The idea of digging around inside that old pinball machine and getting it running again starts pumping around in my brain about five am and eventually gets my blood moving, too. I get out of bed and hop in the shower. I let the lukewarm water wash over me. In Panama, I never turn on the hot water for a shower; the cold is never very cold and the air so warm, I need cooling down.
I buy some bananas from a sleepy vendor near the hotel. Frank's parking lot is deserted when I get there, except for a few empty beer bottles and a broken bar glass. Pick these up and put them in a paper bag from the trunk. Dig around in the trunk looking for the tools I’m going to need. Screwdrivers, wire cutters, volt-ohm-meter, soldering iron and solder. A couple of small open-end wrenches. 3/8 inch and 1/4 inch wrenches will handle most of the nuts. Find a spark-plug and points cleaning tool. That will work to clean the switch contacts. Humming "La Cucaracha" and when I realize that is what I am humming I stop. But the tune keeps running through my head anyway.
I collect all the tools into the top tray from the tool box and set the tray on the hood of the Mercedes. Frank has still not shown up.
"Well, it's only 7:30," I say to the Mercedes. Voice sounds small in the quiet of the morning. I climb up on the trunk to smoke a cigarette and take in the morning scenery.
Panama, on the Isthmus of Panama, which connects Central and South America, bordered by Costa Rica (E), the Caribbean Sea (N), Colombia,(W) and the Pacific Ocean (S)
This is what my encyclopedia says, but if you look at the map, you can clearly see that Costa Rica is West of Panama and Colombia is East.
Panama is like the thin connecting string between two blobs of bread dough you're trying to separate. Say you've got this big loaf of bread dough which you've let rise for the second time in the dark, humid place you have for bread dough to rise in. You've pulled the dough out of its rising place and punched it down and now you have to separate it into two blobs so you can form your loaves. You don't have a knife because your nosy neighbor Anita has borrowed it for the umpteenth time and so you have to sort of pull the stuff apart. The dough is really glutinous and that means it tends to stretch rather than tear, so you pull and pull and pull and finally it's stretched down to one point where you can see that if you just grab the string at the thin point there you can rip it apart.
But what's this? You're somehow shrinking. Shrinking down to the table top while the bread is getting larger and larger. You see that the bread is really hills, no, mountains! on either side of the thin part, and that really the thin part is just some lower hills. The horizon now bumps and slants down to the low hills in the center from both east and west, resulting in a wide, lazy vee. Now bake the bread just like that to a dark brown color in the center with tan edges, a sort of negative bread, and then turn all the flour around the bread on the board into crystal blue and fluid water. Then cover the bread hills and mountains with glossy green vegetation that seems to grow too thick to be real. That's Panama. You try to cut the bread apart at the thin place, but all you can manage is a shallow slash which goes from edge to edge, but not all the way through. There is something hidden in the bread that fends off your knife, which Anita has finally returned. That's the canal. That slash that goes from edge to edge, but not from top to bottom.
It looks soft and comfortable there, in Panama, but there is a hidden inflexible iron core that can be felt throughout the place. In the people. In the buildings. In the jungle.
Tropical birds are calling in the jungle across the road. The sun comes up over the roadhouse and lights the face of the jungle; it looks very solid. A small Indian boy wearing a Grateful Dead tee shirt and shorts comes out of the solid mass of green and looks at me. Probably wondering what I am doing here. The boy lifts two bony shoulders inside his tee shirt and turns in the direction of town.
Finally about nine o'clock I hear the doors unlatch and open behind me. I slide off the car and look that way. Frank looks sleepy, his eyes squinting at me, blinking. He waves me in with a hand the size of Raleigh, South Carolina and I grab my toolbox tray and follow him into the bar. The early morning twilight has taken refuge inside.
The air is thick; feels like I’m breathing all of last night’s sweat and smoke and beer, all of it going into my lungs and out my mouth. Open up the shutters by the pinball machine, letting in a bunch of indirect light. Drag a few tables closer to the machine. Frank is ducking up and down behind the bar, moving things around back there. I find the switch at the back of the machine and flip it on.
