Bent Words

Bent Words

November 15, 2004

I was surprised to hear his voice on the machine without its usual tone of disdain. It must have been late, when he left his message, since I had gone to bed rather late myself and it must have been a rather harrowing day.

Our morning's conversation provided accuracy to my sentient observations - he had still the echoes of an ill spent evening on his tongue. These events were apparently shadowed by his propensity to lose himself at some local dive in town and drink alone.

"Can you pick me up from the bike shop? I'm putting the Beemer in storage for the winter."

"Sure, when?"

"11:30 is good. Thanks."

Click.

His brevity of speech filed down further by his distaste for the telephone and unnecessary common niceties.

I leaned against the checkout counter of Southeast Sales and glanced over the neatly arranged, brand new BMW motorcycles. The salesmen recognized me as a former employee of Lake Country Powersports and berated me for my KTM jacket, pointing out the vast array of reasons I should prefer a BMW over a KTM.

"Doesn't matter - I like Honda's, anyway."

"Oh."

Before our conversation regarding the ill use of sleeping pills on long flights ended, John swaggered in from the back of the shop, bearing the usual grin upon our meeting. Paperwork finished and my urgency of sitting on at least one bike passed, we headed to the mall.

I hate malls. Now, Milwaukee has quite a few malls and I'm not sure which happened to be our mall of 'choice,' but it did not matter. It was a Saturday afternoon and the parking lot was flooded with ineptly driven cars, their owners swarming feverishly down the tiled floors or pausing for no apparent reason before the high glassed doors of some particular shop. We skillfully swept through the maze of people and, after about a mile's distance from the entrance, made our way into a travel agency. John purchased our train tickets for Amsterdam and Paris.

It seemed so real, just then. I'm going to Europe - to Paris! I am going to walk down the very streets that Hemingway strolled down in the early 1900's, the boulevard that Robert Service mentioned in his poetry, the graveyard where Oscar Wilde is buried and see the cafes that F. Scott Fitzgerald visited...
I was rather dumbfounded and quiet as we made our way out of the agency. I held my usual excitement for the escalators, both up and down, and voiced my appreciation with a little bit louder than necessary, "Kick ass!" when John purchased a bag of cashews (I like cashews. A lot) for me.

Back to my place to watch his son, Charles', soccer game online. Nijmegen's NEC against the FC Twente which had just played each other on Wednesday. We sat in front of my 17" screen, cursing at the languid motions of Charles' fellow NEC players and hoping that we would soon see his familiar gait onto the field. Seventeen minutes left to play and there he was! The score was 1 - 0 FC Twente and finally, the damed coach decided to put in Charles. He seemed to have taken on the indolence of his fellow teammates, perhaps having something on his mind, and thus, FC doubled their score to win the game.

To clear our minds and our disgust, we began to employ ourselves in nearly anything else. John taught me how to tell military time since I have previously had a general refusal to incorporate another mean of distinguishing cocktail hour besides the simple use of 5 o'clock, but now I can tell you that it's 17:00 and we need to start drinking. I can see this as being an overdone sippet of knowledge in my future, especially with my dad...

"What time does your flight leave, Laura?"

"15:34, SIR."

"So you finally have the hang of military time, I see."

"Sir, yes, SIR."

"Okay, Laura..."

And I will continue to grin with bright amusement as my father grants my antics with another dramatic eye roll.

Back to my story...

John looked over some European maps while I accompanied my voice with various songs of Oliver! before we made the decision to get the hell outta here. I had a plan in mind for dinner and drinks and thus we escaped back into Milwaukee. I took him to LuLu's - my usual Two Wheel Tuesday motorcycle hangout where, believe it or not, on Tuesdays, a bunch of us motorcycle freaks get together and watch various races projected on one wall of the newly constructed establishment. I smiled at his approbation of the open and cheerful atmosphere, his pleasure in the paintings on the walls and his decided overall contentment in my choice of bars. His only qualm was with the men's room and their unusually low urinals, to which I simply cocked my head.

"Is that bad?"

"Not if you're short."

We treated ourselves to a couple of cocktails until ordering two of their 'special burgers' made in equal preparation. Medium rare with LuLu chips and coleslaw. Delicious, they were, and full were our bellies. John made a double order of Triple Sex, which I had never had before, and instead of conversing over this never before indulged drink, he wrote to me on a napkin.

"It's Triple SEC, Laura, not Sex. Tastes like oranges. Don't gulp it, it's meant to be sipped."

I introduced him to my favorite bartender, John (yes, another John), and we stole off into the streets for a short after dinner walk. The night was cool but comfortable and we were in good spirits.

He instructed me as to where he wished to go next and thus we ended up in an unknown location, to me, on the southeast side of Milwaukee. A small establishemtn called, "Hop Back Inn," in a not-so-great part of town and described by my companion as a 'Jive Bar.' A small room with the cleanest pool table at its center and a semi-long bar with one patron leaned over its edge. Of course, he had been here before and introduced me to the owner, Lamont.

He was a big, burly black gentleman with piercing blue eyes - well dressed, older, with a husky voice and a knowing eye. I liked him immediately and introduced myself with a hearty handshake. John racked up the table and commenced teaching me the correct positions for making those shiney colored balls disappear into six equally porportioned holes with what is known as a pool cue. After I began to get the hang of it and all the balls were off the table, we sat down to relax with a few more cocktails while the usual slew of patrons meandered through the door.

Sarah, his favorite bartender whom he had shared a full bottle of Dr. McGullicuddy's with last summer, assumed her position behind the bar. A couple of pool sharks swaggered in, complete with their own encased cues and a few odd characters took respective places leaning over their preferred poison. We trapsed over to the juke box to fill the room with the two choices one could pick from the variety of songs, Jazz and Blues, and I stared with wonder as the two pool sharks began their ascent over the perfection of that green lined table.

The two men started out rather slowly, gradually picking up accuracy, as Lamont eyed each move with certainty. He placed his own quarters from the til onto the table and patiently awaited his turn with the winner. He shocked the room as he made shot after impossible shot, sinking the balls with smoothe ease and experience and despite my occasional squeels of pleasure at his mastery of the game. John began to get antsy as he looked on, wishing he could be in mix of all this. I knew he had not seriously played for quite some time, but I was eager to see him have his fun and watch his moves about the table. He set down his own quarters after some time and began to play, without his own cue, against one of the sharks that appeared as though he had eaten nothing but large helpings of cocaine for several weeks.

John was lousy.

His lack of time at the tables in recent months, coupled with a decided need to impress the lady (me and yes, I rather assume this for my own pleasure) formed his demise. His frustration kept his mind for the next half hour or so as we bid our good-byes and quit the 'Jive Bar,' but I knew this was a place that I would thoroughly enjoy to Hop Back Inn whenever the chance surmounted.

Written at 8:58 a.m.