The Last Good Place by Fred DeVecca

The Last Good Place by Fred DeVecca

I wasn’t supposed to be there. No one was supposed to be there. No one was supposed to be anywhere. But I don’t often do what I’m supposed to do so there I was along with maybe a hundred others packed in so closely I could feel the beating heart of the blond woman next to me at the bar. People talked into each other’s face. Some were dancing, closely. I saw a couple in the corner kissing. The blond next to me, whose heart I could feel, reached out and touched my hand and said “buy me a drink, Sailor?” She said it with a smile. I’m no sailor but I bought her a gin & tonic, and one for myself. And I smiled back at her.

No one wore a mask, no one was socially distanced and no one cared. It was 3am and I had been walking the dark streets alone. There was almost no one out, but first I noticed one lone soul walk through this unmarked doorway, then another, then a few minutes later, a couple.

So, what the hell, I did too. It led around a corner, up a stairway and into a packed, buzzing bar with music and young laughing people. I hadn’t seen anyone laugh in weeks. I hadn’t laughed in weeks. I hadn’t been within six feet of another human in weeks.

The woman next to me sipped her g&t and said to me “So, do you come here often?” There was sparkle in her voice. I hadn’t heard sparkle in weeks.

“Not yet. But I could get used to it What is it anyway?”

“It’s a place. A place you can go. A place where you can see people and do things. Remember when there used to be places? Remember when there used to be people? Remember when we used to be able to do things? This is a place like there used to be.”

“Sounds like a good place,” I replied.

“Yes, it is,” she said. “Right now this just might be the last good place. The last good place on earth.”

& & &

The place felt new like a strand of green grass peeking through grimy snow. The bar stretched the full expanse of the back wall and it was hand carved mahogany, dark and weathered, and the tables matched. Low thick maple timber beams squashed us into the space like a giant’s fingers. There was sawdust on the floor and a staggering display of liquor bottles stacked up behind the bar along with seven beer taps. It smelled fresh like pine and gin.
The blond had lipstick and makeup, some but not too much, and she smelled fresh and new too. She reached out and touched my hand again. Touching felt subversive, almost illegal. She read my mind. “We’re outlaws here. How did you find us?”

“I was walking around and I saw some people walk in and I followed them.”

“That’s how most people find us. We don’t advertise.”

“How did you find it?” I asked her.

“Find it? I built it.”

“You? By yourself?”

“Well I didn’t hammer every nail or cut every board, but yeah. It was my idea and I made it happen. And I actually did hammer a lot of nails and cut lots of boards.”

It was packed, shoulder to shoulder, face to face. It was hardly lit at all with only a few candles and a jukebox which cast hazy red light like from low hot coals. Everyone was young, way younger than me. Again, she read my mind. “Yeah. We’re young. I’m just twenty. We’re healthy, we’re never going to get sick and we’re never going to die. Maybe ever. Not from this, not from anything.”

I was going to tell her to watch what you wish for but instead I said “You did a hell of a job here. Does this place have a name?”

“Not officially. Officially we don’t exist. We’re unlicensed, unregulated, uninsured, unadvertised, unsupervised, un- named, un-legal, un-existent actually.”

“Maybe that’s why I feel so at home here,” I said.

She looked at me questioningly. “You don’t exist? Join the club.”

I laughed. “Two non-existent people in a non-existent bar.”

“What can I call this non-existent man sitting next to me?” she asked.

“You can call me Ray. And what can I call this non-existent young woman sitting next to me?”

“Let’s go with Alice.”

“And, again, what can I call this non-existent best place in the world.”

 “Call it what everybody else does – The Underground.”

“Underground? You’re up two flights of stairs.”

“It has multiple meanings. Besides, it’s meant ironically. I like irony.”

The bar’s name may be real but I had my doubts about hers. And she, with good reason, probably had doubts about mine. But she gave me a real smile. And everything else about her was real. She was one of those rare people who have no bullshit in them. You can hear it in their voice. She was so skinny and tiny that she should have looked like she could turn to her side and disappear, but she was too solid to look like that. She wore a funky dress from another era with big flowers, plus she had red Converse All Stars. Her eyes were brown, which is rare for blonds so it meant she was either a rarity or her hair was dyed. I expected that both were true.

“It’s nice to meet you, Ray. I hope to see you here again.” And then she leaned in and gave me a sweet, non-seductive kiss on the cheek. Her lips were warm and moist. Her perfume was subtle but it hit me hard. I almost swooned. No one swoons these days.

“You will,” I struggled to answer. And then I left.

Back home I looked in the bathroom mirror and saw a blood red stain on my cheek from her lipstick where she had kissed me. I didn’t wash it off.

