The Crossing(126)

He followed the sound down the narrow mud corridors and hove up at last before a door nailed up out of raw pine boards crusted with dried rosin and hung on bullhide hinges. The room he entered was but one more in the row of cribs inhabited or abandoned that lined either side of the little street. When he entered the music ceased and the musicians turned and looked at him. There were several tables in the room and all had ornately turned legs that were stained with mud as if they’d stood outside in the rain. At one of the tables sat four men with glasses and a bottle. Along the back wall was an ornate Brunswick bar brought here from God knew where and on the shelves of the carved and dusty backbar there were half a dozen bottles, some with labels, some without.

Está abierto? he said.

One of the men pushed back his chair on the clay floor and stood. He was very tall and when he stood his head vanished into the darkness above the single shaded bulb that hung over the table. Sí, caballero, he said. Cómo no?

He went to the bar and took down an apron from a nail and tied it about his waist and stood before the dimly lit carved mahogany with his hands crossed before him. He looked like a butcher standing in a church. Billy nodded at the other three men at the table and wished them a good evening but none spoke back. The musicians rose with their instruments and filed out into the street.

He pushed his hat back slightly on his head and crossed the room and put his hands on the bar and studied the bottles on the back wall.

Déme un Waterfills y Frazier, he said.

The barman held up one finger. As if agreeing with the wisdom of this choice. He reached and took down a tumbler from among a varied collection and righted it on the bar and reached down the whiskey and poured the glass half full.

Agua? he said.

No gracias. Tome algo para usted.

The barman thanked him and reached down another tumbler and poured it and set the bottle on the bar. On the dust of the bottle his hand had left an imprint visible in the sallow glare from the lamp. Billy held up his glass and looked at the barman across the rim of it. Salud, he said.

Salud, said the barman. They drank. Billy set his glass down and gestured at it with a circling motion of his finger that included the barman’s glass also. He turned and looked at the three men sitting on the table. Y sus amigos también, he said.

Bueno, said the barman. Cómo no.

He crossed the room in his apron with the bottle and poured their glasses and they toasted his health and he raised his own glass and they drank. The barman returned to the bar where he stood uncertainly, glass and bottle in hand. Billy set his glass on the bar. Finally a voice from the table spoke to ask that he join them. He picked up the glass and turned and thanked them. He did not know who had spoken.

When he pulled back the chair which the barman had earlier vacated and sat in it and looked up he could see that the oldest of the three men was very drunk. He wore a sweatstained guayabera and he slouched in his chair with his chin resting in the open collar of it. The black eyes in their redrimmed cups were sullen and depthless. Like lead slag poured into borings to seal away something virulent or predacious. In the slow shuttering of the lids an overlong interval. It was the younger man on his right who spoke. He said that it was a long distance between drinks of whiskey for a traveler in this country.

Billy nodded. He looked at the bottle standing on their table. It was slightly yellow, slightly misshapen. There was no stopper to it nor label and it held a thin lees of fluid, a thin sediment. A thinly curved agave worm. Tomamos mescal, the man said. He leaned back in his chair and called to the barman. Venga, he called. Siéntate con nosotros.

The barman set the whiskey bottle on the bar but Billy said for him to bring it. He untied his apron and took it off and hung it back on the nail and came over with the bottle. Billy waved at the glasses on the table. Otra vez, he said.

Otra vez, said the barman. He poured the glasses round.

When he had filled all save the glass of the man who was drunk he hesitated for the prior pouring yet stood before him. The younger man touched his elbow. Alfonso, he said. Tome.

Alfonso drank not. He stared leadenly at the pale newcomer. He seemed not so much reduced by drink as restored to some atavistic state once lost to him. The younger man looked across the table at the American. Es un hombre muy serio, he said.

The barman stood the bottle before them and dragged a chair across from a nearby table and sat. All raised their glasses. They would have drunk except that Alfonso chose that moment to speak. Quién es, joven? he said.

They paused. They looked at Billy. Billy lifted his glass and drank and sat the empty glass down and looked across the table at those eyes again.