everything I know about J.
Up until the time I met the Rat, I always went to J’s Bar alone. I’d sip a beer slowly, smoke cigarettes, and feed coins into the jukebox. This was when J’s Bar was usually empty, so I’d sit at the counter talking about all kinds of things with J, though about what exactly I don’t remember. What could a shy seventeen-year-old high school student and a Chinese widower have to talk about?
When I turned eighteen and left town, the Rat came along and took my place at the bar drinking beer. Five years ago, when the Rat left town, there was no one to take his place. Six months later, when the road was widened, J had to change shops again, and the second J’s Bar was relegated to legend.
The third J’s Bar was a quarter of a mile away, by the river. It wasn’t much bigger than the old place, but it was on the third floor of a new four-story building with an elevator. Taking an elevator to J’s Bar made me feel like I had the address wrong. The same with looking out over the lights of town from the counter.
This new place had big windows facing west and south, out onto the line of hills and the area where the ocean used to be. The oceanfront had been filled in a few years back, and the whole mile there was packed with gravestone rows of tall buildings.
“Used to be water over there,” I said.
“Right,” said J.
“Went swimming there a lot.”
“Yeah,” said J, bringing a generic lighter up to the cigarette at his lips, “they bulldoze the hills to put up houses, haul the dirt to the sea for landfill, then go and build there too. And they think it’s all fine and proper.”
I drank my beer. The ceiling speakers were playing the latest Boz Scaggs hit. There wasn’t a jukebox in sight. Almost all the customers in the place were university student couples, neatly dressed and politely sipping their highballs. No girls on the verge of passing out drunk, no hot fights brewing. You could tell that when they went home, they put on pajamas, brushed their teeth, and went straight to bed. There was nothing wrong with that. Nice and neat is fine and dandy. There’s nothing in a bar or in the world at large that says things have to be a certain way.
J kept his eyes on me the whole while.
“So, everything’s different and you feel out of place?”
“Not really,” I said. “It’s just that the chaos has changed shape. The giraffe and the bear have traded hats, and the bear’s switched scarves with the zebra.”
“Same as ever,” J laughed.
“Times have changed,” I said. “A lot of things have changed. But the bottom line is, that’s fine. Everyone trades places. No complaints.”
J didn’t say anything.
I had myself another beer, J had another cigarette.
“How’s your life going?” asked J.
“Not bad.”
“How’s the wife?”
“Don’t really know. You know how things are between two people. There are times when I think everything’s working out fine and times I don’t. Maybe that’s what marriage is all about.”
“Well maybe,” said J, scratching the tip of his nose with his little finger. “I forget what married life is like. It’s been so long.”
“How’s the cat?”
“Died four years ago. Right after you got married. Something intestinal…. But really, it had a good, long life. Lived twelve years. That’s longer than my wife was with me. Twelve years isn’t a bad little life, is it?”
“Guess not.”
“There’s this animal cemetery up on the hill, so I buried it there. Overlooking the tall buildings. Anywhere around here those buildings are all you can see. Not that it makes much difference to a cat.”
“Sad?”
“Sure. Even if a person had died, I wouldn’t have been as sad. Does that sound funny?”
I shook my head.
J set to making some fancy cocktail and a Caesar salad for a customer. Meanwhile, I played with a Scandinavian puzzle on the counter. You were supposed to put together this picture of three butterflies midair over a field of clover, all inside a glass case. I gave up after ten minutes and put the thing aside.
“No kids?” J came back over to ask. “You’re getting on the right age to have kids, you know.”
“Don’t want kids.”
“Oh?”
“I mean I would be at a loss if I had a kid like me.”
J chuckled and poured more beer into my glass. “You’re always thinking too far ahead.”
“No, that’s not it. What I mean is, I don’t really know if it’s the right thing to do, making new life. Kids grow up, generations take their place. What does it all come to? More hills bulldozed and more oceanfront filled in? Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it?”
“That’s only the dark side of things. Good things happen too, good people can make things worthwhile.”
“Yeah? Name three,” I said.
J gave it a thought, then laughed. “That’s for your children’s generation to decide, not you. Your generation …”
“Is already over and done with?”
“In a sense,” said J.
“The song is over. But the melody lingers on.”
“You always had a way of putting things.”
“Just showing off,” I said.
At nine o’clock, J’s Bar was starting to get crowded, so I said good night to J and left. My face still tingled in the spots where I’d shaved, having only cold water. Maybe because I’d splashed on vodka lime instead of after- shave. J claimed it was just as effective, but now my whole face smelled like vodka.
The night was unexpectedly warm, though the sky was its usual heavy overcast. A moist breeze was blowing in slow and easy from the south. Same as it used to. A sea scent mingled with a hint of rain. Insects calling from the clumps of grass along the river. Everything brimming with a languid nostalgia. It seemed that it would rain any minute. When it did, it came in so fine a drizzle that you couldn’t tell if it was raining or not, but I got completely drenched anyway.
I could just make out the river flowing in the white light of the mercury-vapor streetlamp. The water was as clear as ever. It came straight out of the hills with nothing to pollute it along the way. The river had silted up with the small rocks and gravel washed down from the hills, creating little falls here and there. Beneath each fall, a deep pool had formed where small fish gathered.
During dry spells, the whole river used to dry up into a sandy bed, leaving only a faintly damp white trail. Years ago, on my walks, I’d trace that trail upstream, searching for where the river had gone.
The road by the river had been one of my favorites. I could walk at the same speed as the river. I could feel it breathing. It was alive. More than anything, it was the river we had to thank for creating the town. For grinding down the hills over how many hundreds of thousands of years, for hauling the dirt, filling the sea, and making the trees grow. The town belonged to the river from the very beginning, and it would always be that way.
Because this was the rainy season, the river flowed uninterrupted to the sea. The trees planted along the banks were fragrant with new leaves. There was a greenness in the air. Couples strolled arm in arm, old folks walked their dogs, high school kids hung around their motorbikes, smoking cigarettes. Your typical early summer evening.
I stopped into a liquor store, bought two cans of beer, and carried them in a paper bag down to the sea. Where the river met the sea, it turned into an inlet, or rather into a half-filled-in canal. Here was the only untouched stretch of oceanfront left, fifty yards of it. There was even something of the old beach. Small waves rolled in, leaving smooth pieces of driftwood. On the concrete jetty, bits of old nails and spray-paint graffiti remained.
Fifty yards of honest-to-goodness shoreline. If you overlooked the fact that it was hemmed in by thirty-foot-