I checked the news and found out that 1,526 people had died on the day that just ended. This thing they called a pandemic was raging. We were at the peak, the authorities said, and this upcoming week could be the worst week of our lives. I thought that maybe I could spend the worst week of my life in the last good place on earth. The sun was rising when I finally fell asleep.

& & &

The place apparently was open 24-7. I was there the next day at noon. They didn’t serve food but a couple beers might fill me up.

Alice was sitting across the table from me. She was smoking a cigarette. You weren’t allowed to smoke in bars but you also weren’t supposed to drink if you were under twenty-one so it was clear there were no rules here. There were delicate waves in her blond hair and some quiet streaks of light blue. She brushed a strand out of her eye and then she twisted it around her finger. That was endearing. I have that same habit, twisting my hair.

“What do you do, Ray? Isn’t that the first thing you’re supposed to ask someone – what do you do? That sounds pretty silly now doesn’t it? No one does anything.”

“Some people do things,” I said. “Some people open up bars.”

“Yeah, this is what I do I guess. But what do you do? I mean when you can do stuff.”

She picked good questions. This was exactly what I had been sitting in my room pondering for the past few days.

“I’m retired,” I said. “As of a couple days ago. I was heading in this direction for a long time. I slowed down a lot. I do freelance stuff for hire. At least I used to, but I’d been turning down jobs for a while now. I felt I needed to change. This lockdown is a blessing. It’s made everything stop. So now I’ve stopped too. And maybe when I start again I’ll do different stuff.”

“You’re being pretty vague, Ray. What kind of stuff? If you want to tell me. I get the feeling you don’t.”

“Rich people hire me to do things they can’t do themselves. Not good things. Not things you really want to hear about.”

I wasn’t sure why I was telling this girl so much, but I was. I usually tell people I buy and sell antiques.

“And you somehow survive on these vague actions?”

“It pays very well and I’ve got some money saved up. And if I don’t work for a while I’ll still be okay. Maybe when I start working again I’ll try to do more good deeds and less bad deeds. It is possible to do good things for hire instead of bad things. My skills are at least somewhat adaptable, at least I hope.”

She was slumped down with her head in her hands but still looking straight at me with those odd brown eyes.

“Okay,” she said, “I guess it’s good to do less bad deeds. Actually fewer. You can count deeds so fewer is the correct word.”

She paused and kept staring at me and said “You’re better at doing good deeds.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’m a witch. I see things and I know things.”

“A good witch or a bad witch?”

She gave me a crooked smile. “You tell me.”

“I think good.”

“Actually anyone who is a real witch is a good witch. And I’m real. And I know things.”

“What do you know about me?”

“You give me familiar vibes. You’re a safe person for me to be around. I don’t feel that too often. You’re going through a big change, Ray. You did a lot of bad shit and now you’re scrambling to cover it up with good shit. Usually covering things up doesn’t work, but good deeds can be very powerful and they really can undo all that past stuff. That’s why I’m sitting here.”

I remained silent.

“Because I have some good shit for you to do. If you want it,” she went on.

“For you?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t have to ask anything else. “I’ll do it,” I said. “Whatever it is.”

& & &

She wanted me to find her dad. He was very rich. He owned the building we were sitting in, as well as a lot of other buildings. But he was a drunk. He’d go off on benders and disappear for days on end, but this was longer than usual and no one had seen him for weeks.

They called him Buzzy. She gave me his picture. He didn’t look like her. He was a bit chunky and he was tall with a bushy red beard, like a red-headed Santa Claus. He was smiling. He looked like a good-time guy.
She offered to pay me but I refused. This was something to do and it was a good thing and I didn’t need the money.

How do you find someone you’ve never seen during a time when no one was going anywhere?

“Start with my mom,” she said. “They don’t live together anymore but he never stays away from her for long. Her name’s Angela. You’ll like her.”

“She’s the love of his life?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. He loves her. He loves me like crazy too. But he’s a confused dude and doesn’t understand what love is. At least that’s my take.”

“Have you tried talking to her yourself?”

“Not for the last ten years, no. We don’t get along.”

“Okay. Sounds like the place to start. One question though. Why me? You don’t know me and you don’t know if I’m a good person to do this job. You feel safe with me, okay. But that doesn’t mean I’m up for this.”

”You look like the kind of guy who knows where to look, who knows where the bodies are buried, the dead ones and the live ones.”

“You’re pretty smart, aren’t you?” I responded. “Yeah, some of the ones who look like they’re living are really dead and buried. Not too many people see that.”

“I told you. I’m a witch.”

