Issue #93

our man passes through

by Ron Pullins

Through me is the way to the lost people.
Dante, Inferno

 

Let's say our man has never been here before, but now, driving through the state on business, he finds himself on Main Street in some small town in the middle of the country. Let's say he finds himself in Kansas, in a town where old storefronts line both sides of Main Street, and on the south side in the middle of one such block a sign out front says

Good Food
Slats' Pool Hall

 

Our man parks his car.

He is hungry.

It is November. The sky is a depressing gray that refuses to give up its snow.

 

Our man is a salesman, stylish in his dark suit and bowler hat. He has been driving from one college campus to another selling books, but it is noon, or a bit just after, and this small town looks familiar and is the only stop for some time in between. Our man puts on his hat and enters the pool hall by a door etched with frosted glass. A bell above the door — a small bell, a silver bell — tinkles as our man enters.

 

It is dark inside, and it suddenly is quiet as men in the poolhall turn to look at our man coming in. Old men in coveralls play dominoes at the tables, and the ivory tiles they play grow legs as they make patterns on the table. Others hover behind them as they watch. The harvest for the season is over, and winter is coming on, so this is time for men who work the fields to come to town, to pause, to play, to rest.

All around the room, the schooners sit empty. And we anticipate.

 

Up front Slats moves back and forth as he polishes his bar. In the back smoke hangs horizontal in the air above a pool table that sits beneath low hanging lights. Two pool players pause and stare at the intruder, too, then resume their game. Ivory clicks against ivory, balls roll smooth across the felt and, from time to time, one might drop into a pocket.

"Slats! We need a rack back here!"

"I'm coming, boys," he says.

Slats waves and wipes his hands, then hurries back. Slats empties every pocket of their catch, then corrals them in a wooden frame which he sweeps across the felt and leaves them perfectly arranged. He takes a quarter for his efforts.

"Slats, bring us back some beer."

"The beer's done gone; the keg is empty. We're down to foam, but the boy is coming soon."

They stand and wait. The boy is coming soon.

 

Two locals at the bar. One is fat; the other not, and they, too, are nursing empty schooners. They have glanced up when our stranger entered, then back to stare at the print of Custer's Last Stand hanging above the bar, a source of endless fascination and discussions here because Custer and his Seventh Cavalry once camped beneath a tree a half mile south of here. It is the most famous spot around. A place where lovers go.

Our man takes off his bowler hat and holds it carefully in both hands.

"You want a beer?" Slats asks our man. "If you do, you'll have to wait. We're out of beer. The kid's a-coming with a keg. He ought to be here soon," he says, lightly kicking the keg beneath the bar. "Now all you'd get from this is foam."

Slats is slight, narrow along the head, a head curved in the self-same way the new moon curves to ladle up the night. A thin towel is wrapped around his waist, stained with dirty water from where he leans against the sink and washes glasses, then wipes them so they'll shine.

Our man sees the anticipation in all the empty schooners around the room. Everyone is waiting patiently for beer.

"We don't like no foam," the thin one says.

"No, we don't," his fat friend echoes.

 

The pool hall smells of stale beer from yesterday and before, from old urine that radiates from the toilet in the back, from smoke of a thousand thousand cigarettes that seeps from the walls and floors to mingle with new smoke from today. A few men here smoke cigarettes. Others smoke cigars. Everyone flicks their ashes to the floor. Others chew and spit into paper cups. The men talk in a soft and muffled code, of things, and mood, and the halted progress of the games. In the back, wood cue sticks are silent, no click against the ivory balls, no ivory against ivory, no ivory rolling over soft green felt to fall snugly into leather pockets. No one complains on the lack of beer, for there is a certain promise that it will come. The boy is bringing beer. Meanwhile time has stopped. Custer awaits his massacre.

 

"I'm hungry," our man says.

Slats grabs a clean schooner and pulls the draft to show our man, "This is what you get from the bottom of the barrel. Foam. I can't serve stuff like this. The kid'll be here soon with a new keg."

 

"I was hoping for some lunch," our man says. "Perhaps a sandwich," he continues.

Slats pauses.

"We got chips," Slats says. "And peanuts. That's all we got.

"Your sign outside says food."

"You want a bag of chips?"

Our man spies an object on the bar. "What's that?" he asks.

He points to a gallon jar of objects afloat in yellow liquid.

