In Vino Vertigo, or something

The party was over by midnight and nobody complained. They’d been drinking and dancing since sunset and tomorrow was church day anyway. The occasion was “Jackie’s Cold Day Inn” 20 year anniversary. Nobody was exactly sure how the idea of the celebration came about but it was early September when at last, the temperatures were cool after sunset. A little drinking, dancing, socializing sounded like a good thing before the heavy work of harvesting or rounding up the herds for market began.

Kill me now

It only took 20 years for “Jackie’s Cold Day Inn” to become an institution in Panhandle. There were other bars where you could drink and dance; cleaner places with ferns, salad bars, and live bands playing loud enough to make the deaf complain. Jackie’s was dark and sweaty. Nobody went there to preen.

The mayor and the sheriff agreed to block off part of Main St. in front of Jackie’s so that barbeque grills, tables, and tents could be set up outdoors. The Sheriff, who’s job it was to keep track of such things, estimated that 300 ~ 400 people showed up. There were two bands. Inside the bar a country band played old favorites. Outside, a fiddle band played even older bluegrass. The younger folk danced indoors, the older ones tapped their feet to the music outdoors.

By 1:00 AM, the fire in the grills had been tamped down, tents and tables folded up. It was a unanimous decision to sweep up the trash in the street the next day.

Sheriff Tom, Les, Jackie, and I sat around a corner table having a nightcap or two, winding down from the party and the frantic lead up to it.

Jackie said, “I’m so tired I can hardly raise my drink to my lips, and if I lower my head to it, I might fall in.”

Les picked her glass up and brought to her lips. “Darlin’”, he said, “Just take a sip. If there’s any left over, I’ll take care of it.”

He owns the general store and the feed store across the street. Les and Sheriff Tom are lifelong friends going back nearly 60 years. When Jackie asked him to help plan and fund the party he did both. The Mayor kicked in a few bucks. Even the new pastor, not sure if his congregation would approve or disapprove, put $10 of his own money in the pot.

Sheriff Tom leaned back in his chair, tucked his thumbs in his belt and declared that the party was an easy time. “Only had to break up a couple of disagreements. Old man Newman got het up when his handyman, Ray, said the Oakridge Boys were better than Flatt & Scruggs. I sent Ray indoors and sat with the old man ‘til he calmed down. Even Jim and Angel behaved themselves. I guess Jim remembers spending a weekend in jail while I was off fishing with the Judge.

“You got a good little bar here, Jackie. I remember when you came here in, what was it, ’94, ’96?”

“94, Tom. Just me and my pickup. Drove up to the Panther Bar and bought it. The rest is history, or something.”

The sheriff rubbed his shoulder and winced. Les said, “Still hurts some, huh?” Then looking at me he said the sheriff had been shot breaking up a robbery at the Credit Union a long time ago. He was famous; one sheriff, two robbers, a hero for the ages.

“Well”, Tom said, “you know how it is in the law enforcement business. You’re nobody ‘til somebody shoots you.

“One of the robbers said the dynamite on his chest would blow up if he let go of a switch. City slicker all the way, shiny shoes. Around these parts anybody over eight years old knows the difference between a road flare and a stick of dynamite. Anyway, the other one shot me and passed out after I coldcocked Mr. Dynamite.

“My granddaddy and my daddy were sheriffs here before me and they never even drew their guns. I’m just lucky, I guess.”

Studying Jackie now, he said, “I was thinking back to when you bought this place. Orville told me you paid him in cash, took the money out of your backpack. Nothing unusual considering, but then Les here told me everything you bought at his store you paid in cash. Most out of towners have credit cards for everything except for you. It set me to wondering so I looked for your name in public records all over the country and didn’t find anything after you ran away from home. Now here we are 20 years later and you still pay cash, no credit.  If it’s none of my business say so but I gotta ask, you got strong feelings for cash?”

She looked each of us in the eye and said, “You guys are my best friends. You’re more family than I ever had. My father was a hard man with large appetites and few graces; my mother was like a ghost. A day didn’t go by we weren’t ripping strips off each other.

“But there’s more to it than that. You remember how it was in 60’s, Tom. Girls spent their high school years figuring out which boy was gonna be her husband. If you hadn’t picked one by Senior year you took the best you could of whatever was left. By Junior year I’d blossomed a bit and a few guys sniffed around but I’d already seen the future by looking at the girls that graduated a year or two ahead of me.