"Hey!" Frank says, loud behind the bar. I look up. He tosses a bunch of keys from behind the bar. Put my hand up and the keys bounce off my palm before I can close my fingers. Reach out real fast with the other hand but those keys smack down hard on those other fingers and then they hit the floor. I've never been a good catch. Frank’s over there laughing at me, his shoulders going up and down and his head shaking. Grab the keys off the floor. The ring holds about thirty keys of all types, but only four or five of those stubby barrel kind they use for pinball cashboxes. Try one, no good, try another, no good, try another and that one works. Swing open the little metal door.
The coin mechanism is jammed with two quarters. Pry the quarters out and drop them in the coin box. Coin boxes sit on the bottom or floor of the machine, held in place by two little metal corner brackets, just an open top metal box. I tug the coin box loose and carry it over to the bar, looks like about ten or twelve dollars in quarters, US money, and a couple of local pesos. Pesos won't operate this machine, but I guess the rejecter mechanism isn't working too well, either. Put the box on the bar and Frank turns around and hands me a cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” I say. “Smells great.”
Coffee in Central America is usually instant and almost always foul tasting, but I've gotten used to it.
“Costa Rican,” Frank says, “Roast and grind it myself.”
“Really?” I say. I take a sip. This coffee is really good coffee, hot and black, the way I like it, fresh and solid tasting. It’s like you’ve got something solid in your mouth. A solid thing that tastes all coffee and roasting and bean and the guy who picked it and the guy who roasted it and the guy who ground it and the guy who put it in the pot, all of them are in there, all the things they added and it tells your tongue and mouth a story that makes you feel good. It’s not just hot water that tastes like coffee had something to do with it some time or other. I stand and let the steam and coffee smell drift up over my face and into my nose. Feel the hot coming through the thick mug into my fingers. Feel the coffee steam getting into my nose and all the caves of my sinuses. Feel the good strong caffeine getting into my blood and brain.
“Great stuff,” I say. “Really excellent.”
“You’re welcome,” Frank says. He’s smiling at me over his mug. I guess his coffee makes him feel good, too.
* * *
Old pinball games are kind of easy to work on, if you understand the principles. Nowadays they have all these fancy computer controlled pinball games with a ton of electronics inside. You need a replacement computer board, or a degree in computer technology, when one of those goes wonky. The old ones are all relays and coils, coils and relays. Leaf switches and coils and relays. Banks of relays. Fifty or sixty relays sometimes, all filling the interior of the machine. A relay is heavy. A bunch of relays are very heavy. That heaviness gives the machine a certain feel. When you nudge them or shake them, I mean. There's a sort of inertia to the old relay machine that isn't there anymore, in the new ones. Nowadays they have so many ramps and levels and things, so many sampled digital sounds and electronic plungers and high tech stuff. It's just not the same.
That kid with the Grateful Dead shirt is at the machine when I turn around. He’s bent over and looking inside the coin door. Practically got his head inside.
“Hey” I say, “Cuidado!”
That means Look Out! Learned that from Velanova’s men.
The kid jumps back a little and looks at me. His hair is thick straight brown bowl cut around his ears hair. His eyes are wet black stone in milk eyes. His face is a round with pointy chin face. His body is a skinny somewhere between eight and eleven body. Right now he’s forcing a big smile into that face showing white teeth, but his eyes look like ready to run eyes.
“It’s okay,” I say, “Bueno, muchacho.”