& & &

Mom wasn’t answering her door so I knocked harder. It was a small well-kept old farmhouse on what many years ago was a farm but now was a pleasant tree-lined residential street. She opened the door a crack and I could see that she was indeed Alice’s mom because she looked exactly like Alice if you added twenty years and lots of hard living. Her hair wasn’t blonde, it was brown, but a brown that held a lot of luster and shine, and it was longer than Alice’s. Her face had a heart shape like Alice’s and you had to look at it closely to see its lines and how deep they went. I saw all this through that small gap between door and frame and in the brief seconds before she spoke. She was someone whose essence startled you as if she was jumping out of the dark to stab you. She looked at me questioningly but didn’t speak.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said, “but I’m here about Buzzy.”

Her look turned instantly to deflated fear. “Oh no,” she said, “You’re not here with good news, are you?”
“No, I’m not here with news at all. I just want to talk.”

There was relief on her face. “Oh, thank God. I expect nothing but bad news from that guy.”

She motioned for me to enter and I did. The place was spare and plain. It still looked like the farmhouse it once was. The furniture was mismatched and there were piles of stuff everywhere but it was orderly, like she could find whatever she needed amongst all that random crap. She pushed some things aside and we sat down at a linoleum table right out of the fifties.

“Coffee?” she asked and started making it before I could reply. “I guess we shouldn’t be getting close to each other. And we should wear masks I guess. That’s what they all say. But I’m not totally buying this whole plague stuff, are you?”

“I’m buying it,” I said. “I just don’t give a damn.”

She laughed at that, then got back to the matter at hand. “I was sure you were going to tell me he was dead,” she said. “No one has seen him for like a month. That’s unusual, even for him.”

“Maybe he is dead. I have no idea. I’m just trying to find him.”

“Does he owe you money or something? Usually he pays his debts. Hell, usually he pays everybody everyday, debt or not. He throws his money around like confetti. Thankfully for him he has plenty of it. ”

“No. That’s not it. I’m just helping someone out who wants to know where he is.”

“And that must be Rose. Nobody but her and me would give a damn where he is.”

“Guys that throw money around usually have lots of friends, lots of folks who want to know where they are,” I said.

“He’s got good-time drinking buddies but none of them really give a damn about him. He has a lot of flash but not much depth. Know what I mean?”

I knew what she meant. This woman was the opposite. Not much flash but a lot of depth.

“Rose?” I asked.

“His daughter.”

“Does he have more than one?”

“Daughters? No.”

“Okay then. I know her by another name.”

“She has many names. That’s the way she is. Witches apparently change shape frequently. Hence a new name.”
I sipped my coffee. It tasted good. We sat there silently for a while. Angela seemed to be looking at me intently, a bit strangely. She was studying my face.

“I have no idea where he could be,” she said. “I’m not going to be very helpful to you.”

“Does he go anywhere to hang out? To dry out? Generally rich guys have places they can go.”

“He travels. He’s always off to Mexico, Hawaii, Italy. And he’s got a cabin off the grid, out in the hills somewhere. But he always comes back sooner than this. He likes it here and he’s very protective of Rose and he never leaves her alone for long. That’s one of his good qualities. He does have some. I did marry the guy, after all.”

Nobody was travelling to Mexico or Hawaii or Italy these days but the cabin seemed a possibility. I asked her where it was.

“I don’t know exactly. I don’t think anybody does. It’s so far out in the woods it might as well be on the moon. And he never takes anyone there. It’s his refuge.”

“He sounds like the kind of guy who needs company.”

“Mostly he does. But when he doesn’t, he doesn’t. And then he’s gone and he needs to be alone.”

I was thinking that I could find this getaway. It was right up my alley. That was part of what I did–find hard to find things–people and places. Alice, or Rose, was right about that. So I was about to finish my coffee and leave.
Then she said “You don’t remember me, do you?”

I looked her over carefully before I answered “No. Should I?”

“Well should is a hard word. I hesitate to tell anyone they should do anything. But, yeah, maybe you should.”
I looked at her blankly.

“It was a long time ago,” she said. “You kind of saved my life.”

Normally I would remember saving someone’s life because so often I’ve done the opposite. But no. I didn’t know what she was talking about.

“It was one of those late night dance parties they used to have at that big hall above the Moose Lodge. Remember those?”

How could I not. I nodded.

“Still doesn’t ring a bell?”

“No.”

“Remember that time you beat the crap out of the three assholes dragging a poor drunk girl out to the parking lot? It was like twenty years ago.”

“I used to get into fights all the time in those days. But I don’t remember this one. If I was there I was as drunk as that girl was. Drunker.”

“You were there. So was I.

“I guess I have to take your word on it. I blacked out a lot and there’s a lot of stuff I don’t remember.”

“Me too. But this one I remember. You walked me home. I was that girl. Pretty much carried me home. And you took off my clothes. They were covered with mud and blood and puke. And you slid something clean on me and put me to bed. And you stuck around and sat at my bedside and picked up one of my books and read it all night while I slept. You were still there when I came to in the morning. When the morning light cracked through my window it shined on you like you were some kind of grizzled guardian angel.”

