banshees. Life is too short. Stumbling over the man behind me, I managed to elbow my way back outside. A few feet farther up the street was another door, still part of the Silver Spur, but this entrance opened into the bar. Saloon, the sign said. It was noisy inside, noisy and crowded, but it was my kind of place. There were no kids within hearing distance. Not a one.
Counselors at Ironwood Ranch had issued all kinds of dire warnings and predictions about what would happen to clients foolhardy enough to attempt returning to the bar scene. Bars were, to quote Burton Joe, "bad medicine," and those who went back were "tempting fate." If drunks wanted to recover, if they wanted to lead lives of upstanding sobriety, they needed to change their ways, their habits, and their friends in order to find other things to do with their time besides drink.
But I was no longer a client at Ironwood Ranch. Calvin Crenshaw had thrown me out. Tempting fate or not, I wanted a place where I could eat in peace without some hyperactive kid spilling a glass of Coke down the back of my neck or dropping a ketchup-laden French fry on my sleeve. The hell with Burton Joe. I pushed open the swinging door and went inside.
At first the place seemed almost as full as the restaurant had been, but then two people got up and left. I set off through the crush, aiming at one of the two empty stools at the far end of the polished mahogany bar. I jostled my way through the crowd of happy imbibers and reached one of the two stools just as a middle-aged man in a natty three-piece suit claimed the other.
"This seat taken?" I asked.
"No. Help yourself."
When the bartender came by, I ordered a hamburger and a glass of tonic with a twist. I might have returned my backside to the familiar world of barstools, but, Burton Joe aside, that didn't mean I had fallen off the wagon.
I sat there fingering my drink, looking around the bar, and feeling a little out of place. It was as though I had been away from bars and drinking for a long time, although in actual fact it had only been just shy of a month. I glanced at the man next to me. Sitting there among Wickenburg's casually dressed tourists and cowboy-type locals, he looked ill at ease in his citified gray suit and dandified paisley tie. Meanwhile, I felt as though the indelible aura of Ironwood Ranch still clung to my body. I couldn't help wondering if it showed, like some kind of religious stigmata.
"Where are you from?" I asked, turning to the man seated next to me and thinking that a little friendly conversation might make both of us feel less uncomfortable.
"California," he answered, spinning a newly filled beer glass around and around between the palms of his hands while he stared deep into its depths. I recognized the gesture as a drinking man's version of examining tea leaves.
"Get stuck by the flood?"
He shook his head and smiled ruefully. "If you can believe it, right here in Wickenburg is where I wanted to be. It really does seem like the end of the earth. I drove over from the coast this afternoon, planning to surprise my wife and kids, but they're not in their rooms, so I guess the joke's on me. I left a note saying that I'd wait here until they got back."
There was a hint of marital disharmony in his answer, and I was happy he spared me the gory details. Friendly conversation I could handle. Shoulder crying, no way.
My hamburger came. I doctored it with liberal doses of mustard and ketchup and ordered another tonic with another twist. The noise level in the room went up a notch as still another group of revelers—locals or stranded tourists, I couldn't tell which—crowded into the already packed bar.
"Do you have floods like this often?" the guy in the suit asked, erroneously assuming I was on my home turf.
I started to tell him that I wasn't from Wickenburg any more than he was, but that would have necessitated explaining where I was from and what I was doing there.
"They're calling it a
Counselors at Ironwood Ranch had issued all kinds of dire warnings and predictions about what would happen to clients foolhardy enough to attempt returning to the bar scene. Bars were, to quote Burton Joe, "bad medicine," and those who went back were "tempting fate." If drunks wanted to recover, if they wanted to lead lives of upstanding sobriety, they needed to change their ways, their habits, and their friends in order to find other things to do with their time besides drink.
But I was no longer a client at Ironwood Ranch. Calvin Crenshaw had thrown me out. Tempting fate or not, I wanted a place where I could eat in peace without some hyperactive kid spilling a glass of Coke down the back of my neck or dropping a ketchup-laden French fry on my sleeve. The hell with Burton Joe. I pushed open the swinging door and went inside.
At first the place seemed almost as full as the restaurant had been, but then two people got up and left. I set off through the crush, aiming at one of the two empty stools at the far end of the polished mahogany bar. I jostled my way through the crowd of happy imbibers and reached one of the two stools just as a middle-aged man in a natty three-piece suit claimed the other.
"This seat taken?" I asked.
"No. Help yourself."
When the bartender came by, I ordered a hamburger and a glass of tonic with a twist. I might have returned my backside to the familiar world of barstools, but, Burton Joe aside, that didn't mean I had fallen off the wagon.
I sat there fingering my drink, looking around the bar, and feeling a little out of place. It was as though I had been away from bars and drinking for a long time, although in actual fact it had only been just shy of a month. I glanced at the man next to me. Sitting there among Wickenburg's casually dressed tourists and cowboy-type locals, he looked ill at ease in his citified gray suit and dandified paisley tie. Meanwhile, I felt as though the indelible aura of Ironwood Ranch still clung to my body. I couldn't help wondering if it showed, like some kind of religious stigmata.
"Where are you from?" I asked, turning to the man seated next to me and thinking that a little friendly conversation might make both of us feel less uncomfortable.
"California," he answered, spinning a newly filled beer glass around and around between the palms of his hands while he stared deep into its depths. I recognized the gesture as a drinking man's version of examining tea leaves.
"Get stuck by the flood?"
He shook his head and smiled ruefully. "If you can believe it, right here in Wickenburg is where I wanted to be. It really does seem like the end of the earth. I drove over from the coast this afternoon, planning to surprise my wife and kids, but they're not in their rooms, so I guess the joke's on me. I left a note saying that I'd wait here until they got back."
There was a hint of marital disharmony in his answer, and I was happy he spared me the gory details. Friendly conversation I could handle. Shoulder crying, no way.
My hamburger came. I doctored it with liberal doses of mustard and ketchup and ordered another tonic with another twist. The noise level in the room went up a notch as still another group of revelers—locals or stranded tourists, I couldn't tell which—crowded into the already packed bar.
"Do you have floods like this often?" the guy in the suit asked, erroneously assuming I was on my home turf.
I started to tell him that I wasn't from Wickenburg any more than he was, but that would have necessitated explaining where I was from and what I was doing there.
"They're calling it a
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