trotted back to his mom and dad with the pretzel, his stubby arms
pumping through the smoky air, humid with beer fumes. His dad lifted
him onto a chair and poured some beer into a glass, just enough to
cover the bottom. He liked the smell of beer in a glass, especially
when it was fresh and cold. There was something hearty about the aroma
of beer, something solid and worthy, like a pumpernickel and liverwurst
sandwich with mustard and onion. Even so he liked the taste of salt on
a pretzel even more than he liked the smell of the beer. There was
something precious about the taste of pretzel salt. He had even
developed a way to prolong the ecstasy of eating a pretzel.

The ritual began by grating the salt off the pretzel with his teeth,
one grain at a time, and letting the salt dissolve in his mouth. This
also softened the pretzel enough for him to bite off a section without
destroying the entire pretzel. Then he rolled the pretzel section
around in his mouth slowly, further softening it, but not too much,
until he could bite it in half lengthwise. Then he sucked the marrow
from each section, leaving only the shell in the shape of a gutter.
Eventually everything became very soft and he simply mashed it against
the roof of his mouth with his tongue and swallowed. Sometimes it got
stuck to the roof of his mouth, but not for long, not like peanut
butter and white bread.

Kenny loved those Saturday nights down at Wagner's Bar. Going up to the
corner, his dad called it. Everyone was happy and laughing. His
parent's had friends in those days, before everyone had a television in
their home, before.....he never did understand what
happened.....something had happened......

...Fortis looked up as the owner arrived with their coffees. The tray
made a loutish noise on the adjacent table. He flung a small spoon onto
each saucer, banking it off the cup, grabbed one saucer in each hand
and hit the table simultaneously in front of Fortis and Parker. Before
he could escape with the empty tray, Fortis grabbed his sleeve.

"Does he ever talk to anyone?" Fortis asked, motioning with his head
towards Kenny.

"Not anymore. He just drinks. No one would want to talk to him anyway,"
the owner said, turning to walk away.

"Why's that?" Fortis asked, holding onto the owner's sleeve.

The owner looked back at Fortis, smirking, and shrugged. "Take a good
look at him. Would you want to talk to a guy like that? He's just
another drunk, a loser. We get a lot of them in here."

The owner pulled away and walked back to the bar, shaking his
head.

"What was that all about?" Parker asked.

"I suppose he has a point," Fortis said. "After all, this is a
bar."

....Kenny came to when his forehead smacked down on the bar. He shot a
guilty glance to his left, scanning the room, hoping no one had seen
him. At first blush, it looked like he'd escaped notice. Then he saw
Fortis, sitting with his back to the far wall, staring straight at him.
Kenny couldn't see him clearly. Kenny couldn't see anything clearly
these days. His vision was blurred most of the time. Yet even from that
distance, he could tell that Fortis was looking at him.

Kenny did not know the older man as Fortis. They had never met, at
least not that he could recall, though Kenny's recollections had been
suspect for some time. Kenny spent his every conscious moment trying to
act natural. The performance was unconvincing. Even Kenny had stopped
believing it. He was just going through the motions, hoping it would
all end soon.

Kenny slowly returned to his own thoughts, his head back in his hands,
staring at the empty shot glass a short distance in front of him and to
the left. He had learned from hard experience never to place a drink
directly beneath his head on the bar. He never knew when he might pass
out again. Rolling his eyes upwards and to the right, he gazed
longingly down the curving rows of bottles trailing off into the
distance. He could see Fortis's head reflected by the mirror behind the
bar. The image was distorted, like a ghost in the carnival Fun House
playing peekaboo behind the bottles. He thought for a moment about
pictures he'd seen of terraced rice paddies in Asia, how similar it all
was, but a sharp jab of regret pushed that image away. Time for another
drink, he thought.

He motioned for another shot of whiskey, "and put it in a dirty glass,"
he almost said. As the owner poured, Kenny watched the amber liquid
rise in the glass, the lights playing off the dancing surface. It
filled him with hope that some day....what? He didn't know, but some
day......

Kenny gazed lovingly at the full glass. He felt better already. If he
could only prolong this sense of well-being forever.... He looked at
the pretzel bowl. There was only one pretzel left, but the whole bottom
of the bowl was full of pretzel salt. Kenny smiled for the first time
that day. He had it all to himself. He motioned for a beer chaser. Life
is good, he thought.

