Short Stories from Wing's Authors.

Good Friday

by

Richard Whitten Barnes

A draft followed the man in from the street before the door swung closed. It brought the cold damp smell of dirty snow and the sound of the ‘EL’ from a block away, just audible over the hiss of car tires on the wet pavement. Ben looked up from his place at the middle of the bar as he passed.

“Benny,” the man rasped in greeting.

“Mort.” Ben answered while looking back down at his drink. Mort shuffled his soft, pear-shaped body back to his usual place a half dozen stools down. He grunted as he slid his ample rump up onto the seat.

Mario, the dark, gaunt bartender, put down the newspaper by the sink. He grabbed a bottle and a shot glass and walked down to the end of the bar and set both in front of the man. He went back to his reading without a word. The refrigerator turned off with a noisy protest and the place was silent. After a minute, Mario announced. “Closing at 10 tonight.”

“What!” Mort said.

“Good Friday. Gotta go to Mass. You had a wife, you’d know.”

Good Friday, Ben thought. He remembered that very week-end, what, just two years ago?  His face tightened into a grim smile remembering his very different life then. The thought moved him to turn around on his stool to survey his present existence in the West Leland Tap.

No more than 20 feet wide, the bar took up half of that with three tables strung along the opposite wall. Ben couldn’t remember anyone ever sitting at one. At the rear stood a single bumper-pool table guarding the doors to the unisex john and Mario’s apartment or office--no one knew which.

The place had the atmosphere typical of the Chicago neighborhood saloon that it was; the stale mixture of spilled alcohol, ashtrays, urinal blocks and bleach from the bar sink. The dim light was punctuated by the flickering neon sign in the top half of the front window that wasn’t painted over--the one that spelled out Cocktails in orange script.

Different, indeed, thought Ben.

~ * ~

The clink of glassware was muted by the plush carpet and drapery in the lounge. The place had been brand new and Ben’s little clique had come to check it out. They had their regular haunts, of course, places like The Capital Grille, Gibson’s, McGee’s, the Redhead, Sheffield’s. But it wouldn’t do for some new bistro to gain popularity without their personal stamp of legitimacy.

He’d arrived late but there they were—most of them anyway—at a corner table for eight. “Benjie, baby!” One of the men called to him. He was of medium build with smarmy good looks, about 30 and already host of his own daytime talk show on WBBM radio. Ben didn’t exactly hate him. He pulled up a chair as the waiter who’d followed him to the table got his order for a rye Manhattan. Talk Show Host was going on about how ignorant one of his guests was and the story was interrupted with the occasional guffaw. Ben’s eyes met those of a woman across the table and he glanced away. He should have called her, but she knew it would have been a one-nighter, didn’t she?

“What’s the verdict?” He asked the young man on his left, gesturing at the room as he did.

The man was in jeans, black tee shirt and shabby tweed jacket. A knitted scarf hung from his shoulders. His sculpture had been chosen for one of the Loop bank lobbies and was close to completion. They both looked at their surroundings. “Too big. Too open. No ambience. I don’t like it, I think.” He had an effected accent that sounded like it might be Czech but Ben knew the guy had grown up in Chicago. He thought of the thousands of dollars the place must have spent on subdued lighting and muted fabrics to create that very ambience and chuckled.

“Are you still working on your new book?” This from across the corner of the table; a young woman, one of the ‘hangers on’ in this group of the near-famous. Ben had been a member of the group for a year, since his first book, ‘Love in Bronze’, hit the NY Times Best Sellers List for just over a week. He’d been basking in the notoriety. What a life after all those years of bullshit jobs writing obits and neighborhood news!  Now his editor was at him to produce something against an advance for a second novel. He’d been living off modest residuals from his first book, but that was dwindling and the advance was gone. He hadn’t even an idea for the new book.

“You’ll be the first with a signed copy!”  He assured the girl, not yet thirty and already getting that washed out look of too many chardonnays too early in the day.

More laughter, high pitched, this time, ‘sophisticated ladies’ laughing at a raunchy story from the ex-U of I linebacker, currently employed at a fabricated job in real estate development by his father-in-law.

“Yes Ben, tell us about your new book” It was Talk Show Host again. “It’s been over a year now, hasn’t it?” He was feigning real interest, but Ben knew he was being teased.