“You sure that was me? I have no recollection of this at all.”

“Yes. It was you. And then when I woke up for good you were gone and I’ve never seen you again until just now.”

“I think you’re mistaken.”

“I’m not. You wiped my face clean, and my mouth. It was clean when I woke up. If I would have thrown up when I was unconscious I would have suffocated and died. You saved my life. And here you are. Unbelievable.”

She was smiling at me warmly but I saw regret in there too.

“If this happened, which I doubt, I would have been as drunk as you. I never went to a party in those days without getting plastered. I don’t know how I’d have the sense to be so helpful. And so good. And I would have been too drunk to read a book.”

“No. This happened just like that. And it was you.”

She had the same brown eyes as Alice–or Rose. We stood there in silence and I looked at those eyes. They were stabbing right through me and I liked her story and I wished it was true but it wasn’t. I’m simply not that good, especially in those days.

“Okay,” I finally said. “If you want to believe that I’ll go along but mostly because I don’t feel like arguing with you. I got to go find Buzzy now.” But I didn’t turn to leave. I was frozen there staring into her eyes.

Then she broke the spell. She reached out and touched me on the shoulder which made my knees buckle.
When I came back to earth, I pulled myself together and left. As I was going out the door, she said “Don’t stay away so long this time, Ray.”

I turned around to get one more look at her and said “I won’t, Angela.” She looked very tiny.

 & & &

There were back roads that went nowhere and towns that felt like less than nowhere all around us. You didn’t have to go far to get off the grid. My car was a small, non-descript, black, late model sedan. In my line of work it pays to not be noticed. I pointed the car away from where I was and towards where I wasn’t. I knew where I was going so I kept going and going.

I went down paved roads that turned into gravel roads and then to dirt roads and lastly to no road at all and even then you could sometimes keep going, at least for a while. Then, there it was–a roadhouse, little more than a shack. It hadn’t changed. I stopped there and went in.

To my surprise it was not closed like everything else in the world was. It was a one room cinder block bomb shelter with a bar, four stools, three tables, one bottle of whiskey, and a refrigerator that I knew held bottles of Budweiser and nothing else. That’s about it. That’s all there was to this place. There were holes chipped out of the cinder blocks in places, some small the size of your fingertip, some larger like a half dollar. These were bullet holes. I had been there when some of them were made.

I took one of the stools and Torchy reached into the fridge and handed me a Bud.

“If you want it,” he said. “You want it?”

“Yes,” I replied and twisted off the cap and took a swig.

“Lots of folks these days don’t drink it seems. Didn’t want to be presumptuous.”

“I still drink. Why else would anybody come in here?”

“Dunno. I got some folks come in here and just sit there and talk and never order anything. Not my place to judge.”

He took another Bud from the fridge, opened it and took a good chug. “Always figured you’d be back someday. Didn’t know when.”Torchy was old now but he looked exactly the same, only old. He maybe had shrunk a little though he was still ridiculously tall and skinny. He slumped a bit too which made him look smaller. He still had hair, quite a bit of it, still dark brown as if he dyed it but he didn’t. Torchy didn’t dye his hair–that I knew. The wrinkles and the diminished size were the only things that made him look different than the guy I remembered.

“You’re using that wing pretty good,” he said. “That’s good.”

As if to demonstrate, I lifted the beer with my right hand, held it up as high as I could. He clinked his own bottle to it.

“You were the best one-armed underaged bartender I ever had,” he said.

“Yep,” I replied. You never had to say much to Torchy.

It’s a long story and you don’t have to hear it all but a long time ago when I was a kid in my late teens I was trying to slip away from a drug bust when I got shot by a cop but managed to escape out here to Torchy’s. I had never been here before. I just kept driving until I was sure I had gotten so far away they would never find me. They never did. Torchy took me in, bandaged up my arm, let me stay at his house and hired me to tend bar even though I was too young to drink, much less work there. Hired’s not the right word though. He didn’t pay me, just let me hang around as long as I needed. Gave Torchy more time to take care of his animals. You didn’t have to know much to bartend at Torchy’s, never had to make a sloe gin fizz or a cosmo. He had one brand of whiskey–cheap stuff, and one beer–Bud, and that was it. That’s all he needed because that’s all anyone there wanted to drink. I’m not even sure he was licensed. He was so far out in the sticks that no one ever checked. You could get away with that stuff in those days. It looked like maybe he was still getting away with it.

I didn’t think I was going to find Buzzy here. But Torchy knew these back roads and he lived out here before there was a grid to be off of.

