Storymania - Casa Cantina De Loco by Branson Storm

Casa Cantina De Loco
Branson Storm

I pay fifty dollars a month just to be harassed by six-dollar-an-hour, nose-pierced half-wits who find some demented joy in trying to push me around. After so much time and such great and difficult effort to build my life into that which I thought it should be, I find myself in this quite peculiar position. My phone seldom rings and when it does, it’s just another creditor so I don’t even waste my time. I’ve grown tired of lying to those people. I don’t have any more money. I don’t have any more excuses. I don’t have anything. What part of my nothing do they want? These people are ruthless and refuse to let me die in peace. I’m thinking strongly of having no phone at all. Why do I need one? If I were smart I’d save that money and spend it on booze and red meat and maybe a new CD or two. I can never get enough Robert Earl Keen or live Pearl Jam. Eddie Vedder is years younger than me but I listen to him with an inspired ear. I respect his intensity, his focus, his selfness. It’s valorous to know that he would suffer without his music and could give two shits if anyone finds it desirable or good or right or in between, yet he appreciates all the joy and love, which from it, comes back to him. But those are the qualities that make it the way it should be, intense and done from native necessity and not design. It’s raw with truth and feeling and this makes it real and separate from the flood of commercialized garbage that is so incessantly stuffed down our throats every day. That’s it. I’ve decided. No more phone.

Then there is Ron Hudson, a little known local guitarist whom my ex-wife, Michelle, and I, on Saturday nights, would listen to in the huge stone barfront of the Las Alamedas restaurant a few blocks from our home. Ron would strum as we sat beneath the great Mexican architecture. Arched ceilings thirty-feet high, ivy dripping down from grand copper bowls shimmering in the soft light of the upper platforms. Sandstone walls and satillo floors, antique mahogany doors the color of honey with heavy wrought iron hardware. Large cast iron gates guard the front entrance that always made me feel as if I might have to chance it and pull a bean from the jar. The floor descends with every step toward the main dining room, its back wall of towering glass panes mesh into the green entanglement of shrubbery and trees and ivy growing wild from the banks of the Buffalo Bayou. This is a lovely place to eat traditional Mexican food. Large sturdy silverware. Grand black iron chandeliers hanging above solid Mexican pine tables dressed with large oval copper plates and hand-carved court chairs. And though the view is wonderful and the setting proper for any rustic royalty, I’ve come to prefer the bar, where I can melt in the Spanish guitar as Ron plays from a dim, insignificant corner, head down, fingers pulling at my heartstrings, melting me, sucking me in, taking me to that place that inspired his very notes. I breathe that salt air and feel the Sun’s warmth soak into my skin and suddenly I am at home and the world and all of its stirring confusion fades quietly into the blue ocean mist. The phone never rings here. There’s not one. Speaking to anyone outside this place would be a step in the wrong direction.

My favorite was sitting at one of the two tables closest to Ron. They were both round marble four tops with large, comfortable armchairs cloaked in soft sandy floral patterns. But there were times when we arrived late and those tables were taken and we had to find another. Then it was not so fine, at least not for Michelle. One table was too cold, the other too uncomfortable, another’s view distorted by the sandstone columns or other patrons stirring about. It was hard to find a replacement that would be just right. It got to the point that the availability of our favorite table was becoming the first thing I noticed when we walked in. Eventually I got used to the fact that it was most likely going to be taken, especially if it were after 9:00 PM, usually by a foursome of fat, balding men with their homely wives or foolish secretaries. It always infuriated me how they sat at those tables drinking their whiskey sours, running their mouths and applauding each song without ever hearing a note. Their constant requests for trivial, worn out tunes like ‘La Bamba’ pissed me off so I spent a lot of that time in the restroom studying the antique photographs of the Mariachis from old Mexico and wishing I were from a different time and place, a place of black and white memories and raw, pure thoughts, a place where starch is eaten and not worn.

I only spoke to Ron one time. It was the first time that I ever heard him play. As he was strumming ‘Homing Home’ I approached him and asked the price of his CD’s that were displayed on a small table next to him. “Ten dollars”, he said in a soft, traveled voice as his fingers continually brushed the strings and the gentle music filled that huge room with a new, tranquil air and I could breathe again. I bought all three and left some additional cash in the jar. He motioned to me for change and I motioned back “No” and told him it was for him. He bowed his head in appreciation and continued strumming.

