| When he was younger Lufkin was a quaint lil’ city where he could have seen himself growing old with his high school sweetheart and his dogs and his grandkids on his knee, but coming back like this left a stain on his memory. Mark Kellerman was only back in town long enough to pay respects to his mother and move on. The way he figured it, with his mom now dead and buried and his past with her, he’d never have to step foot in Lufkin, or any of Angelina County for that matter, again. Mark didn’t have time to reminisce with kids from high school all grown up, didn’t care to see how poorly the city had aged, hell, he didn’t even want to stay another night. Alas, his flight back west wouldn’t fly out any earlier. He exhaled slowly and looked up at the apartment complex, admiring how it had a storefront pub on the first floor, and how a chunk of the letter ‘R’ in the neon sign wasn’t lighting up. What the hell, what’s one ‘BEEP’ or two going to hurt. The young man clad in mostly black wandered into the most repugnant little bar in high hopes of having a few beers to ease him into sleep with as little human interaction as possible. The scent of stale ale and cheap whiskey was a promising one, and the complete lack of acknowledgement from any of the four patrons gave him hope that he might get his peace of mind and his drink on quietly, excusing the drone of whatever 90’s rock band playing feebly in the background. He looked around, judging everyone in his head, and decided these lousy looking old farts weren’t worth his time anymore than the peers his age were. Mark walked to the far end of the bar, taking a stool and staring off. He noticed the folk around him either looking deeply into their own beers, or mindlessly (albeit quietly) watching the Cowboys game without volume but with closed captioning. He tried to care about the score, but found himself drawing a blank. How could people still find this entertaining when there were wars going about, children starving, AIDS, and this god damn economic crisis! All he saw was tiny moving people on a screen fixed in the corner behind the bartender, now walking his way. He tried to separate himself from his environment, and tried to pretend he was back on the airplane, heading back to Oregon. Only a nights rest away. Only a few hours from that rest. Only… His concentration on absolutely nothing was broken by the bartender offering him a pint glass of either Busch or Budweiser. He wanted to snap back with something snooty but worried his west coast attitude might get him thrown out. No patience for the embarrassment tonight, Mark figured it best just to ignore the desire to ask if there was a difference between the two beers offered. The bartender didn’t seem to get the joke when Mark responded, “Yes, thank you.” but poured him his beer all the same. Mark watched the bubbles climb the inside wall of the cup, and tried to remember if Busch and Bud were owned by the same company or not. As he took the first sip, he found himself suddenly very curious as to which beer this one was. --- These days er’body here just wanted to watch the damn football game and drink their beers uninterrupted. Not asking much of a small half-rundown dive bar where the majority of the drunks here have been drunk here for the better part of their days spent drinking. Truer words could not be spoken for Merle Harmon, walking in through the back door as if he’d owned the joint. Some would say, if they’d heard him babble at them long enough, that he may as well. Past the relic of a jukebox stood the same stool he’d sat on every night since he first learned of the importance of this here bar, and of that there stool, something like a decade ago. His arrival turned heads, and by this point in his ritual-like attendance here, the locals knew not to sit in either stool surrounding the one he’d claimed as his. So leave it to the “just-passing-through’s” and “visiting family-types” to claim those seats. The big ol’ middle aged bear of a man smiled from ear to ear upon seeing someone sitting there, sipping on a beer, just waiting to hear a story or two. Mark didn’t notice him at first, not til Merle made his presence known by throwing his big grubby paw between him and the waning pint. “Put’er there, partner. Name’s Harmon, Merle Harmon.” The initial shock was more fear than anger, so his response was automatic and cordial. He threw him his name and a customary “How are ya?” before choking down the last of his beer. He suspected Busch on no real solid grounds, as he pushed his empty cup forward. “Well it’s good ta know ya, Mark. How ‘bout you let me buy you a beer? Hey Ray, can I get two more Bud’s over here fer me n’ my pal Mark?” Before he had finished ordering the two drinks, the bartender was already walking back with a hand around each beer, still foaming. Mark appreciated a bartender who knew exactly what a local was ordering, and figured it wouldn’t do no harm to humor the oaf. A free drink earned that. Merle took a gulp, looked over at the television screen and laughed to himself. Before Mark had time to wonder what it was that had made the giant chortle, Merle turned to him and started; “Hah! Now that there reminds me of the story ‘bout my conception. Er, my being conceived that is. See, all them young folks runnin’ after one another n’ tacklin’ eachother to me just, well, it seems like a sort of dance. A dance could be for fun or for impressin’ that special lady of yers. I seen on the television once that even birds’ll dance in order to get laid. I wonder if that was why them football players took all them hits back in them’s school days.”