He starts talking. Really fast. His eyes keep going to the pinball machine and he points over at it. Grabs one hand in the other and then uses both to point at it. Frank’s voice comes loud past me in fast Spanish and the kid is answering him fast and I can’t follow either of them but the kid looks like when I was a kid. Like when it was summertime and you were out on the side lawn playing with the hose. You and James and Rob and Tommy and Bobbie and Ann Hunton from next door who was a girl but could beat all of the guys in arm wrestling or running from this telephone pole to that one, so she was okay. You were all wearing shorts and tee shirts and playing water tag. It was like a million degrees out and your mom finally let you use the hose as long as you stayed on the side of the house and didn’t spray through the windows like last time. So you’re all playing water tag which is that whoever’s It gets the hose and has to spray everyone and if you get sprayed then you have to stand still and count to twenty five but if you can sneak up and tag the person that’s It without getting frozen then you get to be It and it starts all over. But you can’t go past the corner of the house on that side or the hedge at the edge of Ann Hunton’s yard on that side or the crabapple tree in the back or the orange berry tree in the front and you can’t count too fast and you have to count out loud so when three or four of you are frozen you are all counting out loud and with everyone counting it’s easy to lose count and in this game you want to be It because then you get the hose so you have to try not to get hit by the water and when Ann Hunton’s tee shirt gets all wet you can see where she is starting to get boobs and so whoever is It always tries to get her first so she’ll have to stand still with her wet shirt. But she is really quick and most times running behind someone else. When Ann Hunton gets to be It she always puts the nozzle on a real hard stream and aims it at the guy’s butts and crotches. So you’re all running around and counting and spraying and ducking and then Rob yells “Ice Cream Man!” and everyone stops to listen and it’s the Good Humor truck, you can tell by the bells, the other truck has different bells, and you drop the hose and everyone runs to their houses yelling “Mom! Mom! Can I have money for the ice cream truck PLEASE! Fifty cents? A quarter? Please, oh please please please?! Everybody else is. He’s gonna go by, Mom!” All five kids bouncing all wet on their front porches waving their arms around and yelling through the screen door because you can’t go in when you’re wet except for Ann Hunton, her screen door slams once and then while the rest of you are yelling for your moms to Hurry! Ann comes running through the screen door slam! all wet still and yelling and waving over her head and the Good Humor truck stops right out there in front of your house. That’s what this kid looked like talking to Frank. Like one of us trying to get money from our mom for the ice cream truck.
That might be a good analogy.
The kid’s stopped talking and he’s got his arms wrapped around each other in front of him like a pretzel and his eyebrows are still up and his mouth stretched showing his teeth clenched.
“He wants to help you,” Frank says, “I told him to get lost, but he’s really jonesin’.”
“Think he’ll be okay?” I say, “I don’t mind as long as he’s not a pain in the ass.”
Frank says something in Spanish. The kid pops up in the air and then smacks both hands over his mouth. He nods, his head going up and down so fast his hair is shaking all over.
“Como se llama?” I say.
“Benito!” the kid says. He says a bunch of other stuff after that, real fast. I hear gracias a couple of times. I hold up my hand.
“Benito!” I say, “Mas despacio, por favor.”
He opens his mouth up and takes in a big breath. I put my hand up again.
“Benito,” I say, “Tu no hablas, eh? Me dije, tu asistenta, si?”
He puts both hands over his mouth and nods. I can see his smile right through his hands. I point to a stool over by the bar and flip my finger up and over to a spot next to the pinball machine. Benito runs over there and gets the stool.
I reach inside the coin mechanism opening and release the catch that holds the chrome piece that holds the glass in place. Put the chrome piece on the floor. Benito puts the stool where I had pointed and is standing there next to it. I point to one of the tables.
“Que es?” I say. Benito looks at the table and then at me.
“Como se dice...” I say, pointing at the table.
“Mesa!” Benito says.
“La Mesa,” I say, “Aqui.”
I point to a place near the stool. Benito goes and drags the table closer.
I slide the glass out carefully and lay it on a different table, not the one Benito just dragged over, one further away. The glass is cloudy with smoke and dried spilled beer, it's edges that green sort of color you can only see in the edges of thick glass. Look around for the tool box I brought in. It’s over by the bar. Benito is leaning over the edge of the machine, reaching his hand toward the thumper bumpers.
“Benito!” I say, loud. “No touch! Como se dice touch?” I put my finger out and touch his shoulder.
“Tacto?” Benito says.
“No tacto,” I say.
“Este,” I say. I point over to the tool box by the bar. I wave my hand like come here.
“Trajiste?” Benito says.
“Si,” I say, “Trajiste el tool box.”
Benito is laughing at me. One hand over his mouth, he walks over to el tool box walking leaned over and uneven from laughing.
“La caja de herramientas.” Benito says.
“La caja de hermentas.” I say.
“Herr-a-mi-en-tas!” Benito says. He’s walking back holding the tool box in both hands in front of him, his shoulders hiked up by his ears and his arms out so straight they’re bent a little
backward at the elbows. His voice is clear and sharp and bright in the darkness of the bar.
“Herramientas,” I say, “Gracias.”