We talked a little. It had been thirty years since we’d seen each other but there wasn’t that much to say.
I did ask him why he was open during the pandemic when everything else in the world was closed.

“Is there a pandemic?” he asked. “I hadn’t heard.”

“Yes,” I said, “It’s in all the papers.”

“You know I don’t read the papers,” he said. “And what’s a pandemic?”

He wasn’t expecting an answer. I showed him Buzzy’s picture.

“Yep,” he said. “Know him. He’s been in. Not much but once or twice. Probably be back.”

“So will I Torchy,” I said as I got up to leave.

“That’s good Elvin,” he replied. “It’s good to see you.”

Elvin wasn’t my real name either. I’m not a witch but I had different names too.

& & &

I made that long drive the next night and the night after that too. Both times I hung out with Torchy at the bar alone. Never saw another human. I was spending my days at The Underground where there were lots of humans and my nights at Torchy’s where there were none.

On the third night, back at Torchy’s, I met another human. Big red-bearded dude, loud and semi-obnoxious. He stumbled into Torchy’s like he was already drunk, which he was, and sat next to me because there was no one else to sit next to. He bought the bar a round, which means he bought me a beer, and he slapped me on the back. Somehow I had found the only two places on earth where people could talk, touch and, well really live life as we’ve always known it. I had also somehow found Buzzy. I thanked him for the beer.

“Drink up,” he said. “There’s plenty more where that came from. And how often do you get the chance to treat the bar all night for like twenty bucks.”

I chugged the beer down. “Hope you got more than twenty bucks,” I said. “I’m thirsty.”

He laughed a deep growling laugh. “Okay!” he said. He was loud. It was kind of a roar. “Somebody to drink with. Didn’t think that existed anymore. More people than ever are drinking but they’re all doing it alone. That’s what life is like though, right? You come into it alone, you go out alone, and if you’re lucky you spend some time with someone else somewhere in the middle there. And if you’re even luckier you spend it drinking.”

“Guess we’re in the middle now,” I replied. “And it looks like you’re stuck in the middle with me.”

He laughed like this may have been the funniest thing anyone had ever said, and he reached out and put his arms around my shoulders. Then he kissed me on the cheek–the second time someone had done that to me in a couple days. His kiss had a different vibe than Alice’s and it wasn’t going to leave a red stain, but it was only a little less stunning.

“I like you, man,” he said as he returned his arms to where they belonged.

Torchy had disappeared as all good bartenders do when some deep talk is happening between his customers. Magically he reappeared just long enough to conjure up two more beers, then disappeared again.

We kept drinking and talking and it got late. Torchy periodically appeared and disappeared. I didn’t know what I was doing. I had found what I was looking for but I had no plan about what to do with him, so we just talked, about pretty much nothing. Well, it started out about nothing but as the night wore on it grew more personal.

“You got kids?” he asked me.

“No.”

“Married?”

“Never. Never even close.”

Why not? You like girls don’t you? Not that it would make any difference to me if you didn’t.”

“No. I like women just fine.”

“Why then?”

“I’m in the line of work where it’s pretty hard to settle down.”

“I have the same problem only I don’t have as good an excuse.”

“So you’re not married?” I asked him.

“Well, technically I am. Just haven’t lived with her for a long time.”

“Kids?”

“Yeah. I got one of them. She’s a princess.”

“You’re a lucky man then,” I told him.

He repeated the word lucky and let out a sigh, deep and hollow as if it could be his last breath.

“Yeah, I’m lucky. It’s all about love, man. You ever been in love?” he asked me. “You know what love is?”

I nodded. It was a slight one and I don’t think he saw it but that’s all I could manage. I couldn’t muster up anything from my voice.

He went on. “I been in love. Still am. You want to hear the story?”

He kept going before I had a chance to answer. “I used to want to be an actor. Actually I was an actor. I did a lot of local theater. I was pretty good. I’m loud and I fill up a room. The gal who ran the local theater wanted to do Romeo and Juliet. She wanted to do it specifically because she wanted me to be Romeo. She thought I was that good and I was a lot skinnier in those days. I was just a kid, just out of high school. They’re supposed to be teenagers and I was. But this chick that she wanted to play Juliet, I couldn’t stand her. One of the few people in the world I actively hated. Still hate her to this day actually. She’s still around and I run into her now and then. She’s selfish and unkind and mean and always has been. There’s no excuse for that. But we both looked gorgeous then. Two beautiful kids. So she wanted us.

“For the play to work I had to be in love with her – with someone I hated. How do you do that? I wasn’t trained as an actor. I was a natural. I just did it. But I had trouble doing this. I couldn’t convince anyone I was in love with that girl, much less myself, and the play just wouldn’t work.