Mark felt as if he had missed something. The small talk? Alarmed and not entirely sure how to respond, he gave them man his complete attention. “See, that’s why I think my pap’s was a genius! He didn’t horse around with no pigskins or shoulder pads. Naw, he just paid attention to what it was them girlies wanted. Mark, you know what that was, what them girlies wanted?” “Uh.. The sensitive ty-“ “Mark, what they wanted, more than anything else was ‘The Swayze’! More than diamonds or football players! I’m tellin’ ya!” “You mean Patri-“ “Now I’m talkin’ ‘bout Patrick Swayze. Oh yeah, he might not being so hot n’ sought after these days, but back before we’s was born, he was the unchallenged king of dance.” Trying to keep up, Mark struggled to remember the name of the movie before Merle ripped the thought from his mind. “Mark, I know you’ve seen ‘Dirty Dancing’, and I imagine you’re probably startin’ to see where it is I’m goin’ with all this.” Merle paused to down another gulp of his beer, leaving only a third of it left. Mark wondered whether or not he was actually supposed to answer the question posed to him, but decided it best to just keep his mouth shut, following his own beer gulp. He found himself staring in the sweat rolling down the wrinkles in his forehead. Were those wrinkles or fat rolls? “So get this, Summer of 88’ roles around and my dad, local hero by some standards I s’pose, walks into this bar to see the prettiest lil’ thing on this side of the Mississippi. There must’ve been nothing but magic in the air ‘cause as soon as their eyes locked someone threw away the key. Few beers later, seeing that this girl may just be the one, my dad decides to enter the two of them in a contest. Guess what kind of contest they was hostin’ the summer after Patrick Swayze a.k.a. Johnny Castle rocked er’one’s socks off. Just guess!” “Uh.. A Dirty-“ “A ‘Dirty Dancing’ themed contest. Would you believe it? I bet I don’t need to tell ya that they took home first place that night. You best believe they won that contest, won them fifty bucks in drink vouchers, and drank the night away after dancing their hearts off on one another!” As Mark absorbed all of this, regrettably so, staring at his halfway finished beer. Merle slammed the last of his down and stood to his feet. “And you know what, Mark? That there night was the day my daddy knocked up the prettiest lil’ thing, my dear ol’ Ma, may she rest in peace. Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotsta hit the john real fast. Finish yer beer n’ I’ll grab you another.” As Merle disappeared toward the other end of the bar, three of the locals started seizing up. Their faces were reminiscent of a cartoon character swallowing a stick of dynamite, and as soon as the door closed behind Merle they burst out laughing, red-faced and tearing up. One of them stood up and started dramatically pointing to the bartender and back to his watch, “Did I tell ya? On the dot! On the fucking dot! One drink deep, straight to the pisser! I swear he does this shit on purpose!” The bartender sheepishly smiled, and then poured the local a beer. The next old geezer down the bar turned to Mark, throwing a thumb his way, “How long do ya think this one’ll last? Think he’ll puss out at two? Three? Think he’s got the cajones to make it all the way to five?” “I dunno Rick, he’s got that California-crazy kind of look. I bet he could make it all five rounds. Whattaya say kid? Are ya havin’ fun yet?” said the third drunk on the other side of the bar. “Think ya can stick around fer four more beers with our friend Merle?” “Uh.. I, uh..” Mark hesitantly looked down at his watch, “Tell ya what kid, you make it through the whole gambit, and you can expect yerself one helluva reward. We all pitch in on the pool, an’ it goes to you if you can make it to the end. Otherwise one us with the winnin’ number takes the pot. As you can see Ray ain’t such a happy camper ‘cause he didn’t think you’d last fi-“ “Shit, times up. Game on. Have fun kid.” All at once their heads turned back to the football game, and their faces lost all the zest seen only moments before. Mark guzzled down the last half of his pint and forced a smile at Merle as he waddled on over. He slapped his wet hands on his blue jeans, and hollered at Ray for two more Budweisers. Then the giant rotated his bulk around to face Mark, “See, they