“De nada,” Benito says. His voice is sounding a little strained. Take the tool box from him and put it on the table he dragged over. Point to the stool.
“Tu,” I say, “Sit.”
“Sentarse,” Benito says.
“Sentarse,” I say, “Gracias.”
Benito climbs up on the stool and puts his hands on the edge of the machine. I point to his hands.
“Aqui?” I say, “es bueno, Okay”
I point to the play surface of the pinball machine.
“Aqui.” I say, “No es bueno, Not okay, okay?”
“Okay,” Benito says.
I flip a little lever on the coin mechanism. That rings up a credit on the credit counter. So far so good. I push the red button on the left front of the machine and the credit counter goes back to zero and a ball clunks into the plunger alley. I pull the plunger and try the machine out.
The ball rolls slow around the board, sort of like it just woke up after a long sleep and okay, is going through the motions but its heart isn't really in it, wait 'til I've had my coffee.
“Flipper,” I say. I point to the flipper.
“Fleeper,” Benito says.
The right flipper is so weak the ball pushes it down. The left is okay, snapping the ball up and across the playboard with zing.
“Bueno Fleeper,” Benito says.
Let the ball fall into the drain. Some points ring up on the back glass and then the ball clunks back into the plunger alley. Reach around the table pushing all the targets. Three of the targets aren't working. Four of the main OXO lights are burned out. OXO was made by Williams, back in the late ‘60’s. It’s based on Tic Tac Toe. They had a four player version that came out later, but this is the original two player game.
Every time I hit a target or a switch that is no good, Benito says “Malo.” Every time I find one that works, Benito says, “Bueno.”
I check the Thumper Bumpers. Those round things in the middle that bounce the ball from all sides. You push the little ring at the bottom and the big ring at the top comes down. It’s supposed to come down hard, to pop that ball away. The first one I check is fine. The second one, well it comes down but it’s like it has arthritis or something, really slow.
“Thumper Bumper,” I say.
“Thuberbuber,” Benito says. “Enferma.”
I take the ball out of the plunger alley and hand it to Benito. His eyes get all big and he holds the ball in both hands, turning it around like maybe it’s different on one side or something. Reach my hand inside the coin box and push up on the bottom of the playboard, grab it with the other hand when it clears the outside box and push it up. It goes up like a car hood, and there's a metal rod that holds the board up. Benito is looking up at all the relays and solenoids and wiring like he’s seeing god. He rolls the pinball from one hand to the other and back.
I point to the leaf switch behind the right flipper button. Benito leans his head into the machine to see.
“Leaf switch.” I say.
“Liefswish.” Benito says.
Point to the leaf switch that contacts when the ball goes down the drain.
“Leaf switch.” I say.
“Liefswish.” Benito says.
Point to other leaf switches in the machine and Benito gets it. He starts pointing to leaf switches and saying “Liefswish.” He does it so fast I can hardly tell whether he’s really pointing at the right things. But I’m pretty sure he is.
”Most of the problems on old pinball games like this are fixed by cleaning and adjusting.” I say. I say it in English. Benito nods. Maybe he understands.
“Leaf switches control everything.” I say. Leaf switches are just two spring steel strips with copper contacts riveted into the ends. “When the contacts come together, electricity flows and stuff happens.”
Benito nods and drops the pinball. He’s off the stool picking it up and back on the stool so fast I hardly see him do it.
“Sometimes the contacts get dirty and the electricity won't flow.” I say.
I show Benito how you can take the switches entirely apart and add or remove shims, clean the contacts with sandpaper, bend the strips closer or apart, resolder the wires, whatever, and make ‘em work like new.
I point to the coil that operates the right flipper. There’s a black burnt looking spot near where one of the wires is soldered on.
“Coil.” I say.
“Coil,” Benito says.
“Es Malo.” I say. “Mira.”
I point to the black spot on the coil.
“Quemado!” Benito says.
“That mean burnt?” I say.
“Si,” Benito says. He puts his fingers up and wiggles them like fire.
“Hsssss!” he says.
Plug in my soldering iron and lean it in the little wire stand on a table so it doesn’t burn anything. Get the solder sucker out and put it nearby.
