The Hauntings of Hood Canal

All Hell Breaks Loose

The brief Indian summer hung around long enough to illuminate Beer and Bait like a stage as Annie entered; a stage flooded with light through windows so clean you couldn’t see them. On the Canal fishing boats swam through autumn light and a hump in the water moved lazily. Inside Beer and Bait, light reflected from mirrors and polished surfaces of piano and chairs. The joint, which has seen so much drama in forms of real hopes and real pain, now seemed a stage set for a surreal play.

At center stage sat the main hallucination. She was manicured and enameled, tough as old leather, fifty-going-on-thirty-five, who resembled a purple beetle, not a butterfly. Her purple dress swirled around an active little body. She wore a necklace that did not come from a dimestore. Her fingers tapped the bar, and were ornamented with fancy rings. No one, except Bertha and Annie, had ever seen anything close to the beetle-lady, at least not in Beer and Bait. Every soul in attendance pretended to ignore her, and every single soul paid strict attention.

In addition, things were about to get delicate, whether or not the beetle-lady strode center stage. No one could possibly guess how delicate.

At the end of the bar nearest the Canal, two gyppo loggers sat before beer glasses from which they occasionally sipped, there being no reason any sensible man would want a cop to see him guzzle. When Annie took a seat beside the two loggers, the atmosphere lightened at that end of the bar, grew chilly toward the middle, and confused at the other end where cop and tow truck kid sat near the door. Behind the bar, Bertha stood perplexed by mixed tenses; because Annie and loggers represented the past, the kid and the cop represented the present, and the beetle-lady presented a most alarming future.

“What’s happening?” Annie whispered to one of the loggers, the one with wide red suspenders.

“Some kinda pool tourney,” the logger whispered as he studied the front of Annie’s shirt.

“Up to the project,” the other logger whispered. This was the logger with the Kenworth belt buckle. “Looks like there might be bucks involved.” The logger glanced toward the cop. “A ‘course, with mister cop around, nobody’s talking straight!”

“I doubt our guys can do it,” Bertha told the beetle-lady. “They got a lot going on right now.” Bertha, standing behind her own bar, sounded defensive. Unbelievable. Bertha wore her starchiest shirt, her baggiest jeans, and her hair piled and braided the same as Annie’s. To those who love and fear her, Bertha seemed unreal.

The beetle-lady ignored Bertha. “We’ll make it a team affair. With prizes.” She looked at the loggers like a shopper poking a chicken to see if it is fresh. “Those two look adequate. We’ll need six more.” She turned to examine the cop and the kid. This time she looked like a consumer examining pork. “It’s a late afternoon, evening affair,” she said. “That makes four. We’ll need four more.”

The cop smiled and said nothing, having just heard such overwhelming b.s. his entire belief system temporarily went aground on rocks. Then his smile vanished.

The kid looked insulted, but financially interested. “Prizes?” he said. Then the kid, who proved a little less dense than expected, caught on. He pushed his lightly tinted sunglasses to his forehead, shook out the loose sleeves of his shirt, and fingered his bolo tie. “Tell me where and when,” he announced with authority. “I can furnish a team.” All of this while Bertha looked ready to scream.

“Step over here young man.” The woman pointed to a table. The kid sat. The beetle-lady sat. The two conversed in low tones. “Some spiders eat their mates,” Annie murmured, but no one understood what she meant.

Wordless, Bertha placed a lemonade before Annie. Bertha gave no sign of recognition or friendliness.

Annie caught on. She said not a word, but turned to the loggers. “You guys working north or south?” She listened to the bull and kept an eye on the far end of the bar. It was then that Chantrell entered, looking furtive, and took a chair at a table away from the bar. Chantrell’s eyes were wider than usual, and his nose was sorta liquid. Bertha gave a low moan, practically inaudible. The cop picked up on it. A look of charity crossed his features as he ignored the obvious.

Annie sat stricken with sudden worry. At the time Annie could not have known of Bertha’s isolation, or her uncertainty, or her fears about the beetle-lady. All Annie knew was that in other days, Chantrell, in stoned condition, would be kicked out the minute he opened the door. Annie, in a burst of absolute dismay, understood that Bertha had lost control of the bar.

Those socially deprived people who have little experience with bars will be hard put to understand how scary it is when a bartender loses control. Uncertainty causes men to pull change toward them, furtively check back pockets for billfolds, and turn sullen. The noise level increases. If a bladder contest is underway, the contest usually breaks as one guy gives up and heads for the can to pee. Of course, those who have little experience in bars probably do not know that bladder contests, as extensions of male pride, even exist.

When a bartender loses control, bravado steps forward among guys guilty of misdemeanors, in other words, everybody. That’s one reason for an increased noise level. Another reason arrives because if something truly stinky is about to happen, it will come without warning.

