Dead Low Winter. T.K. O'Neill

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      That gave us something to smile about as we showed ourselves out into the blustery March night. And I needed a laugh real bad. The sky was cloudy and there wasn’t a star in sight. I shivered. The hawk was blowing from the North and the dampness went right through me. But it was more than the weather had me shaking. Things hadn’t turned out very good tonight. And my whole life was the shits. I was in debt to the brothers for ten grand and after that performance in there I felt sure Nick would soon lose all patience with my financial delinquency, You don’t throw good money after bad, one of his favorite sayings. And after I didn’t turn the cards his way, I definitely qualified as bad.

      Things were worse than I knew. Funny how you can get started into patterns without realizing it, and before you know it you’re going down some road leading somewhere you don’t even want to go. You don’t know where you’re going till you arrive and then later when it’s too late you’re not sure how you got there. And for the life of you, no matter how hard you try, you can’t find the way back. That’s the way it was for me.

      My love life was also the pits—too many classless, ignorant bar flies with a marked propensity toward procrastination and sloth. I read that last part on a men’s room wall somewhere. But what do you expect from a divorced guy for Christ sake—church socials and discussion groups?

      My ex-wife Loraine and I were flower children sweethearts back in the sixties. Then after seven years of marriage she caught me in the car with a topless twenty-year old and kicked me out of the house. Losing Loraine wasn’t so bad though, because by then we really had nothing in common—and even the sex was stale. All she wanted to do was go bowling and eat, while I, according to her, only cared for drinking beer and “staring at little chickie’s chests.” Fact it was imported beer never seemed to make an impression on her. Sometimes I miss the early days when she loved me still.

      Despite the wind’s nip, Sam Cross was still flying high. And still laughing about his luck with the cards and his brother’s tantrum. He invited me along for a drink and a blast or two off the silver bullet with him and Miko. Sam was going to buy the Greek a lot of drinks and try to make the poor bastard like him and I had no stomach for the bullshit. I declined the invite and turned in the direction of my rusty 1965 Olds. Then I saw Peter McKay coming up behind me.

      “Mr. Waverly,” he said, “hold up for a moment please.”

      I did. He caught up and pressed a twenty-dollar bill into my palm and gave my forearm a little squeeze with his other black-gloved hand.

      “Just a small tip for your dealing tonight, Mr. Waverly,” he said. He looked me up and down and smiled a little. “I did well, in spite of the rather bizarre group we had assembled. Thank you. Do you do this sort of thing often?”

      “Not much, anymore. I just owed Nick a favor—from the old days. Nick and I go back a ways.”

      “I see, uh huh. Well, maybe I can use you some day.”

      “Sure, anything,” I said, nodding my head like a puppy eager for a bone. By that time we were at my car door so I climbed in and cranked her up while Peter trudged off to his dark green Mercedes diesel. I buttoned up my brown corduroy Marlboro Man jacket and drove away.

      * * *

      It’s clear to me now that the card game was the catalyst for all the sordid events that followed. It was a night where Fate came in and shoved us all into the Big Mixer, threw in some glue and nails and pushed the puree button. But the beginnings of the story go back a little further. Back to earlier that winter when I was still wheeling hack for Minnie Green and her Blue and White Taxi Company.

      It was late January of 1978. Football season was over; the lights from all the Christmas trees were out. On my right the ancient Arrowhead Bridge and a rusted railroad trestle watched silently in the cold distance as I rolled toward the John Blatnik High Bridge, the concrete-and-steel span that would get me across the water to the other side. I could see the yellowed ice of the bay stretching out to the mouth of the St. Louis River. It’s called the St. Louis River but it’s a long way from Missouri. Along the side of the road naked tree branches stretched out like arthritic fingers, straining for warmth that wasn’t there. Over to my left huge grain terminals loomed darkly behind rows of faded, empty boxcars. The wind was coming hard off Lake Superior, pushing and shoving at the taxi’s aging suspension. The heater was on full blast but icy drafts whistled through. I was headed to the Wisconsin side of the bridge and the north end of Bay City—a low spot on the geological survey where the losers, the lost and the sexually disenfranchised washed up like flotsam and jetsam. A place where I felt strangely comfortable. There was nothing to prove and somehow that was a good thing.

      Sure, Bay City had its good people and its quiet neighborhoods, like anywhere else. But there was also something strange over there, something peculiar—a feeling that lingered on the edge of comprehension. It was a place where you might find someone as indifferent or as desperate as you. Someone just as willing to go crazy, attempt suicide or commit a crime. Someone just right.

      First thing comes to mind when I think of Tugtown is alcohol. Booze. Liquor. Firewater. Rotgut. For guys like me who grew up on the other side of the bridge, Bay City was a place for first-time experiences. Maybe your first drink in a bar or the first time you bought beer with a fake I.D. Maybe the first time you had a pool cue broken across your back or your ear bitten off in a fight—could be anything. This was a town where anything could happen, when the stars were right.

      From the top of the bridge now the three-story skyline spread out in front of me, dark, decaying and slightly greasy, like a 1930’s version of a Dickens’ novel from an alternate universe. I could see U.S. Highway 2 as it wound its way out of town toward a barren and gray frozen wasteland of snow and fir trees and the occasional country bar or small town. Wisconsin—Devil’s Country: birthplace and home of enterprising serial killers Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer. Endless miles of two-lane roads and a population of outlaw bikers second only to the great state of California.

      Dahmer was probably busy grilling up his neighbor’s cat about the time I turned onto North Fifth Street, the primary gateway to the strip clubs and massage parlors, gambling joints, rock ‘n’ roll bars, whorehouses and bad restaurants that were the pulse of Bay City’s erogenous zone. Wisconsin’s legal drinking age was eighteen, recently brought down by the state legislature from twenty-one, and the party was always on. The town’s funky old saloons were filled with raucous hordes getting drunk and doing drugs and raising general hell. Cash flowed as fast as the liquor as wild-siding kids poured into town like beavers to a birch tree farm.

      I cruised by the Wisconsin Steak House and then a little seaweed green wooden garage in an open field with a hand-painted sign on the door advertising “Hubcaps For Sale.” As the sun began to sink below the western hillside, flophouses and greasy spoons and blockhouse bars cast dark silhouettes. On my right was the Viking Bar, famous for drinks as cheap as a boat whore and strong as a trucker’s breath. Then came the Nickel Street Saloon, the High Times and the Heartbreak Hotel. One Harley leaned on its peg in front of the High Times. On my left was the Boulevard Lounge where the strippers sold cocaine between dances and pussy after hours.

      I was thinking maybe I should stop in after my shift was over.

      Next up was Johnny’s Bar; where once a three-hundred-pound customer killed his drinking buddy by jumping onto the poor slob’s chest and crushing his heart. Good times. Then came Tony’s Cabaret, the Twin Port’s’ only gay bar at the time, and Al’s Waterfront Lounge, where huge Great Lakes ships rested on the frozen bay behind it like bathtub toys for giants. Up ahead past Tower Avenue Fifth Street came to a a dead-end at a big mound of dirt and a barrier consisting of three black-and-yellow-striped boards bolted to metal posts stuck in the pavement. СКАЧАТЬ