“A coil is just an electromagnet with a sliding metal rod inside.” I say in English. Maybe he understands.
“When the current turns on,” Point to the two wires that are soldered to the coil. “Electromagnet pulls the rod,” I push the rod with my finger, “and that pushes the flipper.” show him the flipper moving back and forth when I push the rod.
“Coil” I say, and point to the coil.
“Coil” Benito says. “Malo.”
I start unscrewing the screws that hold the flipper coil in place.
“Sometimes,” I say in English, “The rods can get rusty, or sticky with spilled beer.” I point to the rod. “Or, the levers that connect the rod to the flippers can get out of whack.” Point to the levers.
“Pero, no este es.” I say, pointing to the levers. “Y no este es” pointing to the rod.”
“In this case,” I say in English. “Es definamente el coil.”
The coil is just hanging by the wires soldered to it. I pick up the soldering iron and touch it to one of the solder joints. Smoke comes up, that means the iron is hot. Grab the solder sucker in my other hand and cock it by pushing the yellow knob against my leg. Hold the soldering iron against the joint until the solder changes color, quick put the tip of the solder sucker against the liquid joint and push the trigger. Solder sucker jumps in my hand as the spring pulls the plunger out, plunger sucks the liquid solder off the wire and coil. Cock the solder sucker against my leg again and do the same to the other one.
The coil falls into the bottom of the pinball machine.
“Bravo!” Benito says. “Que es?”
He’s pointing at the solder sucker.
“Solder sucker,” I say. I cock it against my leg and hand it to him. Look around inside the machine for a coil that might be available. One that’s not so important as the flipper. Hear the sound of the solder sucker going off, a kind of dry sliding spring sound that has a clicking beginning to it. Not two separate sounds like click and shh, but one sound like clisshk! Only quicker than you can say.
“Mira!” I say, “Este es no muy importante.”
Look at Benito to see if he’s looking where I’m pointing. He’s got both hands around the barrel of the solder sucker and the yellow knob part down on the stool between his legs and he’s practically lifting himself up off the stool trying to push it down. But he’s also looking where I’m pointing.
“Aqui,” I say. Put my hand out.
While I’m switching the coil, I keep up a running commentary in English and occasional Spanish. Pointing at stuff and giving things to Benito to hold. He watches everything like the next time the pinball machine breaks down, he’s going to fix it. Maybe he will.
The flipper works good with the new coil in there. I look around for Frank. He is washing glasses behind the bar, setting wet ones out upside down on a towel in front of him on the bar.
"Frank" I say.
Frank looks up. I walk over there, bouncing the burnt out coil in my hand.
"This coil is burnt out." I say. "Do you have any way to get another one?"
Frank looks at the coil in my hand. His shoulders come up along with his lower lip in the middle and his head tilts to one side, eyes on the coil.
"There's a guy I know back home," he says. It doesn't sound like he thinks the guy he knows back home could help him much.
"What about where you got the machine?" I say.
"Came with the bar," he says. Eyes up looking at me through lids half down. Face all wide like the Mississippi Delta.
"Well," I say. "Who serviced it last? Maybe they could help."
Frank looks up over my head and frowns a little. His eyelids go together and make a crease there.
"Came up from Panama City," he says.
"Is he in the phone book?" I say.
Frank looks at me, his eyes steady, one side of his mouth sort of up a little.
"You really need to do this, huh?" Frank says.
I can feel my face getting warm. Chest takes in a big breath without me thinking about it. Can't think of anything to say.
"Phone book's over there." Frank says. He waves his big hand at one end of the bar and leans down over the sink full of soapy glasses.
I stand there bouncing the coil in my hand. Don’t want to make a phone call. Turn back to the machine. Benito is reaching his finger up inside so careful and intent I can’t help myself.
“BANG!” I shout. Right behind him.
* * *
The rest of it is just like that. Me telling Benito what I’m doing in broken Spanish and mostly English. This is what I say to him.
“Relays are just a bunch of leaf switches activated by coils when other leaf switches send power to them.” I say, “Then the relays send electric signals to other coils or relays that make the score counters turn or the scoring lights change. The relays keep track of the score and make the lights go blink and stuff.”
I tell him about the scoring wheels and open up the backglass so he can see all the relays back there.
