Mornings in Two Pan Read online

  Jiggs offered the handle. As soon as Old Man Tower grabbed it, he swung wildly at the vines. “Big dink of a stump,” he rasped. “ ’Round here somewhere.”

  “I’ll do it. I’ll do it!” When Jiggs had cleared vines from a stump, the old proprietor sat and rolled his hand, signaling Get on with it.

  Jiggs sprayed nuts and bolts and banged on them, letting the oil get into threads. “Do you remember any of the Woolseys, sir?”

  “You related to Ox Woolsey?”

  “I am. He’s my dad.”

  “He’s a sonovabitch.” With two fingers the old guy rubbed the white buildup from the corners of his mouth, and then pointed to a toilet leaning against a pile of dented fenders. “Check the tank.”

  Jiggs tilted the lid off the porcelain top and pulled out a bottle of clear liquid he was sure was moonshine. “This?”

  The old man open and closed his fingers, signaling, Gimme. He took a drink then offered the bottle.

  “No thanks. I gotta work.” Jiggs looked upward, checking the sunlight filtering through the pines. He could tell this was going to be one of those long afternoons. Letting out a sigh, he took the bottle and slugged a drink. His throat turned to fire as “Oh…geez,” croaked out.

  The old man laughed, rocking back and forth. “You’re not the lucky Woolsey. Bruno was.” He took the bottle and tipped it to his lips again.

  Jiggs’ throat flamed once more from simply watching the man take a swig. He declined the bottle when offered this time. The alcohol loosened the old fossil’s jaw muscles. His sentences became longer, his hand gestures livelier, and his cussing more colorful.

  “Two things I heard ’bout your great-granddiddy.”

  Jiggs stopped trying to torque a bolt and looked at him.

  “One…Bruno Woolsey was the luckiest bastard in the Oregon Territory.”

  “My great-grandad?” Jiggs’ voice cracked as it limped its way out of his burning throat.

  “Prussian army used to wear those damned hobnail boots. Big-ass, square-headed nails stickin’ outta the soles. You seen ’em?”

  Jiggs shook his head and went back to work. This is how it went with old nutcases. Their mouths worked while they wandered the lost rooms of their minds.

  “I got a pair ’round here. Frightful bastards. You piss off one of them German officers, they’d scrape those boots down your shin. Peel off a quarter inch of hide. Sonsabitches. You could tell if a man was in the German army by his bloody legs.” He cursed several more times, finally noticing Jiggs working in the knotter box.

  “ ’Cept Bruno. Yer great-grandiddy hid on a ship. The nump sailed away.”

  Jiggs looked at him. “He was a stowaway?”

  “The sailors went into the coal room and came out screaming. There was Bruno, head-to-toe, black with coal dust and only his eyes showin’. Most other ships woulda locked ’im in chains and sent his ass back, but that ship was bound for America. They patted him on the back, cleaned him up, and gave him small jobs to do. Lucky little shit.”

  Jiggs gave the old man a skeptical look and grabbed a mallet from the box.

  “Hell, yes. That’s the story he told my grandiddy.” He nodded so hard, he clutched the stump to keep from falling off. “ ’Course, when he got here, without papers and all, he found out he’d been pegged to join a New York Regiment to fight the Rebs.”

  “Must’ve been around 1860,” Jiggs said.

  “ ’Spect so. He was just a pup. Fifteen or thereabouts. Cannon fodder. He didn’t fight.” The old man grinned. “Slipped off again, by damn. Joined a buncha pilgrims and drummers on the Oregon Trail. I guess he had quite a time of it. My great-granpap did too. It’s prob’ly lies. Young men like to blow themselfs up big with tales. Never a problem for me. But it was true for Bruno. Seemed ever’thing he touched turned…well, it didn’t turn to shit like it does for the rest of us.” He took a drink and fell silent.

  Jiggs let the quiet play out for a while. He’d gotten one nut loose and tapped on the other, trying to jar it without breaking it off. “So if Bruno told stories to your great-grandad, he must’ve made it to Oregon.”

  “What? Oh yuh. Fell in with some Irishman. You know what bogglers they are. I got some Irish blood. They can be drinkers, but that never was a problem for me. ’Course, none of my kin seined more than a t’baccy sack of coarse gold outta the rivers. Bruno and his partner worked a placer claim over by Joseph. Produced a hunnerd ounces a day—so they said.”

