Episode 30 ? Misery Loves Company— The holiday season loomed around the Cantina like a priest standing outside a bar hinting at the evil doings inside. Riders and dock workers were consumed by holiday efforts, family, gift giving and nagging wives. Bandit didn’t mind. He enjoyed the break from the hectic crowds to clean and detail the Cantina, but a few single and depressed customers always kept the lights on.
Clay returned on his late ’80s customized Softail on a regular basis. The bike was his modified and fading home. His open belt drive was frayed, the black wrinkle chipped and the polished aluminum gray and nicked. His divorce had hit home like bomb down the stack of a destroyer. He didn’t see it coming. He had fooled around on his wife on a regular basis for the last 10 years, complaining that she wasn’t for him. When she pulled the plug, he quickly discovered how dependent he was on her and the guilt stormed to the surface. The depression poured over him like a heavy blanket of chain-mail over a midget. He could hardly get out of bed in the morning. He was consumed with anxiety. He had never experienced a mental melt-down. He didn’t know whether to stay drunk all the time, run, do drugs or shoot himself. Nothing made sense and he had no control over what he felt. After last week’s conversation with Mandy, the Cantina was becoming a regular sanctuary from the pain. She gave the impression of a vast male understanding.
He rolled up in front and parked in the bike-only zone then roamed inside through the massive rustic oak doors. Mandy was still behind the bar, but about to close out.
“You’re late,” Mandy said in her giggly voice. She sensed his pain. Watching a biker snivel was against the code of the west, but she was a softy and sorta attracted to his rough handsome exterior. “Are you feeling better?”
“I will after a couple of doubles,” Clay said unable to even look around at the only other patron in the bar. He needed a drink like a heroin addict needs a fix after a week on the run. He felt as though his joints would shear off and he’d crumble to the floor. He almost shook as he pulled the bar stool out and sat, but that didn’t appease the pain. He was too nervous to sit.
“Gold Cadillac?” Mandy asked, her flaming auburn hair warming the room with it’s rich hues. She wanted to hold him and take the pain away.
“Just a straight double shot of Gold,” Clay said standing again.
“Relax,” Mandy said her bright eyes flickering and reflecting the Cantina Christmas tree lights.
“I can’t,” Clay said and his expression was one of a doomed man on death row with less that 24 hours to live. Mandy could have been his fix, if he could see the way she looked at him.
Bandit put up a massive tree each year and patrons brought ornaments, mostly motorcycle oriented. Each year it was covered with more glistening shit. It had no theme, just a myriad of colored ornaments, lights and tinsel. He did it for the brothers and rare sisters who needed the Christmas spirit in their lonely lives. Riders and dock worker brought presents which he gave to local charities.
Clay’s facial features were drawn and pale. He rode in the rain to the Cantina just to get out of a house packed full of sorrowful memories and raging guilt. Mandy pushed the thick beveled shot glass at Clay and disappeared to the other side of the bar to finish cleaning up before she left. Clay downed the double in direct unexpected fashion. He needed something to squash his jangled nerves and he couldn’t wait while sipping at the dense golden liquid. “Mandy,” Clay said wiping his bearded mouth with the back of his wet sleeve. “Give me another one, quick.”
She heard him but didn’t respond immediately. She didn’t want to leave Nyla with a slobbering basket case. She wiped down the bar and gradually moved back in Clay’s direction.
The Cantina was warm but the windows reflected thick gray storm clouds that hung outside like warnings of the future preventing folks from leaving their comfortable homes to come to the Cantina. The battleship gray ominous surroundings added something strange to the usual sunlit California coastline. Most of the time the coast didn’t contain the chilly winter wonderland atmospheres that haunts much of the rest of the country. The Cantina was dark for a late afternoon and sparkled with Christmas decorations, flickering red candles on the tables and glitter. It had all the trappings of a big farm family living room in Mexico.
Clay was less than observant of the radiant nature of the holidays. He was consumed with dread until the Tequila warmed his quaking guts. He finally calmed enough to sit down. Mandy poured him another double. “Have you seen anyone?” she said as she pushed the glass tentatively toward the shrunken man awash in his own emotions. She retrieved the empty as if he might throw it at someone.