I clean and adjust and fiddle with things. Fiddling seems to fix more and more as a pinball machine gets older. Some earlier repairman had the foresight to drop a bunch of extra light bulbs in the bottom of the machine, and so I am able to replace most of the important ones.
When I am through adjusting and cleaning and testing by hand, I put the board back down. I let him play a while with the glass off the machine. But he can't keep his fingers off the playing field, and when the newly recharged thumper-bumper cracks his knuckle hard enough to split the skin I make him stop. Benito hardly looks at his finger, except to suck the blood off. I liked to do that when I was a kid. Suck my blood from cuts, I mean.
I clean the board and then wipe down the glass with some Windex with Spanish on the label. Slide the glass back in and put the chrome strip in place. I set the latch, ringing up four credits before locking the cashbox.
"Test it out, give it a shakedown." I say.
“Shaydone,” Benito says.
I leave him playing.
"Thanks," says Frank. He’s wiping glasses with a towel and putting them on a shelf under the bar. He nods toward the OXO machine. It’s ringing and blinking while Benito slaps the flipper buttons and bounces up and down on his bare toes.
"They call it the 'la Machina O-Ho',” Frank says, “the Panamanians do."
"I'm not surprised." I say.
"What're you doin' here," Frank says, "if you don't mind my asking."
He’s wiping the last glass with a towel, just wiping and wiping, a long time after it should be dry, and his eyes are kinda narrow, head back a little, looking at me over his nose, like he can see me better that way.
"Just passing through," I say, "Wanted to stop for a few days."
“Uh-huh,” Frank says. He stops looking at me like that and puts the last glass under the bar.
"Headin' anywhere in particular?" he says, like he doesn't really care. Maybe he has the 'Fellow Americans Abroad' syndrome, and misses talking with people from home. He wipes down the bar with the towels that the glasses were on, wadding them up into a big wet blob and circling the blob down the bar. Tosses the blob somewhere under the bar. Turns to rearrange the bottles on the back bar. I’m thinking about how to answer him. Curious about him, too. Maybe if I tell him something about me, he’ll answer some of my questions.
"South, generally," I say. Trying to find some way to explain my quest. My Hejira. My Wanderlust. I tell him about leaving the nagging wife and the spoiled brat kid. I explain about the dead end job for the super-critical boss, the never-ending bills, the lack of control I'd had over my life.
Half of it is lies, but hell, it might be true. In theory it is valid.
I tell him about driving to Antarctica.
"Or as close as possible," I say. Right now I don’t feel so confident about it. Right now I’m trying not to sound too crazy.
While I speak he nods and makes those noises people make to show they are listening when they can't be looking at you. When I finish, he goes on nodding and 'hmm'ing for a while, as if the words are slow in getting down to that end of the bar. He moves back to where I’m sitting and reaches under the bar. He slaps a big paperback book onto the bar in front of me. A cloud of dust rises from it.
"Got a road map?" he says
"Uh, yeah," I say, "out in the..."
"Go get it." he says.
I am moving toward the door before thinking about how I feel jumping to people's orders. Don't let it stop me, but I think about it.
The sun blinds me, thick and yellow and wet like melted butter. Snag my Rand McNally Central and South American Road Atlas out of the door pocket and go back inside quick. At three in the afternoon, the sun is the enemy.
Frank is flipping through his own atlas. It’s a dog-eared thing with hand written notes and penciled-in routes. He looks at the date on my map and grunts so loud the dust rises up from his map again. He’s comparing Columbia. Apparently my map shows several routes which he has drawn in on his. While he concentrates, I find myself staring at a tattoo I hadn't noticed before on his arm, it’s almost invisible against his dark skin.
"You were in 'Nam?" I say.
His eyes come up to look right into mine. His eyes say I came back from ‘Nam and I was the enemy. Joined the army and left my home for ‘Nam a hero and came back the enemy. Everywhere I went, people looked at me like I was scum. We didn’t get nothin’ when we came home, worse than nothing, we got kicked in the balls. Couldn’t get jobs. Couldn’t find girlfriends. Wives left us and our kid brothers and sisters threw rocks and stones at us and called us pigs. Didn’t get a fucking parade. Didn’t get nothing. That’s why I’m here.
