What Happened
Small
towns are a hotbed for rumors, plain and simple. Morningside had all
the right ingredients: isolated location on B.C's west coast, pulp
mill industry, and a unique blend of new-age hippies and crusty old
men. That's what you needed to draw out the absolute crème de la
crème of gossip. What drew me in was a steady paycheque at a
warehouse and an old friend by the name of Troy. Troy
was a good guy, one of those fellows you call a man's man: knew how
to make anyone feel welcome. Not long after I arrived, he invited me
out to one of Morningside's local watering holes, a place called the
Hook, Line and Sinker.
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| By J.-H. Janßen (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons |
He
introduced me to each of them, and for the first time since I'd
gotten to Morningside
I started to feel at home. I headed for the bar, and that's when I
saw her She looked like she could break me in half with a flick of
her wrist. Her hair ran wild all about her shoulders, tapering down
to frame a pair of tattoos on her collar bones. They looked like
little ships, but the muscles rippling under her tube top warned me
not to bend in close for a look. But what really caught my eye –
no pun intended – was the polished glass ball that sat perfectly
at home in her skull, daring me to say something. It was painted
very realistically, but it didn't take a second look to tell you that
it was fake, just a shade too perfect and mismatched from her other
eye. I
opened my mouth up and managed to order a beer, then made my way back
to the group without committing a faux pas.
“What
happened to you?” Troy said, nudging me with his elbow.
“Nothing,”
I said, sipping at my beer. “It's nothing.”
“Oh
my god,” one of Troy's friends interjected. “This is your first
time here, isn't it?”
“So?”
“You
just saw Audrina for the first time, didn't you?”
I
gulped down some more beer. “The bartender?”
“Uh,
yeah!” Another one of Troy's friends chimed in. “Don't pretend
you don't know what we're talking about. It's all over your face.”
I
glanced back over my shoulder at Audrina. “How did... you know.”
“The
eye?” Troy looked enthusiastic. “Oh, that's a good story. Way
I hear it, she's part of this fishing trawler's crew, you know? She's a sailor.”
“Right,
I got that from the, uh-” I gestured at my own collarbone.
“Exactly. The tats. So anyway, she's on this ship, the Cerberus-”
“No,
man,” one of Troy's friends nudged him. “It was called the
Styx.”
“Whatever. Point is, she's on this ship, and this big ol' storm just blows in
out of nowhere off the coast of Newfoundland-”
“Like
hell, it was off the coast of Vancouver Island-”
“Why
would they be out there?” Someone who we didn't even know said.
“Who's
telling the story?” Troy barked. A small crowd was gathering, and
I shot a look to Audrina to see how she was reacting. She'd noticed,
all right, but she didn't look in the least annoyed. In fact, I
thought I could see the beginnings of a smile forming at the corners
of her mouth.
“Anyway,”
Troy continued. He was really getting into it, waving his hands
around. “She's out there, right, on this fishing trawler, when all
of sudden the thing jerks to a stop. Whole ship just woomph,
damn near gets pulled under. Yep, that's right, net's out and it's
obvious that something's caught in the damn thing. Well, the crew
tries to pull it back in, but whatever's down there it's in there
good. No chance of just shaking it loose. And here in the midst of
all this is our very own Audrina. What do you think she does? She
takes a big ol' bowie knife and she dives right in there. Well,
she's down there
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| By Kelley Tom, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
The
bar went quiet. Everyone in the whole damn place was watching
Audrina. Finally, she tapped him a pint and handed it over. “Good
enough for a round, mate,” she said.
The
bar erupted into pandemonium. Three guys started shouting at once,
each one yelling something about Audrina's eye.
“No,
what really
went
down is that she was in China, see-”
“There was a fire, down at the
mill-”
“Biggest hurricane you ever saw
comes up the coast of Florida-”
All I could do was stare, and the
night went on.
* * * *
“So nobody really knows?”
