One Day in Panhandle

By the time I got to Jackie’s Cold Day Inn the Sheriff’s birthday party was almost over. I squeezed into the empty chair between Les and Doc Harris. They scooted over so we wouldn’t be jammed together. Sheriff Tom signaled Wendy to bring another round. We said our hellos and waited for Wendy to bring our drinks.

Jackie’s is my favorite bar in the Texas panhandle because it’s messy, quiet, dark, and friendly. But today, all the lights were on, the place full with people milling around laughing and talking like at a church social but with beer, mixed drinks, and finger food on trays lined up on the bar.

Tom was sitting back on his chair, arms crossed over his belly, self-satisfied as hell.

“You know this day started off pretty crappy. I heard ‘How ya doing, Sheriff’ four times before eight o’clock this morning. I said ‘Same old, same old’ each time but I really wanted to say ‘Same Shit - Different Day.’

“Started off with bad coffee. Swear to God my Rice Crispies said ‘Snap, Crackle, Screw you, Tom’. But after I went on patrol on the north side, my stomach settled and I felt better.

“You’d think there wasn’t much to see after you’ve driven the same roads over and over for years but I never tire of looking at the land. By the time my shift was over I was feeling pretty good. Then I walk in here, half the town is singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me. How could I feel anything but real good after that?”

Our drinks arrived. We saluted the Sheriff with our whisky tumblers.

I saw a lot of unfamiliar faces. Tom said look at a couple sitting at a table at the far end of the bar.

“That’s Jan and her husband. This morning I was at the crossroads near the interstate. Just a half mile ahead was the spot where Jan’s car rolled over, pinning her inside, couple three years ago. It was four hours before anybody found the wreck. She wasn’t hurt too bad, just a broken wrist and some bruising. Jackie said Jan compared the rollover to the first time she and her boyfriend tried to have sex in his truck.

“They were 17, knew what they wanted to do but didn’t know how. They couldn’t figure out what went where, wound up in a tangle of limbs and clothes, rolled out of the truck. He landed flat on his back, bumped his head on a rock, she landed on top of him and broke her fall with an elbow in his rib cage. They gave up and finally did the deed in a borrowed van by the river after his head and ribs healed. Kinda hard to believe that story but then I’ve had never been in a rollover.”

A van is roomier

The guy Jackie hired for the occasion began strumming his guitar, turning the tuning knobs this way and that ‘til one of the strings snapped. Some people clapped and shouted for more. The guy looked pissed as he searched for a replacement string in the guitar case. He didn’t have a spare so he gave up, put his guitar away.

The musician reminded Tom about the time he picked up a hitchhiker near Newman’s ranch.

“He was a kid, early 20’s, looked like he hadn’t slept in a real bed in a long time. The guitar case he carried had thousands of miles of wear on it. His shoulders slumped when he saw the cruiser like he was expecting another hassle from the man. But all I did was ask where he was headed. Austin, he said. Took him as far as Amarillo and gave him bus fare to Austin. Nice kid, on his way to country music stardom, maybe. Not likely, but you never know. I made a mental note to keep an ear out for the kid’s band, JoJo and the Barf Doggies. Shoulda got his autograph.

Switching gears, he said, “Remember Ed McCarthy?” Les and Doc Harris nodded. “I drove past his ranch today.”

Les looked at me and said, “Ed was before your time.

“You probly seen his place on FM1151, that big ole barn that collapsed years ago and the red brick ranch house isn’t much more than a shell anymore. The kids had grew up and left the ranch years ago; leased the land to a neighbor.”

Tom said, “I visited with Ed every chance I had. Wasn’t a man in the county who didn’t respect him. He was an ex-Marine from WW2, fought in the Pacific, came back, raised three sons and never talked about the war except once anybody remembers. When he died everybody was surprised that he’d been awarded a Purple Heart and two Silver Stars for gallantry in combat. Even his sons didn’t know about the medals.

“Come to think of it, the only thing he ever told me about himself and the war was about his voyage on a troop transport on the way to Iwo Jima. Five thousand men, he said, in a giant ship. One ship in a convoy of thirty or forty more; destroyers, cruisers circling in miles wide arcs all around, Navy planes scanning the ocean for enemies on the sea or in the air; an aircraft carrier off in the distance.