Bertha’s nearly inaudible moan was answered by a thoroughly audible sigh from Chantrell. He sprawled in a chair, arms and legs floppity as Raggedy Andy. He gazed at the ceiling. On the ceiling, a vision unseen by everyone except Chantrell, showed a huge party. Fishermen and loggers and girlfriends toasted Sugar Bear, while a pinky-orangey car sped across the sky towed by pigeons. Chantrell traded his sigh for a moan.

“The hammer did it,” he announced in the general direction of the loggers who paid not the least attention. “That hammer don’t want any credit.” Then Chantrell’s voice became secretive, coy. “That dead guy knows who gets the credit…”

A flurry. A flash of yellow as a twelve-ounce can of lemonade described a flat line between Annie’s throwing arm and Chantrell’s nose. No one, not even Annie, believed Annie could put one over the plate with that kind of accuracy. As lemonade splashed in one direction and a bloody nose spewed in the other, Chantrell went over backward; tipping slowly, almost glacially, arms widespread, eyes rolling toward heaven, feet gradually rising above shoulders as he backwardly crashed; all of this while a further flash of colors, blue jeans and plaid shirt, flew across the room. Annie landed on Chantrell as Chantrell landed on the floor, and Annie had hands around Chantrell’s throat intent on choking him into the graveyard.

Bertha came around the logger-end of the bar, while the cop, at the other end stood momentarily amazed. The cop, being only a traffic officer and thus largely unaware, had not the least chance of keeping up with Bertha’s bar fight experience.

“Back off.” Bertha grabbed Annie’s arm. “I got him.” Bertha sounded unbearably happy. The misery of the last week fled on the joyous occasion of regaining control of her bar. If Chantrell had not been so stoned and snotty and bloody she would have hugged him.

“Back off,” Bertha told the cop, who by now had arrived. The cop was not having a good day. He stood momentarily stunned, then further stunned as Annie dashed to the cue rack, pulled down a twenty-one ouncer, and came back wielding it as a club. The cop was aware that on the periphery two tough and experienced loggers sat completely intimidated. He may have been aware that the startled tow truck kid reminded himself to act manly; while the beetle-lady could not have been more pleased at the quality of help she believed she was hiring.

“That’s a house cue,” Bertha growled at Annie. “Twenty bucks if you bust it.” She took the cue from Annie, then patted Annie on the cheek. She pulled Chantrell to his feet, grabbed him by the ear, and marched.

The cop stood even more amazed. Instead of heading for the doorway, Bertha marched Chantrell to the rear of the room. To applause and snickers from the loggers, Bertha stood Chantrell in a corner. “Move one inch before I come to get you,” Bertha whispered, “and you’re the deadest man around.” The happiness in Bertha’s voice got through to Chantrell. He faced the corner while doing flashbacks of third grade. Something had gone terribly wrong with his plan, and he had no bicycle to discuss this with. His nose dripped blood on his shirt, the loggers laughed at him, and Chantrell was afraid to so much as moan.

The cop, wondering if he should bust Annie for assault, hesitated just long enough to save himself. The cop realized he looked at one black-haired Greek, one blond-haired Norwegian, and they both had their hair put up and were cat-spitting mad. No traffic officer was going to step into the middle of that. That was big city cop stuff.

Spatters of blood and a pool of lemonade soiled the immaculate floor of Beer and Bait. Bertha turned to Annie who stood breathless with anger. Annie looked ready to cast one of those spells that destroy junkies.

“Lay off,” Bertha told her. “If that guy bursts into flame it will be because I strike the match.” Bertha looked at the tipped-over chair, the spatters of blood leading from the scene to Chantrell. “You know where I keep the mop.” Bertha headed back to the bar, once more in full command.

The tow truck kid, torn between greed and lust, did himself credit and opted for lust. “I’ll give you a hand,” he told Annie.

“Stay seated, young man.” The beetle-lady now paid strict attention to the kid’s muscles and broad shoulders. “Are you familiar with common brawls?”

“That was a friendly brawl,” Bertha said to the beetle-lady. “Nothing here is common except customers who don’t know their place.”

A low whimper came from Chantrell. A logger chuckled. A second logger belched. Annie reluctantly headed for bucket, rags, and mop. “This is the absolute last time I ever, ever, ever pick up after you,” she spit in Chantrell’s direction. Her words, which seemed innocuous, were loaded with awful promise. No one who knows Annie’s witchery would give Chantrell an old dog’s chance in the city pound.

The cop took a lick of lemonade and looked at Bertha with the standard mixture of love and fear. No one quite understood what propelled the cop, but it was probably the desire to become a detective, settle down with Bertha, and breed small, blond cops. The poor man had to start somewhere, and solving a murder must have seemed like fine credentials.

“Talk continues about a murder.” The cop mused, but in a way calculated to impress Bertha. He certainly sounded sincere. “It’s almost like the road, itself, is a murderer… on the other hand…” The cop pretended he was not using the bar mirror to watch Chantrell and Annie.

