A Many Splintered Thing / Day 4: “Beer? Menu?” Best to keep the back and forth to one or two word or exchanges.

This one's for Jo. ;) It's also a much longer entry so tomorrow I might be off. Ya know...off? I forget what off feels like. But we'll see. I tend to be a bit obsessive and addicted when I write these things. Me? Obsessive? Phtpppt! Nonsense.

XOXO
S



The A-1 had the essentials. A key handed to him by a thin, grungy guy with the attempts at a mountain man beard ushered him into a no-nonsense room with a carpet that would never ever see his bare feet. But the bed appeared clean, not too disfigured by numerous sleepers and the sheets didn’t hide any surprises like bed bugs. Caleb dumped his bag on the chair near the dresser that supported an ancient TV and an even more ancient ice bucket.
He poked his head into the bathroom and saw a stained but clean sink and toilet and a bath tub that appeared to be the newest thing in the room. It was also clean.
“So, Jethro isn’t much on customer service but he can work a scrubber. Or can instruct someone who can,” he muttered.
He patted his pocket, felt his wallet, and locked the door behind him, knowing the rest of the money from Bob and Belinda was duct tape up under the springs of the Jeep’s driver’s seat.
As he passed the motel office he heard a howl. A deep mournful sound that made his blood run cold. Maybe the A-1 had a resident werewolf, he thought.
Toby’s was small, smoky (illegal but a fact) and red-lit, most of the ambiance lightening came from neon beer signs and red seemed the predominant color.
“Help you?” The bartender, a man with an actual mountain man beard, managed to compress the two words into one distorted word but Caleb understood him.
“Beer? Menu?” Best to keep the back and forth to one or two word or exchanges.
The bartender laughed, “Domestic or imported?” He shoved a menu across the bar and it stuck to the polished wood midway.
Caleb peeled it off and tried not to wince. And he figured the beer question was a trick question. Until the guys said, “We have Sam Adam’s Lager, Coors Light—”He wrinkled his nose when he said that as if it pained him to speak the words. “Amstel Light, Dos Equis, Land Shark, Heineken—“Caleb cut him off. “I’ll just have a Sam Adam’s. And…” He did a speed read of the menu. “A burger, medium. Lettuce, tomato and mayo.”
“Chips or fries?” the bartender asked, drawing the beer from the tap.
“Fries. They good?”
“Better than the cleaning service for this place.”
Caleb let out a bark of laughter. “Good to know.”
“Actually, our cook is pretty damn fine. I eat here every night he’s working. On Sundays and Mondays we have a local girl. She couldn’t cook an egg on a hot sidewalk in August. Those days I eat at home. Or I drive up to the burger place by the highway.”
Caleb nodded. “Good to know again. But I’ll only be here overnight.”
The bartender opened his mouth to respond but a female voice asked, “Buy me a beer?”Caleb turned his head, caught sight of her, and smiled. She was small. Really small. The kind of woman he imagined could be tucked under a guy’s arm like a football and toted around. But she was built like a brick shithouse. He wondered briefly if something like that would throw off the aerodynamics of the toting around he’d imagined.
The wondering was cut off when her small hand settled on his jean clad thigh. “I asked if you’d buy me a—”
“I heard you, and sadly, I’m going to have to deny you.”
This earned him an amused snort from the bear of a bartender.
She frowned, unaccustomed to being turned down, he assumed. Her dark blue eyes—at least they looked blue in the demonic light of Toby’s—crinkled with disappointment. Her cupie doll mouth turned down with displeasure.
“Sorry,” he said, trying to make amends to a stranger, something he normally didn’t do. “I have to watch every nickel. Traveling cross country.”
She sighed. “Can I get a Coors, Al?” she asked the bartender. “And I’ll pay for whatever drink this new guy is having.”
Al rumbled laughter and said, “Well, hell just froze over.”
“What? He looks nice enough.” She winked at Caleb. “I’m always scoring drinks in here so why not return the favor once in a while,” she said. She nudged him with her elbow, the small hand having disappeared from his leg. “You know…Karma?”
He nodded. “I know. And thanks.” He didn’t want to assume but by the way her eyes flicked across the room like a high speed surveillance camera, and by the way she eyed the door every few seconds, Caleb thought she might be on duty. And why not? She was definitely a spectacular specimen and had a personality to boot. He liked her, he just wasn’t interested in losing money on account of her and her stellar figure.
“It’s slow in here,” she said to Al.
“You’re not supposed to even be in here, technically.”
She winked at Caleb. “And when was the last time you tossed me out, Al?”
“Never.”
“Exactly. I’m good for business.”
“You’re good for something,” he growled. When someone shouted from the tiny window that Caleb assumed led to the kitchen, Al lumbered off to respond. He came back, plunked the plate down in front of Caleb who tucked into his meal with one thought in mind: hunger.
