Nyla had poured one after another on a perfect, sun-baked weekend, but Monday was different. A dense fog hung over the harbor in the morning.
Marko looked out of his studio addition to the Spanish Cantina and watched the cold mist engulf the harbor like an evil spirit over Salem’s Lot. He remembered that as a kid in New Zealand, cold overcast days like this indicated that he was going to get a bad report card from school. A chill ran up his spine as he pictured his father giving him what for.
He?d tried to work out, but his heart wasn’t in it, so he jogged along the edge of the harbor, returned and showered. Immediately thereafter, the first sign of the evilness of the day came in the form of a phone call from the liquor distributor. The San Pedro run was canceled because of a fatal accident on the Long Beach Freeway.
The red line on the phone buzzed and Marko picked it up.
“Marko,” Bandit said, “you may have to hit it down to Joe’s Liquor and pick up a case of Jack Daniels and Cuervo. I think we’re cool on everything else.”
“You got it, boss,” Marko said. “That?s not a good omen for the day, is it?”
“Don’t get religious on me,” Bandit said. “Let’s see how the day shapes up.”
Marko hung up and went about getting dressed and underway. He and Bandit had a thing about days like this and he would have preferred that Bandit ordered the Cantina closed. Business had been good over the weekend and the money was flowing in. Bandit didn’t like to let the regulars down for lunch during the week. They worked hard in the crummy industrial areas of the harbor and he liked to have good-looking girls and a warm meal for them at noon.
There were no new vistas to cross as the noon hour passed. Nyla wasn’t in the best mood because she was pulling a double shift while Bandit sought a new afternoon bartender. Marko noticed that about the middle of each month she would change and any additional stress wasn’t handled in her usual gleeful demeanor. She had that look today as she moved around the bar in a sullen mood, but there was something about her shape and those boobs that overcame the outward appearance of depression.
The fog was replaced by a low shroud of dismal clouds in the afternoon that gave the harbor that wintry, East Coast feel. It made Marko uneasy.
As the afternoon waned, he hoped that Bandit would shut the joint down for the evening. But as happy hour approached, Marko was immediately called back to the parking lot as two dock workers started to argue over a fender bender. The two tried to race for the same parking space with their pickups. Was it another forecast of what was to come? As he spoke to them, Marko felt a chill touch the back of his neck and he looked skyward to see the clouds become gathered and more ominous.
The Cantina had a reputation for closing during the rain as a message for riders to stay off the road and out of bars. Marko could swear that he sensed the first drop of rain, but as he looked around the graying asphalt in the parking lot he saw no black spots to confirm his evil inspiration. He calmed the two, motivated them to share information and bought each one their first drink.
By the time he inspected the remainder of the lot and returned to the interior of the bar, the two were fist fighting. He threw them out, making the more sensible one leave the premises first, then running off the hot head. It was a bad prophecy to the evening even as he watched the redhead Mandy flirt with Nyla.
Monday night wasn?t busy. It began to sprinkle at 6 p.m. but there was still no word from Bandit. Marko noticed two bikers park their matching Softails in the “bikes only” area and strolled into the bar, nodding at Marko. The dining room of 50 tables was nearly empty yet they picked a table at the back. Blackie looked at his buddy Storm, who was down-and-out, and motioned to Mandy. She popped over to their table rapidly with a basket of chips and a bowl of salsa.
“What are you going to have to drink?” Blackie asked Storm.
“Jack Daniels neat, a double,” Storm said. His face was a poster to lost loves. He was a good-looking man under a full beard and close-cropped, sandy-brown hair. He worked on the cranes that load the containers on the ships. He was restricted from sporting long hair, but they let him get away with the beard. He had been married for 15 years, and a week ago his wife announced that she wanted a divorce. Six months prior he was diagnosed with throat cancer from 20 years of smoking. He lit a cigarette.
“I’ll have a gold Cadillac margarita,” Blackie said to Mandy and she moved away. She could sense pressure at the table. Blackie barely made eye contact with her. Since her lunch with Jimbo, a relationship was beginning to spark and Mandy was taking better care of herself. Most men noticed.
The two men kept their eyes down. Blackie was 6 foot with shoulder-length black hair, black Levi?s and a black vest, hence his nickname. He was generally a light-hearted outlaw who bounced from one broad to the next without much thought. He was everyone’s fair weather friend and had known Storm since the service, 15 years prior. While Storm was the stable type, Blackie roamed constantly, but stayed in touch.