“Don’t waste your time,” Bertha told him. “Around here a junkie’s word is zilch.” She smacked the bar with a bar rag and turned to the two loggers. “Thanks for the big help, gents.” The loggers, aware they were supposed to feel guilt-ridden, only felt confused as Bertha placed fresh beer before them. “On the house.” The loggers looked at each other, shrugged, clearly worried.

“We’ve recovered the bodies of all the drowned except two. One was lost from a top down sports car,” the cop said. “The other cars have been about the same except for one…” He looked at the tow truck kid “…that was a little odd.”

“More like weird.” The tow truck kid did not give a hang for solving murders. He was torn between pool arrangements and his concentration on Annie. The kid sat beside the beetle-lady, and the beetle-lady seemed absolutely consumed by admiration for Bertha.

“We run the plates,” the cop said. “The people who drowned have all been solid citizens. All of them have been losses to the community…” the cop paused long enough to let the bar empty of all sound except a tiny whimper from Chantrell, “except one. You’d think a missing persons would have been filed, but on that one dead man no one seems to care.” The cop stood, looked in Chantrell’s direction. Then he looked at Bertha. “I can take him off your hands. I’d like to have some conversation.”

Bertha glanced at the bar clock. “He’s still got a half hour of corner.”

“In that case,” the cop said, most innocently, “I’ll get back to the job.”

“I’ll meet you there,” the kid told the cop. “Ten minutes.” The kid talked to the cop like a partner, or like a guy with a sure-fire poker hand. He turned back to the beetle-lady.

“Ten minutes.” The cop stepped through the doorway into Indian summer. Silence held until the starter of the cop car whirred. It took only that long for a Canal story to form.

The story said the kid sassed the cop because he was now Captain Tow Truck Kid who, together with Surreal Beetle-Lady, organized international pool tournaments in Monaco which was outside the cop’s jurisdiction; pool tournaments worth tens of thousands.

And, the story added, Chantrell had tried to finger Sugar Bear for killing the dead guy. Annie leveled Chantrell with a lightning bolt hurled by sheer magic, and Chantrell was presently in flight to Canada; which would do no good because Chantrell was clearly headed for a cold and watery grave.

And the best part, the story said, was that Bertha had got past her case of the blues.

Bertha stood in the doorway, watched the cop car disappear, and turned to the beetle-lady. “…you want to do any more business,” she told the lady, “take it outside.” Bertha looked at the kid and decided he was too young and dumb to be trusted with private stuff. “You too,” she told the kid.

“I gotta git,” the kid said. “I got a bunch of stuff to do.”

“You’re in over your head,” Bertha told the beetle-lady. “How much dough can you afford to lose?”

The lady, still stricken with admiration for Bertha, strove to get past her plans and learn something. She failed. “Our gentlemen have taken care of themselves for many years. One supposes they can handle a contest.”

“They can’t handle hustlers,” Bertha said. “Believe it.” She pointed to the door. “Come back when you’re sane.” She looked at the loggers. “You deadbeats stay where you are.”

When the kid and lady stepped into sunlight Bertha turned back to the bar. To Annie she said, “Quit moppin’ and get over here.” To Chantrell she said, “C’mere.”

Chantrell cowered in the corner, snotty and sobbing. “Yard ’em,” Bertha told the loggers.

The loggers, glad of heart, crossed the room.

“If you blow snot on me,” one of them said in a quiet voice, “you lose both legs. I got a chainsaw in the truck.”

Chantrell cowered. He blubbered. Something had gone bad, bad wrong, and he couldn’t figure out why.

“And if you bleed on me,” the other logger said, “I feed your nuts to chipmunks.”

Chantrell, knowing something of loggers, understood that what he heard was true. He trudged slowly to the bar, head down, scared nearly straight.

“You shut up,” Bertha told Annie. “I’ll handle this.”

“Do it right,” Annie said, “or I will.”

Bertha leaned across the bar as Chantrell stood sniffling.

“Major screwup,” Bertha said. “What should we do with you?”

“I think maybe break his jaw,” the Kenworth logger said. “That keeps a guy quiet for a good, long time.”

“Not a bad idea,” the second logger said, “but there’s mister cop. If we mess this guy up too bad the cop comes looking.”

“You’re not worth jail time,” Bertha told Chantrell. “But you’re dangerous. So you’ve got a ride with the next guy who goes to Seattle. In Seattle you’re just another bum.”

Annie made movement to protest.

“He won’t last ten minutes,” Bertha told Annie. “He’s about done, anyway. Let him do it on city streets.”

She turned back to Chantrell. “You poor sap,” she said, “I don’t know why you had to do it, but don’t come back. If you come back you go in the Canal. That dead guy is down there. Just think of what that dead guy would do to you.”