remodeled this place. The bathrooms here usedta be one bathroom so there was a whole lot more space for baby-makin’ back then. “ “Dad used to tell me how he carved his name on one of them stall doors way back when but I imagine that they got, oh I dunno, used as firewood back in the nineties. These days you gotsta have a mens room and a girlie room otherwise them feminist lesbian types get all uppity, but during the Swayze craze that stuff just didn’t matter! It was a different world back then, and I’m telling you theres no way a man could put the mack on a lady in the crappers back there now. Not even two months after my parents won that dancing gig and had the workings of tiny ol’ me in ma’s belly they shut this place down.” “Sold it, rebuilt most the inside, renamed it, and reopened it ‘round the time I was born. By that point my parents moved back eest to the big city what in there being so little work and all here, but I think even then I knew I’d be back here in Lufkin eventually. Hey! You know what I’ve got here in my pocket?” Mark was beginning to lose interest, but he honestly had no idea what this humongous man carried in his pocket. Hell, an autographed copy of ‘Dirty Dancing’ was his first guess. In an attempt to keep his poker face fresh, he downed a third of his third beer. At this point he’d figured he need not answer any questions asked. “Will you look at this!” said in such a surprised tone, Mark would have believed even Merle hadn’t seen the faded polaroid picture he was holding. “My dad took this picture on his 25th birthday. August 21st, 1987. I’m sure I don’t even need to tell you the importance of that there date.” Mark stared at the dirty old picture and noted a mullet-clad cowboy drinking a beer in front of a pool table. He wanted to understand, really, but he doubted all these loose ends would be straightened before he snapped. He was beginning to regret not mourning his mothers death, because even though he hated the old witch, at least it would have kept him away from having to think about this beasts parenting doing the nasty in this same bar some twenty plus years back. Wait a minute. “…Yep! The same date that the movie theaters started playing ‘Dirty Dancing in theaters…” It doesn’t add up. He glanced up from the photo, seeing the bear get through another third of his pint in one gulp. Merle could easily have passed as someone in his mid-thirties. Maybe thirty? But saying he was in his early twenties was impossible. “…And would you believe me if I told ya that this here photograph is actually from this same bar. This very one, the one yer standing in right now…” Christ, that would either make him my age… “…And you best believe that somewhere just outta frame, Mark, that there’s a big double-sized bathroom where my dad made sweet love to my ol’ lady…” …or a liar? It may have been so but there’d be no way of getting this lughead to admit it willingly. Mark recognized his stories as the type you’d hear from a frat boy bragging about his last lay, or a fisherman with his big catch. They were rehearsed in front of a mirror and practiced to perfection with each telling, and if these drunks were placing bets on them, Mark was positive that they were damn close to being perfected. He could just walk away, or let the guy finish his stories, attentively nod his head in approval when neccesary(as he was doing currently) until the show was over, and catch his “grand prize”. Half of him was fed up with the whole ordeal as is, but fuck, why ruin the giant’s fun? At this point he had tuned the man out, paying only enough attention to know when he’d have to mind his p’s and q’s, look wooed and wowed, and sip his beer sparingly. He matched Merle sip for gulp, hoping to not get hammered enough to call him out on his lies, worried that shattering this chumps life story in front of the regulars might result in either A) a blubbering behometh that his conscience would force him to quell, or B) a beligerant corn-fed superhuman fuming with rage. Neither option seemed worth the work. As Merle finished his beer in one last swallow, babbling about the bathroom stall or something. He looked down discouraged at the sight of Mark’s unfinished beer. “You’ll have to ‘scuse me for a moment, nature calls. Finish yer beer, and I’ll buy ya another.” There was something to his tone. Did Merle know that Mark was no longer an eager listener and was merely doing it for the free booze, or was he just truly hurt that he didn’t finish his beer in time for another order. Mark muttered, “You got it, boss.” into his beer as the lumbering beast waddled into the mens room. Leaning over his stool to make sure the bathroom door was closed behind him, he immediately started into the drunks, already laughing amongst themselves. “Hey folks, any chance that this guys stories ain’t true?” Their response, a sudden quiet amongst the three of them, sent a chill down Marks spine. The local closest to him turned and said “Boy, if you know what’s good for