There was a lull in the talking and all eyes were on Ben. He was saved from an explanation by the middle aged divorcée who, always out of touch with the situation at the moment, said “Why don’t we all drink up and go to my apartment!  It’s just two blocks. We can walk!”

They all went, though Ben wasn’t in the mood.

~ * ~

“I said: ‘You ready for another?’”

Ben looked up from his empty glass to see Mario with the bottle of rye in hand. “Oh. Yeah. I was just day dreaming.”  The aroma of the liquor was somehow reassuring as Mario poured. There was a third man now, between Ben and the front door. He recognized him from a place on Wilson Avenue he used to visit from time to time. Earl was his name, had been a preacher of some sort. “Earl, right?”  Ben said.

The man looked around, confused. Then he saw Ben. “Yeah I know you. Terry’s Place.”

“Yeah, I guess. Their liquor no good anymore?”

“Closed today. All day. Shit!”  Earl was a little drunk.

“Yeah, Mario’s closing at ten.” 

“There’s other places.” Mario said, rinsing glasses in dirty water.

Earl went on. “You used to hit Terry’s all the time. Someone said you made it big and stopped commin’.”

“I did alright.” Ben allowed.

“Did?  What, you hit the skids?”

“I’m doin’ okay.”  Son of a bitch was getting on Ben’s nerves. He gulped at his drink, looking around for someone else to talk to. Mort, at the end of the bar, was nodding off, his nose almost in his glass.

“None of my business.”  Earl said, reading Ben’s body language. “I got my own bag of shit.”

Ben was thankful for the silence. The neon sign buzzed.

~ * ~

It was early January in Chicago and cold. The cold in Chicago is unique. The wind comes roaring down the lake from Canada. It picks up all the dampness it can hold, using it like a weapon to knife through clothing and burn exposed skin. Ben found a parking place near the lake, two blocks from Ditka’s where the group had agreed to meet for drinks and dinner. There was a parking deck closer, but he’d started scrimping lately.

He showed up at the table crimson faced and wiping a drip from his nose with a handkerchief. There, listening to the sculptor go on about bronze metallurgy, was a new addition whom he recognized as a singer from one of their favorite clubs. He couldn’t remember her name, but did recall she was really good. They introduced her as Sally who’d come with one of the other women. “He’s our writer,” Talk Show Host was saying. “At least I think so. You are still writing, Benjie?” Ben ignored the jibe and sat down, as it happened, next to Sally. He was immediately intrigued.

 The thing about Sally was that she was completely comfortable within herself. Sally could not be described as beautiful. Her nose was a little too sharp, eyes maybe a little far apart, but an open face, hiding nothing. It was the face of a child behind wise eyes, crow’s feet just beginning, hinting at an age closer to Ben’s than the others. He figured Sally knew she wasn’t a great singer, but a good singer—that she knew who she was and who she wasn’t and was alright with it. He felt at ease with her.

The other thing about Sally turned out to be her unvarnished interest in him. This surfaced immediately that first night before she knew anything about ‘Love in Bronze’. They talked through dinner almost to the exclusion of the others. At the end of the night when everyone went their separate ways, Ben realized that, after all that talk, he’d learned almost nothing about her.

~ * ~

“Half an hour, boys” Mario said, looking up at the fly-specked Pabst Blue Ribbon clock near the TV. “Last call. Ten o’clock sharp and I’m outta here. That means you, too!”

Ben considered his wallet then his drink, about two thirds gone: nurse this and get a burger to take home or have another and make do with the last of the liverwurst. He chose the former. “I’m okay, Mario.”

“One more.”  Earl, who was drinking beer, said.

Mario popped a Miller and slid it down to Earl. He didn’t bother to ask Mort who, by now, had his head on the bar. Earl got up and headed for the john.

~ * ~

Over the following weeks Sally showed up a few more times and then stopped. By this time Ben was in love. He looked her up at her club on N. Rush Street and learned she’d taken another singing job at one of the new hotel lounges on Michigan Avenue. He was there one night as she ended her last set and she agreed to go for a late sandwich.

