Lake 6

T S Brock A Novel

CHAPTER SIX

   It’s Sunday Morning at the Mercury Café. The décor could be described as a monumental wooden quilt bonanza. Black walnut shines with wave-like rings on the endless booze-stained bar. There’s knotty pine with time-frozen sap between the crags on tables and even the ass-chairs in the John are fitted with apple wood. You might stick once in a while. But, don’t panic.

    Floating patterns of maple, well, they ornate worn down bar stools. Elegant drifts of cherry season the window sills and are dashed by shards from angry bottles. And like the Irish, “Who counts”… Those events were violent enough to put people on a horse-driven ambulance even if there was no such a thing back those days.

And yet the grit and wood of these people’s histories has so little to do with progress, I mean the culture, that being the thread that begins a fabric of community modest and deep. The architectural structure itself has significance, the building’s fashioned from the forest’s plenty. But the conflicts with those who were on this land before, their strength formidable, timeless remains a stain eternal on the culture that replaced it. Imagine a 300-year massacre which became what is today television 1952. The worst of all is the children’s games of ‘Cowboys and Indians’.

    This is the day of the political rally. Lisa, a stocky girl with almost albino-white skin shines a cherub’s smile and displays circus-like rosy cheeks. She is tucked tightly into a tight tan uniform. A golden daisy-patterned apron is wrapped around her like a wreath of flowers. She is perfect in the knowledge of her work. “So what will it be for the Smith’s this morning.” Lisa asks with bird-like metrical feet and wonderfully-fit rubber-soled shoes.

    “I’ll have the pie,” says the man, head bowed, betraying serious hesitation.

    “You want the PAIIEE! … In the morning?” shouts his rotund wife, Norma, with robust, practiced disbelief.

    “Yep. Get the wax out of your ears.” The man articulates quietly with false bravado and a kind of shaky demeanor.

    “You get the wax out of your, you’re, you know what.” She shakes her finger at him.

    “Can you save us the damn… the lover’s quarrel,” Lisa intervenes, “and excuse me Norma, but please let Jonny have the goddamn pie.”

    “Amen,” proclaims Pastor John, sitting alone in a corner that hugs the expansive storefront window as if he were chatting with Cezanne on a holiday in the Alps.

    “Pastor John, you’re amazing in your wisdom.” Lisa casts the pastor a wink and he doesn’t see it because he’s not looking.

    All the regulars are seated with coffee, tea, leftover breakfast, and a fair amount of anticipation as Audrey has not yet arrived. She is the speaker for the Sunday brunch. Being coincidental with various church services, there is no small amount of debate and animosity in the community with the timing of a weekly event like this.

    Audrey pushed through the screen door, glanced with an amused grin at the table to her left, and announced her arrival. “Morning folks!” She pulled up the chair that was waiting for her, slapped down a notebook, glued paper strips sticking out like eagle feathers, and then she let out a long indulgent sigh looking toward the bar.   “Mama, make me one of your fine Irish coffees and please don’t be shy about the finer ingredients.”

    “I can do that.” Jamaica bellowed out song-like, natural, and angelic her white towel draped across her right shoulder, thin arms triangulated with hands firm on the long walnut wooden bar. Jaine is a small woman with beautiful curves and graceful gestures that bring her bright black eyes into focus, but only if she seeks your attention. Of mixed Native and Black American ancestry, she commands a smile that can melt cold hearts and a fierce gaze that can put shivers up the spine of demons themselves. And she has met not less than a few of all kinds… and she is timeless.

    Jamaica reaches under the shelves of liquor. A realm not reflected by the long wall of mirrors behind the bar. Such a place is embedded like some portal into a parallel dimension. She pulls out an unlabeled golden brown bottle from the invisible cabinets below then pours half a cup of fresh coffee from a Sunbeam percolator then finishes it off with a quick velvety stream of native mushroom whiskey. All happens in the blink of an eye. Blink.

    J-Mama brings it over to Audrey and carefully sets the glass in front of her as one might handle explosives.

    “Here you are, darlin.”

    “Much obliged.” Audrey grins and nods, lowering her eyes, peering around the room of friends that have become her family. Then drinks.