....Parker turned to follow Fortis's line of sight. He saw the lonely
man at the end of the bar. He saw the owner pour him a fresh drink in
the same glass. He saw Kenny look into the pretzel bowl and motion for
something. A beer, Parker concluded, a beer to wash down the pretzels.
He turned back to Fortis.

"Don't you think that guy's had enough?"

"No," Fortis answered.

"But just look at him. He's in here every day holding down that same
stool. It sure looks like he's had enough."

"His name is Kenny, and Kenny never has enough. Sometimes there is
none. Often there is too much, but enough.....no, never."

...Kenny could see his father's shadow in a corner far to the back of
the room, the head shaking sadly from side to side. He pressed his eyes
shut, squeezing with all his might. He saw dots and lines pinging into
view against a marbled backdrop quivering with black tension. It
reminded him of going under ether. "Count backwards from ten, Kenny,"
the doctor had told him. He made it to seven, a brief but memorable
maiden voyage into oblivion.

He opened his eyes. The terraced liquor bottles swooned, writhing like
snakes crossing hot sand. An empty Chianti bottle coated with wax
drippings melted into a lava-lamp blob and rose slightly from the
shelf. Twisting and turning, changing colors, it gradually took on the
shape of rainbow-colored horse's head with a white wick sticking out
the top, a candle that had never been lit. In the mirror it appeared to
sit on Fortis's shoulders where his head should have been. Kenny saw
the mouth open, then shut without speaking. He fought the urge to turn
and look directly at Fortis.

The owner slapped a full mug of beer down in front of Kenny, breaking
the spell. The horse's head disappeared. He looked at the beer, smiled,
then licked his right index finger and pressed down on the bed of
pretzel salt at the bottom of the bowl. He licked the salt off his
finger, savoring the taste and the memories. Life is good, he thought,
wondering if he could get to the bottom of the bowl before closing
time. He downed the whiskey in one gulp and slapped the empty shot
glass down on the bar, just like they do in the movies. Reaching for
the beer, Kenny briefly wondered who that man was siting against the
wall. He lost interest in Fortis as soon as the beer hit his throat.
Three large swallows and a few seconds later, he was back to staring at
the terraced bottles, trying to blank out the world. It promised to be
a long night....

...Parker felt uneasy. He looked at Fortis, than back to the wall.
Something about the place was not quite right. It was familiar...felt
like home...a kind of home anyway...it had been just that for two
months....and yet...even so, there was something...not quite.... He
stared at the wall and the URGENCES print, trying to think what it
might be.

The cafe door slammed open, jerking him out of his thoughts. He turned
to see a tallish man in a tweed cap standing in the doorway, framed
against the halogen street light outside. Parker took an instant
dislike to this man. His blotchy face hung slack with the prune-like
scowl of a professional loser. Those boiled-squid lips...pursed
together like the neck of a balloon straining to keep the air and the
balloon spit from exploding outward...Parker felt his gag reflex kick
in before the man had taken a single step. He would later swear that he
could actually see the self-pity oozing from the creases in the man's
face, dripping down his collar like the frozen tongues of paint on his
beloved wall.

No one...no one except Parker...appeared to be looking at the man, yet
Parker could feel the room contract with tension, the walls leaning
slightly inward causing the bottles behind the bar to clink against
each other. The tension was contagious. He griped the edge of his table
with one hand and the arm of his chair with the other, holding himself
twisted around so he could continue to look behind him. The man
remained motionless in the doorway. It seemed like an eternity, yet it
could not have been more than a few seconds, if that long. Parker
wondered what Fortis was doing, but he fought the urge to look
back.

The man entered the cafe and headed towards the bar, looking straight
ahead, loping and plodding like an also-ran returning from a
silly-walks contest. He was stoop-shouldered. His back curved like a
harp. He held a small white plastic bag suspended from his left hand.
With each step his head bobbed up and down on his goose neck like a
rotten pumpkin impaled on the tip of a fiberglass conductor's wand. The
plastic bag swung fore and aft in tune with his stride. Parker stifled
another gag when he saw the light glint off the man's moist lips. His
slightly crazed bird eyes stared straight ahead, unblinking, using the
glowing red lines on his old drunkard's nose like runway lights to
guide him to the bar. He reached the bar and looked at himself in the
mirror.