  One of Jiggs’ eyebrows rose. “I had a rich relative?” His voice was underlined with sarcasm.

  Old Man Tower took another drink. “It was a wild place back then. Half-grown lad like that, pocketfuls of money. Luck riding his shoulders. He came to this side of the mountain and set several more claims. ’Course he was too rich to work. Hired Chinamen to tip the rockers while he pulled shenanigans and frequented Opal’s Sporting Palace.”

  “His mines produced?” Jiggs said through clenched teeth, as he strained to pull the wrench handle.

  The old man shrugged. “Never of heard any mine around here showing much color. Though there’s folks still lookin’.”

  “I’ve never heard about any rich relations.” Jiggs felt the nut give a little. He let go, whacked it three more times with a hammer, and grabbed the wrench again. “You said there were two things you knew about Bruno Woolsey. What’s the other?”

  “Yer granddiddy married the prettiest bedrocker in the whole damn whorehouse.”

  The wrench spun forward, smashing Jiggs’ knuckles into the metal box before jerking loose and falling onto the tines below. He turned and looked at the shrunken old man sitting like a gnome on a stump. Tufts of yellowish-white hair circled his head. His thick glasses were so dirty, it was hard to see his bug eyes.

  “Looks like ya got her loose.” His grin showed only two front teeth.

  “You’re saying my great-grandmother was a whore?”

  “I’m sayin’ ever man in the territory considered Bruno the luckiest ball bag around. Money and opportunity kept chasin’ after him. By then, the washouts from the Oregon Trail were leavin’. He snapped up land for cents on the dollar. ’Course, that was probably his hooker wife’s doin’s. She knew how to turn a buck. I don’t think anybody called her a ‘saloon gal’ once they was married. She wore clothes fancier than the whores. She helped raise money for the Opera House and a few other hoity-toity places that don’t exist anymore, thank the Lord. That’s the damn way of women. My first wife, Adelia, used to spew and cuss like a split boiler if anyone said somethin’ about her cooking. But if I misspoke a foul word now and then—”

  “That was his first wife, right? He had others?” Jiggs interrupted.

  “Oh hell, yes. I heard he was swingin’ his wanker at every cat house and gentleman’s club. He was a right pop’lar fella. A real storyteller.”

  “I mean…” Jiggs searched for words. “Did he have another wife who produced my grandfather...who I came from?”

  “Nope.” Old Man Tower shook his google-eyed head. “Ain’t you heard family stories ’bout this?”

  “None. Dad said he didn’t know anything about the family. My granddad was too drunk to remember his own name, much less anybody else’s. Nobody in town has ever mentioned it.”

  “Well, I can see why they’d leave out the part about her bein’ a bride of the multitudes. Buncha bladdermouths. I can’t even take a piss in front of my own shop without somebody givin’ me hell. If I could get my stream goin’ on command, I’d wet down their shoes while they’re complainin’. Send ’em packin’.”

  Jiggs smiled to himself as he crawled under the baler to retrieve the wrench. The weaknesses of old age must be God’s design to protect the rest of the populace from tired elderly cranks. He crawled out and mashed his bleeding knuckles into his jeans to stem the ooze. With his left hand, he finished taking off the nuts. “So how did I get here?”

  “Helliky-damn, boy! If you don’t know that, you’re no kin to Bruno.”

>   “I mean,” Jiggs took a deep breath, “how do we get from Bruno to me? Who’s in between?”

  “Well, let’s see…” He held the fifth up to the light and looked through the glass. Then he gave the liquid a hard shake. “Keeps the flavors stirred,” he said when he saw Jiggs glance at him. He put a few drops of alcohol on his fingertip and rubbed it over his lips.

  If the rot gut had any flavor, Jiggs couldn’t tell. It had melted his taste buds. He willed himself not to ask why the old man was rubbing his lips with it. After years of listening to his dad, he’d learned that the best way to get out of the death grip of an old timer’s story was not to ask any questions. Instead, he picked up a mallet and screwdriver and knocked the knotter prongs loose from the bolts.

  “Bruno’s wife gave him a son, Albrecht, your granddiddy. Only kid I know’d him to claim. Probably had a buncha bastards runnin’ ’round, but none had his name or money.”

