Chapter 4 of the novel, The Talking Mime

Chapter 4

Service with a smile, sort of

Nym was wrong about the coroner but right that it was a man's hand, not a woman's. She was also wrong that Capitola was always friendly little town to strangers. To tourists maybe, but tourists are tourists and strangers, well, they're different. And we had crossed that line when we found the severed hand on the bow.

After the afternoon of reading clippings and a dinner complete with a nice Merlot and my special boat-chicken casserole, we rowed in to shore with the boys for a nightcap at the Anchor Inn saloon and dessert for Jerrod and Jacob. Nym insisted on carrying in her waterproof shore bag which usually contained a flashlight and some safety gear in case we tarried ashore and had to row out after sunset.
     The Anchor Inn was decorated in a combination nautical/sports bar/pub-restaurant motif that likely drove anyone crazy who tried to figure out what the owner had in mind. I had given up on the no-TV rule before we even rowed in, figuring that the boys deserved a little TV time at the place after being such good sports and helping with the research.

We chose a table in the back side of the bar, 20-feet from the big-screen TV, where the boys could watch TV and we could also see Rocinante rocking in the now settling water in the harbor. A 60ish blonde waitress, sporting an impossibly high beehive hairdo from the 1950s looked at our matching Rocinante sweatshirts as if they said "Hells Angels, Oakland Chapter" and avoided eye contact with us.

Nym stared at her long enough that the waitress finally made a big flourish out of walking over with her cocktail tray and stopping in front of the boys watching television. "Help ya?" she asked, more of a statement than a real question.

I thought perhaps a little charm might help so I asked what she recommended.

"Another restaurant if it was me, mister!" she laughed nervously. And I laughed, and Nym laughed, too, but it was thin, nervous laugh that I followed with an order of wine for Nym and I and Dr. Peppers for the boys.

"Would you recommend the dessert?" I asked as a last shot for getting at least a neutral response. "You can eat it, I wouldn't," she said walking away.

Nym and the boys looked at me as if I had insulted the waitress, but I shook my head. "Oh no! Don't blame this one on me. Did you you guys eat here earlier and not tip her or something?"

A basketball game grabbed Jacob's interest while Jerrod studied the bar and the waitress. It was about 8 p.m. and I hoped we were going to be treated to a nice sundown before the fog rolled in for the night. The California coast in summer vacillates between socked in fog and sun, with Capitola right on the edge. I stared at the horizon, trying to figure out if we would be rowing back to the boat through mist, or actually get to see some stars tonight.

"It's kinda weird Dad, but, the waitress isn't acting all bitchy at the people at the bar," Jerrod said.  "And, uh, Dad. About three of the guys are staring at us. Uh, Dad, one guy is pointing at you."

I grimaced, thinking about the men who had been arguing in low tones when we walked in. Had we been a little farther south, I would have guessed they worked on an offshore oil platform. It had been so many years since I've had anything remotely close to trouble in a barroom that my senses were dulled. I looked around without making eye contact and realized that the Anchor Inn was one place during the day, quite another at night when most of the tourists head into Santa Cruz and the boardwalk - or to the better restaurants of Monterey.

The peanut shells on the floor reminded me of a night in Buffalo, New York 25 years before when a group of eight of us from Canisius College were confronted by five very large, very angry longshoremen who objected to our long hair, our youth, and finally, our existence on the planet and started a brawl that only ended when I was able to bring a folding chair across the noses of two of the men, dropping them to the floor.
     Now in the Anchor Inn,  I decided that it would likely take a good Louisville Slugger to dent the heads of men I had seen on the way in. And my reflexes and wrists were pretty soft from years of working on a computer keyboard and giving lectures to undergraduates.

"You found the hand."

It was a statement. Not a question, and it came from a bearlike man in a plaid shirt and baseball cap that said "San Jose Sharks." He and his three friends had ambled over slowly while I was checking the room for graceful exits.

"I asked you a question, bud."

It was certainly not a question and I was not his bud by any stretch, but I could feel my adrenalin beginning to surge through my arms and shoulders as two other men — equal in size and manners — edged up closer to the table, dwarfing us, all still seated.

"We certainly did find the hand," I said, wondering what that admission was going to mean to these people. They're limbs seemed intact.

"I hope that's all we find, it was quite enough."

I realized as I finished my sentence that I had stood up without even being aware of it. And I had stood suddenly enough that the three men backed up a step, interpreting my movement as a threat. I realized that Jerrod and Jacob had stood also, trying to look a lot older than 15, and that at their last wrestling match weigh-in, they topped 170 pounds each. At nearly 6 feet, they were probably more imposing to these guys than I was.

I could feel my heart beginning to pound, the situation moving a little too fast, too many questions, and in the dryness of mouth I remembered the last fisticuffs I had gotten into - many years back - when Nym and I were dating. After a dinner at Fisherman's Wharf restaurant I ran through the rain to get my car only to return to find Nym struggling with a man near the entryway of the restaurant. I thought he was trying to steal her purse — then I realized he was assaulting her and ripping her dress off, in nearly full view of the restaurant. Nym told me later she never wanted to see me in that kind of rage again, and that I had nearly clawed the man's eyes out in a manical fit. The police told me that I bit the top of the man's ear off — I still don't remember that — and I had to take penicillin for 10 days, as a preventive.

The boys eyes were flickering back and forth from me to the men and then to each other, the same flickering I had seen many times when they wrestled and were just about to dive across the mat to drop and opponent for a takedown. The three men were standing very still - no moving or talking - just staring at us with a dull look that suggested the movie Deliverance. I found myself wondering if I should grab a chair to swing or simply go straight to being a madman and bite someone's ear if they moved towards us.

"Are you three all professional fishermen?" Nym's soft voice came from behind me.

It broke the silence that had descended on the bar. In our male-lion, protect-the-species-mode, we had forgotten that she was even sitting there.

"You guys have that look of men who spend a lot of time on the water."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nym flash her best "you big strong man" smile and all three of us Cameron men exhaled silently.

Nym only turned on that voice when she had everything so completely under control that even the President of the United States couldn't make her sweat.

 We knew from that same voice that somewhere within easy reach in Nym's shore bag at her feet, was her police issue .38 special revolver, her badge identifying her as a special investigator with the San Francisco District Attorney's office, and a pair of much-prized handcuffs that had once been on the wrists of Charles Manson, a gift to her from a friend in the FBI.

There would be no trouble in the Anchor Inn tonight. But no dessert either.

Chapter 5 - Mounted Mooseheads and stranger things