I gotta little story ta tell ya and ta start, I'm gonna take you ta a little bar in a hick town. No, it ain't Frosty's, but the room is the same. Names don't stick in my head too good, but it was somethin' like "End of the Trail" or somethin' like that. Might have been "End of the Road" for all I know. This was way back in the summer of 43. I was workin' on a big job at the mill in town there. I was in this little joint every night that week. Bein' from the city, the smoke and stale beer felt kinda like home. The bands weren't so bad, the bikers were friendly and the burgers went down OK with enough cold ale. The old, belt-driven ceiling fans were relics from when the place really was the trail's end and the signs on the wall said things like David Harum Feed. There was this gothic chic running balls into holes on the pool table", but I digress. I didn't bring you here for the ceiling fans or the dame with the cue. There's another dame in this tale.
I didn't really come here ta see either of the dames. But if the tatts and silver drew me toward the pool table, the quiet mystery pulled me away. Here she sits, in a room fulla drinkin' swaggerin' noise makers, a lady. An old lady. A pretty damn statuesque lady and I ain't talking about purty either, ya know watta mean?. She might once ha' been statuesque in a Lauren Bacall kinda way, but now she just looked like a statue. She sat at a tiny table in the back, all by her lonesome, with a cup a' Joe and a glass av water in front of her. Never made a sound, not one. Never ordered a drink, never went ta the can, never nothin'. Just sat there, patient as ya' please, watchinv the room.
She looked like she might ha' been foreign, but the more I looked, the less I saw. Not really foreign, maybe she was just really local, maybe a bit a' injun blood, sorry "She may have been of Native American Descent". I ain't none to good wit' all that hi-falutin' stuff, she looked like an old injun dame to me. She was there every night when they booted us out. She was old too, maybe 60, maybe 80, Christ maybe she was a hundrerd an' ten, how the hell would I know, she was old OK? Damn old...and a little creepy. She had a way a lookin' right through ya.
Ya see, she honestly didn't do nothin'. The first night I saw her, I knew she didn't really fit, but I thought maybe she had a kid in the band or somethin'. The second night bothered me a little more and by the fourth night I'll tell ya, I was pretty creeped out. Every night in the same chair at the same table with the same cup a' Joe. OK, OK, it was probably fresh coffee, but it looked the same. She'd sit at the same table every night. She shifted her position on the chair a bit and she turned her head now and then. Still, she never got up and never said nothin' all night long.
Then, when that cable broke on the square rig and we knocked off early, you remember, the one that hurt Bill...anyway we comes in here at noon, 12 fuckin' O'Clock and here's the dame, sitting at the same table, with the same cup. The guys ordered the usual round a grease and gulps, but I wasn't really followin' the food action. I couldn't believe she was there. What would bring an old dame like her down ta the bar at noon? I decided I needed ta know, ya know watta mean? I threw a ten-spot on the bar, told 'em to set me up wit' the usual and headed across the room. The gothic dame wouldn't be in for hours, her kind sleeps in, so we had the corner pretty much ta ourselves. I strolled over, put on my best, big city grin and asked "How you doin' t'day?" I got nothin', not an answer, not a smile, not a look. At least the gothic chic woulda slapped me or somethin'. Here, I got zero, zilch, nada. I didn't know, but maybe she was deaf, so I asked again, a little louda "How ah ya?". Again, nothin'. I walked on over ta the can, took a piss and wandered back. I was a little too creeped out to even eat. She hadn't flinched at all. It was like she wasn't even there, or like I wasn't there or some other damn thing. It wasn't right, I knew that.
The next day bein' Saturday, I shoulda been home. But the broken rig had set us back a day and I had to stay on 'til Monday ta finish the job. We was off that day, wit' no parts to fix things, so's I went into the bar for breakfast. I was tired a' the hotel food, but I think a part of me wanted to know that that creepy dame had a home, somewheres, ya know watta mean? So I head into the place, 6 in the mornin', holdin' a paper cup a grabbed at the hotel lobby. In the mornin' they put up this big screen so's ya can't see the whole place. I guess they don't need it until the lunch crowd comes in. So I sit there on my bum, wondrin'. She can't be there, can she? I mean it's like the crack a' dawn, ain't nobody here, but me and the waitress. A name behind the bar reads Cindy.