“For a while gettin’ married was like extra high school. They hung around with the same people and did the same things. A couple more years on, there’s kids, layoffs at the plant, money gets tight, and the fighting and discontent begin. Six, seven more years and by then some of them start to hate each other but they stay married anyway. It wasn’t what I wanted for me. I was just turned 18 when I ran away from that and my family. Wound up in California.

“I got lucky in Seal Beach and found a job as a barback. The owner, Cap’n Jack taught me how to mix drinks and bartending. He fired me on my 21^st birthday but got me job in Las Vegas. That lasted ‘til the liquor board pulled the license. From Vegas I went east, spent a few years in Arizona, first Flagstaff, then Tucson where I learned Spanish. Those Mexican boys thought it was a hoot to hear a redheaded white woman speak their language. Sometimes they would order extra pitchers just to hear me say their names again, real sweet and slow. The Alacrán was the happiest bar I ever worked. I left after a while, going east again.

“You wanted to know about me and cash. Maybe you’ve forgotten or maybe you never saw it close up, Tom. Back in the 60’s and 70’s women couldn’t have credit cards or a checking account without their husband’s co-sign and permission.

“When I was working at Cap’n Joe’s I tried to get a credit card and a bank account so I could manage my money better. No husband? No card. I had no choice but to pay cash for everything. The unfairness of it gave me such a royal rash I made up my mind I was going to do things my way as much as I could. I rode buses, hitchhiked or walked, rented places near where I worked. Cash, cash, cash, and a money order to the IRS once a year.

“Never bought a car or truck until ’94 when I came back to Panhandle. Bought it off a guy and ripped up the title. DMV doesn’t know I own it. Have look at the license plate. It’s been expired for 22 years.”

She poured herself another shot of whiskey and smiled at me. “I don’t get tickets for it ‘cause once in while I forget to charge the Sheriff here for his drinks. Hell, one time he caught some tourist trying to steal it for his antique collection. Made that sucker put it back then ran him out of town. Other than my expired plates, I’m a model citizen.

“Been all over, Baton Rouge, Galveston, Mobile. By 1992 I was bartending in Denton when some drugstore cowboys came in; four of ‘em, new boots, creased pants, big hats, and soft hands. I heard one of them say he was originally from ‘Pampa, shitkicker capital of Texas.’

“Pampa, only 30 miles from my hometown. That’s when it came to me that ever since I left California I’d been working my way back home to Panhandle; that crappy little town I ran away from more than 20 years before.

“So two years later, there I was sitting in my pickup at the Panhandle city limits sign, 41 years old with nothing but my life savings under the seat. I drove around town looking for familiar things. The house I grew up in was still there but strangers living in it. The high school was the same except the football field had fake grass now. 

 “Going down Main St. I saw that the shops and stores had new tenants, new names, and new purposes. The Panther Bar & Grill was still there near the train station. Goooooooo, Panthers, yada, yada. So the town still lived and breathed Friday Night Football.

“I parked in front and went inside. The bartender looked me over, then past me like he was waiting for my man to come in behind me. When my man didn’t show, he said, ‘You lost, Ma’am?’ I said, no but I’m looking for a bartending job. He looked me over again and said he didn’t have any jobs but the way things were going he’d sell the place for cheap. He wasn’t kidding. I bought the place for cash, cheap.

“News about the Panther being sold didn’t take long to get around. I scrubbed off as much grime as I could and opened up. No more‘n 10 minutes later, a classmate recognized me. My Grand Opening turned into a class reunion; everybody was older and fatter but still recognizable. An old coot didn’t like me at all, said it’d be a cold day in hell before he set foot in here again. That’s how this place became “Jackie’s Cold Day Inn”.

“At first I tried to keep the place neat and tidy but a bit rough seemed to suit my regulars better. I wasn’t long before I was dropping my “g’s” like I’d never been gone. I’d just moved here so technically I was an outsider. On the other hand, I was raised here so one cancelled the other. You know, weird small town math.

“You didn’t ask for my life story but there it is. In vino, vertigo or something, I think, I forget. I’m ready for another drink, anybody else?”

