Chapter 7

 

All that talk about Sparkie’s Lounge had gotten me in the mood for Sparkie’s Lounge. I hadn’t been to Sparkie’s lately. In fact, it had been at least a decade since my last visit. Sometimes you just have to be in the right mood for a place. While I couldn’t exactly name the mood I was in, a moldy, old buffalo head sounded like the perfect company. I certainly knew I wasn’t up for line dancing with Evelyn at the VFW, and another night in front of the TV with a bowl of yogurt and Bunky might send me to a very dark place. Besides, with any luck at all, Sparkie still made the greatest meatball hoagie sandwich around.

 

Things at Sparkie’s Lounge weren’t exactly as I had remembered them. For starters, Sparkie had apparently gone to the Big Lounge in the Sky about ten years back, and he must have taken the meatball hoagies with him, because they were nowhere to be found on the menu. The waitress didn’t even know what a hoagie was.

Even more disappointing, the buffalo had been replaced by a TV which was tuned to a rehash of a rehash of the O. J. Simpson saga. In fact, the only original touch left was the ashtrays fashioned after toilet seats which read, “Put Your Butt Here.”

“I’ll have a Tequila Sunrise.”

“Excuse me?” the waitress said.

I didn’t like her tone of voice. It fell somewhere between annoyed and really annoyed.

“Forget it.” I ordered a double cheeseburger with everything, fries and a Little Kings Ale and tried not to feel too sorry for myself.

 

 After dinner, I took a drive. It was a beautiful summer evening so I opted for a spin past all my old haunts. Fogerty High School, the Rite Now Beer Drive-Thru, the Gold Star Chili Parlor, the town dump. Then I hit the back roads.

Cruising down memory lane was pleasing enough in a distracting sort of way, but I knew what would make it more pleasant–a Nat Sherman Hobart. I fished one out of the glove compartment.

I’d taken to smoking cigars lately, Nat Sherman Hobarts, to be specific. Maybe it was the fad. Maybe it was that Mad Ted, an avid cigar man, had finally managed to turn me on to the right cigar. Frankly, I don’t know what took me so long.

Over the years Ted had taken me down some ugly paths, but he’d rarely steered me wrong in the area of life’s worthwhile pursuits. Thanks to him, I’d found the world of fine wine, discovered Charles Portis novels and rediscovered the joy of Batman reruns.

 

I bit the end off the Nat Sherman and lit it with a wooden match. I thought about Ted and what a sport he was to take over the restaurant while I made the trip to Fogerty. I was fortunate to have a partner like Ted Weber who not only had a decent head for business, but was a gracious host when pressed and one of the best cooks around. Mad Ted was also one of the few people in my life who’d never let me down and that counted for a lot in my book.

It was hard to believe that Ted could be all of this and still be an utter whack job. Case in point: recently, Ted and his now ex-girlfriend had a fight and did some nasty name-calling as they left the restaurant. She locked Ted out of her Camaro and Ted didn’t take rejection all that well. Hell, who did? Ted jumped on the front of her car, clung to the hood rim and succeeded in staying on board from Gatlinburg to Pigeon Forge, a winding eight-mile trip. She only managed to dump him by nearly flipping her car in the lot at Food City.

I was sorry I hadn’t seen it firsthand. The clerks at Food City were still talking about it.

 

In the twilight, the fragrant, woodsy shadows of rural Fogerty ambled past me like sleepy buffalo. I was hoping that Sparkie’s buffalo was out there somewhere with them, grazing peacefully under the half-moon.

I puffed my cigar and pondered the thought that, although it wouldn’t be great for business, it would be fun to watch Ted do his Jell-O trick for Dan and Patsy Dandrich.

 

Lately, no matter what the rock tumbler of my mind was tossing around, it always seemed to come back to the same place. Nancy Merit—and that evening, as I cruised the dusky highways and byways of Fogerty, was no exception.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t replaying the recent goodtime romps at my place with movies, beer and popcorn and bedtime. At the present Nancy was still amused and charmed at the large irony of a double-wide romance. But she made jokes that, frankly, I didn’t think were all that funny. I’d grown attached to the trailer. I told Nancy she ought to consider doing a book on double-wide decor.

I suspected there was a distinct possibility that the irony appeal might wane over time. I wondered if this would happen before I got sick of Nancy’s movie choices. A Room with a View almost killed me. It’s her all-time favorite.

 

But I told myself I’d have to ponder all this some time later because right now it was time to wrangle with the Ugly Questions. They’d come rap, rap, rapping, and God knows why, but I’d cracked the door and let them come slithering in.

The most pressing question mark was also the most obvious one. To what good end could this relationship with Nancy Merit come? After all, Nancy was ten years my senior, married, obsessive-compulsive, a media personality hell-bent on building one mighty Nancy Merit empire. It wasn’t hard to see that none of this had much to do with me.

Certainly this had its advantages. I’d been fairly content as the happy-go-lucky semi-loner for quite a while now. I’d dated off and on, here and there, Democrats and Republicans, but nothing serious. At this stage of the game I was beginning to wonder if serious was even in my vocabulary anymore where relationships were concerned.

Now, along with a bunch of other feelings that I wasn’t crazy about, I was uneasy because I certainly didn’t want this frolicking with Nancy Merit to lead to a place where it’s no fun to be alone and in love.