  “Crap!” Jiggs stared into the box. “Broke it.”

  “You ain’t lucky like Bruno. I’m tellin’ ya. He used it all up. When it was time for Albrecht to start school, his mama, being newly righteous with religion and social graces, took the kid and moved. St. Louie, I think. She never came back—what could be luckier for Bruno?”

  Jiggs held up two pieces of the billhook.

  “That’s the crap for luck ya got now. You’ll have to braze it.” Old Man Tower stood up, waiting for a moment to see if he’d topple over. He shuffled to the toilet and put his bottle in the tank.

  “What happened to Albrecht?” Jiggs picked up the tools and followed him.

  “Shit. That poor kid didn’t get a trace of good fortune or brains. Everbody called him ‘Brick,’ instead of Albrecht. He was that damn dumb. Didn’t come back to Two Pan ’til he was growed. City life had ruined him by then. He mighta had a chance if Bruno was alive, but he’d passed on.”

  They reached the gate to the street. Jiggs had come for information, but it wasn’t what he was looking for, and he was pretty sure the old fossil had twisted it up with his own family stories.

  “I kid you not,” the old man was yammering, but hanging back. “Brick was hard pressed to figure out which end of a horse grass went into.”

  “You know what?” Jiggs gave him the box of tools and pulled out his wallet. “I’m gonna call bull hockey on that one.” He gave him a half grin. “What do I owe you?”

  “Lemme tell ya…” The old man stepped forward and stood in the gateway, looking right then left before he spoke. “Life is bullshit.” He waved at the junk behind him. “All of it turns back into dirt just like bull shit. And you don’t owe me nuthin’. You got a broke billhook. What the hell would I do with it?”

  Jiggs pulled a ten out of his wallet and stuffed it in the pocket of the old man’s coveralls. He wouldn’t dishonor the old buzzard by making him hold out his hand to take it.

  He took a step toward his truck then hesitated. “Thanks for the stories about my great-granddad. You happen to know how Bruno died?”

  “Prob’ly with a smile on his face.”

  “How about where he’s buried?”

  “Don’t know. Nobody cares where you are after you’re dead.”

  “Could be. I’m wondering…you’ve had this place a long time, haven’t you?”

  Old Man Tower stared at him and gave a single nod as though being this close to the street had dried up his speech.

  “You ever find any bodies buried in there?”

  “None of yer damn business.” He slammed the gate with more force than Jiggs thought the old goat could’ve mustered.

  “Promises And Pie Crusts Are Made To Be Broken”

  —Jonathan Swift

  JIGGS GRUMBLED TO himself as he got into his truck. He needed to get home and fix leaky water pipes. Most of the day was gone, and he still didn’t have an answer to the skull’s identity or how it had gotten nested in his creek. The session with Old Man Tower had barely been profitable. He’d gleaned a broken baler part and the name of a relative. Too bad he’d probably never be able to taste anything again. Remembering the morning’s climb, his stomach told him he’d skipped lunch—not that he couldn’t stand to miss a few meals.

  Driving down Two Pan’s Main Street, he passed Hermes, the town donkey, ambling along the roadway and surrounded by five kids wearing backpacks. Morning and afternoons the neddy could be seen escorting children to school.

  He pulled to a hard stop in front of the Two Pan Bar and Grill. As he got out of his truck, a pigtailed girl about four feet tall called, “Mr. Woolsey. Wait!” A round-cheeked boy in the pack, yanked on the donkey’s harness, with a Whoa!

  The donkey ignored him, making the kid dance alongside until the animal clopped to a stop in front of Jiggs.

  “Is this what you kids want?” Jiggs rattled the coffee can hanging from the rafters of the Bar and Grill’s overhang.

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.” She looked at him with the confidence that comes from everyone knowing where she lived, who her parents were, and all three of her given names. And if disaster did strike, like falling out of a tree or getting fingers pinched in a door, someone would come to her rescue.

  Hermes had no patience for politeness. He U-shaped his neck to stick it in the can.

  “Hyaa!” Jiggs pulled it away, disapproval in his voice. The kids laughed. He held the can toward them. Several hands dove in, pulling out broken chunks of donkey cubes. “Just one, everybody. He’s getting fat.”

