The Indian had the biggest face Frankie had ever seen. He came in the side door of The Wheel Club and stood for a moment, rocking on his heels and blinking. He was tall, and his chest was massive,but that wasn’t what Frankie noticed first. It was the face. The forehead and cheeks were huge, rosy, waxy planes. The eyes were large and black, the nose beaky. Not only were the lips overfull, but they stretched long across his face, and Frankie imagined what the teeth must be like. The better to eat you with, my dear, she thought.
Frankie realized she was gawking, so she turned to an empty table and began loading glasses and sticky beer bottles onto her tray. He must be that Myers guy that Mike told me about. She carried the crowded tray to the bar where the bartender helped her clear it.
“Two scotch and sodas for Table 5 and a rum and Coke.”
“Check," said Mike. He flipped three clean glasses from the rack, somersaulting them onto the bar with both hands, then filled them from bottles and spigots in effortless, twin movements.
“Thanks.” Frankie leaned far over the bar. “Mike, is that the guy who does the coyote call?” she asked in a low voice.
Mike flicked a look at the Indian with the big face. “Yeah, that’s him. Myers Somebody. I’m surprised he’s back. Wait’ll Anne sees him. She’ll have a shit fit.”
Frankie frowned. “He doesn’t look all that drunk.”
“He’s not. Doesn’t matter.”
Frankie shook her head. "I don’t get it.” She lifted her tray of drinks from the bar. As she made her way from the couple at Table 5 to the lone drinker at Table 8, she kept an eye on the Indian. By now, he had claimed a barstool by the door. His haunches overhung the stool, and he braced himself with one leg on the floor. His hands gripped the edge of the bar like a non-swimmer grips the pool edge in the deep end. His eyes were closed, and his head was thrown back so that his long black hair fell straight away from his big face.
Two men in white shirts--one thin, one short--each with his suit jacket slung over a shoulder, pushed open the padded leather doors of The Wheel’s front entrance and stood peering around. The thin man clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. His voice rang loudly over the Muzak that piped from small speakers just above their heads. “Sorry, Gar’. I haven’t been in this dump for a long time. This used to be a rockin’ place to go in town.”
“Well, nothin’s rockin’ here tonight, pal. Let’s try the Bourbon Barrel.”
“In a minute. Long as we’re here, let’s get another drink. Might as well have one in each place.”
The two men crossed the room and claimed seats at Table 3, near the bar. The thin man pulled out a chair and hung his jacket over the back of it. His friend did the same, but his jacket promptly slid off onto the floor, the sleeve catching on one rung of the chair. He didn’t notice. He snapped his fingers in Frankie’s direction.
“Hey, Sugar! Can we get a drink over here?”
Frankie placed a cocktail napkin in front of each man. “What’ll you have?”
“Two 7-and-7s. No,” the short man grinned, “make that two double 7-and-7s.”
“Hell, make that two triple 7-and-7s,” said his friend.
“No, make that two septuple 7-and-7s.” They guffawed at their own joke.
“How ‘bout we start with doubles,” said Frankie. “Be right back.” As she turned to the bar, she could hear the two men snorting and laughing, and she thought she heard the short one say, “Nice ass.” Jerks, she thought.
*Photo of the Chief Theatre mosaic courtesy of Connie Rodriguez-Flatten, 2011
*Photo of the Chief Theatre mosaic courtesy of Connie Rodriguez-Flatten, 2011