Shortly after Storm was hit with the cancer bug, his wife contacted Blackie about his depression. She complained that he had lost all his drive and desire. Blackie took her to lunch and listened. She talked about a sex life that had diminished to zip. Blackie patted her arm and she covered his hand in hers and looked him in the eyes. He avoided her attraction at first and promised to party with Storm and see if he could draw him out of his dire mood, and he kept his promise. But Storm was lost and began to drink heavily.
Storm’s wife, Nancy, was a voluptuous vixen with large round tits and curves that weren’t hidden by her clothes the second time they lunched. Always in the past Nancy wore Levi?s and sweatshirts that hid everything except the size of her pendulous jugs. She was almost in tears with the depression and abuse Storm was sliding across the table at her. That afternoon Blackie and Nancy spent their time under the sheets at the nearby Holiday Inn.
Blackie sipped his margarita as Storm downed the Jack straight. He thought back to the times he stood around bon fires drinking Jack straight. He wasn’t up to it anymore. “What the hell is on your mind?” Blackie asked.
“She wants a divorce,” Storm said barely lifting his eyes off the wooden spool table. His large round shoulders were hunched over as if to protect the drink cupped in calloused hands.
“She what?” Blackie said, expecting this to be another sounding board exercise for Storm?s depression over his illness.
“She told me she wants out,” Storm said. “The doctor says that if I stop drinking and stay on my treatments; I’ll beat this shit. We’ve been together 15 years and now, because of this shit, she wants to split.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Blackie said. He knew in his heart that he was no good for Nancy. He was a roamer. She couldn’t handle him, but he knew she had fallen in lust with him. He felt like shit. Blackie took a large gulp of the margarita on the rocks.
“Are you fucking my wife?” Storm said, pushing his shoulders back and lifting his head to be directly in line with Blackie’s furtive blue eyes. “Tell me, you sonuvabitch.”
Blackie felt as low as the crushed peanut shells beneath his feet, but he had listened to Storm’s depressed bullshit for months. He tried to bring the sonuvabitch around to save his marriage. Sure, he fucked his wife, and put some passion and pleasure back into her dour existence. He wasn’t trying to steal his wife. Blackie pushed his wooden chair back and stood up. “If you’d fuck her I wouldn’t have to, jack ass,” he spat.
Storm threw his glass of Jack at Blackie’s face and they went to blows. Marko sensed a tension between the two, like two brothers who needed to clear the air. He jogged across the room quickly, but hesitated as he neared the two men swinging wildly at one another. Storm cleared a shot to Blackie’s jaw and spun his brother toward a booth. Blackie crashed into the heavy table, Storm tackled him and they went to the deck.
At first Storm was on top flailing away with disconnected punches. Blackie grabbed Storm’s beard and pulled him to the cigarette butts and peanut shells scattered on the floor. “You need to take care of business and quit pissing and moaning,” he shouted as he rolled, knocking over chairs and pushing tables aside.
“I’ll kill you,” Storm muttered as he spat peanut crumbs from his mustache.
It was unlike Marko, but he stood back like a referee at a boxing match. Blackie jumped to his feet and Storm followed. He hunched over and tackled Blackie again, knocking over another chair and table as they clattered to the deck. Storm’s nose was bloodied with one of Blackie’s quick jabs, but it didn’t slow him down.
Mandy stood near the bar screaming and two other guys at the bar had gotten up and moved around Mandy to watch the action. A couple of citizens who came in for lunch were scared off. The jukebox played a Santana tune about murderers turning their lights on while rain pelted the windows outside.
Panting and spewing spittle at each other, the two rolled in the dust and crap on the deck. Blackie had on black cowboy boots that slipped against the shells, but he popped Storm again and leapt to his feet. Unstoppable Storm jumped to his feet and with his head down charged once more. “Give it up,” Blackie said, sidestepping his bull-like attacker.
“Never,” Storm said as he threw an upper cut between Blackie’s outthrust arms, cracking him in the jaw. That’s what Blackie hopped for, the passion he wanted to hear from his brother. “I love you brother,” he said, grabbing Storm’s wild swinging arm as the man burst into tears and grabbed him around the waist.
“I can’t lose you both,” Storm said.
“Just go home and tell her ‘never’,” Blackie said. “She’ll understand.”
Covered in scraps from the floor, they bellied up to the bar and ordered another round. Marko signaled for the busboy to help him clean up the mess. Bandit called down to the bar and Marko answered the phone. “Now you can shut the joint down,” he said. “You got it boss,” Marko said and hung up.