“So one day, after a horrible rehearsal, the director took me aside and said to me what I just said to you–‘you ever been in love? You know what love is?’ And I said with no hesitation ‘yes.’ I knew what love is. Because I did. I had already met Angela–that’s my wife- and we were going out. I knew I was in love with her right from the get go. And to top it all off, I had knocked her up. She was gonna have a kid, my kid. And I already was in love with that unborn kid too.

“The director, she was pure method, Stanislavski method, you know? She told me to get in touch with that love when I said my lines, to remember it, to feel it, to soak it up and bring it back out. Seriously, that made me think hard. It made me see how much Angela meant to me. And the kid too even though she wasn’t born yet. That’s the first time I really got it. I would think back to those feelings as I spoke my lines. It was all one big thing, one big, powerful sensation. It was overwhelming, that love.

“I killed that role. I knocked it out of the park. You would have thought I loved that Juliet girl who I hated. Because I could ride that love anywhere.

“It was the first time I ever understood what love is. First time I ever really thought about it, analyzed the thing. So that’s why, when you said I was lucky, I asked if you knew what love is. Because if you do you’ll know how right you are.”

I nodded again, even more subtly than before. This one he saw.

“And how lucky I am,” he said. “Even as I check out.”

I looked at him with a big question mark in my eyes. “You mean like checking out a situation?” I thought I knew what he was saying but I wasn’t sure.

“No man. I mean I’m checking out. I’m leaving. I’m that walking shadow and I’m done strutting and fretting. Exit stage right, pal. I’m outta here. And I’m still the luckiest goddam son of a bitch in the world because I’ve loved. Long and hard.”

He raised his bottle of beer to shoulder height and I clinked it with mine.

“It’s the cancer. I got the Big C.”

& & &

There’s really nothing you can say to this, so I said nothing and he continued.

“It’s in my pancreas and it’s bad. They could treat me. There is some treatment but it’s not a cure. It’s just a time killer. The hospitals won’t treat anything now except emergencies and this they call an emergency, so I could be there right now getting chemicals and radiation pumped into me. But I thought about that. I’m terminal and I’m telling you I’d rather let the cancer get me than the doctors and their drugs. That’s just dragging out the suffering for nothing. So here I am. Sometimes you gotta just choose your poison and this is mine. Drink up.”
I drank up and so did he and Torchy produced fresh beers for us. Buzzy looked up at me and said “Not the first time you’ve watched someone die up close, is it?”

“Nope.”

“Yep, you got that smell about you. You know death, don’t you? You’re either a doctor or a killer and I don’t think you’re a doctor.”

I didn’t respond and I was grateful that he stopped talking. But we kept drinking and time kept moving. Sometimes it feels like time stops but it never does. Rust never sleeps. Cancer never sleeps. And some nights some people never sleep and this was one of those nights for my new friend and me.

It got to be near dawn. You could see the red sun wash over and soak the clouds. Torchy just let the two of us go. He never tried to close up. God knows where he was. I didn’t see him for hours but beers kept magically showing up in front of us and I didn’t notice Buzzy ever paying him anything but maybe he left something on the bar.
The misty morning fog sunk down like a shroud over Torchy’s cinder block box as the red sun crept through the screens.

“I gotta show you something,” was how Buzzy broke the silence. “Follow me.”The air was a thick sauce, so dense it was hard to place one foot in front of the other. Maybe that wasn’t the air, maybe it was in my head. But things were in slow motion. Buzzy got into his car, a Land Rover, newish but filled with scratches and dents. I got into my black sedan and followed him down roads so rough and rocky my head bounced off the ceiling a couple times. We were both blind drunk.

The sun had blanched and sharpened everything by the time we got to Buzzy’s cabin and vision through the fog became somehow clear and focused.

& & &

It was a cabin made of logs. That’s all it was. One small room, a bed, a wood stove, a gas powered fridge, piles of books. No TV, no computer, no phone, not much else.

I looked around. “Is this what you wanted to show me?”

“Well, yeah. I wanted to show this to you but I also want something else from you and it couldn’t be out there in the real world.”

“Isn’t this the real world?”

“No. It’s separate and distinct. It’s Buzz-world. It’s my world and welcome to it.”

“I’m honored.” Truly I was. But I had a question for him. “You want something from me?”

“Yes. But not something you haven’t done for others.”

I wasn’t sure where he was going with this so I didn’t speak.

“What line of work are you in, pal?” he asked me. “I don’t know your name but you are my pal so I’ll call you that.”

“I help people out. I do things. Things not too many people are willing to do.”

“You get paid for that.”

“I get paid very well.”

“What do you charge?”

“More than almost anyone can afford.”

“I’m rich.”

“The cost isn’t always in dollars.”

“I’ve got other things too.”

“You can’t afford me. You don’t have enough.”