5,000 Marines, one ship

“Ten days into the trip the convoy was hit by a typhoon. The troops were ordered to lash themselves to their bunks. Below deck the tanks and jeeps, munitions crates broke the chains holding them in place and you could hear and feel the heavy thuds against the hull when the ship pitched and rolled. You would not believe that a ship as big as that with all those thousands of tons of steel would become airborne. But it did leave the water when the 60 foot waves crested. The hull slammed down in the troughs with mighty shakes and shudders. Yes, sir, that’s how high the waves were. Each time he thought that one more blow like that would split the ship in two. He saw men cry in terror. But ship held together and two days later the seas were calm again. Old Ed laughed at the memory, but not much.”

Destroyer hitting the trough of a 60ft wave. Most of the ship is underwater.

Les said, “Ed McCarthy, Semper Fi.” The three men stared somberly into their drinks for a moment.

Doc Harris nudged Tom with his elbow and nodded towards a table where two couples were sitting. Three of four people were having an animated conversation. The fourth one, sat there smiling and laughing along but not saying anything.

Doc told me, “The two on the right, that’s Chuck and Melissa Timmons.

Doc chuckled to himself and sang softly, “Mama’s don’t let your babies grow up to be Chuckie.

“Chuck’s the kind to make a fool of himself and be unaware of what he’d done. I’ve said it before, when his wife goes to meet her Maker, she’ll waltz right in, no entrance exam for her. St. Pete'll say, 'Come on in, darlin’, you’ve earned it.'”

Les picked up from there, saying, “To Chuck, every day is a brand new experience, meaning he didn’t seem to learn anything from what happened yesterday. Left on his own, french fries, onion rings, and hot sauce rolled up in a corn tortilla for breakfast, lunch and dinner is fine eatin.”

Tom said he remembered the time poor Melissa stood next to Chuck when he told the minister about a ballet he saw on TV.

“Chuck says, ‘the music was pretty good but it was the first time I seen women dance that didn’t take their clothes off.’ Melissa was smiling but her eyes were somewhere far, far away. Doc Harris swears if Chuck fell on his face he’d just lay there and graze.”

Seeing the frown on my face, Tom added, “But listen, the way we’re talking about him, we’re just having a little fun. He’s a good guy. Everybody likes him just fine. He’s a good provider, takes care of his own.”

“Who’s the other couple”, I asked?

“That’s Corrina and Stan,” Doc said.

“When they were in high school, Corrina had it all. Best looking girl, smart, Queen of the Prom, top kick of the cheerleader squad, the whole nine yards. Stan was the Invisible Man. Guys who’d been with him since elementary school couldn’t describe him to you. Even his picture in the yearbook was blurry. Two years after graduation they announced their engagement and everybody said, Who’s the guy?”

Stan's yearbook picture

I studied Stan and maybe it was a trick of my mind but he seemed transparent sitting next to his vivacious wife and their two friends. I wondered how had everyone had underestimated him.

Jackie brought a tray of fresh drinks to the table. She saw us staring at Corrina and Stan. “I know what you’re thinking but them two’s no mystery to me,” she said. “Maybe Stan isn’t exactly what the average woman might brag about, but he’s what Corrina needs. Just lookit the way she looks at him. I betcha she never looked that way at any of the showboats who courted her. You men think too much about looks. If only good looking people married, most of us... and none uh you four would be here at all.”

She was right. Again. We felt like 3^rd graders caught fibbing.

Les recovered first and changed the subject. He leaned back in his chair to show me his belt; finely hand-tooled carvings of Western scenes all around. “Stan makes ‘em in the tack shop he owns, the one next to the bank. He was bull rider with the rodeo for a while, quit that and got into leather work fixing gear for his cowboy friends on the circuit. Gets jobs from all over. Look under the buckle anywhere in the state, more n’ likely you’ll see his trademark.”

Tom saw Gary at the table next to Stan and Corrina and asked if he was still coming on to Wendy knowing she’s gay. Jackie said no, Wendy put those thoughts out of his squirrely brain weeks ago.

“Wish you coulda seen it! Wendy put her hand under his chin, nose to nose with 'im, looked him in the eye and real sweet like she said, ‘Gary, suppose it works in reverse and I make you gay?’ His buddy, Mike, about busted a gut and Gary gulped his beer and snuck out, didn’t come back for days.”

