preferred the familiar, the routine. He would never be at risk of falling off a mountain because he would never climb one.
Some said he lacked a sense of adventure. Tim saw no point in suggesting to them that intrepid expeditions through exotic lands and across strange seas were the quests of crawling children compared to the adventures waiting in the eight inches between the left ear and the right.
If he made that observation, they would think him a fool. He was just a mason, after all, a bricklayer. He was expected not to think too much.
These days, most people avoided thinking, especially about the future. They preferred the comfort of blind convictions to clear-eyed thought.
Others accused him of being old-fashioned. Guilty as charged.
The past was rich with known beauty and fully rewarded a look backward. He was a hopeful man, but not presumptuous enough to assume that beauty lay, as well, in the unknown future.
An interesting guy came into the tavern. He was tall, although not as tall as Tim, solid but not formidable.
His manner, rather than his appearance, made him interesting. He entered like an animal with a predator on its trail, peering back through the door until it swung shut, and then warily surveying the premises, as though distrusting the promise of refuge.
When the newcomer approached and sat at the bar, Tim stared at his Pilsner glass as if it were a sacred chalice, as though he were brooding on the profound meaning of its contents. By assuming a devotional demeanor, rather than a pose of sullen solitude, he allowed strangers the option of conversation without encouraging it.
If the first words out of the newcomer’s mouth were those of a bigot or a political nut, or the wrong kind of fool, Tim could morph from a pose of spiritual or nostalgic reverie to one of bitter silence and barely repressed violence. Few people would try more than twice to break the ice when the only response was a glacial chill.
Tim preferred quiet contemplation at this altar, but he enjoyed the right kind of conversation, too. The right kind was uncommon.
When you initiated a conversation, you could have a hard time putting an end to it. When the other guy spoke first, however, and revealed his nature, you could shut him down by shutting him out.
Diligent in the support of his yet-to-be-conceived children, Rooney arrived. “What’ll it be?”
The stranger put a thick manila envelope on the bar and kept his left hand on it. “Maybe … a beer.”
Rooney waited, eyebrows raised.
“Yes. All right. A beer,” said the newcomer.
“On tap, I have Budweiser, Miller Lite, and Heineken.”
“Okay. Well … then … I guess … Heineken.”
His voice was as thin and taut as a telephone wire, his words like birds perched at discreet intervals, resonant with a plucked note that might have been dismay.
By the time Rooney brought the beer, the stranger had money on the bar. “Keep the change.”
Evidently a second round was out of the question.
When Rooney went away, the stranger wrapped his right hand around the beer glass. He did not take a sip.
Tim was a wet nurse. That was the mocking title Rooney had given him because of his ability to nurse two beers through a long evening. Sometimes he asked for ice to enliven a warm brew.
Even if you weren’t a heavy drinker, however, you wanted the first swallow of beer when it was at its coldest, fresh from the tap.
Like a sniper intent on a target, Tim focused on his Budweiser, but like a good sniper, he also had keen peripheral vision. He could see that the stranger had still not lifted the glass of Heineken.
The guy did not appear to be a habitué of taverns, and evidently he didn’t want to be in this one, on this night, at this hour.
At last he said, “I’m early.”
Tim wasn’t sure if this was a conversation he wanted.
“I guess,” said the stranger, “everyone wants to be early, size things up.”
Tim was getting a bad vibe. Not a look-out-he’s-a-werewolf kind of vibe, just a feeling that the guy might be tedious.
The stranger said, “I jumped out of an airplane with my dog.”
On the other hand, the best hope of a memorable barroom conversation is to have the good luck to encounter an eccentric.
Tim’s spirits lifted. Turning to the skydiver, he said, “What was his name?”
“Whose name?”
“The dog’s.”
“Larry.”
“Funny name for a dog.”
“I named him after my brother.”
“What did your brother think of that?”
“My brother is dead.”
Tim said, “I’m sorry to hear it.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Did Larry like sky-diving?”
“He never went. He died when he was sixteen.”
“I mean Larry the dog.”
“Yeah. He seemed to like it. I bring it up only because my stomach is in knots like it was when we jumped.”
“This has been a bad day, huh?”
The stranger frowned. “What do you think?”
Tim nodded. “Bad day.”
Continuing to frown, the skydiver said, “You are him, aren’t you?”
The art of barroom banter is not like playing Mozart on the piano. It’s freestyle, a jam session. The rhythms are instinctual.
“Are you him?” the stranger asked again.
Tim said, “Who else would I be?”
“You look so … ordinary.”
“I work at it,” Tim assured him.
The skydiver stared intently at him for a moment, but then lowered his eyes. “I can’t imagine being you.”
“It’s no piece of cake,” Tim said less playfully, and frowned to hear a note of sincerity in his voice.
The stranger finally picked up his drink. Getting it to his lips, he slopped beer on the bar, then chugged half the contents of the glass.
“Anyway, I’m just in a phase,” Tim said more to himself than to his
