Don't Order Dog_ 1(3)
“Yes, we do have to have this conversation every week,” Chip answered. “And I intend to keep having it until I’m no longer looking at the prettiest girl in Flagstaff when I order a beer.”
“I’m not the prettiest girl in Flagstaff,” Jeri retorted. “Not by a mile. And even if I was, I don’t see how that would have anything to do with my choice of profession.” She grabbed a towel and began absently wiping down the counter of the bar.
“I’ll give you that,” Chip replied, nodding his head. “But, then again, this particular bartender also happens to hold a handful of bachelor’s degrees and a Masters in Economics. Isn’t that right?”
Jeri ignored the question.
“Now, I may not be the sharpest tool in the proverbial shed anymore,” Chip continued, “but I think I’m still smart enough to recognize talent being wasted when I see it.” Finished with his sermon, he grabbed the fresh pint in front of him and took a long deliberate drink.
Jeri turned and paced quickly down the bar towards Chip. Her slender figure moved with graceful ease as her eyes burned into the older man’s down-turned face. Chip kept his eyes fixed on his beer as she stopped in front of him. She then slowly leaned across the counter; her fair, oval-shaped face hovering just inches from his. “You didn’t answer my question,” she said flatly, tossing the towel at his chest.
Chip looked up at her with a wry grin. “Oh, you mean the letter?” he asked.
“Yes Chip, the letter.”
“Well I think he sounds like one helluva guy,” he replied cheerfully, raising his glass. “I just hope he writes you again.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Jeri replied, grabbing the letter from the counter. She turned and walked back to the far end of the bar, concealing the thin smile on her face as she stared at the envelope. She slid back onto her barstool in the corner behind the counter and looked out again at the autumn afternoon. The glow of the maple leaves was beginning to fade, their shadows tracing intricate shadows against the wooden blinds in the window. In a few more hours the sun would fall behind Mars Hill, the chill of autumn would return to the clear mountain air, and the neon sign hanging on the old brick façade outside would paint flickering crimson on the sidewalk outside. It was then that the magic of evening would return, bringing the nightly wave of thirty-something couples and college-age hipsters with it.
“It is rather interesting though, isn’t it?” Chip asked as he stared contemplatively at his beer glass.
“What’s that?” Jeri responded.
“How well he seems to know you,” the older man replied. He took a sip of his beer and looked over at her, his blue eyes still swimming with thought. “I was watching you while you read that letter. You were sitting there, in your favorite spot behind the bar, holding the letter in one hand, your other hand on your cheek–”
He paused for a moment as Jeri’s eyes widened with the realization of what he was saying. “Just like he described.”
3.
Tareeq 135 Madinat, Al Jubail
October 5, 8:04am
Planet Saudia Arabia
Jeri –
I’m looking nervously over my shoulder as I write you, fully expecting the twitchy coolness of morning to be chased from the room by the approaching simoon before it wrings me completely fucking lifeless. Did I complain about endless precipitation in my last letter? I’d trade a billion grains of sand for one sparkling drop of ma. Make that two billion, and throw in a double-shot of Fortaleza and a Camel Light.
Camels, camels everywhere, and none of them to smoke.
The flight getting here was a disaster of colossal proportions. The mescaline and Prozac wore off somewhere high above the surreally sparkly Indian Ocean. And what I thought was a rogue band of harmless, cuddly chia-pets turned out to be a staff of churlish Air Iran flight attendants. I swear I did nothing wrong, Jeri. There I was, innocently floating in post-hallucinogenic meditation when suddenly they were shouting at me from all sides. I vaguely gathered from the pointing fingers and distorted curls of their lips that it might have something to do with my shirt being inexplicably removed and my fly incomprehensibly unzipped, because the Farsi flowed from their mouths like jackals learning hooked-on-phonics. The fact that the cabin held the warm pungent stench of a curried, oven-baked jockstrap certainly didn’t help matters. I considered asking the passenger next to me how to say ‘What, fucknuts?’ in Farsi, but EVERYONE was looking at me like I was the one who was delusional. While my memory after this is sketchy, I have compelling evidence that suggests I was bodily probed by the authorities during my layover in Dammam. Hard to say, as either the mescaline kicked back in, or they did something so terrible to my nether regions that I immediately retreated into my mental “happy place” and shut the whole thing out.