THE CAT’S MEOW.
That’s what the neon spelled out along with the outline of a feline in full, luxurious stretch that seemed erotic in nature. To Archer, Poca City was getting more interesting by the minute.
He pushed open the red door and walked in.
The first thing he noted was the floor. Planked and nailed and slimed with the slop of what they’d been serving here since the place opened, he reckoned. His one shoe stuck a bit, and then so did the other. Archer compensated by picking up the force of his steps.
The next thing of note was the crowd, or the size of it anyway. He didn’t know the population of the town, but if it had any more people than were in here, it might qualify as a metropolis.
The bar nearly ran the length of one wall. And like on the bows of old ships, sculpted into the corner support posts of the bar were the heads and exposed bosoms of women — he supposed loose ones. And every stool had a butt firmly planted on it. Against one wall fiddle and guitar players plucked and strummed, while one gal was singing for all she was worth. She had red curly hair, a pink, freckled face, and slim hips with stiff dungarees on over them. Her notes seemed to hit the ceiling so hard they ricocheted off with the force of combat shrapnel.
Behind the bar was a wall of shelves holding every type of bottled liquor Archer had ever seen and then some, by a considerable margin. He reckoned a man could live his whole life here and never grow thirsty, so long as the coin of the realm kept up.
Indeed, happening on this place after being behind bars this morning and enduring a long, dusty bus ride and encountering less than friendly citizens hereabouts, Archer considered he might be in a dream. With three years of probation to endure, he felt like a large fish with a hook in its mouth. He could be yanked back at any moment, and that lent force to a man’s whims. Thus, he decided to take full advantage while he could.
Sidling up to the bar, he wedged in between what seemed a colossus of a farmer with a rowdy beard and hands the width of Archer’s head, and a short, thick, late-fifties-something, slick-haired banker type in a creamy white three-piece suit far nicer than Archer’s. He also had a knotted blue-and-white-striped tie, with reptile leather two-tone shoes on his feet, a fully realized smirk in his eye, and a woman less than half his age on his arm. Resting on the bar in front of the man was a flat-crowned Panama hat with a yellow band of silk.
Archer caught the bartender’s attention and held up two horizontally stacked fingers and tacked on the words “Bourbon, straight up.”
The gent, old, spent, and thin as a strand of rope, nodded, retrieved the liquor from the vast stacks, poured it neat into a short glass, and held it out with one hand, while the other presented itself palm up for payment. It was a practiced motion that a man like Archer could appreciate.
“How much you charging for that?” he asked.
“Fifty cents for two fingers, take it or leave it, son.”
“What’s the bourbon again, pops?”
“Only one bourbon in these parts, young feller. Rebel Yell. Wheat, not rye. You don’t like Rebel, you best pick another type of alcohol or another part of the state. Give me an answer, ’cause I ain’t getting any younger and I got thirsty folks with folding money want my attention.”
“Rebel sounds fine to me.”
He passed over the two quarters and settled his elbows on the bar with the short glass cupped in both hands. He hadn’t had a drink in a while. He’d banged one back the day before prison, just for good luck, so he reckoned it was a certain symmetry to have one the day he left prison. He was into balance if nothing else these days. And moderation, too, until it proved inconvenient, which it very often did to a man like him.
The banker eyed Archer, while his lady ran her tongue over full lips painted as warm a red as a sky hosting a setting sun.
“You’re not from here,” said the banker. His silver hair was cut, combed, and styled with the precision available only to a man who had the dollars and leisure time for such tasks. His face was as flabby as the rest of him, and also tanned and creased with lines in a way that women might or might not find attractive. For such a man, the thickness of his wallet and not the fitness of his torso was his main and perhaps only aphrodisiac for the ladies.
“I know I’m not,” replied Archer, sipping the Rebel and letting it go down slow, the only way to drink bourbon, or so his granddad had informed him. And not only informed but demonstrated on more than one occasion. He tipped his hat back, turned around, bony elbows on the bar, his long torso angled off it, and studied the banker, then flitted his gaze to the lady.
The banker’s smirk broadened — he was reading Archer’s mind, no doubt.
“I like this town,” said the banker. “And everything in it.”
He patted the lady’s behind and then his hand remained perched there. She seemed not to mind or else had grown accustomed to this fondling, or both. As the man’s fingers stroked her, she took a moment to powder her nose while looking in a mirror attached to a shiny compact. The lady next shook out a tube of lipstick from her clutch purse and repainted her mouth before once more taking up what looked to be a murky martini with three fat olives lurking mostly below the surface, like gators in a bog.
“Been in Poca City long, have you?” inquired Archer.
“Long enough to see what’s good and what needs changing. And then changing it.”
He closed his mouth and eyed Archer from under tilted tufts of eyebrow.
“You gonna keep me in suspense?” said Archer finally.
The banker laughed and swallowed some of his whiskey. His eyes flickered just a bit as the drink went down, like wobbly lights in a storm.
Archer’s mouth eased into a smile at this weakness, but the man didn’t seem to notice. Or care.
“Poca’s growing. This used to be just cattle land. And farming. Now that’s changing. Business and money coming in. Not too much riffraff.”
“How do you decide about riffraff? See, I might fall into that category and then where do we go with this happy conversation?”
The lady laughed at this, but the banker did not. She shut her mouth and sipped her bog.
The banker intoned, “Fact is, a man can make money here if he’s willing to work. With the war over, we have winners and losers. I aim to make certain Poca falls on the winner’s side of the ledger. See, I was here before the war, trying to make things work. Place was an armpit then. Now the country is rebuilding, hell, we’re putting the bricks and glass back up all over Europe, too. Had that damn Berlin Airlift feeding all them folks. Commies taking over in China. That Stalin fella getting half o’ Europe under his iron thumb and testing them damn nuclear bombs. Now, Truman said we’d all be getting a fair deal here, but I don’t take no man’s word for that, president or not. Folks are heading west again, making their way to new lives, new fortunes. And in Poca, we’re sort of at the crossroads of all that. Betwixt old America where most now still live and new America that lies west of here. People pass through. Some stay. Most keep going because we can’t compete with the likes of Los Angeles and Frisco and that gambling haven in Las Vegas. But opportunities still abound here. And I’m well positioned to take advantage of every one of them. And I am, by God.”
Archer listened to all this, nodding, his mouth twitching back and forth as he processed the man’s many words.
He said, “Saw the fountain with the babies, and the geezers playing checkers. Kinda odd sight.”
The man laughed. “Old and the new. Before long there won’t be time for people to be sitting around playing checkers.”