Bertha stood confused as Bertha ever gets. This customer talked about something she knew she should have heard about, but hadn’t. Bertha knows guys do not get roughed up around here for things like bank robbery, so it had to be something serious. She turned on more lights against grayness of the day. She turned volume on the radio to a murmur.
The guy sparked and fizzed. He threw up roman candles of speech and skyrockets of self pity. His chubby face reddened with indignation. He spoke of how wronged he felt, and all because… at which point Petey stepped in with a busted pool cue and suggested the guy take a walk. The guy took one look at Petey’s face, and skedaddled.
“You just run off a customer,” Bertha said to Petey. “I expect you had a reason.” Her voice carried a hint of indignation. Bertha is not used to being kept in the dark about important stuff. She leaned on the bar, elbows firmly planted, and ready for a scrap. “Tell me.”
It turned into a great moment for both of them. It was, at least, Petey’s second-to-greatest moment in his whole life, probably. Bertha and Petey had danced around each other so long they had settled into a warm groove of friendship. Both had about given up hope of ever becoming lovers.
“We need you here,” Petey said, and his voice carried warmth that surprised Bertha, and Sugar Bear, and the fisherman; and it especially surprised Petey. “This is a tough one. This ain’t jail stuff, this is prison stuff. It’s not too tough for you. I don’t mean that, but it’s already handled.” The warm tone, the truly loving tone, sounded in his own ears and the magic stopped as his blush started; but, had Bertha been asked, she’d have said the blush was what she’d expected. “…tell you when it’s over,” Petey said, and, by heaven, there were still remnants of warmth in his voice. It seemed like he couldn’t shake ’em.
“I wanta talk to you,” Sugar Bear said to Petey.
“You don’t,” Petey told him. “Go home and bend some rebar, or weld something, or build a windmill…”
“Outside,” Sugar Bear said. “I wanta talk to you now.”
“C’mon,” Petey said to the fisherman. “Maybe the two of us can handle him.”
Bertha, who by rights should have insisted on coming along, just stood behind the bar and glowed. Tough as she is, Bertha still has warm feelings, and Petey had just brought hope back into her world. If matters with Sugar Bear had not been so serious, Bertha and Petey might have gotten together, right then. It would have saved a world of trouble. As it was, Bertha stood and glowed. For the moment she was a woman first, a bar owner second.
Gravel in the parking lot lay polished with rain and puddles collected in low spots. On the Canal a Navy minesweeper poked along, heading seaward. Drizzle glistened in Sugar Bear’s hair and beard because he never has enough sense to wear a sock hat. As the fisherman explained the situation, Sugar Bear started to heat up.
“Leave it be,” Petey said. “It’s dirty business. The fishermen can handle it.” Petey is a hustler, but this was a day when his hustle gave way to deeper feelings. “You got this bad temper,” he told Sugar Bear. “Save it for some time we’re gonna need it.” Sensible advice. Respectful, too.
“Go home and stay home,” the fisherman said. “If you need groceries or beer give me a call.” This was the fisherman who looks like a sea eagle, the thoughtful one. “And keep quiet as a dead mouse. The fewer who know, the better.”
“Because,” Petey said, “cops got no sense of humor.”
“If Bertha gets to asking,” Sugar Bear said, “we gotta think up something good to tell. Say the guy’s been robbing crab pots.” Then he stopped to think. “The guy ain’t the type. Tell her it’s not a mushroom kind of deal. Tell her he’s pushing bad stuff.”
“That’ll work,” the fisherman said. “Stay on ice. Do nothin’ indiscreet. Someday this will all be just a sea story.”
The fisherman would have been right except the victim interfered, which with him was a main talent. Either that, or he had an instinct for saving time. Instead of being seasick for a day and a night, and drowning after a cold, fifteen-minute swim, he walked right up to Sugar Bear like a bunny strolling in front of headlights.
During midafternoon on the day of transgression, the weather turned deep gray. Chantrell George showed up at Sugar Bear’s place to see if anything could be mooched. Sugar Bear sometimes comes up with completely worn out lawnmowers, or nicked up bars from chainsaws. He lays back a store of rusted and broken bolts, gears with stripped teeth, and odds and ends of the blacksmith business. Chantrell sells them for scrap, sometimes earning as much as six bits to a dollar.
And Greek Annie was there as well, accompanied by Jubal Jim who often tags along. Annie is more interesting than Sugar Bear’s transgression, because the transgression turned into one of those ragtime affairs that are over before everyone has taken seats.
Annie, whose rich parents live in the housing project, migrated to the Canal shortly after high school. She appears, and winsomely, at the blacksmith shop some days. Even witches need a social life beyond reptiles and spiders. A joke around here says that when Annie wants a date she kisses a frog, and that, in fact, Chantrell George is one of Annie’s frogs who never changed back.
Such jokes are cruel. As lonely men know, and especially if those men are also scared of Annie, there’s more to Annie than there is to most witches. Her black hair falls long and almost Indian as it covers thin but prettily rounded shoulders. Her form is slender, mildly athletic, and her face, when smiling, makes men think thoughts warm and sweet. When her face clouds, or is puzzled, men wish they could make things right for her, but she’s the one with special knowledge. If she can’t fix her confusion, others can’t.
For another thing, there are weeks and weeks, sometimes, when nothing weird happens in her presence. A tourist once asked if she was a white witch or a dark one, but no one, maybe even Annie, knows.
So Annie shows up at Sugar Bear’s place. She hangs out, bakes cookies, sweeps the floor, sits in the shop and weaves spells; but none of her spells work on Sugar Bear who can’t get motivated.
On the day when the bad man went west, a gentle scene progressed at Sugar Bear’s shop. Sugar Bear fiddled around changing a magneto. Outside, mist sailed in the trees and the temperature dropped, but inside, what with woodstove and forge, felt warm as mittens. Tools hung along the walls. Pots and pans hung from rafters. Sheets of boilerplate stood on edge like books between bookends. Annie sat on a bar stool salvaged from Beer and Bait back when Bertha remodeled, and Annie discussed world and local news with a spider. Chantrell George polished a busted piston from a rototiller on his sleeve. Jubal Jim snoozed beside the woodstove, but, asleep or awake, Jubal Jim has a hound’s nose and a hound’s sensitivity. He raised his head. Growled.
The guy came in without knocking. He looked around, concentrated on Annie, licked his lips. His hair glowed permed and red. His lips remained pouty as he checked the premises, pretended to hide a sneer, then stopped dead as Jubal Jim growled and Chantrell began trembling. Chantrell fought for control. He rubbed the piston against his cheek and whispered something untranslatable.
“Get out,” Sugar Bear said, and he spoke soft as a man can when he’s trying to stay in control.
“Or what?” The guy spoke halfway between a sneer and a giggle. He looked at Annie. “You open for business, or is this what I think it is?”
Sugar Bear’s gaze stayed fixed on the guy, but his hand searched around a tabletop as he felt for tools. “Get out or I’ll kill you.”