6
The rain falling, the light gone, and the warmth of bars siren-calling to the men and women passing on the slick streets, although those who answered would probably have found their way to such places anyway, or at least to places like this particular dive in Woburn. The men and women who congregated there had little desire for their homes, and those who shared those homes with another knew that there was no great anticipation for their return.
It was called the Wanderer, and could best be described as having evolved, in its way, although its evolution was comparable to that of a primitive creature that had exchanged gills for lungs, clambered from sea to shore, and then progressed no farther, dispensing entirely with any further notion of advancement in favor of a barely refined primitivism. Its particular evolutionary path had proceeded as follows: A drunk passes another drunk a bottle; the two drunks find a bench upon which to rest the bottle; a third drunk, but one less drunk than the others, arrives and helps them pour their drinks; someone puts a wall around them so they have something to lean against as they poison themselves with alcohol; a roof is added so that the rain doesn’t fall into their booze; a sign is hung up outside, notifying all and sundry that the Wanderer is now open for business. The end.
It had a floor of cheap green tile reminiscent of a hospital canteen, blackened by the cigarette butts that had been crushed into it over the years. There was a jukebox in the far corner, but nobody could ever recall its having been in use. It remained lit, and ostensibly available for business, but only drunks and non-regulars ever tried to make it play a song, and then it simply swallowed their money and remained silent. Complaints about the recalcitrant nature of the jukebox were always met with a shrug by the bartender, who would inform the complainant that the jukebox was rented, and it was all to do with the rental company, and only the company’s staff was permitted to mess around with its innards, all of which were lies so barefaced it was a wonder the bartender’s tongue didn’t turn to ash and fall from his mouth before the last one could even be spoken. But if the complainant really cared that much about his fifty cents, the bartender would continue, he could write a letter, assuming the name of the company could be unearthed to begin with, which would be difficult because the company didn’t exist. The jukebox was the bar’s own, and had been ever since the original company behind its presence went out of business. It didn’t make the bartenders much from its gradual accumulation of fools’ quarters, but it garnered them a degree of amusement. Occasionally a patron might try to hit the jukebox to make it play, or at least return his money, at which point he would receive a warning, if he was lucky, or be ejected, if he was unluckier. If he was very unlucky, and had been acting the asshole prior to taking on the jukebox, he would be ejected via the back door, and he might stumble along the way, and thus bang his head and hurt himself, which would occasion no great sense of regret on the part of anyone except himself.
Rarely were such actions necessary, though. For the most part, locals understood the nature of the bar, and non-locals rarely frequented it. Its name was not inapt, as it had no fixed identity of its own and attracted those with no particular national, sporting, or racial allegiances about which to get excited. It was owned by a Pole, managed by an Italian, and its bartenders were all mongrels, their only common denominator being their whiteness, for Woburn, Massachusetts, was ninety percent white, five percent Asian, and five percent whatever was left, and the non-white ten percent tended to give the Wanderer a wide berth. That was just the way things were, and nobody bothered to comment on it.
The Wanderer’s décor was neutral, mainly because it didn’t really have any décor, unless you counted a single cracked Budweiser mirror. Its chairs were mismatched and rested unevenly on the floor. Its tables were black and red, with faux-marble surfaces. The stools along the bar were dull steel with black vinyl seats that were last upholstered when John McNamara was still managing the Red Sox and they were bumbling along at .500, right before Joe Morgan replaced him and the team went on to win nineteen of twenty to take the AL East title, an achievement that went relatively un noticed in the Wanderer, as it didn’t have a television at the time, and still didn’t have one now. The Wanderer took no more interest in sports than it did in politics, art, culture, movies, or any other facet of existence unrelated to the act of pouring booze and receiving money for it in return. It had regulars, but beyond greeting them by name when they were so inclined none of the bartenders cared to investigate further the circumstances of their lives. For the most part, those who frequented the Wanderer came to be left alone. They didn’t care much for other people, but then they didn’t care much for themselves either, so at least they were consistent.
