Bricknose
It was like when Randy Johnson killed that dove during spring training. It came sailing out of left field just as Randy fired off his fastball, and a moment later, it exploded into a cloud of feathers. Just like in those old cartoons. Well, that’s what it was like this morning, except it was fur, not feathers. I climbed out of my truck. The radiator was hissing like a hognose snake, and smoke was pouring from the grill. Phil hit a black bear last fall, hit it square in the ass, he told me. The car was totaled, but the bear just loped off into the forest as if nothing happened.
I looked down the road, expecting to see a deer plastered on the blacktop with its tongue lolling out, but there was nothing there. I took out my phone and snapped some pictures. The hood was dented, the left headlight was smashed in, and the fender was peeled back like a sardine can. There was fur in the teeth of the grill and the cracks of the impact zone. The truck was still running, so I got back in and headed to the bar.
*
Renee—I got her name in case we get disconnected—wants to know if I have any kids. I tell her I have a daughter.
“Does she drive your truck?”
“Well, no, Renee, she’s a seventeen-year-old girl. She wouldn’t be caught dead in a ’91 Bricknose Ford. Anyway, I don’t see what that has to do with the accident.” Except I do. I know these insurance folks will do anything to deny a claim.
“I’m not sure the damage is consistent,” Renee says, “with a deer strike.”
A deer strike. Now I’m picturing a bunch of deer picketing outside the forest like in some Far Side comic. “Listen,” I tell Renee, “I can drive up to your office and you can pick the fur out of the grill yourself if you’d like.”
“Our office is in Arizona, and that’s an awfully long drive even without a broken radiator.” Renee pauses. “The photos you sent … I just can’t see a deer doing that kind of damage.”
“I guess in Arizona you don’t hit anything bigger than rattlesnakes and roadrunners, but a 12-pointer like the one I hit can easily weigh 250 pounds.”
“12-pointer?”
“The antlers, Renee. A buck with twelve tines on the antlers.”
“I thought you said you didn’t get a good look at it?”
“Not a good look, but enough of one.”
“Enough to count the antlers?”
“Yep.” I close my eyes. This is why people hate insurance companies.
“Did you get a picture of it? This 12-pointer?”
“Nope.”
“That’s unfortunate,” she says.
After I get off the phone, I wipe down the counter and hang some glasses above the bar. I spend the next hour like an extra in a movie, not doing anything other than trying to look busy. I keep thinking about the deer. As soon as Phil gets in, I’ll drive up to the woods and look for it. I don’t know why I didn’t make more of an effort this morning. Then I’ll send a picture off to Ms. Renee in Arizona and see what she thinks about that.
*
It’s around noon when the little redhead walks in. She’s wearing a Penn State sweatshirt two sizes too big. I’m guessing it’s her boyfriend’s. I remember those days. When a girl would be so crazy about you that she’d spend a whole week wearing one of your sweatshirts or borrow a T-shirt to sleep in.
“What’ll it be?”
“Vodka tonic,” she says, resting her tiny purse on her lap.
No one drinks a vodka tonic for the taste. This woman wants to get sloshed without picking up too many calories—probably needs to stay trim for Mr. Penn State.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you around,” I say, handing her the drink.
“I ain’t been around.” She takes a long slurp from the highball glass, the ice bumping up against her nose.
People who drink like that—they’re chasing a feeling. Or chasing it away. Anyway, she doesn’t seem in the mood for talking. When I first started out bartending, I would’ve made more of an effort—to get to know her, to be a sympathetic ear. That’s why I was hired in the first place. Because I’m a people person. At least I was a people person—until people ruined it.
“I’ll have another.”
“Sure thing,” I say. “There must have been a hole in the glass.”
The redhead purses her lips. It’s impossible to get a read on her—she keeps her sunglasses on like she’s playing in the World Series of Poker.
“You want to run a tab?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t wanna get myself in no more trouble.”
I hand her the drink and notice a gray-green smudge under her right eye, a nasty shiner not completely hidden by her sunglasses.
A couple came in once—this is not a dancing bar, but that didn’t stop them from stomping around arm in arm. The man would spin the woman out and draw her back like a little kid with a yo-yo, and the woman would fall into his arms, laughing. After all that dancing, they came over and perched at the bar. They drank and drank, and the woman got bigger and louder, and the man just sunk into himself. Then she said something—I didn’t catch what it was—and the man socked her in the jaw. She flew clean off the stool. I launched across the bar and grabbed the man by the throat. I’m not a violent man, but I could’ve easily squeezed the life out of him right there and then. The woman got up and stumbled over. She started clawing at my neck, calling me a bastard and telling me to leave him the hell alone. If Phil hadn’t pulled her off me, she might’ve scratched my eyes out. Later, Phil told me that the world is full of drowning people—the worst kind of people, because if you try to help them, all they do is pull you under with them.
The door swings open, and I’m hoping it’s Phil—I’ve gotta get out of here and look for that deer. But it isn’t Phil. It’s Steve. He sidles over to the bar and sits right next to the redhead. He squints at me. “You gonna sell me a beer?”