"Whaddya want today, Foont?" the owner asked.

That's when Foont saw Fortis in the mirror. He froze. He stared at
Fortis. Parker rose in his chair so he could see what Foont was looking
at. There in the mirror he too saw Fortis, grinning and stroking the
curved wooden handle of his umbrella. Foont gingerly shuffled himself
onto a bar stool and ordered a beer, keeping one eye on Fortis in the
mirror. Sweat began to accumulate on his upper lip and forehead,
threatening to trickle down his face. The beer arrived. He downed half
of it in one pull, hoping to dilute the raw fear forming in his
stomach. Parker felt the walls retract, but only slightly. He detected
a slight antiseptic smell that reminded him of a hospital corridor. He
turned back in his seat and faced Fortis.

"Do you know that guy?" Parker asked.

"I first encountered Foont several years ago in London," Fortis
replied. "Would you like to hear the whole story?"

Parker wanted to hear the story...as if he had a choice at this
point...yet...he felt the unmistakable sensation of being pulled just a
little bit further down the rabbit hole every time Fortis spoke. At
least I'm going down feet first, he thought.

"Sure," he said.

Fortis grinned. He loved telling this story. It was one of his
favorites. Fortis reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a
cigar. He moistened the end in his mouth and bit off the tip. His
tongue pushed the tip out of his mouth into his waiting fingers. He
placed it in the ashtray.

"I call this story 'Political Science.' There's a lesson in it for
everyone."

Fortis paused to light the cigar with a cedar match, always the sign of
an important occasion. A few judicious drags, several sharp puffs, and
a smoke screen appeared between Fortis and Parker, trapped in the
upward shaft of light from the oyster lamp. As Fortis began to speak,
Parker watched the scene unfold against the smoke screen.

"I boarded Bus 139 near my home. I showed my monthly travel card to the
driver and headed for a seat.

'Just a minute. Let me see that,' the driver said.

I displayed the travel card again, holding it a few inches from the
partition, and started towards the seats.

'Come back here! Show me that again!' the driver said.

I turned back and displayed the travel card again, this time pressing
it against the clear plastic partition separating the passengers from
the driver in his cage.

'Give it to me!' the driver demanded.

I was accustomed to this kind of thing. It was standard procedure in
London, a city where a little random abuse keeps the passengers in
line. I slipped the yellow plastic holder through the change slot. The
driver opened it and studied the travel card closely. He removed the
card, turned it upside down, replaced it, examined it again, then
closed the plastic folder and flipped it through the change slot at
me.

'You have to be more careful,' he said. 'It was upside down. How do you
expect me to read something upside down? Next time make sure your
picture card and your travel card are facing the same way.'

I retrieved the travel card, returned it to my coat pocket and moved on
in silence. 'It would not be nice to tease the animals in their cages,'
I remember thinking. 'Or feed them.'

Had you been standing just behind me at the driver's cage just then,
looking into the bus, you would have seen two elevated seats on the
driver's side of the bus just behind the driver's cage. There was a
small white plastic bag in the parcel storage area between the two
seats. Had you faced the two seats, you would have seen Foont sitting
on the right, wearing that same tweed cap and clashing tweed jacket you
see him wearing tonight. He even has that plastic bag still with him, I
see.

At the time I barely noticed him sitting there. I simply headed for the
bench just behind Foont on the driver's side of the bus. That's when
Foont yelled at me:

'YOU SHOULD SHOW MORE CONSIDERATION FOR THE REST OF THE PASSENGERS! GET
YOUR MONEY READY AND DON'T HOLD US ALL UP NEXT TIME!'

I looked up in surprise, noticing Foont's worm-like face and clenched
teeth for the first time. I looked into Foont's eyes, said, "Shut up!"
and sat down.

'SHUT UP IS IT? YOU WANT TO HAVE A GO AT ME? I'LL SHOW YOU A THING OR
TWO!'

Foont rose from his seat during this speech, shaking, spit flying from
his mouth, eyes bulging. Realizing midstream that I could easily pound
him senseless in five seconds, Foont twirled around and sat back down,
sputtering:

'TELL ME TO SHUT UP WILL YOU, YOU BLOODY USELESS LAYABOUT!'

I simply stared at the old man during all of this. At the word
"layabout," even he realized he'd crossed a bridge too far and at last
shut his mouth.