Back at the table I drank my margarita from a large hand-blown Mexican glass that favored some sort of royal, gothic candlestick holder. The lime and everclear slush was icy and soothing and I nursed it down blissfully as my wife blew her cigarette smoke up toward the copper bowls and towering cacti. Michelle talked about her day and her job and other things that I could scarcely afford to pay any mind. I was lost in that great room with the music carrying me and putting me under like heroin filling my blood with warm, weighty elation. Though I knew I couldn’t afford the CD’s or the drinks or the food, I didn’t care as long as he played and I drank and absorbed it all and the people around me faded in echoes and spilling ivy. Far beneath the distant lights I spun away in the drink and smoke and song and stone.

I take any seat now, as long as it’s not at the bar. A loner on barstool is looking for something, someone to talk to, someone’s shoulder to cry on, someone to victimize, someone to listen to his drowsy bullshit and drunken nonsense. I want to be anything but a loner on a barstool. I’m looking to hide, to catch a dark corner of sandstone and potted cactus and melt into a river of shaved ice, everclear and Spanish moons. I know that Ron has seen me here by myself several times now, but he plays on as though nothing has changed. We’ve made eye contact several times and I know he’s wondering where Michelle is, but is too polite and too learned to inquire, even as small talk. My divorce was my business and he respected that.

The corner that I’ve found is warm with darkness and suits my misery well. Though it’s not made for one, no one asks for the other chairs and I gather it’s because of the hollowness radiating around me like an angry morning fog. At times I feel the wait staff is too afraid to ask if I need anything else, but eventually they do and I always need something else. With the ice melting I no longer taste the lime, but the everclear has its hooks into me and I am motionless here, glazed and thick, another stone in this great room, saturated with white sands from lost places of blue waters and quiet villages, places so desolate and underdeveloped that the world ignores them and their ignorance is a blessing.

How often do I think of this and how little of it do I really understand? Rilke weighs heavy on my mind and in the boiled spin of my thoughts I try again to understand his love of the solitary. I’m searching for the truth in his paradoxical message that with each tear of loneliness from a man who abandons all, fully exposing himself to everything and all things, is making a true effort to collect and absorb the scattered fragments of himself to the final drop, fully, completely and without regret for any newfound misgivings. And though I have always felt alone, I am only now understanding the utter intensity of loneliness, the bittersweet taste of it, the ironic finality of being at ground zero in the midst of my life spent moving in a hurried, misguided direction. To me there has come a great understanding of the difference between being withdrawn and being alone, and I now realize how I could not have become one without first being the other. But here I am existing as both, swimming in one, drowning in the other, shifting from here to there yet never really moving away from the misery, the stillness, the coffin of this corner of sandstone and candle light.

Then the notes fade into me again and I push hard to focus, to fall into them and go once more to my home where the air from the Caribbean is warm and salty, and behind me is the jungle with its wild mastery and slithery danger seemingly asleep in the moist heat and silence. The people here are soft and quiet, paying me no particular mind for here I am not an outcast, but simply another artist coexisting in the colony, living simple and asking for nothing more than that which I have earned. The sky here is brilliantly lit behind a raging moon as it hangs over the calm evening water. The space around is infinite and slow and the nights are breezy with the music forever bleeding into me, suffocating me, begging me to stay. I love this place. I could live well here. There is no other way and I know I want to die here.

I kept waiting even though I knew the time for her arrival had long since past and the foolishness that ate at me was almost too much for me to accept. She’s only twenty-one years old, fourteen less than I, and being stood-up by a creature of such beauty and youthful ignorance was an unwelcome disaster. Calamity with nothing to grow on, nothing to see in the future, nothing more to come for me. Why I even requested her company is beyond me. We’ve been friends since my divorce, though I knew her prior, we’ve grown much closer over the past several months. She’s called me at least once a day for the past two months and stopped by once or twice a week to get high, watch baseball and bullshit. Some well-hidden weed, a television and stereo I acquired prior to our marriage was just about all I came away with, and the house, I can’t forget the house. I had to buy it twice now, but I’d rather be broke again then compromise my principles. Hopefully, Michelle and her nigger boyfriend will find a cozy spot in Hell after they’ve drank and snorted away my last dime. An empty house with two lawn chairs and four milk crates as a coffee table - this was it. As materialistic as my young friend was, she didn’t seem to mind as long as the bud burned. But our friendship, as far as I was concerned, was wearing and needed to escalate or die. So I asked her here. A date. A good ol’ All-American eat, drink and fuck date. That’s what it had to be because I didn’t give a damn about hearing her rap music or listening to her fish for compliments on her beauty. Yeah, you’re beautiful. Now what? Maybe it was her beauty or her smile or dark brown skin. Maybe it was just desperation. Of all the uncertainties, love was not one of them. The years between us were full of reasons for us not to be together, this night or ever.