“Well, you’d know,” the woman said and even Al, who was didn’t seem a normally jovial kind of guy, had to smile.
The hour passed in the slow, lazy way August nights seemed to. He ate his burger, listened to the juke box—an actual juke in the corner, not something that looked like a juke and played discs—play music he hadn’t heard in  years. Watched the hooker—whose name turned out to be Renata—dance with a few men and listened to Al complain about it.
Caleb’s professional busybody opinion was that Al had a thing for Renata and it might, if even just a tiny bit, be reciprocated. But he’d never say that aloud.
When the clock struck ten and his body felt like it was made of lead weights, he paid his tab (only charged for the food thanks to Renata and, he guessed, Al) and shook hands with the bartender. 
“Thanks for the sparkling conversation,” Caleb said.
“It’s what I live for,” Al said.
Caleb tossed Renata—the belle of the ball—a waved. She stopped dancing and sang out, “I can toss you a freebie, cutie!”
“That’s okay,” he said. “I can’t impose on your hospitality anymore. Take care, and thanks for the beer.”
She waved back and kept on dancing.
It was when he was passing the office that he heard that mournful sound again and then a voice say, “I said, be quiet!” The command was followed by a soft thud and then a sharp cry. A canine cry.
Caleb followed the dirt path around the side of the office to a fenced in back area. There was the clerk who’d checked him in and he was kicking a dog, a good sized one, in the side. The dog cowered and cried out but made no move to attack the man, though judging by its size, it could have given the asshole a run for his money.
“Hey!” Caleb was shouting before he realized he would. The guy turned and despite the inattention instead of advancing aggressively the dog took the chance to slink further away on its thick chain tether.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Caleb called. He’d moved toward the fence as he yelled. He was pissed. More pissed than he’d realized as his hands came down on the latch. He wanted to tear it off and beat the guy with it.
“I’m taking care of my business just like you should take care of yours. Move it along.”
“Move it along? Did you just fucking say that to me? You can’t beat that dog,” Caleb said, unhooking the latch.
“I can do whatever I want. It’s my dog. And it’s my motel, man, so you should just—”
Caleb found himself in the small fenced in yard. “No you can’t. Because if you beat it, I’m going to beat you, brave man.”
The guy didn’t even look away, he ran forward and kicked the dog again. Right in her emaciated ribs.Caleb, having seen one too many nights of beatings from his father when he was a kid, rushed the guy and took a swing without a second thought. The guy went down like the sack of shit he was and then Caleb found his hands working faster than his brain. He gave the clerk a kick in the ribs just so he could get acquainted with the pain he’d been inflicting. Then he unhooked the dog and ran his hands along her flanks. She flinched but didn’t yelp so he thought maybe, just maybe, nothing was broken. He hoped so, anyway.
Abusing the innocent was about as low as one could get and it just wasn’t something he could ignore. Even after a few beers and wanting nothing more than to get on the road in the morning and get to where he was going.
“I’ll call the cops,” the guy said, attempting to get up. Caleb vaguely remembered him saying his name was Martin.
“You do that, Martin. I made a friend of one earlier tonight,” Caleb said, lying through his teeth. “Cop by the name of Eden. I’m sure he’d love to know about animal abuse and a hooker on the premises—”
Lies.
“Renata! She’s not supposed to come over here—“
“And bugs the size of hubcaps—“
More lies. He just wanted to scare this joker.
“Okay, okay,” the guy said, holding up a hand. “Fine. I’m sorry I hurt the dog. People were complaining about her howling.”
“Maybe if you didn’t keep her fucking chained up—“
“I’m sorry!” Martin spat.
“Tough shit,” Caleb said.
Was he really going to do this? Was he nuts? Because this fucking move would be utterly nuts. And yet he couldn’t help himself. “I’m taking the dog.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m taking the dog. And if you try to stop me I’ll file all kinds of formal complaints.”
Again, he had no idea what the fuck he was talking about and yet it worked.
“Good, take the god damn thing.”
Caleb scanned the small, pathetic yard. “And I’ll take this too.” He hiked up a sack of dog food and led the dog toward the gate. She went willingly. Hell, not willingly—joyously.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” he said, having noted she was a girl. “It’s all going to be fine.”
Once they’d cleared the fence and the gate has swung shut with a loud smack, she even wagged her tail. If only Caleb had as much faith in himself as the dog seemed to…


photo credit: Neon Beer Signs via photopin cc