“Enough what? I got plenty of everything. I got money, I got property. I got stocks, bonds. Hell, I got gold. I have a safe full of diamonds. I even got bitcoin, whatever the hell that is. What more do you need? I’ll give you enough that you’ll never have to work again. I’m offering you the rest of your life off. I’m offering you the world.”

My eyes told him no.

“What else can you possibly need?”

“A reason,” I said.

“You’ve done it for money all your life. Why not now?”

“Things change. Now I need more.”

“How about to help out a pal?”

“Are you my pal? Not sure I buy that. And I do good things now, not bad things.”

“For me this will be a very good thing.”

“I can’t do it. I can’t kill now. I can’t kill anymore.”

“You’ve done it plenty. What’s different now?”

“More things are sacred to me now.”

“Like what?”

“Like maybe the things that have always been sacred to you.”

“Like my wife and kid? That’s about all I got.”

“Yep.”

“They don’t have me anyway. I’m here and I’m not going back. I’ll die here and they’ll never see me anyway. All

I’m asking is for you to speed up the process a little.”

“Can’t do it, pal.”

So we stood there in his cabin. And then we sat at this round wooden table and he pulled out a bottle of whiskey from somewhere, not cheap like at Torchy’s, expensive stuff. The bottle sat there unopened. We never got to it.

“What’s so damned sacred?” he asked me.

I considered this for a while before I answered. “I kill people for a living. Somehow you figured that out. I know other people who kill people. But even with those guys, believe it or not, there are things we just don’t do. Some things are sacred. There’s some kind of rules that nobody has to say but everybody somehow understands. These guys are the sleaziest bastards in the world. They’ll stab you in the back for a dime and they’ll lie to you and they will take advantage of the weak in every way possible. These are the people who not only kill but rape, steal, lie, peddle drugs, which is just another way of killing, and don’t think twice about any of it.

“Anyway, these totally fucked up people always, to a man, had one sacred thing. Motherhood. A woman giving birth. I’ve been in prison with the baddest motherfuckers on earth and it’s the only thing that made them pause. There was this one dude, the biggest, meanest, ugliest son-of-a-bitch you ever saw. If you’d see him on the street you’d cross over before he got near you. This guy had a poster in his cell of a woman nursing a baby. And he treasured that thing. He’d stare at it. This madonna and child thing, they all totally got it. And if someone’s there for child molesting? Well, that’s a guaranteed sliced throat. Talk about a woman and a baby and they cross themselves and go down on their knees and genuflect.

“And you, Buzzy, you’re right there with them. No, you’re not a bad motherfucker, but you see the same sacred thing.”

“Yep,” he said. “True without having to even think about it. I love those two – wife and daughter. Sacred, right?”
I nodded.

“But I gotta tell you something else, something I’ve never told anyone, something I’ve hardly even admitted to myself. It’s hard to tell one from the other sometimes.”

His eyes were sad but intent. He was going to a place I had not considered. “They look so much alike. They feel so much alike. And it’s so hard to find the right way to give them love. Know what I mean?”

I didn’t but I was starting to. Buzzy stopped looking at me and instead stared down at his shoes and asked me

“You know?”

Then I knew.

“What if I’m not really her father?” he said. “I have my doubts. I’ve always had my doubts. She doesn’t look like me. She doesn’t think like me. And Angela was no paragon of virtue back then. Of course neither was I but that’s not what we’re talking about, is it?”

I didn’t respond.

“Does that make it any better?” he asked. “The things I did?”

“No.”

“ She felt like a woman and I only know one way to show a woman I love her. I guess I don’t really know as much about love as I thought I did.”

I thought I saw tears in his eyes.

“Where’s your gun?” he asked me.

“In the car.”

“Get it.”

I didn’t want to but I got it and went back inside.

“Help out a guy who needs some help. In all kinds of ways. And what’s one more to you anyway?”

He kept looking at me. He was pleading.

“It’ll be easy for you.”

No. It wouldn’t be.

“Just leave me here to rot into the ground. Nobody will ever find me. No one has been up here for years. And even if they somehow find me, they won’t be able to trace anything back to you if I’m close to being right about how you do things. And the girl, she’ll be set for life. She’s already half owner of everything. I’ve set that up.

“Just pull the damn trigger and be done with it.”

I didn’t move.

“Do it,” he said.

I still didn’t move.

“It will make the world a better place. It’ll be a good thing. Do it.”

I was thinking it over.

“Do it.”

Maybe it wouldn’t be that hard. He was looking right into my eyes.

“Do it,” he repeated.

I did it.

& & &

Angela was pouring me another cup of coffee. The steam fogged the small kitchen. “Well, I went everywhere and asked everyone but I didn’t find him,” I said.

“Are you giving up?”