Getting stood-up by a beautiful twenty-one year old with nothing to say but plenty to talk about does, strangely enough, have its rewards. She was waiting in my driveway when I got home and didn’t say much until we were inside. I just nodded my head as if I were the least bit interested in her excuses and whatever else she babbled on about, and, without her even having a clue, I could have whisked her away to my home under the moon and created a life there for both of us. She’s fluent in Spanish, too, another reason to take her with me. She even said yes when I asked her out. Obviously she meant ‘no’, but I guess at her age she hasn’t yet come to realize the beautiful enormity of truth. Fuck her. A new low, possibly an all-time low, has found me searching again for an end of this emptiness of what has been left behind, but her crying and apologizing would be completely accepted because I didn’t really care. I wanted to get laid and go back to my home where peace is an integral element of the landscape.

“It’s okay, really. Don’t worry, it’s not the first time I’ve been fucked-over.”
“Don’t say that, please. I told you I was scared.”
“I know. I’m just kidding. Here, smoke some more, you need it. I’ll get you some more wine.”
In the kitchen I can still smell her perfume from earlier when I hugged her and let her cry.
“You know, you never gave me that back rub you promised me last time I was over,” she said.
“No?”
“That’s right.”
Handing her the wine, “Had you not stood me up tonight I would’ve fucked you instead. That’d make your back feel better.”
“Marshall!”
“I know, I know. You’ve only done it once. I’m starting to feel the same way.”
“Is it that important to you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s part of life, possibly the best part. It’s the closest a man and woman can possibly be to one another. Me inside of you, the two of us physically connected as close as we could ever be, does that not interest you at all?”
“What about emotional closeness.”
“Oh, yeah… that’ll be perfect, right after my castration. And then I can concentrate solely on using my dick for carrying donuts. Besides, I’ve already been married.”
“That’s not what I meant. You know that.”
“I know several things, honey, and one of them is that you’re not the one to tell me what it is that I know.”
“Believe me, I’d never try such a thing.”
“Wise choice. Let’s keep this going.”
We smoked some more as one of Ron’s songs played on the stereo.
“You wanna see my new tattoo?”
“Another one?”
“Yeah. I told you I was going to.”
“Where is it?”
“On my butt.”
“Great. You’ve got one on your pussy…”
“Please don’t say that word. You know I hate it.”
“…and now one on your ass. What’s the point?”
“I like them. They mean something to me.”
“I’m sure.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“A lot. Possibly nothing. Never mind, let’s just see it.”
She stood and, facing away from me, pulled her black slacks down to her ankles, “Be gentle, it’s still a little sore.”
With both hands I lowered her white g-string panties. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s Hawaiian.”
“I can see that. What does it say?”
“Princess.”
“Princess, huh? I can’t believe I have your perfect ass staring me in the face and all I want to do is puke.”
“What?”
“You tattooed ‘Princess’ on your ass!”
“It’s been my nickname since I was a baby. How does it look?”
“It looks like the greatest ass on the planet with illegible ink sewn over the top.”
“Don’t be that way. I told you Princess has been my name since I was a baby.”
“Since?”
“What?”
“Never mind. Take off your panties.”
“What? No. Why?”
“Never mind.” Letting go of her panties. “Really, don’t do me the favor of such a glorious exhibition. I wouldn’t want to exhaust you.”
“You’re not exhausting me. I just don’t feel like taking off my panties right now.”
“Why not?”
“What do you mean, why not?”
“Exactly what I said. Why don’t you feel like it?”
“I just don’t. It’s a feeling. It’s the I don’t want to take off my panties feeling. Do you understand that?”
“Not a bit.”
“Tough.”
“Okay, I guess I understand what a feeling is, but feelings manifest through motivation. Agree?”
“I guess.”
“Well, what’s your motivation, honey?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?”
“Yeah! What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Why do you not want to stand in front of me without wearing underwear? Why is it that you refuse? What is it that’s causing you to say no? Why did you stand me up then wait for me to come home? Why are you unable to answer me goddammit?”
“You’re scaring me, Marshall. This is much too simple for such an argument.”
“I realize this and that’s exactly the reason why I persist. Answer me, please, dear.”
“I answered you. I told you the way I felt. Do you want me to say something for the sake of conversation or are you just trying to embarrass me? We’re different. Can’t you understand and accept that?”
“I can understand acceptance, it’s the lack of understanding that I can’t accept?”
“Don’t do this, Marshall.”
“What is that, honey?”
“Don’t take something so simple as taking off my panties and fill it up with so much complication. Don’t blow this out of proportion. Please do not do it, Marshall. Please don’t.” The desperation in her eyes intensified as I laughed to myself.
“Why are you laughing at me?”
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m just laughing. Don’t be so damned defensive, Princess. If you can’t answer, then you can’t answer.”
“Fine. You want me to pull my panties down? Fine.” She pulled her panties down to her ankles and began to sort of pose for me, somewhat restricted by the slacks and panties around her ankles, she stepped out of them leaving on only her high heeled shoes and small white blouse. She danced to Ron’s strum and it was a beautiful sight, exposed perfection swaying in my face, and the fucking tattoo.
“It must be something really terrible.”
“What must be terrible?”
“Your reason.”
“Maybe it is, Marsh.” Turning to face me, a gold colored lion’s face woven next to her neatly trimmed pubic hair.
“I love you.”
“Oh, I love you too, baby.” Taking my head with both her hands, bringing me closer to her. “I wouldn’t trade our friendship for anything.”
I grabbed her perfect ass with both hands and pulled her into my face. It tasted of virgin honey and she moaned, gripping me tighter and pulling me in for more pleasure.
“You wouldn’t trade our friendship for anything?”
“Nothing,” she said moaning. “Nothing.”
I spent the next ten seconds giving her what she had never before had and I made sure that she knew it.
“I would,” I said as I stood and I stepped toward the hallway that leads to my bedroom. “Put your pants on before you leave and don’t come back, ever.”