I continued to stare at Foont all the way to Baker Street. We both
exited the bus, Foont first. I looked around for a policeman, even
going inside the tube stop in the hopes of finding one. I wanted to
have him arrested for assault, or at least given a warning. No police
to be found, I gave up and walked to the stop for Bus 30 to continue on
to Islington. There sat Foont. It was my lucky day.

I waited for the bus and stared at Foont for at least 10 minutes. Foont
said nothing and did nothing, except try to avoid eye contact with me.
Bus 30 arrived. We both boarded, Foont first. Foont took a bench seat.
I took a bench seat directly behind him. I stared at the back of
Foont's head for the next thirty minutes.

Foont was uncomfortable with this. He fidgeted. Several times he took
out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his face. From time to time
he turned sideways and caught a glimpse of me staring directly at him.
Foont's face flushed red, then drained white, then back to red. It was
a pleasing display, a real Kodak moment, especially when all the color
drained from his face except for the red lines on his nose. That was a
real treat.

Foont got off the bus in Islington, one stop before mine. He was
visibly cowed. His shoulders slumped. His gait showed no signs of
swagger. He tried to look forward, but he could not keep from glancing
back at the bus. I stared at him through the window as the bus pulled
away.

I made an important decision that day. Henceforth I would always carry
an umbrella, regardless of the weather. I already owned the perfect
model, one with a sturdy one-piece wooden shaft that bends into a
U-shaped handle at one end and concludes with a brass cap at the other.
You know the kind. You see me with it every day.

That was one year ago. I have noticed how polite everyone has been to
me since that first encounter with Foont. I think the umbrella may have
something to do with it."

The smoke cleared a bit and Parker could see Fortis clearly again. He
was sitting in the same position, leaning on the table with his right
elbow, cigar trapped between the first and second fingers of his right
hand, his left arm extended to the adjacent table where he continued to
caress the handle of his umbrella, staring at Parker and past him
towards the bar at the same time.

Parker felt uneasy. He wasn't sure why, or perhaps he knew exactly why
and didn't want to admit it to himself. There was something very
disquieting about the way Fortis stared. There was something unnerving
about Fortis in general, but the stare was the worst. It was like he
was trying to brand your soul, burn some indelible image into you for
all eternity. More than trying, Parker sensed that Fortis often
succeeded. He did not sense danger, at least not for himself, but
getting on the wrong side of Fortis was clearly not a good idea.

"So, what do you think?" Fortis asked.

"A very instructive story," Parker answered, trying to avoid a lengthy
discussion.

The cafe door slammed shut. Parker turned to see an empty stool where
Foont had sat. The white plastic bag was on the bar next to an empty
beer mug. For a moment Parker thought he saw a slimy trail leading from
the bar stool to the door, as though Foont were a slug crawling
across....no...it must have been his imagination.

The owner looked inside the plastic bag. It contained a kewpi doll,
very old and dirty, a few sticky popsicle sticks, and a large quantity
of ticket stubs in various colors. He bounced the bag up and down a
couple of times. Something nosed its way up through the ticket stubs, a
paper card of some kind. He pulled it out of the bag. It was only a
fragment, old and filthy with...stains...faded.... He could barely read
it. He made out the letters M-O-R-R and O-S and A-R---A-L. He stuffed
it back into the bag and put the bag under the bar.

Fortis smiled from ear to ear.

Parker shuddered slightly. It was the first time he'd seen his superior
smile so broadly. He did not want to know what was behind that smile,
at least not in any detail and definitely not now. There would be time
for that another day, but he did want to know what was behind the
URGENCES print. He imagined a crack in the plaster, already partially
opened, leading into a darker area, somewhere he'd never been, never
even seen. He fantasized about removing the print and placing his index
finger in the crack, rubbing, gently twisting, digging out the debris,
he imgined there would be debris, opening it wider, smoothing it on the
inside, seeking....

"You know, Parker, the truth is a terrible slut, the worst slut in
history," Fortis said.

Parker froze.

"Why is that?" he asked, stuggling to sound natural.

"Think about everyone who has claimed to possess her over the
centuries. If even a fraction of them are right....think about
it."

Parker did not want to think about it.

Fortis smiled again.

"Dont' worry about it. That's just something I read in a book years
ago. It's not important."

Parker wasn't so sure about that last part....