Steve is a regular, which makes him sound like an alcoholic, which is exactly what he is. He comes in and buys drinks with quarters and dimes he scrounged from God knows where. He starts out harmless enough, discussing the weather or the playoffs or the price of eggs. Around the third drink is when things usually take a turn. Steve starts jabbering about fluoride in the water, the black helicopters chasing him, and how he’s the reincarnation of someone called Trisma Jistus. This Trismegistus (that’s how it’s really spelled—Steve wrote it on a napkin one time), must have been one sloppy son of a bitch, because soon Steve will be falling all over himself trying to pick a fight. Then I have to take Steve by the scruff of the neck and throw him out in the alley.
“You gonna sell me a beer?” Steve drawls it like a dare. I pour a draft and slide it over to him. I expect Steve to start counting out his change, but he pulls a checkbook out of his coat pocket.
“Can I get cash back?” Steve asks, handing me the check.
“I guess we’ll find out,” I tell him.
“Thirty bucks.”
I run the check, and Contact Issuer pops up on my screen. “Check’s no good, Steve.”
“Try twenty-five.”
I run the check again, and it’s declined. “Nope.”
“Twenty?”
I run the check a third time. Declined. The redhead starts fiddling with her purse.
“Fifteen?” Steve asks.
“Look,” I say, “I’ll run this goddamn check one last time, and then we’re done, okay?” I run the check. “No good.”
“I could …” The redhead opens her purse. “It’s no trouble.”
I place my hand on hers, she looks up at me, and I shake my head. She probably thinks I’m one heartless bastard, but the first rule of bartending is that you don’t feed the strays.
“Hang on, hang on,” Steve mumbles. “I’ve got another.” Steve digs into his coat pocket and brings out another checkbook. How many damn checkbooks does he have stuffed down there? “This one’ll work,” he promises. “I got to write it out.” Steve writes out the check and hands it to me.
I glance at it, and it depresses the hell out of me. He has this elegant cursive handwriting. I don’t know why that makes me feel so down. I guess because I realize that Steve really cared about something once and worked hard to be good at it—even if it was just his handwriting. The check goes through, the cash register dings, and I hand Steve four five-dollar bills and his receipt. The receipt’s about four feet long because of all those declined transactions.
“Another beer and one of whatever the little lady’s having,” Steve says.
“I’m fine.” The redhead sighs.
“I know you are.” Steve grins. “That’s why you should drink with me.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” she insists, but we both know she could, so I mix another vodka tonic and hand it to her.
“Crazy weather we’ve been having,” Steve says to her. “I’m Steve, by the way.”
*
Steve and the redhead are hitting it off. He’s even managed to keep the conversation mostly normal. He hasn’t mentioned any false flag operations or even Trisma Jistus. Although he is talking about the nature of time. He’s telling her that time is both the fourth dimension and an illusion. The redhead is nodding along as Steve tells her that everything that has happened and everything that will happen is happening right now. She opens her mouth, and I think she’s about to say something profound, but she just tells Steve that she’s busting for a piss. She heads to the ladies’ room, and Steve calls out after her something stupid like “I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave.” That’s all the encouragement she needed—now she’s really swinging her ass.
Holy shit, I think, Steve’s gonna get lucky! But as soon as the little redhead is out of sight, Steve is halfway out the front door with that long receipt swinging from his back pocket like a tail.
The redhead returns, all smiles, and that big baggy sweatshirt is now tied around her waist. “Where’s Steve?” she asks.
“I guess he left.”
Her smile fades. “Steve left?”
“About a minute ago. Look, you’re better off—”
“My purse!” She’s giving herself a pat-down, checking all her pockets. She even removes her sunglasses for some reason. “I had it a minute ago.” She’s all wild-eyed and wailing, “Steve! Steve! Steve!” as she stumbles toward the front door and almost collides with Phil, who’s just coming in.
“Who the hell was that?” Phil asks me.
“Oh,” I say, “just another one of your drowning people.”
“Heard you hit a deer.”
“Yep, now I gotta go find it. For the insurance.”
Phil nods. “Did I tell you about the time I hit that black bear?”
“Hit it square in the ass.”
“That’s right. You sure it wasn’t a bear?”
“Might’ve been. I didn’t get a real good look at it.”
Mini-interview with K.P. Taylor
HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)?
KPT: Receiving my first acceptance from Gargoyle five years ago made me feel validated as a writer, and having stories of various genres published in print and online (and even recorded for a podcast) since then has given me inspiration to keep experimenting and creating.
HFR: What are you reading?
KPT: A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. I haven’t read anything that’s made me laugh out loud this much in a long time.
HFR: Can you tell us what prompted “Bricknose”?
KPT: I was in the midst of reading a collection of short stories by Larry Brown when a coworker regaled me with his tale of hitting a deer, and the two experiences fused into “Bricknose” in my brain.
HFR: What’s next? What are you working on?
KPT: I’m trying my hand at writing an episodic novelette while finishing up two short stories and a flash piece and being badgered by my wife to complete my long-term in-progress graphic novel and an illustrated children’s book.
HFR: Take the floor. Be political. Be fanatical. Be anything. What do you want to share?
KPT: Please vote because I can’t.
Born and raised in South Africa, K.P. Taylor came to the US at 29 to work at an amusement park for the summer and never left. His work has appeared in Identity Theory, Gargoyle, Maudlin House, Roanoke Review, and others. Find out more at kptaylorstories.com.
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