‘I was closing up the shop that night.’
‘I can’t believe I missed it.’
‘You should be glad you did.’
We were sitting on the wooden picnic bench outside the bar. The smoking table. You could smoke cigarettes anywhere, but this table was designated for when there was a crowd from out of town and you wanted some quiet, and some weed. Jake's legs straddle one of the benches. Between them he ripped and rolled a nug into a delicately laid paper.
‘How’d it happen? Was anyone else there?’
‘Just a few of us who were closing up, most everyone went home early that night. It was dumping rain and no one was really passing through.’
‘You know Sherry always talks about how dangerous crossing that road is.’
‘I was thinking that too. She gets mad at me if I come into the store from across the street wearing all black. Says one of these days someone is gonna get hit and god forbid it be you. That’s some freaky shit now that I’ve seen it.’
‘Always thought she was just paranoid.’
‘The noise it made…The way the man screamed…I’ve never heard anything like it.’
‘I saw the heli pass over my place and knew something happened, no way they would be out flying on a night like that.’
Jake finished rolling up the joint and I handed him the light. I put my hands between my thighs to warm them. Inside the bar the body of people bobbed and moved, their smiling faces looked like storybook clowns. A sweet smelling cloud of smoke hung over our heads. Waning moon.
‘I thought it was just an accident at first. I was inside, had just shut down the register, and was organizing a new box of records we got in that morning. The front door wasn’t even open and I could hear the screeching breaks, then a loud bang, thought it was metal on metal. Then I heard the scream. It was so delayed. Felt like thirty seconds after the hit, but it couldn’t have been that long.’
He looked over at the narrow highway to our right.
‘When I got outside Francisco and Sherry were already out there, Sherry was crying. There was an old Honda stopped in the middle of the road with its lights still on, radio blaring. Driver wasn’t drunk or anything, just couldn’t see the guy. He was probably thirty feet from the car, sprawled out in the middle of the road. Just screaming. Can’t get that screaming out of my head.’
‘Who called the cops?’
‘The driver. Don’t know how they understood anything she was saying, she was hysterical too. The guy was sitting up, but I couldn’t tell which way. His legs were off in different directions. Heard he didn’t even make it to the hospital. Died up in the air.’
‘What was he doing crossing the road? It’s not like he couldn’t see the car coming, there isn’t much of a bend before that straight.’
‘Kim said he was at the bar before. Polished off one of the bottles of Jack, went looking for something outside but she couldn’t make out what.’
‘Not like any of the shops were open that late.’
‘He wouldn’t have known that. He wasn’t from around here.’
‘I never know what people are doing out here alone getting drunk like that. Where do they stay? How do they even think to come out this way?’
‘I don’t know, but I’ll tell you what, I’m never gonna shrug Sherry off when she goes on one of her paranoid rants again. They’re talking about putting a crosswalk in now, and one of those blinking pedestrian lights. Not that a drunk would think to use it anyways.’
‘I’d hate to see a big yellow light out here at night. It’s gonna ruin the hue from the moon.’
We both looked up towards the tips of the redwoods around us. Two thin clouds hung just below the moon, like it was cradled instead of suspended.
‘Nothing could make me go inside that place.’ I said as I turned back towards the bar, ‘What were we thinking coming out on a Saturday?’
‘Well the Manor is all shut up now.’ Jake looked back as a few people spilled outside towards the fire pit.
‘They’ve been real hush hush about that.’
‘Well it would be trouble if word got around that the non alcoholics were leaving that place without remembering a thing.’
‘I just want a place of our own again. Getting tired of people asking my name.’
A truck pulled up and gravel crunched under the weight of it. A man in wranglers with a hat pulled low stepped out of the driver side, a black briefcase in his hand. He went around the right side of the bar, in through the kitchen door. We watched him pass by the front window.
‘What’s Jason always doing with that case anyway?’ I whispered while trying to see if anyone else was in the truck.
‘I don’t know and I don’t care to find out. You shouldn’t either.’
Jake lit up another joint and we settled into the wood benches for the night, no reason to go anywhere.
Links to more stories like this:
Goats Blinded on a Beach near a Rock
Two County Rangers and a Storm