Ol' Joe

I. Beer

There's this one time ol' Joe tossed out three fellers in one night. This fella come in just as Joe was showing Fat Tom the door. Weren't eleven yet, but Tom'd goosed Pearl, and rules is rules. Joe didn't want to let this new feller in on account he was already good and skunked, but this feller just popped off some bullshit about personal freedoms and "who was Joe to tell him what he could handle," talking in the strangest damned sounding accent I ever heard. Mighta coulda been German, but he didn't talk like no fureigner 'ceptin for that accent. So Joe jes' threw up his hands and said fine, but he better not cause a ruckus, and he wasn't getting any likker, least not till he'd set an hour and sobered a touch, and Pearl brought the feller some coffee.

Next thing you know this feller’s taken out a bottle of Scope, and starts to table hopping and telling stories and never once did pronounce things like a normal person, fureigner or not. Tells ever’one he’s got something called “Günter’s Syndrome” from a knock on the head six years back that makes him talk like ever’things got them little dots over it, and he offers ‘em a shot of his mouthwash if’n they buy him a beer on account of he can talk normal-like when he drinks.

Course ol’ Joe wouldn’t have it, so he goes right over and tells “Günter” that he can’t drink that in here, and “Günter’s” got to order or git. And that feller pops off again about discrimination and hospitality and all kinds of dumb shit, so Joe slaps the bottle out of his hands and grabs him by the collar and shoves him on out.

“I ain’t one to judge,” Joe says to me after, “but sometimes it’s damned hard, kinda folk come in here.”

Later on, Andy Johnson threw up all over the jukebox, so Joe tossed him, too.

II. Tequila

That night Pearl quit, this feller come in and dumped a body on the bar, all dead and shriveled up. Said it was a chupacabra, and he’d come to sell it to ol’ Joe. Joe sweared by his momma’s good name he’d seen one before out back of the bar rummaging through the trash, and he put it about on the internets that he’d pay good money for anyone brung him proof the damn things exist. Fella said he caught it tryna bust into a sheep pen.

He ordered tequila and sat there shooting it with this smug look on his face while the others all “oohed” and “ahhed,” like what they was looking at wasn’t just some mangy coyote got caught out in the cold. Joe asked him how much he wanted for it, and the feller told him five thousand, and Joe was honestly considering right up to when Pearl chimed in. 

“Joe,” she says, “don’t you be a damned fool and give this charlie-tan a red cent.”

“An’ if’n I do?” he says.

And she says, “Then I’ll turn and walk right out that door and never darken it again, and curse you til I die for a blind jackass. That thing ain’t nothing but a wild scrawny dog.”

Which a’course is what ever’one in town’d tole Joe for years about what he’d saw, and he went all red in the face and puffed hisself up and said that Pearl could do as she pleased, and told that feller he’d give him six thousand, he was so sure it was real.

“Sold,” the feller said, and Pearl spat on the ground and went right on out like she promised.

“Women,” the feller said.

“Don’t know what the world’s coming to sometime,” Joe said.

III. Whiskey

Was a warm night, warm for October at least, an ol’ Joe’d brung a bottle out onto the patio after closing to set a spell and watch the storm. ‘Round dawn it started raining frogs, an ol’ Joe started to open up.

“Tough to know what to think these days, innit? Time was, a man knew where he stood and what t’expect. You worked hard to carve out a place in the world. Got yourself a business. Raised a family. Things made sense. Somewhere in between then and now, we lost the thread.”

The sun poked up over the ‘rizon in a little sliver of clear sky twixt the ground and clouds like tobacco smoke. The frogs cast shadows on the wall as they fell. Some splattered and oozed frog guts onto the pavement, but most lay dazed for a bit before hoppin’ off to parts unknown.

“Ever’one seems t’agree the whole damn world’s falling apart, and why, but ain’t none of ‘em can agree what to do about it. Human condition, I suppose, but it feels like madness all the same. It was like that with Cora, too.”

We were drunk something fierce by then. The whiskey didn’t burn going down, and we finished the bottle. Sometimes it’s the only way to say what needs saying.

“We had a lil’ girl once, I ever tell you that? Beautiful lil’ squirrel. We called her squirrel on account of her favorite snack was nuts and seeds and the like. She died when she was just four. Leukemia. Doctors never could figure why the treatment didn’t work. Musta taken her to a dozen specialists, and they each of ‘em ran tests, tests. Knew what was wrong, too, but couldn’t none of ‘em agree what to do about it. We buried her in the tiniest coffin I ever seen, and me and Cora split up lessen a year after, and I moved out here and opened the bar.”

“Ain’t a day goes by I don’t wish she were still here.”

He went all quiet then, and we stood watching them damn frogs fall, and I knew he was crying even though I never looked to see for sure. I put my hand into his and give it a little squeeze, and a minute or so later them frogs stopped raining, and we went back into the bar again.

—Thanks to Timothy Donley (R.I.P.) for Ü, Chupacabra, and Rain of Frogs.
Image by Megan Italian