* * *

I’ve laid here in my bed and watched the shadows slide across the wall with every passing day. Max, my longhaired Tabby lies on his back, purring loudly as I rub his belly. It’s the only sound left in this house and at night it helps put me to sleep behind the booze. For so many years there was something moving, something making a noise, something about to happen, someone different coming by, anything that might carry or create a noise or a motion or an energy. It’s all gone now; nothing remains but the gummy stillness of the passing days, the brutal silent unknown that my life has found. At what point do I begin to change? Supposedly it’s immediate. The longer I can stand it the more strength I’ll gather from it, rendering me more prepared to take on the world as a single, solid, complete being.

As my completeness unfolds and falls perfectly into itself I have not tried to resist and my sanity has become questionable and at times, I’m almost certain, has taken a path of its own. Perpetual silence is now nothing more than a howl from the mouth of the devil and with each passing hour it swells louder and stronger and his hot breath burns me. It’s sharp and I feel the shrapnel of human separation blasting through me and bringing me to my knees. The sickness inside me churns and I shake from the cold as the silence gags me and forces me to spill my illness onto the floor of this numb, empty house.

It’s the morning time that I have met with the most difficulty. Her absence is as painful now as the aching sobriety into which I awaken. Each morning finds me asking should I fight or die? I want to fight because I always have, but it’s comforting knowing that the darkness will soon come and I can fade into my corner with the ice melting in my mouth and the darkness harboring me from the happiness and rhetoric and churning of everyone else’s life. When the music finally passes through me again I’ll be back to my real home where the cares are few and the gleaming moon and draping ivy and the cool, porous stone suck me in like evening rain.

And as I think of the poor souls alone at the bar, I’m beginning to feel a bizarre camaraderie between us, silently binding us together as we sit unattached, never knowing one another. But there is something beautiful about it all, something common between us, something relating us together. As I ponder the situation and see the loners on their barstools, I’m sensing an abstract fellowship between us. A sense of loss that was not mine or theirs or ours, but a collective, inexplicable great loss for those who chose not to show and instead went in pursuit of something that we could not offer. I think of how life never makes sense when it would be so easy for it to. Our lives? Puzzles designed by someone evil, purposely shipped with the key piece missing. I’m uncertain if any of us here will ever have that key piece.

Again I sit here, no longer waiting, just lounging in drunkenness and solitude, soaking in all Ron has to offer. Though one of them should be here with me, it’s not going to be. There’s a selfless comfort knowing that my loss was their gain. I look forward to waking in the morning knowing that I stood by the empty side of life and that my regrets are only tools for progress. This is what we all need, what we all quietly wish for, the knowledge, the wisdom, the character to endure the rising sun of tomorrow and all of its scorching honesty.

As the circle comes complete and what has gone up begins to descend, as nature makes her call upon me, I see that I am that which I have for so long wished not to be, a loner on a barstool looking for something, anything. Maybe they’re just people who tried to do the right thing, the things that their hearts told them was true and just. In their search for righteousness, as in my own, life has led them down this path. I find them as part of me now. I see us secretly knowing something together.

With everything gone I sit here at the bar basking in the limey slush and sandstone and the dripping ivy. I drink to victory and its beauty and look forward to spending more time at the colony. Tomorrow will be lovely. I’m counting on Rilke now, my guiding light in the darkness, and hoping that she won’t be waiting for me in the driveway again when I finally make it home.