you, I’d recon you shouldn’t bring that up to good ol’ Merle. He might not be all there, but there are certain things you just… you just don’t challenge. Ain’t our place to question the validity of his life story, we just watch him scare away them folk wandering into our bar. Some things are better left unsaid, you hear me?” “I can respect that. Do y’all know anything about him besides his dad porking his mom in this bar?” “Pay more attention, kid. By the end of the night you’ll know as much as we do, and he’s been coming ‘round here for a decade or so now.” “But that’s impossible, that would mean he’s obviously ol-“ “Shhht! Here he comes.” Smiling wide, Merle seemed pleased that Mark had finished his beer, and as he walked past the drunks, he couldn’t have seen the gesture they were making for Mark (“Shh’ing” him with a finger over the mouth). Ray the bartender was already enroute with two more beers as Merle sat back down. Mark tried to remember if he was drinking Budweiser or Busch, but decided it didn’t matter. He was three beers deep, about to start on his fourth. He could drink two more of these piss brews and take his prize and leave here with a good story. Piece of cake. “So where was I?” “You were-“ “Ah yes, I was talkin’ ‘bout how hard it was to find this bar. All I had was a photo and an address, but this was back when we used phonebooks and hoped that they was still in service. In which case this here bar wasn’t listed as what it was back when my mom n’ pops ruled the dance floor. So what I did was I spent all my money getting out here. I figured I’d just walk up and down the streets til I found the one.” “Based off that one little pho-“ “That’s right. Using just this lil’ picture and my guts! Took me a few weeks of asking er’body at every darned bar in town, and you can imagine how long that took.” (In a town of thirty thousand with one central street? What, five or six?) Merle was nodding his head up and down after he slammed back a third of his beer. Was he expecting a response?” “You just said it took you a few we-“ “But I found it! The locals here,” throwing a thumb at the folks behind him, who in response through a snide grin and wave right back, “all know my story by now, but they’re good people. Even Ray, he might be new but he knows how to have a good time. Am I right, Ray?” “That’s right, Merle.” “So where was I?” Mark was half pressed to try and get a word in before he finished his second gulp, but instead remained silent, and glumly drank deep of his own. “Now I couldn’t rightly tell it was the bar that I’d been hearin’ stories of my whole life, not just by walkin’ in and glancin’ around. Naw, that’d too darn easy. So I walk right up to the current bartender, by the name of Big Pete as I recall, and I ask him flat out, ‘Is this the Donnel’s Bar & Karoake, what had the dirty dancing competition some years back?’ and Big Pete, who weren’t so big at all, he said to me, ‘That’s right. ‘Cept we goes by Choppers now.” Merle looked as if her were about to pop with excitement, but he held it down and finished his beer, concluding “I reckon it was some kind of biker joint, what with all them gruff types hangin’ around, but it didn’t matter one bit. It was the bar, Mark. I knew I was meant to find it and I dun found it alright. Now if’n you’ll excuse me a moment, I’m off to the pisser to drain the ol’ copperhead” (Did he just compare his dick to a rattlesnake?!) Mark simply nodded, and as soon as Merle turned his enormous back, he began chugging his beer. Some of it started spilling out the sides, and somehow he noticed he felt pretty drunk. Instead of turning to the old bastards betting on him, he thought not of Patrick Swayze and how he unknowingly resulted in either one large exuberant drunk here in Texas, or how he unwittingly became the sponsor of this guy’s life story, but instead he thought of his mother. He didn’t hate the conniving alcoholic super-bitch who drank herself to death and gave everything she had to her new husband, bordering on a similar booze death any day now, but he was certainly happy about one thing; at least she didn’t give birth to Merle. In the corner of his eyes, he could see the drunks trying to flag him down. He ignored them, and finished the foam at the bottom of his cup. Definitely Budweiser, it was sweeter, tasted less beer-like. Maybe it was the fact that he was teetering on drunk and buzzed that he yelled for Ray, or maybe it was because he just didn’t care. “Yo! Ray, can I get a cheap shot of whiskey?” “No problem. All our whiskey shots cost the same. All we got here is ‘Heaven and Hell’ Whiskey. We get it by the half gallon, most folk here won’t drink anything else. I’d say two big ones, but hell I’ll just throw it on Merles tab if you make it all the way.” “Deal.” There was only one beer to drink from here. Without hestitation, he slammed back the cheapest sour mash he’d ever had, and chased it with some salty bar nuts, coughing up as Merle waddled back. As Merle pulled his stool out, he signaled Ray one last time, and turned back to Mark, who now had a most apparent glow about himself. This pleased Merle. “Aw, a real drinkin’ man! If I had known that, I’da been ordering us whiskey all night!” Behind him, Mark saw the three drunks frantically waving their arms about, shaking their heads, as if trying to say, “DON’T DO IT!”