Return to Oakpin(14)

            Sonny was tending the bar, and Craig ordered a schooner of Cowboy lager, which was one of the two beers Frank’s little brewery made out back. “You’re still working here,” he said to her.

            Sonny set the tall beer in front of him and looked him in the face. “Meaning?”

            “Sonny,” he said. “Meaning nothing.” She looked tired, a pretty woman with dark hair to her shoulders. She wore a man’s blue dress shirt with a pen in the pocket. “I never said one thing in my life that had a meaning. I’m surprised to see you. I don’t know.”

            “Well, hello to you too, Craig Ralston. You ought not to come in here in your Mr. Hardware shirt like that. The good folks will think we’ve got plumbing problems. Which we do.” She glanced up at the television and started to move down the bar.

            “Sonny, I didn’t mean anything. I’m an oaf. Don’t be offended by anything an oaf says. You know already that I like you just fine.”

            She softened and smiled. “I do know. And you are an oaf. And I’m still in town, and I still have a job, and this is my job, and I’m sort of happy and plan, frankly, to stay. Enjoy your beer. Frank’s right around the corner at one of the tables if you want to know.”

            “You always had a way with women,” the man next to him said. It was Al Price, who had spent more time in the Antlers than any man, even Frank, who owned the place. Once or twice a month in the winter Al would end up sleeping in one of the big booths in the back. He’d been in their class too, a tough guy who didn’t play football and who lost a hand in his first month as a roughneck in the Chevron fields. He’d been nineteen. Now he was gray and grizzled, looking both wiry and soft at the same time, looking, Craig thought, as old as the rest of us.

            “Hey, Al. Can I buy you a beer?”

            “You ain’t been in here for a while,” Al said. He was cleaned up, comb tracks in his hair, his eyes bright.

            “Life caught up to the good times,” Craig said. “Larry’s a senior, you know.”

            “Jesus Christ. I’d heard rumors that they kept that school open after we ruined it. A senior. What’s he going to do to shame us all?

            “He wants out of Oakpine,” Craig said. “And he’s not really picky after that.”

            “An idealist.”

            “And how’s Marci? Don’t even tell me. I know she’s thriving. She’s the one of us not to worry about. She’s always been together.”

            “Right there, Al. She’s at the museum. What you been up to?”

            “Dribs and drabs,” Al said. “I’m doing swing security at the transfer station. It’s okay. Enough to buy beer, but not enough to get my teeth fixed.” Al lifted his head and showed the two gaps on the sides of his mouth. “We’re so old, our teeth have given up. You still got yours.”

            Craig looked at Al. It was a picture of two fifty-year-olds at a bar, Craig knew, but all he could see was this kid he had known who had been a smartass and careless and who’d hung on the periphery of things. All these years had passed, but it seemed simply impossible. “Yeah,” Craig said. “I still got mine, but I never use them.” Al snorted at this and began to laugh, a tight wheeze of a laugh, an alcoholic laugh overtly, and when his face settled, his eyes looked ancient. “I’m going to catch up with Frank,” Craig said, standing. “Sonny,” he called to the woman who now stood at the end under the television, “let’s get Al a beer.”

            She pointed her finger at him and pulled the trigger. “You’re an ace,” she said.

            “Thanks, man,” Al said. “You’re an ace.”