  He scratched the neddy’s head while the kids flat-palmed the treats in front of donkey teeth. He stuck the can back under the eaves and went inside to a chorus of Thank you, Mr. Woolsey and Bye, Mr. Woolsey. It felt good, though he couldn’t say quite why. He wondered if Old Man Tower had ever heard his name called with such enthusiasm, or did he only hear people yell at him?

  Sliding onto a seat at Table 2, he studied the walls to see if any new “history” had been added to the ragtag display of boots, lariats, axes, and miners’ headlamps. Like the junkyard, the walls showed the rise and fizzle of the town and its residents.

  “Hey.” A twenty-two-year-old blonde rapped the table. It wasn’t so much of a greeting as Misty’s method to keep from repeating herself. She made sure you were tuned in when she spoke, because she wasn’t going to say it twice. “You’re late for lunch. Early for dinner. So…are you here for beer?”

  “I think I just drank kerosene. What do you have that’ll take the taste out of my mouth?”

  “Light a match and swallow it,” Basil Hinton said as he sat down at the “news” table, cleverly marked Table 2 by a tiny plastic sign. He’d only lived in Two Pan ten years, but enjoyed resident privileges such as folks shortening his name to Bazz, being elected mayor because no one else wanted the job, and being on the receiving end of pranks.

  “I had a drink with Old Man Tower. Do I still have lips, or have they melted, too?”

  “How about a chocolate milkshake?” Misty asked.

  “You’d do better with Junior’s new dinner special,” Bazz said. “It’ll cure your ills. It’s a soothing fruit mousse—”

  “Stop it, Dad,” Junior growled as he walked by in his long black apron. “I’ve told you before. I don’t start dinner until five.” He moved his accusing stare from his father to Jiggs. “Don’t feed the donkey in front of my door. He drops a load every time. I keep moving that damn treat can. Somebody keeps putting it back.”

  “Guess it’ll only be the milkshake.” Jiggs glanced at Misty and returned the plastic menu to its spot between the salt and pepper shakers.

  “And that’s how you lose sales,” Bazz said to his son. “But what do I know? I only bought this falling down saloon and built it into—”

  “A burger shack. That’s all it was. And a stockpile of redneck knickknacks.” Junior slung gestures toward the artifacts that the residents had brought in. “I’m surprised you don’t have the two mining pans this burg was named after, but I’m sure somebody will drag them in.”

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sp; Jiggs leaned back and studied Junior. “You haven’t quite got over leaving Los Angeles, have you? What’s it been? A month?”

  “Seems like twenty years.”

  “Misty,” Jiggs called when he saw the waitress walking toward them. “Tell our newest resident how the town got its name.”

  She slid the funnel-shaped glass and frosty metal cup with the extra milkshake across the table. “I don’t give tourist talks. Either order something else or clam up. I’ve got a job to do.” She walked to the long walnut bar and began quartering limes.

  “There.” Junior pointed at the waitress. “There’s the reason sales are down.”

  “She was here before you, and sales were fine,” Bazz said. “You’ll go before she does.”

  Junior threw up his hands. “But I own the place now.”

  “Then you should know…” Jiggs said, “miners couldn’t find two pans worth of gold here. That’s how this wide spot got its name.”

  “Oh.” Junior turned his attention to the customer coming through the door. His body stiffened, and then he barreled across the room calling, “No you won’t.” Millie cringed as he came at her, but he squeezed past and kept going.

  The sound of his shouting drifted into the bar as she held the door open, looking outside. Jiggs sat back, spooning milkshake into his mouth. “Who’s he hollering at?”

  The frizzy-haired woman gave the group a sad frown. “Potty. You know, I feel sorry for that ol’ dog. It’s rangy and stinks, but it keeps turning circles, looking for a place to lie down.”

  Bazz propped both elbows on the table, rubbing his hands over his face as he let out a long sigh.

  Millie hurried from the door to take a seat. A moment later Junior walked in, striding with purpose toward the telephone behind the bar.

  “Feel better now?” Jiggs asked.

  “I’m calling Animal Control. I’ve got a crapping donkey and a flea-bitten mutt infesting the front of my restaurant.”

  Misty snorted a laugh. Jiggs grinned.

  “What?” Junior looked at one then the other. “I suppose this broke-back town doesn’t have anyone.”