She went to the bar for another bottle of Jack. Tom looked at me and Les, down at his drink, shifted around in his chair, then looked up like he'd made up his mind about something.

Jackie freshened our drinks and put the bottle down.

None of us said anything for a while then the Sheriff put his hand over Jackie’s and said, “I told you once that I didn’t know anything about your folks but the fact is, I do.

"My daddy was Sheriff around the time you left home. Your daddy said you eloped, moved to Alaska, and broke with the family.

"I didn't know your daddy that well but I got a pretty good idea about him from my daddy. No doubt the man had a hard bark on him. Everything in his world was black or white with nothing in between. It was like he enjoyed scraping on your nerves, always on the other side of anything you said or were. According to my daddy, he was the only man who could make Jehovah Witnesses say, 'Whoa, look at the time. We'd better go'

Jackie nodded, "That's him."

“What I’m gonna tell you now may not be complete or accurate in every detail but it’s all I got. He told me he ran your folks out the county back in ’82, ’83 or thereabouts following a snakebite incident that nearly killed Beau Jackson. He was just a kid at the time. Anyway, tent revivalists come around every Spring and Summer, set up their tents, take money from the locals and move on. I try to move ‘em along before they do any harm.

“Near as I can piece together, your mom and dad got the Holy Fire in their souls from this one preacher, a serpent handler he called himself. So after my daddy run him off, your daddy goes out and catches some rattlers. My daddy heard he was fixin’ to start his own revival operation here, permanent like, so he tried to warn him off. Apparently not soon enough for poor Beau who was praising and praying along with others in your daddy’s back yard one night. All the congregants were up in lather, speaking tongues, writhing on the ground just like you’d ‘spect at such a ceremony. Your daddy brought out the basket with the rattlers, reached in and pulled one of ‘em out. He’s holding it up, the thing’s twisting and turning in his hands, Beau rushes up to the snake and gets bit on the nose just like that.

“Hurts like hell, he’s screaming, the venom’s working fast. Lucky for him law requires Sheriffs have anti-venom serum in our cars. My daddy got to him just in time.

“Well, there’s no law against handling snakes or getting bit by one so legally there was nothing my daddy could do ‘cept try to run your daddy off. Turns out that wasn’t necessary. His followers abandoned him after Beau’s misfortune. His only option was to move away and try his luck someplace else.

“My daddy watched him load his truck but before he left daddy told him he’d better figure out how to milk the venom outta them snakes before turning ‘em loose on his followers again.

“Real loud he says, ‘That’s the first thing you learn at Snake Handling University, you ninny. Keeps you from dyin’ if a rattler takes a shine to your arm.’ Your daddy’s eyes went wide like he was hearing something very, very important, something he shoulda known before but didn’t. He was shaking, got real pale, ghost-like, jumped in his truck and drove off. That was the last anybody saw of him or your mom.”

I travel all over south and west Texas on my sales route and I hear the same stories repeated dozens of time. This one was new. None of us had heard it before. Once we began laughing we couldn't stop. Jackie spilled her drink, gasped for breath. Les, holding his sides, gave Tom a look, is it true? Tom nodding yes and we laughed harder at what was a brand new bar story. I could tell Les was already practicing how he was gonna tell it next.

It was about 2:30 when Rollie walked in carrying a shotgun, saw us giggling and said, "Can I have some, too? 

"You guys gettin’ ready to wrap things up? I gotta clean the bathrooms, sweep, and take out the trash before Olson comes by for it.”

“You don’t need a gun for that, Rollie. Gimme that thing. Come by my office tomorrow, you get it back.”

“But Sheriff, me and Tim are supposed to stand guard on the stuff outside. Jackie said so. There’s kegs, a reefer full of frozen pork ribs, the grills, and other stuff.”

Rollie and Tim are handymen of sorts. There isn't much they can't do, trouble is they don't want to do very much. They work when they need money and refuse steady jobs. Jackie hired them to clean up the bar after closing in exchange for some money and a beer or two while they worked. They're indifferently reliable but honest.

“Gimme the gun, Rollie. Deputy Dudley has the night shift and he’ll be close by if you need him. I’m going home.”

Shotgun in hand, he left Jackie’s and the rest of us followed, still laughing.