strike again at the next opportunity. This was one reason I liked to read stuff with a little meat on the bones. Better for distracting my brain. Keep it from wandering into dangerous places.
The shrink I was forced to see once told me, attempting an analogy I might understand, that my brain was like a little Briggs & Stratton engine. Would run fine all day under a load, but as soon as you disengaged the clutch it would spin up to unsustainable rpm’s, overheat and eventually blow a rod. That’s not exactly how he said it, because he didn’t know anything about small, air-cooled two-cycle engines. But that’s what he was getting at.
I didn’t like the guy at all, but he had a point. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that I never put in less than a twelve-hour day when I worked for the company. That I sought out the most difficult technical problems and consumed countless hours studying densely detailed engineering texts, seminar papers and quantitative analyses.
I was afraid to stop.
Dorothy came up and leaned over the bar to check on Eddie. He was keeping a low profile, tangled around the legs of the barstool, his head on the brass foot rail, his extravagant tail tucked safely under his butt.
“Should I get him some more water or let sleeping dogs lie?” she said.
“If he wants more he’ll ask.”
She leaned back and looked at the cover of my book.
“He never left his hometown,” she said.
“Who?”
“Kant. Established most of the philosophical fundamentals of his time, back when philosophers were like the only guys thinking about anything, and the dumb sonofabitch never saw London or the Mediterranean Sea. So, is that a work of genius or a con job by a neurotic stay-at-home?”
“I grew up on Long Island and still haven’t been to Hicksville. Name scares me.”
“Not to confuse Kant with that chick poet who never left her house. That’s a clear case of Calvinist gender oppression. Pre-empowerment. You want another one?”
She left me alone to penetrate Kant, which wasn’t as hard as I thought until I hit a wall about fifty pages in. I looked around to see if anyone else in the place was studying eighteenth-century European philosophy and was rewarded by the sight of Patrick and two of his oversized friends walking through the door.
They sat on either side of me at the bar. Patrick to my left, the other two guys to my right. I dropped my feet off the brass rail and put one on either side of where Eddie was sleeping. I didn’t want any of the lugs to slide into him with their stools.
“So, it’s old Vice-Grip,” said Patrick, forgetting the name had been forged at his expense.
“Feel free to call me Sam. And be careful with your feet. There’s a dog under my stool.”
Patrick looked down at Eddie.
“He bite?”
“No, but I do.”
“I figured you for all bark,” said one of the guys on the right.
“No, no,” Patrick answered. “Sam’s an old punch-drunk. Professional, right? That’s what we’re told.”
To avoid the problem of looking from one side to the other I just looked straight ahead at the glass shelves behind the bar that held Hodges’s modest liquor inventory—all but a few bottles of Absolut he kept for me in the freezer.
“Long time ago. And not much of a career.”
“Explains the nose,” said Patrick. “Nowadays you can fix those things.”
“Yeah, but that won’t fix the problems on the inside. Though by the look of you boys, outside ugly is the bigger issue.”
“We ought to change your name to Death Wish,” said the other right-side guy.
“Somebody already got there. As you can see, not all wishes come true.”
Dorothy came out of the kitchen and saw the fresh faces at the bar. She gave them each a menu and a bottle of Budweiser.
“That’s a nifty lookin’ thing you’re wearing there, darlin’,” said Patrick when she dropped the beer down in front of him. “You got matching whips and spurs?”
“No, darlin’, but I do have a matching black belt and no tolerance for sexist abuse. You gonna read that menu or do you already know what you want?”
After collecting their orders she went back into the kitchen.
“What kind of bitches you hang out with, man?” asked Patrick after the kitchen door stopped swinging.
“Post-empowerment.”
While the guys drank their beers I wondered how I was going to get from the Pequot to my car and then home again without the possibility of a situation presenting itself. As I pondered this, I stalled for time.
“How well did you guys know Robbie Milhouser, anyway?” I asked, looking straight ahead at the bottle-filled shelves.
“A couple’a years. Long enough to consider him a major friend,” said Patrick.
That set off nods all around.
“What happened to him wasn’t right,” said one of the right-siders.
“I agree with that,” I told them. “I didn’t do it, by the way, just to set your minds at ease.”
“So they just arrested you for the fuck of it,” said Patrick.
“A little misunderstanding. It’ll be taken care of.”
“Taken care of. That’s exactly what it’s gonna be,” said the other right-sider.
“Did Robbie hire you as a crew, or one at a time?” I asked.
“What’s it to you?” Patrick asked.
“He suggested you were a package deal. Just curious.”
“You’re curious about a lot of things.”
“I know most of the builders out here. Thought you might like a reference. That house is almost done and Robbie’s not building any more.”
“Tell that to his old man,” said a right-sider. “It’s all his deal now.”
I looked at Patrick in time to see him frown at the guy who’d just spoken.
“You’re not supposed to inherit shit from your kids,” said Patrick. “Supposed to be the other way around. Fucked up.”
“Said he’s got plenty of work as long as we need it,” said the same right-sider, I thought with some defiance. “Makes me want to settle down here, build my own place. Sit on the beach, do a little fishing.”
“Go to the discos,” said the other right-sider. “Do a little coke. Fuck an heiress.”
“The old man’s got another project?” I asked the first right- sider.
“At least. More after that. Said he’s tappin’ a steady supply.”
“Hey, bonehead,” said Patrick, like he meant it. “That’s the man’s confidential information.”
The other guy didn’t seem inclined to escalate. He just shut up and went back to sucking on his beer. I asked him to tell me more about old man Milhouser, just to stir the pot, but before he could answer Dorothy and Vinko came out of the kitchen with their food. This would have made for a good distraction, a little time for me to think, if the aroma hadn’t woken up Eddie. He jumped up and was immediately charmed to see we had company. Everyone was introduced and given the opportunity to scratch his head. He sniffed at the air and looked around to see if anyone had thought to get an extra burger for him. With no bun, and two or three fries.
“I didn’t think you were allowed to have dogs in restaurants,” said the other right-sider.
“It’s not a restaurant,” said Dorothy. “It’s a bar and grill.”
That seemed to satisfy him. Everybody quieted down while they worked on their food. I was glad to see Dorothy staying behind the bar. She washed out some glasses, slopped a wet rag over the bar surface and otherwise fiddled around with things. I thought it might be the best time to get out of there, but I wasn’t sure. And I didn’t like the idea of leaving Patrick and his boys there without Hodges to look after Dorothy and Vinko. I watched her busy herself and tried to send her telepathic messages. It worked so well she disappeared again into the kitchen.
“Come here often?” I asked Patrick.
He was polite enough to finish chewing before answering.
