Breaking any could lead to violence. Possibly justified homicide.
There are other laws, too.
Such as, one law, seems to George, is that not a mugger in here is permitted to believe any of George’s amazing, and true dammit, tales. Nor do any of these fools believe he’ll ever actually profess his love to Karen’s face.
But dammit. Tonight is the night to profess his love. Screw these muggers at the bar. Who cares what they believe.
George, at six-foot-five and straight-up turned fifty this year, doesn’t flinch under the sheets of snow layering him like fancy-pants buttercream on a normal-old cupcake. He doesn’t sway a fraction from the frigid, whipping wind. Doesn’t slip even a second on the black ice hidden under accumulating powder on the walkway from parking lot to black bar door. A long-term employee of Richard’s Mountain, he’s wearing his strap-on cleats over steel-toe boots. His internal temperature is a furnace anyway, so he’s not cold, especially since he’s in a Richard’s Mountain, arctic-tundra, gortex, smoretex, whatever newfangled fabric coat. Fine.
Whatever, he thinks, while spiking into the black ice and pulling the black handle on the black door. Big deal we got a storm. It doesn’t matter. It’s tonight. Tonight is the night. I’m talking to Karen if she’s willing to listen. I hope I haven’t waited too long.
In a short mudroom of sorts, George takes off his coat in a way that shimmies any snow to the metal grate floor, meant to capture snow and send it to a well beneath. In hanging his coat on a wood peg, he slides out a thin empty thermos from an inner pocket. Next, he bends to remove the strap-on cleats from his boots and sets them in his regular cubby, one amongst a total of fifty, lining both sides of the bar’s foyer. In behind him bustles new boy Kyle, who, breaking a Malforson’s law, speaks.
“George, right? It’s George?”
“Yeah.”
“We have to take our spikes off here?”
“Yeah,” George says, nods, and walks off.
Again, George isn’t being rude, he just has to get this new kid to get it. He can’t be seen being cornered into talking with some wolf pup. George is barely accepted, even after twenty years on the mountain, in this townie-dominant bar. He can’t allow himself to be one of the staff the townies ask the owner to bounce. A terrible fate, for there’s no other joint in Richard’s Village open past ten p.m. for food, and eating in the resort bar at midnight means mingling with well-heeled skiers from New York City.
George doesn’t like being reminded of New York City.
Ugh, he cringes, setting a hand to his heart to think of New York City.
But no! No more! No more wallowing on heartbreak of the past! Tonight is the night.
He’s going to tell Karen during their night shift on the mountain. Even in this fog-out, blinding blizzard, which at the crack of dawn will bring all the gosh-damn city skiers. Yep, tonight’s the night for love in Vermont, no matter how much snow-catting and limb trimming and lift clearing they need to do on every one of the 99 trails of dreams and ways to fall in love.
Tonight!
George makes his way to a non-designated middle stool at the bar. New boy Kyle sits two stools over, and the entire bar gasps. A woman at a table by a window with an amber candle says, “Oh shit, here we go.”
George closes his eyes. Now he’ll have to talk to Kyle. It’s incumbent upon him to correct Kyle’s gaffe, given that staff instructs staff and townie instructs townie. No other mountain staffers are present yet; George swivels to confirm. Not his beloved Karen, thank goodness. But she never comes to Malforson’s anyway. And no annoying Bob yet. Not even ever-present Old Eli. So, dammit, George has got to do it.
“Look, kid. You can’t sit there, right. That’s Pete’s chair. You best move before he...”
The bartender, named Kemper, with white rag in beer mug steps up and helps, “Before Pete gets back from his piss, yeah.”
“Boy, you better hurry up,” George says, trading an eyebrow-twitch with Kemper the bartender. This Kyle is in his thirties, George guesses, but George calls all of the newbies, “Boy,” until they prove themselves worthy to have an actual name.
Kyle doesn’t, as he should, immediately stand. He continues sitting, his lips pursed, looking at George as if evaluating.
“Right,” Kyle says.
George squints an eye, wondering if he’s going to have to bulk up and fight. Wouldn’t take much. George is a lumberjack of redwoods compared to Kyle’s kindling-gathering frame. But George doesn’t like violence. He especially doesn’t want to fight tonight, tonight is a night for blizzard love.
Kyle breaks the gaze, stands, and says, “Well then. I’ll move,” not apologizing or noting any concession to established laws and norms as the new kid on the block.
As Kyle moves away from the stool, Pete rushes from the bathroom to reclaim his spot and shoots a glare at Kyle. Kyle raises his arms and says, “Settle old boy, no problem.” To this shocking affront, Pete flares his nostrils at George and says, “You best get your boy in control.”
George low-rumble groans. He can’t disclaim Kyle just yet, for an unstated rule is that mountain staff must cover mountain staff. Never know if you get caught in a drift in a blizzard, on the cold side of Richard’s, and need someone to race a tread patch to a shredded one on your snowcat before you freeze to death at 2:00 a.m.
“He’ll get the hang of it. Won’t you, Kyle?” George says.
“Sure, George, sure,” Kyle says, eyes narrowed on him. “Hey, Bartender, how about the news instead of the game?”
George hangs his head between his shoulders, as if an exhausted parent to a never-ending shit stream of bad behavior from a toddler. It’s like a rapid fire series of law breaking from this insolent Kyle. Nobody calls Kemper “Bartender.” And nobody, absolutely nobody — not even the oldest townie — asks Kemper to change the channel.
“Look, Kyle,” George intervenes before a townie steps up to face off with Kyle. That’s how quick the violence rises over such infractions in Malforson’s. The détente is actually a tinder box. “I’ll spell it out. You’re going to have to sit on over at that dark table by the bathrooms and keep your thoughts to yourself. See where nobody’s sitting? That’s for the new guys. You got some time there before you can get on up over here. K?”
“You know what?” Kemper the bartender says. “I’m in a good fuckin’ mood, guy. How ’bout I welcome you with this one-time prize, yeah? Here ya’ go.” Kemper clicks away from a re-run of a famous Patriots’ game over to the news. Immediately a weatherwoman with giant blonde hair is being tossed around on screen at the lakefront in Burlington. Wind, snow, typical blizzard words of hysteria and dire warnings to stay in and keep those generators ready. Hopes that people stocked up on milk and water and bread. Typical. None of the bar occupants, except maybe Kyle, listen to a word of it.
Kyle doesn’t say thanks for the channel change. Doesn’t smile. He walks backwards, nodding in turn at Pete and George and Kemper. He plucks at a phantom toothpick in his teeth with his tongue. George thinks he sees Kyle mouth the words “rude boy” to him, but George won’t allow himself to think that’s what Kyle said. A shiver runs down George’s spine, thinking on a violent day in his past when those same words were said by a stranger. No, no, he didn’t. He couldn’t have. I’m imagining things. Besides, don’t escalate this.
“Gotcha, cowboys. I’ll sit here at the table in the dark then,” Kyle says.
Kyle, tucked away at the least favorite table, sits tight. He accepts a black coffee from a waitress and catches an eggs-n-bacon hot disc tossed to him by Kemper. Otherwise, he disappears into the worst table’s shadows. He glares at the TV news, or he could be glaring at George or Pete, given that they sit directly under it. Or maybe Kemper, who moves behind the bar, under the television.