“I seldom admit defeat but this time I am.”

There was silence while we both sipped the hot coffee.

“You didn’t have to come back here to tell me that,” she said. “You didn’t have to report back to me at all. You were working for Rose, not me.”

“You asked me to come back.”

“No. I urged you to not stay away for so long this time. There’s a difference. It’s subtle but there’s a difference. But I’m glad you’re here.”

“You’re very precise, aren’t you?” I asked her.

“Generally speaking, yeah.”

“How precise is your memory about that first night I spent here?”

“It’s pretty precise, Ray.”

“I beat up three drunk assholes who were molesting you? I’m not really all that big and strong.”

“Yeah but you seemed like you knew what you were doing. They didn’t. You’re a fighter. They weren’t fighters. They were just assholes. They were weak and they were scared. You weren’t. You were a freaking terror. They didn’t expect anyone to fight them but me and I didn’t have much fight in me. You had plenty of fight. You were bursting with it.”

“And I carried you home? Again, I’m not that strong.”

“Well, not really carried. I was leaning against you. I was dead weight. You got me home. It was only a couple blocks. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

“What happened once we got home?”

“You cleaned me up. That was the big thing. I was a mess. My dress was ripped. There was mud and blood and vomit. You used a warm wash rag. It was soothing and gentle and healing.”

“You remember this all very clearly. I don’t remember anything at all.”

“You took off that dress and put something clean and loose on me. And you never touched me in a bad way. I woke up clean and alive. I was sick and hungover. I was real drunk. But I was alive and conscious.”

“And you remember me sitting there reading a book all night.”

“Yeah. Clear as day. When the morning light came through the window there you were. When I really woke up you were gone.”

It didn’t totally add up to me. I’m a decent guy. But when I was young and drunk and in a bedroom with an attractive naked woman, I wasn’t convinced something more didn’t occur. My silence and my eyes told her pretty much exactly what was going through my mind. Obviously it had been on her mind too. For like twenty years.

“It didn’t happen Ray. I’ll say it again. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. In those days I would sleep with almost anybody. Buzzy and I had a tough relationship. We loved each other like crazy, still do. But we were just kids and he would come and go and that’s just the way it was. But, no Ray, nothing more happened between you and me. I would know. Even in my state, passed out, I would know.”

I hesitated before I said “Yeah, that’s what I think too.”

“You hesitated there.”

“No I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“No.”

“Okay then. But you hesitated.”

“Well, maybe.”

The room was still filled with coffee steam. But I stayed for a while and by the time I left the air in the room was clear.

& & &

“Your dad is a hard guy to find.”

Rose was not surprised to hear this. She looked at me without blinking. It was three in the morning and The Underground was packed.

“So what does that mean? You gave up?”

“Yes.”

“That’s strange. You don’t look like someone who gives up easily.”

“Who said this was easy?”

We were both drinking gin and tonics. Rose looked disappointed. “Well, okay,” she said. “If that’s the way it is, that’s the way it is.”

I had let her down. I don’t like letting people down.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’m not sure why I wanted you to find him anyway. I have mixed feelings about the bastard and frankly things are better around here without him.”

“How are they better?”

He could be a pain in the ass. He did good stuff too. He did set me up with this place. But lately when I’m around him I get creeped out. There’s bad vibes all over that dude.”

“So that’s a good question then–why did you want him back?”

She waited a minute before she responded. “I guess I have things I really should talk to him about. Things I’m just slowly becoming conscious of.”

“Okay. And…”

“And nothing. That’s it.”

We continued to drink but we didn’t say much for a while. We were both listening to the slow hum of the crowd with the orange glow from the candles all around us.

It was probably time for me to go. To move on. If there was any place to move on to. Nobody was supposed to be moving at all.

“I’m going to go now,” I told her.

“You don’t mean go back to wherever it is you’re staying just for the night, do you?”

“No.”

“You’re talking longer and farther, aren’t you?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Where are you going? And why?”

I thought this over for a minute. “I need to move on.”

“Yeah. I want you to move on too.”

And then I thought about it a little deeper before I said “Sometimes though you gotta stay where you are in order to move on.”

“That sounds kind of ironic, Ray.”

“I guess I like irony.”

“You know, Ray, I could use some help around here. I’m basically doing everything myself. And if this pandemic ever ends I’d like to turn this place into something legit. That’s what a lot of the speakeasies did after prohibition. I’m strong and real smart and I can do a lot myself but I can be scattered and sometimes I need direction, somebody to watch over me a little, but just a little.”

She had caught my attention and I was listening.

“There could be a future here, an opportunity to do lots of good deeds.”

She was twisting her hair.

“You found my dad, didn’t you?”

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Fred DeVecca 2026

Image Source: Dey from Fictom.com