"Pickled eggs," Slats says. "They float in pickle juice. You want a pickled egg? I'd like to get rid of all those pickled eggs. Them's the last of them I got. When I get rid of them, I'm ordering those little sausages you see so much these days. Polish sausages, they're called. Pickled, like them eggs, so they won't grow old. Ican't sell things that time can kill. People go for Polish sausages. That's what I hear. Folks don't like them eggs no more," he says. "I'd take a dollar for the bunch."

"Polish sausage sure sounds good," our man says.

"You won't see Polish sausages for a while," the fat man says. "Not for a year or two, I'd bet. Look," he says. He tips his empty schooner. "How long I been waiting for a beer?"

"Boy's coming with the beer, if you want a beer," Slats tells the fat man. He looks out the front window. "Any minute now."

"No one here wants them pickled eggs," the thin man says. "Everybody's waiting for them Polish sausages."

"It'll be a while."

"I'm sure of that."

"It's been a while for beer."

There is a chuckle of general agreement around the pool hall. Everyone listens to everybody else. There are no secrets here.

 

There's silence.

 

"I'll take a pickled egg," our man says. "That dark one there that's floating in the middle. Then I'll be on my way."

Our man would stop, perhaps, to have a beer, but he has to drive, and he has quite a way to go before the sun is set.

"Which one?" Slats asks.

"I'll take them all," our man says to end negotiations. "It looks like something I can eat along the road. I'm late and must be going."

 

Slats spoons out the last remaining eggs from all the brine and wraps them in a napkin for our man. "A dollar's all," he says. "No tax. I'm glad to see them go."

Our man pays, no questions asked.

 

Then the quiet is broken by the tinkling of the bell above the door. The front door opens as the kid comes in, his butt pushing back against the door as he pulls along a two-wheel cart the keg of beer is on. All heads are turned that way again. Some swallow hard. Thirst here has grown profound as time moves forward. The game of pool is paused as are those several games of dominoes.

 

"At last," is followed by a hundred sighs.

The boy weaves through the tables, chairs, around the room, and to the bar where Slats is waiting. There Slats unhooks the empty keg and rolls it out so that when the boy tips the barrel up he can push the new keg in the space beneath the bar. Slats hooks the hoses up.

"And here," he says, to the young boy, to offer him a reward. "A bit of foam we gift the gods." The first of every keg goes to those who give them beer.

The kid receives a schooner full of foam, the first fruit of the keg, Slats fills the dozen schooners on the bar, one, and then another, and then another, and on, and on, while the boy, too young to drink at all, licks at his foam.

Life in the bar resumes. The game of pool begins again. One watches while the other player leans against the table, pulls back his cue with great intent, imagines the geometry of force, and strokes the whitest ivory ball. Now ivory clicks on ivory once again, so very soft, and all order in the universe is reimagined. Entropy begins again its long slow crawl to darkness. Disorder rules, reason's overwhelmed, and chance puts all in doubt.

A player at dominoes taps the table with his tile, then plays, then others play, and others, as the ivory legs of spiders are described atop the surfaces.

 

The golden-haired boy, foam on his upper lip, pulls back his cart and puts the empty barrel on it, then pushes his way out, around the table and the chairs, through men and smoke and time, and out the door. Again, the bell, to signal the return of all that's normal.

Our man picks up his bowler hat with his hand and sits it firmly on his head. In the other hand he gathers up the napkin and his eggs. He smiles and nods and tips his hat.

 

Outside the streets are empty. Sidewalks, too. Our man gets in his car and places his hat carefully on the seat, next to his pickled eggs. The stores along Main Street here are lit, but our man sees no one there. But from the pool hall window he sees Slats and other faces looking out, some faces pressed against the glass, and faces in rows above them, as if his departure brings them peace at last, and joy, and the clock of as things are ticks on.

Our man starts his car. It starts, and he pulls out.

 

By now the sun is low, setting on the hills that wrinkle north to south across this central part of Kansas. A shadow, yes, is seen, our young boy who pulls his cart that bears the empty keg around a corner of the block and into shadows. Our man reaches for a pickled egg, one of several wrapped for his trip, and sitting there beside him. He bites into its body, leaving half an egg uneaten, revealing something like a half a sun inside a bright white universe.

Perhaps, he thinks, as he resumes his travels and the town behind him falls away, a town he has delivered from the tyranny of eggs. He thinks he might return again some time, and stop in again, for some Polish sausages he has heard so much about.