Clay’s blue eyes stared at the glass blindly until he realized that she was talking to him. “What do you mean?” Clay said lifting his gaze slowly as if it was tied to the bar top.
“Are to talking to anyone, another girl, a doctor?” she said, leaning close to the bar, but he didn’t notice the warm curve of her breasts.
“No,” Clays said and downed the double in one gulp.
“You need to,” Mandy said.
“Why,” Clay snapped spraying Tequila across the bar, “It’s all my fuckin’ fault.” His fist pounded the thick bar as if he wished he was hitting himself.
“I’ll listen, when you need to talk,” Mandy said moving away.
Clay ground his teeth. Both hands clutched the glass as if he was holding onto a life-saving railing.
“Look,” Mandy said to Clay as Nyla bounced in the Cantina door swaying in her usual upbeat sexy manner. “I’ve got to go, but remember, millions are suffering the blues like you. You’re not alone. Talk to people.”
Clay looked up slightly then withdrew to the empty glass. The Tequila was taking its toll. The nervousness was abating, but his thoughts were only filled with relationship doom. He looked down at his fingernails which he started biting again and the cigarette stains on his index right index finger. He quit smoking just before he got married 15 years ago and was already back to a pack a day and climbing. He wrenched the pack out of his flannel shirt. He popped a smoke free and tugged it out of the pack with his dry cracked lips. He dug the stainless Zippo out of his Levis and unable to hold it in his quivering grasp dropped it onto the concrete deck. He slipped off the stool and crouched near the painted pavement to retrieve the lighter. Every movement was an effort he almost hoped would be his last.
At one time over a decade ago, he could snap open and light a Zippo with the best of them. Not now. His eyes felt dry and unfocused as he puffed lifelessly on the butt.
Nyla bounced around the bar as if she was a kid with her first ticket to Disneyland. She was unbelievably exuberant until she met Mandy at the back corner of the bar. Mandy pointed out Clay and reminded her of the locker room banter they had after Clay first came into the bar. Nyla had no compassion for cheating bastards. She had been the brunt of unfaithful men and nearly shifted whole heartedly to doing women, except for Bandit. As she gazed at Mandy’s jiggling cleavage she was reminded why. She was tall and slender as she stared longingly at Mandy’s opulent cleavage. As she listened to his nasty exploits her light-hearted step became brass mallets against the bar runners. Mandy recognized her demeanor shift.
“Go easy on him,” Mandy pleaded.
Nyla looked at Mandy’s youthful features, at her milky skin, then leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. But the kiss didn’t end there. She slid her hand onto Mandy’s waist and the other cupped the curve of her back just above her ass. Nyla pulled herself close to Mandy’s curvy side and her hot breath reached Mandy’s soft ear. “The bastard must pay,” she whispered and blew into Mandy’s ear canal.
Mandy quivered. There was only one other patron in the bar during this dead time. She could feel Nyla’s hand creep up her taught stomach to the curve of her breast. No one ever tantalized her like Nyla could. As her small delicate feet touched down on the bar mat Nyla slipped away and disappeared into the galley and deeper into locker room where she stashed her purse and jacket. She uncovered her dark brunette hair and brushed it out, then tied it into a ponytail. She pulled on her frilly Mexican style blouse and looked down are her own taught nipples at the point of large slopping breasts, sans a bra. Mandy did that to her. She wished she could shut the Cantina down for just an hour.
She strode out into the saloon section of the Cantina and looked at the festive holiday ambiance. It felt good, warm and holiday comforting, but she was on a mission. Mandy was fearful in a lighthearted way of Nyla’s strong personality matched against the frailty of Clay’s frazzled nerves. Nyla was the female leader of the crew. She had an abject bubbly personality full of wild spontaneity, but behind it was concrete intelligence and emotional strength. She was more goal oriented and responsible than the other girls and her abilities gave the other girls confidence.
Nyla approached the corner of the bar and Mandy’s ass that stuck out at her enticingly. Mandy had cleaned all the glasses and hung them above. The booze island in the center of the 360-degree oblong bar was stocked and neat. She looked past Mandy’s mane of auburn hair to the customer bent over the bar. A biker with long thick sandy blond hair tied in a ponytail. His long face drooping toward the wooded surface of the bar like melting plastic too close to a fire.