The waitress! Damn, why didn't I think of it before. Any dame comes in a little place like this as much as she does, the staff's gotta know her. I waited a bit for my chow. I'm thinkin' I probably should have ordered my Joe here, woulda got better service. Anyhow, she finally shows up and I ask her "I saw somebody here last night that I'm kinda wondrin' about. Old lady, probably sixty or better, sat back by the pool table." Cindy looks a bit spooked, like she didn't wanta talk about the old dame. That seemed kinda weird ta me, but hey, who knows? Maybe it wasn't her section. Service bein' what it wasn't, I poured myself a cup a' Joe. I was still a bit overhung from the night before, ya know watta mean? I ate my chow, not half bad, and I drank three or four cups of their black stuff. Ya just can't get good Joe any more. Well, all that coffee went right through me and before ya know it, I gotta piss. So I get up and head for the can. I step around the screen and, bam, there's the old dame, sittin' there in the dark, at the same table.
I'll never know how I made it into the can. My legs went rubbery and I was sure scared enough to piss in my pants. I hurried on in and did my business in a rush. I musta washed my hands ten times, my face too, anything' to keep to from passin' by that room again. Finally, I starts to screw up my guts, I mean, a man can't stay in the can all day, ya know watta mean? A grabbed a quick gulp of water out of the old rusty faucet and opened the door.
The good news is that the dame ain't at her table anymore; the bad news is she's standin' up right next to door that says "Men" on it. I'm already as scared as I can be and my bladder's empty, so I just stood there starin' at her. In the softest, oldest voice I'd ever heard, she says "Hello".
"Look, lady I didn't mean to pry, I mean, uh, I've got some food to get to". I tried to step past her, but the pool table blocked my path. Where the hell was the goth dame when I needed her? "Uh, what can I do for ya?
"We're two of a kind you know"
"Two of a...? Whatta ya mean, lady? I don't even know ya."
She says it again with a soft punch on the word are, "We haven't met, but we are two of a kind. We've been left behind."
"Left behind? What are ya, nuts? I'm just finishin' up a job here in town, hadda cable break on the square rig down at the mill. Set us a day back."
"A day back?" That old face cracks into the widest, friendliest smile that I've seen in years. Come with me. She walks around the screen, right past the barmaid and into the kitchen. I expected Cindy to say somethin', but she acts like we aren't even there. We stroll right into the back, like we owns the place and she points to a calendar in the wall. I'm thinkin' great picture of a dame in a bikini, but no, she's pointin' down below, there between the name of the dame in the pic and the produce delivery schedule, down where the month and the year are printed.
August 2005.
"2005? What kinda calendar is this? Who makes a 2005 calendar in 1943?"
She smiles again "It is 2005, Bill. You've been here 62 years."
"Whattaya, nuts? I been here 6 days. We just started the job at the mill last Monday!"
"Look at the mill now, Bill."
I glanced out the open back door and the mill was gone, well, changed anyway. I could see a bit of smoke comin' up, but the warehouses in front were gone. Looked like some kind of newfangled apartments. A train went through and it didn't look right either, no steam and it sounded like a truck.
"Look at the bar, Bill."
I took another look and it was dark now. The place was full again. The band was playin' an old song by Clapton. The Harley guys were here. The goth chic was runnin' the balls... A six foot woman wearin' men's jeans, a bra-less tanktop, a pound of silver and tattoos in 1943? Damn... I guess I'd known it all along, hadn't I? All of the things I loved were in this bar. The goth dame, the blues, the bikers. None of them were in 1943 and neither was I. I turned to the old dame. "Who are you?"
"Look above the bar"
I looked up and there was her picture way up above the lights and the bottles. It was a hand drawn sketch that looked at least a hundred years old.
"I founded the place, Bill, in 1893."
"1893? But then you'd have ta be...
"Dead, Bill. Dead and left behind"
"Dead... whatta ya mean, left behind?"
"I don't really know, Bill, some of us are just left here when the others move on"
"Bill? Why do ya keep callin me Bill? I'm..." I paused. "Well, I guess I've known all along haven't I? I'm Bill Jackson. It was me that got hurt that day when the square rig broke. I guess I got more than hurt, huh?"
She smiled again. "Will you join me at my table? It's peaceful here. The band is really quite good and the burgers go down OK with enough cold ale. I've been waiting to talk to you for a long time."