The next two months were the best that Ben could remember. They saw each other every day; took walks along the frozen lake shore, through Lincoln Park--and talked and talked. As usual, what they talked about mostly was Ben, which meant Ben’s writing, or lack of it.

Love in Bronze had been inspired. It was based on his parents and their flight from Tito’s Yugoslavia. It was a love story and it was beautiful. They’d told him the story over and over. As a boy he’d beg his mother to retell the adventure at bedtime. The story grew in his mind, partly embellished by his imagination as he grew older.

After years of trying to make a writing career at the Tribune, Ben took on smaller and smaller jobs. Somehow the chore of deadlines, boring assignments and the humiliation of younger men passing him on the road to success wore him down. He quit trying to play in the newspaper business and committed himself to writing a book.

At first it was a struggle. He’d never written fiction. Finally, it turned out to be merely a matter of getting the story he knew so well down on paper, changing names, adding characters and events as he went. It had taken him eight months to finish. He’d shown it to an old acquaintance from the Trib who passed it on to a friend in the business. The book made it to the Times list for a week, a book signing tour through Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburg--and that was it.

Ben had been living off the residual sales and the advance for his next one. Pressure from his editor for a new manuscript was mounting.

And then Sally came into his life. Ben would have been lost if it weren’t for Sally. She gave him confidence. She buoyed him up. She made him write. She accepted his love.

It was Sally who gave him the age-old advice to write about what he knew. He complained that for the last two years all he knew about was cocktail phonies and burned out blondes. She exhorted him to write about that. All through February and March of that year he worked and produced eighty pages on a story about the vapid, meaningless life of the nightclub set and their alcohol induced foibles and dalliances. That would be enough to keep his editor happy for a while!

He was exultant and had a great idea. He’d take the draft to New York personally and slap it on that editor’s desk!  To top it off he’d ask Sally to go too, the two of them celebrating his second advance together!

That night Ben sat at the hotel bar as Sally finished her first set. It was a Friday and the place was full. She made her way through the tables accepting compliments, chatting with the clientele. Finally she joined Ben.

The words tumbled out of his mouth. The book was almost half done!  Going to New York!  Come with me!  I love you!

~ * ~

Mort wavered slightly on his way out and kicked the leg of the chair nearest the door, knocking it over. He mumbled something apologetic, picked up and replaced the chair and then disappeared outside into Leland Avenue.

“Hey Mario. What’s open around here?”  Earl plainly was not through for the evening.

“Couple of places over by Sheridan Road and Marine Drive.”

“Gets pricey over there.”  Earl complained. Mario said nothing.

Ben toyed with his drink and looked at the time. Christ he didn’t want to go back to that crumby room. He kept thinking about that last Good Friday.

~ * ~

Sally looked at him with those kind eyes. “Let’s sit over here,” she said and led him to a back booth in the now quiet lounge. “I can’t go to New York with you.”

“Sally, I’ve done it!  I’m on my way again. This is your doing, too.”

And then she told him. She did it as gently as she could, but the result was the same. He needed to finish the book on his own. She needed her own life. She was fond of him, but it was time for both of them to make their own way.

He looked at her in confusion. She believed in him, he was sure. Didn’t she?

“Sally,” he mumbled and looked into that open face; those eyes that could never hide the truth. She saw something, or a lack of it, that made Talk Show Host’s derision resonate. The din in the background ceased. He lost focus in a red blur.

She put her hand on his. “You’ll be fine, Ben.” The words stung him like a slap.

He made the trip to New York to flee the scene of her rejection more than anything else. Once there, he realized the reason for going at all was to celebrate with her. It was a long week-end and he’d had to wait until Tuesday to see his editor who was too busy to do more than thank him perfunctorily. He came home to wait.

Three weeks later the letter came. His idea for a story was good, it said, but they had two other properties with similar themes in the works and would not be extending the second installment on his advance.

And that was it.

~ * ~

Ben put a bill on the counter which Mario slid into the open cash drawer and made change. He got his hat and coat from the table where he’d thrown it four hours earlier and walked out onto the street, feeling exposed. A mixture of rain and snow formed halos around the street lights and a thin slush on the sidewalk.

There might be the April residual check for Love in Bronze in the mail tomorrow, he thought. I should have asked Mario if he’ll be open.