American Ale House

American Ale House Happy Hour

“People tell me to buy a trailer.”

“Of course, it’s the thought that counts, presuming there was one.”

“Your thoughts, or a penny, whichever?”

“Don’t listen. Worst real estate purchase of all time.”

“I thought that was the Brooklyn Bridge.”

“Turns out you can’t buy the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s an historical artifact.”

“This trailer is pretty old.”

“Same problem, historical artifact.”

“I guess I’m a renter. Until newer models come on the market.”

“Wouldn’t want to break any laws, high crimes, or misdemeanors.”

“So, where’s Yardley?”

Her eyes plant on his. Allows ample time for unctuous rejoinders to harden.

“Long ago too far away. Takes warp speed to get there.”

“How did you get here?”

“Funny you should ask. I lived there centuries ago. My ability to time travel has allowed my itinerary a spur here. State College, PA. If you must know.”

“Not if you don’t tell me.”

“Well, if you have to drag-it-out-of-me, Bucks County. Sub-Saharan Philadelphia.”

“Oh. That…”

“That…what?”

“That explains, some things. Things we might set aside, behind the bar.”

“Like old luggage? Why can’t we store our luggage in front of the bar? Leave a tin cup for good luck?”

“What should people pay to get a look at your luggage?”

“Dollar-forty, and I’m losing track of the gist of the luggage metaphor.”

“Something to do with being from Philadelphia.”

“Well, the best luggage is stolen right in Center City. Right from taxicabs. While you stand at Geno’s, ask people around you where to cop the best luggage.”

“That’s biased marketing. You can’t ask a football coach to say, honestly, who is the best team.”

“So, it’s all a big conspiracy. The luggage racket and cheese steaks?”

“For a country girl, sounds pretty rough.”

He sips his Guinness until less than half-a-pint is standing.

“Are we married?”

She looks down at her hands splayed above the cocktail table. Looks up again, frowns, crestfallen.

“Doesn’t look like it. We could be on a break.”

“You mean you’d take it off on a break?”

“Depends on how big it is. If it has some cajons, I might keep it on.”

“Do you mind if I take a few notes? I forgot my phone. It has a video function that records.”

“Well, you could buy me a piece of pie.”

“The way to her heart is through her stomach. I only cook pasta.”

“Carbs are the enemy.”

“Thought it was sugar?”

“Hardly. How do you think I stay so sweet?”

“Genetics? Breeding? Which, if you think about it, is the same thing.”

“Not even close.”

“Same ballpark? Or do you mean it has nothing to do with biology?”

“It’s an acquired taste.”

“Are samples provided? I may have to look further, or farther. I can never remember which.”

“There was talk of pie.”

“How about I drive? Young girl, like you, shouldn’t be unaccompanied after 10:00 PM.”

“I forgot my watch.”

“I’ll check the monitor for time and temperature. You’ll be safe.”

“Maybe you might escort me, or some gesture, lead the way?”

“I’ll check my schedule.”

“Watch out for runny eggs,” said Carol. “We wouldn’t want salmonella to spoil the weekend.” 

Carol was seated on a canvas deck chair facing the Pacific Ocean. Her slender, crossed legs were still exquisite and tribally tan. With this glimpse, to his disbelief, Clyde discerned cranial blood pulse toward his hips. 

She was lighting another cigarette with difficulty. 

           “It was dear of you to come,” Clyde said, taking the deck chair beside her. 

           “I called you, remember?”

He picked up menus resting against the sugar bowl and handed one to Carol. “This place reminds me of that shanty at Whipple Lake.”

           “That was a long time ago, Clyde,” she said. She fanned smoke with the menu. “You don’t have to break my will with ancient college lore, and I do mean ancient. Honestly.” 

The Pacific Ocean crested a stone’s throw from them. Seagulls shrieked beyond arm’s length. A heartened seagull fanned onto a table behind them scattering refuse. Within seconds, the scavenger lit onto a piling way out to sea with the prize bacon strip dangling like Fay Wray.

Clyde peeked overhead. 

“The fauna is more brazen here.”

Clyde scrutinized the purple and yellow embroidery on Carol’s muslin blouse. She reached for the ashtray. He noted her pallid underarm, the braless surprise. Her suntan beckoned a caress; her underarm afforded a soft underbelly. 

“I remember you leaked out every time I sneezed,” Carol said. Clyde saw a celery stalk inside an emptied glass on the counter in front of Carol. “God, you broke into Lisa’s apartment like an animal, remember? The feather bed and the sauna? We nearly lost my pearls down the drain.”

Carol looked up from inside the fold of the menu, then replaced the cigarette to her mouth and pursed her lips a second, blinking at him. She closed one eye behind the smoke.      

           “Felt like I had taffy for bones,” Clyde said.

           “After the Navy game, my parents had that stunning table. All the palace Wedgwood and Sterling laid out. You gooshed out in a lovely goo. When you told the story about crazy Lawler with the nurse on the sailboat, I thought I was leaving a stain on the davenport. I loved that purple sarong and those chichi hose from Bloomingdales.”

           “I picked it out for you. It was lavender.”

           “I should have known then. You were so benign.”

“Your sister knew,” Clyde said.   

           “You were way too tame for her. You had to be a Sudanese rebel to get her attention.”

Westerly gusts buffeted the black-and-white awning like a spinnaker. They placed their breakfast order and again faced the ocean. Mist spit on the counter and on their faces. 

“What did you call her, Madame Teresa?”

           “Never to her face. I never spoke to her face.”

           “She’s up for a Pulitzer, they tell me. Or a Peabody. Something.”

           “Maybe this is her year. Tragic the whole world not knowing her name. You must give her credit for her travails.”