. Mark saw the logic in this, in a more drunken state, he was not sure what this man was capable of. Worse, he knew himself and what five shots might have done. “All the same, I prefer the beer here. It’s got that sweet taste you won’t find anywhere else. You know what that taste is?” “Either Busch or Bud-“ “It’s the taste of being exactly where you’re meant to be.” “Why Merle, I didn’t kn-“ “You see, after all them years of searching, all them hotels I had to live in, all them buses I had to sit on, I’m finally here!” Mark felt his stomach growl and his kidneys bolt. His body wanted him to either pee or puke, any which would do. As if to psychically respond to that, Merle raised his glass for a toast. God, that’d mean he’s expecting me to drink more. It was the last beer, so what the hell. Mark lifted his beer, and off Merle went, “Mark, let’s drink to being exactly where our good Lord has intended us to be.-“ What? “Cheers! It’s been a real pleasure talkin’ to you so far. I’m willing to bet God has a mighty fine reason for placing you right here tonight.” No. If he had said anything else, he’d have been fine. But he had to bring God into this?! God was the reason his mother stopped talking to him, because he wouldn’t join her sick little church. Nope. This one he couldn’t swallow. God damn it, he could have said anything else. Mark damn near chipped his glass in hitting Merles’, and proceeded to chug, chug, chug his glass down in one six second gulp, four and a half swallows of beer to be exact. He topped it with a belch that even Merle must have been impressed by. At least he was finished. Finally, he could go home. Merle just stared at him, confused to say the least. “Woooo-eeeee! Ya see that boys! That’s fuckin’ how you do it! Now pay up, fucks, er, I mean folks.” Merle looked confounded, while two of the drunks were trying to ignore him, but the one farthest down couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing, which quickly turned into a bar full of laughter. All except Mark. The drunk closest to him smiled, “Thanks Mark, that’s a win for me.” The second, “Yeah, we all thought you were gonna make it.” The third was still laughing. The bartender was choking back laughter. Even Merle was chuckling now. The big oafish man, accepting this as a forfeiture, turned to the bartender and called it. “Yeah, I really thought this one woulda had it, guys. He seemed like the polite city type. Was it the whiskey, kid? Was it the whiskey that put you over?” “I-uh, wait what? No, I won. That was my fifth beer. Wait, you’re in on it too?” “’Fraid so, kid, and no, that was your fifth beer alright, but the rules go ‘Five with me’ and you were supposed to keep up with me. What you did there would have disqualified you were you to make it to the last beer.” Disqualified? What the fuck. No. “No! No no no NO! I drank five beers, one whiskey shot, and I sat here with you for two hours listening to your mind numbing story! I deserve the fuckin’ prize! Gimme that fuckin’ prize!” They heard him, but they ignored him. Merle finally had the decency to pull a small flat rectangle out of his pocket. Some kind of CD case with some sloppy cursive written on the encased disk. “Sorry kid, this only goes to the winners. You ain’t a winner. Not tonight anyways.” But Mark was seeing red, absorbing their laughter and turning it into solidified rage. For a second, he saw himself grabbing the pint glass and throwing it at one of the four bastards, but instead, he thought of his mother. Ugh. He turned and left, without saying another word. As he slammed the door shut, the laughter subsided. Drunk number two, “Eh fuck it, Ray, I’ll pay the kids tab. Fifteen bucks for five beers is worth all that fun.” Ray now, “That’s seventeen. Don’t forget the whiskey shot.” The third drunk, “Yeah, you did good Merle. That one was a real riot. At one point he was sure you were, ‘mixing up your facts’. Hah!” Merle, “Wait, you mean the dumbass thought there was actually some kind of truth to it! Hah! Hey Ray, give the boys a round on me. Help yourself to one while you’re at it. Nobody else is going to pop in tonight anyways, and it’s not like a single beer is gonna get you buzz. This stuff tastes like stale piss.” Number two, “That it does, Merle, that it does. I’m surprised the kid didn’t ask what the prize was. That was half the point!” The old timer closes to Merle, “Yeah, if he would have just stayed to see how the story ended, he would at least have seen the humor in it.” Merle laughed again, and threw the CD case onto the bar. “I doubt he would have even watched it. ‘Dirty Dancing’ ain’t even that good a movie.” |