Nyla had the soft face of an angel, but the knowing sharp blue eyes of a cop. “Excuse me,” she said to Mandy who was talking to Clay. Mandy stood up straight to her 5’2″ height and turned to Nyla. “I’ll take over now,” Nyla said.”
Mandy turned to face her and Nyla swept the bountiful redhead into her arms bending her at the waist as a man would at the end of a Tango. She kissed her deeply her tongue slithered past her lips to find the switch to launch her lust. At first Mandy pushed against Nyla’s taught arms, but then gave in. What the hell, she wanted another evening with… But she was as work? What if Marko strolled into the bar, what about the other delirious patron? What did it matter? Nyla felt good, real good in a lustful, notorious sense, like she was doing something terribly wrong, but…
She could feel every curve of Nyla’s boobs as they stood up in unison. Then like the last bite of a delicious cake being taken away abruptly, Nyla broke the kiss. She spun the redhead and patted her ass. “Good to see you, baby. I’ll take over from here,” Nyla said and watch longingly as Mandy’s cute ass jiggled around the corner.
“God, I want her,” Nyla said looking at Clay whose sad eyes were scrunched under a wrinkled forehead as if he had been startled by a slap.
“So how may broads did you fuck while you were married?” Nyla asked abruptly.
Clay didn’t respond, but his face changed as if he was slapped again and was beginning to awake from a terrible dream.
“So your wife was a real bitch?” Nyla said sorta moving away from Clay down the bar. as if she had conversations like this daily.
“My wife was not a bitch,” He said as if he felt had to respond, but didn’t know what to say.
“Mandy tells me that your ol’lady is the bread-winner in the family and does alright,” Nyla commented. Before waiting for a response she added, “must have been a real bitch to fuck around with all those women.”
Something was stirring in Clay that he hadn’t sensed in months, passion and anger. He was getting pissed. “What a minute,” he snapped. He had a cigarette half out of the pack but set it down.
“You want another drink, poor boy?” Nyla asked.
“Ahh,” Clay said. Her question shifted his thinking back to his depression. “Ahh, no. Look, you’ve got it all wrong.”
“Do I?” Nyla said. “Where’d you get the money for the drinks?”
“Now wait just a fuckin’ minute,” Clay snapped, stood up and pushed his stool back, as if he was a gunfighter and it was time to draw. “I drove truck for 12 years.”
“So,” Nyla said ignoring his twitching muscles and testosterone induce stance. “What have you done for the last five?”
“She didn’t want me to work,” he recoiled.
“Oh, she paid you to fuck around?” Nyla said.
Clay freaked, grabbed the heavy crystal shaped double glass and threw it across the bar. Nyla ducked, and the empty glass soared across the island to the other side of the bar shattering against one of the stainless steel sinks. The only other patron in the bar flinched.
“Hey motherfucker,” Charlie shouted. He was a homeless dock worker on strike and alone. He was stocky rotund with dark eyes. Marko heard the calamity from his office and ran inside as Charlie began to round the bar in Clay’s direction. Marko, always on security alert, headed off the patron. He had an uncanny ability to sensed the source of a problem. He steered Charlie back to his stool, “I’ll take care of it,” he said. “You okay, babe?” he said to Nyla.
“She’s bullshit,” Clay snapped.
“And you’re a saint?” Nyla said heading to the area scattered with broken glass.
Clay was so mad he wanted to crawl over the bar top and go after her, but Marko headed him off. “Time to go for a ride, pal,” he said turning Clay around away from eye contact with Nyla. “Pull yourself together. She’s just fuckin’ with you.” Marko said.
Marko glanced over at Nyla and they shared a knowing gaze. He led Clay out the door where they walked to the bike only parking next to the front door and looked out over the parking lot toward the Main Channel of the Harbor.
“So you’re pissed?” Marko asked.
“She has no business… if she was a dude…” Clay began.
“Think about it, Pal,” Marko said and put his hand on Clay’s shoulder. “Tomorrow’s another day. The New Year is coming, learn from your mistakes and move on.”
“But…,” Clay tried to interrupt.
“Or don’t come back.” Marko said through his salt and pepper goatee. His sharp blue/gray eyes cut into Clay’s beaten mentality like a jack-knife. Marko left the man to his thoughts and turned back toward the Cantina.
