For the Old Fox

 

The restaurant was a rambling, one-story clapboard building. The weathered wood had never seen a coat of paint, and the windows were frosted over with grime. Strings of Christmas tree lights festooned from the eaves and looked permanent. It was midday and there were only three cars and a pickup parked out front. Behind the building, close-cropped grass stretched into the distance. Two small vintage propeller planes were parked a short walk from the rear of the building. As late as the fifties, small airports like this dotted the countryside, their accompanying bars hung on the edges of the now mostly unused fields.

They ducked inside the cool darkness. The bar stretched the whole length of the room, lit by vintage neon beer signs shining through ranks of sparkling bottles of liquor and polished glasses. The timbered ceiling sloped back to an addition where small tables lined the wall of windows that looked out onto green. The old airplanes looked ready to fly.

The bartender nodded at them as Jack walked Anna back to a table and seated her. There were three men at the bar and they all looked into the mirror there and followed her with their eyes. Jack could have been naked with his hair on fire and they would not have recalled him. Sunlight poured in through the wavy glass panes and her figure was back-lit in the gloom. At the bar, he ordered a beer and a coke. As he paid for the drinks and asked for a menu, the old man wearing a VFW cap sitting closest to him held up his glass in a toast. “To your beautiful lady.”

Jack touched his beer to the man’s glass and turned to look at her. Each time he saw her from a distance, he got that same pang in his chest, the one that said, Move closer. Stand by her.

The bartender took his order and said it would be a few minutes. Jack took the drinks back and slid a quarter across the table to her and smiled. She got up from the table and crossed to the jukebox by the door. He tipped back his beer and watched what the men were watching. The high heels made her almost as tall as he was and her dress hugged every curve. The ribbon she wove through her braid looked like a bow on a Christmas gift.

Anna leaned over the jukebox, looking at the selections while everyone else appreciated her ass. She pressed some buttons and turned around. The air conditioning was arctic; her nipples lifted the silk and threw small shadows. Jack swallowed, put down his beer and crossed the floor to her.

Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” drifted from the speakers as he took her hand. In the space between the rows of tables they danced close in a way that all the old men had fond memories of. In a turn, Jack caught the end of the ribbon and pulled it, gliding through her braid like a snake in the treetops. Anna’s hair expanded into a rippling fall around her shoulders. A few bars into the song she whispered in his ear, “Get ready to smile and be generous”.

The old vet had taken off his cap and tucked it into his belt. He tapped Jack on the arm. “May I cut in?”

Jack nodded and stepped away, the red ribbon hanging from his fingertips. The old soldier borrowed her from him in the most proper manner from a time gone by. Anna’s eyes sparkled at Jack over the top of the old man’s gray buzz cut as he carefully took Jack’s place, one papery hand holding hers and the other light at her waist.

He was just a boy when he came to this county, alone but unafraid. He worked at the docks and before he was really old enough, there was a great war and he went gladly. He served bravely, saw friends die, and was ever more grateful as years passed and he made his place in this country as a husband, a father. Alone now, he looks at me with a father’s love and pride, even though he’s never set eyes on me before. He’s a knight, a good man, and has reconciled the years remaining to him. A good life, small joys, like this place, his friends, this dance, and gratitude for all of it. Anna drifted for a moment and struggled to compose herself.

The old man was a good dancer in his day and his friends cooed, raised their glasses and rattled their ice cubes from the bar. “Go Cholly,” said the bartender. After two or three turns on the cramped floor, he caught Jack’s eye and nodded, and Jack smoothly stepped in and took his place. He walked back to the bar a little taller, a little younger.

“You okay?” Jack murmured in her ear. “I didn’t think you’d do that. Read him.”

“Not like I could help it. You knew he was a good guy when we walked in the place, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t have let it happen if he wasn’t.”

“Thank you.” She kissed his cheek lightly. “We spend too much time with the bad guys.”

When the music stopped, the cook was setting their order on the table and the old man and his two friends applauded. Anna blushed, and they sat down to eat.

She said, “That did me more good than the night’s sleep.”

Jack said, “So, what is it with you and the old people?”

“The Elders?”

“Yeah,” he nodded toward the clutch of old men at the bar.

“They know things. They’ve learned how to be happy, most of them. What matters and what’s a waste of time. Even regrets can be instructive.”

Jack got up and went back over to the juke and the Beach Boys “Don’t Worry Baby” filled the room with its familiar mellowness. Anna took a bite of her sandwich and said around the food, “The dancing was pretty nice, too. Makes me feel…” She reached across the table and put a French fry in Jack’s mouth. He snapped at it and said, “Sexy?”

“Oh, really?” She checked an invisible watch.

“Fuckin’ Ay.” He winked and fed her a slice of dill pickle.

While they were dancing, another pickup pulled up. Two men came in and sat at the far end of the bar. Both were drinking, but one was studying Jack and Anna in the mirror. When the cook delivered the food to their table, the man got up and went out the side door. A two-seat helicopter was parked on the grass behind that side of the building, the sun reflecting off its glass bosom. He used the pay phone mounted under the overhang.

“You know that party we spotted up in the woods a while back? Yeah, that one. Well, you can tell him that the party is still going on. That’s right. They’re having lunch at the bar. The airfield where I keep the ‘copter. It’s the same guy, the new kid on his crew. Tell him he owes me.”