A good writing friend read this story for the first time the other day, and commented on how much he liked it. It’s an early one from me, but still one of my favourites. The setting is Legion basement bar, where I’d often have a beer and shoot pool. This was published in a literary journal in the U.S., and then later picked up by a print mag in South Africa. As far as I know, this is my only South African publication.
If you like this story, it’s from my collection, Ethical Aspects of Animal Husbandry.
Prophet
"IT’S GONNA THUNDER, IT’S gonna rain, we’re gonna get hit and the queen’s gonna talk."
The way the words tumble out of the guy’s mouth, I can’t tell if he's drunk or some kind of barroom wizard. Poking outside his cardigan, his shaky finger points at the yellowed portrait of Elizabeth that hangs, tilted, against the dark paneled wall. I look up from my pool cue and give the guy a once-over.
"C’mon shoot," Sammy slurs.
"Did you hear that? The old guy in the hat? What he said?"
"Hear what? Just shoot." His voice oozes boredom.
I pot the pink. Sammy ambles over to the pocket, takes out the ball like he's grabbing a gopher turd, and puts it on the spot.
"I’m going to take a piss."
Watching my buddy leave, I look over at the bar prophet. I knew his name was Harry and the barmaid across from him was Mary. Since Sammy and me started coming to the Legion about a month ago, Mary's been perched across from Harry. She fills his glass like one of those dunking birds you get at the drugstore.
I call over to the bar. "Hey Harry… are you serious?"
Mary stops wiping the counter and looks across to the pool table. She and Harry are only about ten feet away. I see her eyes, and I know what she’s thinking: here’s this punk-ass snotty kid going to hassle the veteran. Little shit don’t know nothing about sacrifice, nothing about the war, nothing about freakin’ nothing. She's probably thinking I’d hassle Harry because that’s what Sammy would do—and Mary lumps me together with Sammy like we came out of the same womb or something. She only learned our names last week.
But she doesn't know me. For one thing, I'm not like Sammy, not by a long shot. I tell her that with my raised left eyebrow. She goes back to wiping.
"What did you mean?" I call over to Harry while I'm chalking up.
"Leave him be, John."
"Jones," I say.
Harry holds up his glass. Mary tosses in a couple of cubes and splashes rye into the tumbler.
I'm thinking about tumbling words and tumblers full of whiskey when I say, "Kiss the red in the corner," even though I know no one’s listening.
Perfect shot, a little tic, and it drops like I said.
"It’s gonna thunder, it’s gonna rain, we’re gonna –"
"We know, Harry," Mary cuts him off.
He ignores her and keeps going, "… get hit and the queen’s gonna talk."
I stroke the cue and look up to see him raise another nicotine-stained finger. The ball rattles the pocket and kicks out. Harry’s throwing off my rhythm. I set my stick down, running my finger along the grain, then roll it against the edge of the felt and walk over to Mary. I order another Pilsner.
Mary looks like she’s about to say something, until I fire her my "give me a break" look. I know she still thinks I'm a punk-ass. It's not that Sammy and me want to be accepted here—we're the wrong age and the only war we've ever seen was at the movies. Hell, I know that. We come here because the snooker table's always empty and the beer is cheaper than cheap.
I sit in the empty stool next to Harry. He’s gotta be pushing seventy, but who knows. His chin has that sunken-in-look that means when Harry came to the Legion the dentures stayed home.
"You think that’s really going to happen? You making some sort of prediction?"
Harry doesn’t look at me. He holds his glass of rye up to the fluorescents. I study the reflections with him. Ancient stones, man, for sure he’s a wizard. He rotates it, shakes the ice, turns his head and spits on the floor.
"Hey, none of that," Mary yells at us both.
Harry drains the glass, looks at me and nods. His lips are soft as cabbage leaves.
A couple of feet over, I hear the whap of cards hitting a table. A cribbage player yells, "Looks like rain, Harry."
The table laughs like hell. Sammy’s back from the can, a bent cigarette dangles from his lips and a white shirttail sticks out of his fly.
"Jonesy, you playing or what?"
"Taking a break."
"Fine with me." Sammy still sounds bored.
He goes over to be bored by the cribbage players. Harry’s glass has been magically filled again. I take a swig of my Pilsner and slam it down.
The foam starts to ooze over the top. I grab the beer, take another swig, and before I set it back, Mary swipes the puddle clean. Damn, how does she do that?
"I bet a lot of your buddies over there think you’re nuts," I say to my new pal, Harry. "But here’s the thing… I don’t."
I take another swig and try to gauge Harry’s reaction to this bombshell of revelation. I'm not trying to piss him off—truth is, I get some crazy-ass notions myself. Last weekend, Sammy and I were driving out to the pits and I told him he was gonna get a flat on the way and we’d see a beautiful chick hitchhiking all the way from Sudbury. I saw her in my mind, hair in a bandana, red plaid shit, great curves and a smoking set of eyes. Fixing the flat on the side of the road, Sammy said I better damn well be right about the squeeze, cuz changing tires in the pouring rain was about as fun as putting your dick in a bonfire. Turned out to be wrong about the girl, but I got the flat tire right. There was that.
For sure in about fifty years I'll be the one at the Legion telling everyone it's gonna rain and the freakin' fish-shaped ashtrays were going to do loop-de-loops over the shuffleboard table.
Harry just keeps on drinking. He swallows a cube. I wait for a crunch that never comes.
I turn to watch the cribbage players. Their bald heads rise out of a cloud of yellow smoke, giving them all monk haircuts. They snap the bent cards on the table, and speak in that clipped code.
“Fifteen two, and a pair is four.”
“ And there ain’t–”
“… no more."
"I said it’s gonna thunder, and it’s gonna rain and…"
"Knock it off Harry, we heard the damn weather report already—not a cloud in the sky."
One of the players says something about thirty and go, and is about to add in another bit, before he slams back in his chair (hell, we all slam back when we see the flash). A little red peg flips sky high. The thunder is louder than anything I've ever heard. I'm thinking this place is gonna crack like a farm egg. Sammy, me and the crib players watch the lights flicker. A rush of water smacks down on the row of windows lining the bar. Mary holds her cloth to her chest.
I watch every head in the place turn toward that bent picture. And then I look myself.
Very cool!
Great story, Craig. I love it.