But it was still in business after more than forty years, because it knew its market. That market was drunks and wife-beaters. It was women a step above whoredom who’d been selling themselves for so long in return for drinks, company, and a different bed that they’d somehow managed to convince themselves that such short-term arrangements qualified as actual relationships. It was new arrivals with a one-name contact who were looking for work, and weren’t particular about the work in question, or whether a Social Security number was required, or whether or not it was entirely legal. It was workers in worn boots and checked shirts who left messages behind the bar for other men, and businessmen in cheap suits and tieless shirts who stopped by on their way to Someplace Else, or To Meet A Guy, or for some similarly vague reason that justified a temporary halt at the Wanderer.
And it was individuals like the two men who sat at the bar close to the jukebox, their jackets zipped even though it was warm inside and they were on their second beers, their backs to the barred window that looked out on Winn Street. There was a Boston Herald folded in front of one of them, but it appeared to be unread. Neither of them was a large man, and a decade separated the younger from the older, although there was a similar hardness and weariness to their features. The younger of the two had light curly hair, and wore no jewelry: no rings, no watch, no chains. His brown leather blouson jacket was of the kind that was fashionable in the eighties but had been bought long after. His jeans were a faded blue, and speckled with fake paint marks. His sneakers bore the Nike swoosh, although they had never been near a Nike factory. A bottle of Bud stood before him, but he had barely sipped from it.
His companion was stockier, with long black hair greased back from his forehead but cut short at the sides and back, giving him a vaguely tribal aspect. He sported a two-day growth of beard, and his right hand repetitively twisted a pack of Camels: top, side, base, side, top, side, base, side. There were two gold rings on his right hand, and one on the little finger of his left. A thick gold chain looped around his right wrist, and another around his neck, a gold cross dangling from it. There were tattoos on both of his arms, mostly hidden by the sleeves of his black leather jacket, but the dark edges of the artwork on his back were visible at the base of his neck. He wore Timberland boots, heavily scuffed, and dark blue Levis. There was scarring around the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. It looked like an old burn.
His second beer was almost gone, and he was debating whether it was worth his while to order another. His name was Martin Dempsey, and his accent betrayed a life of wandering. In Irish bars, surrounded by immigrants, his many years on that side of the Atlantic found expression in his voice. Here it was less obvious, though still present in the rhythms of his speech. The other man was named Francis Ryan, and his accent was Boston Irish, with only the faintest hint of something else beneath it.
They were not regulars at the Wanderer, and nobody of their acquaintance frequented it. All Dempsey knew was that the Irish were not among its ethnic regulars, which was enough for him. It was out of town, off the beaten track. It was Elsewhere. That was precisely why they had chosen it, for there were now few places where it was truly safe for them to show their faces. The tiredness around their eyes, the strain lines around their mouths, were recent additions. These were hunted men.
‘You want another?’ said Dempsey.
‘Nah, I don’t think I’ll be able to finish this one.’
‘Why did you order it, then?’
‘Politeness. I didn’t want to see you drinking alone.’
‘But I am drinking alone, ’cause you’re not drinking at all. What’s wrong with you?’
‘I don’t like drinking too much before a job.’
‘From what I can see, you don’t like drinking after a job either. You don’t like drinking, period.’
‘I can’t handle it the way you can. Never could. The hangovers kill me.’
‘You can’t get a hangover on two beers. A child couldn’t get a hangover on two beers.’
‘Still, we have a job.’
‘A job? We don’t have a job. We’re errand boys delivering a message. A job is different. A job has purpose, and a quantifiable outcome. A job has a reward at the end of it. This is a waste of my talents.’ He corrected himself. ‘Sorry, “our” talents.’
‘Go have a smoke. It’ll kill some time.’
‘I’m trying to quit.’
‘Then why are you carrying around a pack of Camels?’
‘I said I was trying to quit. I didn’t say that I had. Anyway, do you see me smoking? No. I’m not smoking. I’m just toying with a box.’
‘It’s a thing, a, you know, a displacement activity.’