When Bill Watson spoke – which was entirely more often than most people thought he should have – every sentence that left his mouth carried a sense of finality. Whether he was talking about the weather or the government or the price of corn or the state of somebody’s marriage and the fates of their ill-conceived children, his tone was convincing even when his words were not.
He suffered through his retirement with all the nobility he could muster by running a semi-permanent garage sale in his front yard. When it wasn’t raining and when it wasn’t the dead of winter, he sat in his front yard behind three large tables full of stuff he dug out of his basement and his barn to sell. Late Spring and Summer and early Fall were his best times because he took advantage of the traffic of people visiting the unusually large number of antique and junktique shops in Mt. Arliss and unincorporated Arliss County. There were nearly as many of these shops as their were churches, except that the churches did a little better financially and the shops were a little more interesting to outsiders; and Bill Watson, who believed unerringly in the tenets of Democratic Capitalism as well as the divine notion that Arliss County was the true center of the universe and potentially the true location of the biblical Eden, took full advantage as best he could. He was not one to haggle on a price; but as he often remarked, when he asked $5 for a solid metal pipe wrench in workable condition, it was significantly cheaper than having to buy a new one.
Bill stayed at his tables until 3 in the afternoon during the week, and after that he could be found at his usual stool at the Moose Head, where he had been a regular since the bar opened its doors. He had first walked in the door a middle-aged man and had, like the bar and the entire town, aged to a functional decrepitude. He had weathered changes by not changing at all; and like most men who dealt with the world in this fashion, his resilience had made him a little cocky. He did not like the world and did not apologize for it – but he would be damned if that was going to make him lie down and quit.
On good days, the television in the Moose Head would be showing an old rerun, like Bonanza, Bewitched, or The Rifleman. He liked Bonanza and The Rifleman, and he thought Elizabeth Montgomery had had nice legs back the day; but that was only when Bob and Ethel were in the bar because Bob only watched reruns of old television shows he had watched when he was younger and flush and things were good. (Ethel still watched her soap operas and enjoyed Wheel of Fortune; she thought Pat Sajak was still cute and that Vanna White was still a Hollywood slut who got lucky.)
On this particular day, I was sitting next to Bill and Gary was tending bar. Gary was the only non-family member who bartended and it was generally thought that he was kept on because he couldn’t do much else besides play a mean game of pool and beat any video game out on the market. After Bob and Ethel left – earlier than usual – Gary switched the channel to VH1.
“Christ,” Bill muttered. “Why people want to WATCH music, I’ll never know. Used to be, we’d LISTEN to music.”
“It’s more than music,” Gary tried explaining. “They have their own shows now.”
“REALITY television,” he countered. “What a stupid idea. People watch TV to get away from reality, not live in it. Or…” he paused to take a sip of his Old Style Beer, “… they USED’ta.”
He looked up at the television, probably to find something else to bitch about. It didn’t take him long. “What the hell is THAT?” Bill pointed at the screen. On it, there was a former basketball player going into rehab. This presented two problems for Bill: 1) he was rich and 2) he had pierced not only both ears several times, but both nostrils and he had two loops in his bottom lip. To Bill’s credit, that the man was also black didn’t matter so much, though others would have made that more of an issue.
“It’s one of those rehab shows,” Gary answered. Gary was a large man whose very existence some claimed was proof of the existence of god because most people of his size would not still be able to walk around… though he did wheeze considerably and was heckled mercilessly about his love of pretzels and potato chips and was happily engaged in a long term relationship with a woman everyone but me had met.
“Rehab,” Bill scoffed. “Will ya LOOKIT that guy? What’s all that shit in his face?”
Gary shrugged.
“Piercings,” I said.
Bill turned and looked at me, his head bobbing up and down the way it did when he was about to make a pronouncement. “Well, ya SEE that? THAT’S what’s wrong with things.”
“What is?” Gary asked.
He turned and nodded at the television. “That’s why THINGS ARE THE WAY THEY ARE.” Bill said.
“Jewelry?” I asked.
He turned and looked at me again and we locked eyes. He stared, shook his head, and then turned his attention back to his beer.
“I’ve heard a lot of things,” I went on – probably because I’d had two scotches too many – “about why the world is screwed up. But I never considered that it might be jewelry.”
Gary chuckled a little, but checked himself when Bill glared at him. Bill refused to look at or address me and when he left, he didn’t acknowledge me either. By the time he left, I’d switched to beer; after Bill left the bar, Gary bought me a beer and switched the channel to a baseball game.