That’s what Frank’s eyes say.
"Seoul," I lie, "MASH unit, Pfc Orderly. '74."
He nods and relaxes, his eyes blinking slowly, like they’re on stand-down.
"1st Division Tactical.” he says, “Plain of Jars, '68. Tet Offensive."
I let respect and understanding show on my face. It's not that hard to do; just don't say too much.
In this scenario, I am the rookie kid who had caught the tail-end of the war, when it was winding down. He's been in the thick of it, the heaviest fighting, the most hellish of missions. I give him that respect because he deserves it and it gives him ease.
It helps him not to have to defend himself here, as well as in 'Nam and then at home, after.
Truth was, I'd missed the draft in '71 by numbers, (my birthday chosen 348th) and in '72 by an even wider margin. I'd gone to a dinky state school in New York which I had quit after one year to go to Art School, which I quit after 3 months to go to work full time at McDonald's so I could become a rock and roll star. In '73 they stopped drafting people.
I'd protested against the war, and in the seventies, I was one of those guys who hated soldiers. Somewhere along the line that had changed. Don't remember when that happened.
* * *
That night the crowd at Frank's is pretty much the same as the night before. All men. Loud, rowdy, macho men. When Frank comes to ask if I want another beer, I ask him if there is a place where more women hung out. He looks at me like he’s not sure what I mean, and not sure he wants to know.
"Not a bordello," I say, "just a bar or a cafe or something where the clientele is more... mixed."
He shakes his head.
"Not 'round here.” he says, “The women stay at home at night and the men go out. If you want to meet women who aren't prostitutes, you have to meet them during the day. They're very traditional around here."
"Oh," I say.
Shit, I’m thinking. Have no desire to go to a whore house. I put the thought out of my head and go back to watching the locals.
Later, after the crowd thins down. Frank wipes the bar in front of me. He wipes it over and over, lower lip stuck out, studying the bar surface. Like he’s trying to figure out what he could put there instead.
"You're a okay guy..." he says. He puts his thumbnail down to scrape at some microscopic snag on the bar.
I don’t know what to say to that so I sip my beer. He is frowning his eyes at the snag.
"Look," Frank says, "when I close up, why don't you come home with me for dinner? My wife waits up and cooks some tapas to help me wind down."
When Frank said that, he started out the sentence really slow, lots of space between the words. But the last part of it, he said that last part really fast. Jamming all the words together to get them out before they could forget where they were going.
"That's mighty nice of you, Frank," I say, "but I wouldn't want to intrude..."
I do want to go. I really want to go.
"No trouble at all," he says, all smiling and gracious. Eyes looking relieved that he got all the words out okay.
"I'll call Paola,” Frank says, “She'll be glad for the company."
Waiting until the crowd is gone is hard. After Frank hustles the last drunken man out, I help him straighten up, more to make it go faster than for any other reason. We head out on the narrow path behind the bar into the jungle. My heart is beating fast and my breath is coming short. Tell myself to calm down. Myself isn't listening.
* * *
At one point I am sitting by her, and she touches my leg under the table, where Frank can't see. Frank's daughter does. Frank has a daughter. Frank and Paola's daughter is dark and soft like living unsweetened chocolate, in the late night, couple of beers light. Isn't just a light touch, when Frank and Paola's daughter Francesca touches my leg. Not just a brush that I might think is accidental. Francesca's hand lingers, resting on my thigh and squeezing just the slightest bit, before sliding away.
Francesca's eyes never meet mine for more than an instant. Not while we are at the table.
Early in the morning, just before dawn, when the sky is changing outside the window from deep velvet blue to a pinkish cerise, she slips into the narrow bed. Francesca does, waking me up. Francesca is naked and her hands push my shorts down to my knees. Francesca's hands find my sleep-hardened penis.
"What about your Dad?" I say. I don't want him to be mad at me. He might kill me. I don't want her to stop, either.
"He sleeps heavy," Francesca says, "and late."
Francesca climbing on top of me and taking me inside her, lower lip caught in her teeth, half smile on her face.
"And I'm quiet," she says, leans forward to rest her breasts on my chest, her lips on my lips, her tongue darting like a snake's, her hips rolling like a woman who loves to fuck.
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