           “You haven’t sat through Sunday dinners for a while.”

           “Not since P-town, Darling.”

“Ah, yes,” Carol said. “The Cape Crusade.”

“No Sweetie,” Clyde said. “Circumcision took care of that. Remember?” 

Carol winced. “They have a party for you, an induction or something?”

“Just my picture pinned to the rafters in Betsy’s.”

“Too bad. I thought there’d be more to it. All the insufferable parties we threw.”

“Those weren’t ours.

“We had clean-up duty.”

“We were minding silent generation manners back then. Boomers have evolved.”

Clyde glanced past Carol toward the corner of the counter. A Cuban boy with his mother was eating blueberries and cream with a spoon. The boy licked the spoon in his hand and put it down on the counter before going after more blueberries with his fingers. His mother slapped his hand and pointed to half eaten bowl.

“Let’s deal with now for the moment. Now I have a handle on. Now and then are two totally separate, damnable realities. One reality is plenty to deal with. Ask anybody.

“Deal me in.

“I need you to take Pauley. Do her good, some paternal exposure.”

“What’s the occasion?”

Carol took in a deep breath through her nose. She reached the menu to the porch railing, embroidery gape presented sea air chill. “What does it matter, Clyde?”

“Aren’t you afraid we’ll turn her against you?”

“No more than I deserve.  Look.  Just feed her ice cream.  That’s all. Make sure she bathes.”

“We’ll be thorough. Be sure of that.”

“And, let her control the remote once in a while.”

Breakfast arrived on a single tray carried perilously above their heads, then served fluidly without error. 

Later that day

You don’t care anymore, do you?

Carol stood at the foot of the bed, elbows akimbo, reaching for the eye clasp. 

Clyde had finished in the bathroom, and stood by the closet doors, his trunks still salty/moist. Waistband on Carol’s bottoms folded down. Carol freed the clasps, let straps, thick and thin, loosen and fall onto the beach towel.

You don’t care anymore, do you, Clyde?

Facing him now.

Your suit suits you so well. Your demarcation is epic. 

More than a cranial pulse structured reservoir evacuation.

Thought I had only puckers.

Puckers is for suckers.

So, what have I got?

I don’t know. Let’s have a peek. Pirouette for me.

Carol assumed a croise, pirouetted, and returned to croise, appearing to step forward, completely on toe.

You still got it. Just how I remember. Them. Her. Abs holding their own.

Keeping up on pronoun protocol?

You never know when violations might become most egregious.

What do we have here?

Were you?  You were paying attention; I was so patient.

Poof, patience.

Not all the time. There were marathons. Feats of remarkable physical endurance.

You mean labor? That was a marathon.

Precursor. So, life changing, you accept the labor that follows.

Women say that if they could remember labor, they would never agree to sex.

Thank heaven for a short little span of attention.

He should be bottled up for the entire nine months. He should wait his turn.

Ready Freddy where I come from.

Speaking of attention. Must have been eavesdropping.

We’re on a hot wire. Nothing gets by him. What do you think you’re doing with your thumb?

Homo sapiens upgrade. Opposable thumbs.

Carol reached her free thumb to the slight gap beside her coxal bone, mirroring her other hand.

Not that I have anything against it.

What was Lawler’s other joke?

If I told you that you had a great body, would you hold it against me?

Silly kind of grudge, don’t you think?

Silliest. 

Clyde reached for the rope belt, finding a loose end. Carol was catching sunlight from the wall mirror, yielding a cubist rendering. 

This is different. This is a surprise. Challenges my short life span of attention. 

How so?

Here, now. This is new. Like we never were. Feels like first time, no cliché intended. So familiar, but usually there was tequila.

Used to suckle it between here.

Carol crowded her breasts with straightened arms, thumbs still poised, invested. 

Could have been cobra venom. Wouldn’t have mattered.

What’s so unfamiliar?

No tequila. Middle of the afternoon. Not my idea.

I see. Are you seven? We can let it be your idea.

I like your idea better. Breaking new ground.

But.

All exes’ fantasy. Rendezvous for the best sex ever. Questioning everything.

Still, but…

I’m having the best sex ever. 

Carol grabbed her t-shirt from the bed. She threw her suit top and beach towel into her drawstring bag, chaff canvas, camel trim. Stepped into her Birkenstocks. Clyde pulled the ends of the towel around his neck.

I just had the strangest memory. Remember when we went to Hillegas’s farm? The vet was there impregnating the heifers? Artificial insemination with the long latex glove up over his shoulder?

I remember he wasn’t built to satisfy more than maybe two or three, in one day.

You’re a sick puppy. When he was done, the glove coming out. Wasn’t it up the fucking rectum?

I get those confused. That’s why I renounced. 

Simplifies things, doesn’t it? 

You’re connecting anal sex with artificial insemination of a cow?

Kind of the same thing. No one gets pregnant. No labor to deal with. Except the cows, and they spend most if it standing-up bellowing.

It’s the bulls that bellow. The cows moo.

What are the bulls for anyway? 

If the heifer doesn’t take. Send in the bull.

Going to bust a hip. 

It’s rare.

Just the way I like my steak.

Mood killer, isn’t it? Rectal realism of a cow’s ass.

Doesn’t have to be. 

Carol stepped forward, thumbs trying patience. 

Well…

By-the-way, why’d you get a room? Just, what, 60, 90 minutes? 

You’re cruel. Cruel, so, so self-effacing. 

That explains a lot. Explains this.

For you, not just any orifice will do. Maybe you’re the haram dandy?

A goat, a lamb, anything handy.

Do you know Shakespeare?