We sat for a while sipping our drinks, taking in the bar scene. Wendy and the extra waitresses Jackie hired for the party scurried around barely keeping up with the drink orders. Jackie was behind the bar waving a half-size baseball bat at the Fire Chief. It wasn’t likely that he was enforcing any fire ordinances. She was smiling and he was laughing.

Tom said, “You think he’s laughing about the emergency siren?” Les belly laughed and Doc snorted in his drink.

I didn’t have a clue.

“That siren’s gotta bit of history behind it,” Les said. “It was set up during WW2 as an air raid siren to warn residents in case Japanese aircraft were seen approaching. It looks like hysteria now, the Texas Panhandle being more ‘n a thousand miles from the Pacific coast, but back then the possibility seemed real as hell. Siren’s so loud you can hear it five miles away.

Not this big but plenty loud

“After the war it was left in place to warn folks about tornadoes and such. It’s tested twice a year. Everybody knew to expect the jarring whine on New Year’s Eve and the 4^th of July. So when a rookie fireman fired it up by mistake on a Friday afternoon in October two years ago, a few of the townsfolk panicked, thinking tornado, earthquake or something else, like a building on fire. Most of them just peeked out their doors and looked around.”

Doc Harris cut in, “The rig was on the roof at the fire station right above the Fire Chief’s window. When the siren started blasting the Fire Chief was scared half out of his file clerk. It was several minutes before he recovered his senses, dismounted, and shut the thing off. The girl was terrified. Nobody knows how that story got out.”

Tom said very seriously, “Me, Les, and Doc are still investigating that.”

By ten o’clock the bar was beginning to thin out, folks leaving by ones and two’s. The Fire Chief came to our table, said happy birthday to Tom, hello to the rest of us. He looked over his shoulder at Jackie and waved goodbye. Jackie waved back with her bat. No one had ever seen her use it but no telling when that day would come.

Tom got her attention and twirled his index finger in the air for another round, please. Jackie gave him a thumbs up and put the bat away.

While we waited, Tom said, “I ever tell you Jackie was palm reader? I didn’t know it ‘til 10, 12 years ago. Some randy cowboy from Lubbock was passing through, stopped in for a drink. Hat back on his head, leaning real casual, back against the bar, let everybody know his name was BUCK from LUBBOCK, like it was something everybody should know.

“He had a couple of beers and was chatting up the waitress. She played along just enough like she’s supposed to, get the customers to keep drinking, you know. Service with a smile, jerk. He’s watching her serving beer, doing her job, all the time talking to her loud enough to irritate everybody including me.

“I was about to go over and give him a little talk about disturbing the other patrons’ peace and quiet when Lilly, the waitress, went to put a tray of empties on the bar next to where Bucky was standing. He turned around facing the bar still chatting her up. He put his hand on her neck, leaning in to talk to her, low and quiet. What he didn’t know was that Lilly was Jackie’s niece and that Jackie had that half-size Louisville Slugger under the bar.

“Lilly was squirming, he was so busy pawing her neck and sweet talking, he didn’t see Jackie come over, the Slugger in her hand. She grabbed the thumb on his free hand and give it hard twist so his palm was up. Then she said, ‘Bucky Boy, I bet you didn’t know I can read palms and tell fortunes.’ 

“Man’s bent over the bar in a lotta pain already but she twisted his thumb a little more, traced the lines in his palm with the business end of the bat and said, ’Cordin’ to my powers reading life lines you have a long life ahead of you if you mind your manners and keep your hands off my girl.’

Jackie's equalizer makes her 6'2", 190 lbs.

“When she let go, Buck drew himself up like he was gonna get mean. That cowboy was at least a foot taller and 50 pounds heavier, but Jackie stood her ground tapping the bat on the edge of the bar. If I remember right she said, ‘Listen up, Bucky from Lubbock. I been married three times, outlived the first one, ran off the second one, shot the third one between the eyes. You got something you wanna say to me?’

“He ain’t been back.”

“Is that true?” I asked.

“Which part? Bucky or the three husbands? I’m sure about Bucky. I saw it with my own two eyes but somebody else’s gonna have to ask her about the other.”