Troy shrugged. “Not that we
know of. Audrina's always been that way as far as most people know. At least, ever since she opened the bar. So now she offers drinks to
whoever comes up with the best version. Boy, I've heard some weird
ones. Sometimes they're downright ghoulish. But she always rewards
the ones that have happy endings, or adventures in 'em.”
I was completely taken in. Something about that bartender with her glass eye, keeping a secret apart from the
entire town, struck a chord with me. All day long it was all I could think about. I'd be
hauling crates and taking inventory, cracking open boxes, and my mind
would drift to tales of open seas and pikes, and slowly I was
crafting my own story. Maybe she saved a coworker from a falling box
and taken a blow on her head. Or maybe there was a fire, and she'd
rushed in to save a child and gotten a burning cinder right in the
eye. No matter what, though, the story I came up with in my mind
felt hollow and unfulfilling. I knew what the problem was: it
wasn't the truth. Call me crazy, but in my gut I knew that the real
story would somehow transcend all the rest. It would crystallize
this noble bartender for me. So I got to quizzing my two coworkers.
“Someone had to have been
there,” I said.
Vern shook his head. “Not a
soul. She was out of town when it happened. And don't you even
think of straight up asking. Last sucker who did that spent the rest
of the night scooping up his teeth.”
Troy snorted. “Give it a rest,
Charlie. Why do you want to know so bad, anyway?”
My pride stopped me from giving
the truthful answer. Instead, I said “There's people who'd pay big
for a story like this. Press. Movies, even.”
That caught his attention. “Never looked at it that way. You get some kind of a...finder's
fee?”
“Exactly.”
Troy
pursed his lips, thinking. “Well, ain't
nobody in Morningside who saw how she got it. All we know is one
day she came back from wherever and she had this eyepatch on. Few days later and
she's got a spanking new glass one instead. I still think it's a
dead end.”
I perked up. “Wait, so she got the glass done here? What about the guy who made it for her?”
“Oh, him? He's a complete
recluse. You won't get it out of him.”
* * * *
The next day I drove out to the
most desolate, depressing stretch of beach I had ever seen. Bits of
driftwood littered the place, and there didn't appear to be a sign of
life anywhere. The water crashed ferociously, sending ocean junk up
into the air then down again. In the middle of all of this was a
tiny, run-down cabin.
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| life's too short via Compfight cc |
When I was about twenty feet
away, the figure straightened up and called out “No solicitors.” His voice – for it was a man, after all – was deep and baritone.
“I'm not selling anything,” I
called back over the roar of the ocean.
He turned to look at me. The
man's eyes were chestnut brown, and held me in a piercing gaze. He
held a knife in one hand, a piece of wood in the other. He started
up the beach towards me.
“What do you want then?” He
boomed. “If it's a commission you're after, I don't do those in
the off-season. If you're looking for a generic piece, I'll be up in
town in a couple of days with a truckload.”
“No,” I said, waving my
hands. “I'm sorry to bother you at home-”
“Home!” He chucked the knife
into the dirt. “You think I live in this craphole?”
“No, all I meant was-”
“Save it. You're not from
around here, I can tell that much. So what do you want?” He pushed past me on his
way back to the cottage.
“You're Jonas Knaypaysweet,
right?” I blurted.
He stopped and pivoted so
suddenly I almost ran into him. “How do you know my name?”
“Troy Hollis told me I could
find you here.”
Jonas grunted. “I'm gonna
stir-fry that turd's gonads with a pitchfork.” He flicked his chin
at me. “So what the hell do you want?”
“Just to ask you something,
that's all.”
“What?”
“I I heard you made the glass
eye for Audrina.”
He stared at me. “What, you a
cop or something? What is this?”
“No, I'm not a cop. I just
want to know.”
He leaned in close. “Why?”
Something
in his manner told me it would be a very bad idea to lie to him. “Because I have
to. Because something about her was just so...mysterious. And
something tells me the real story would make her a hero. At least to
me.”
Jonas raised his eyebrows. A
long silence hung in the air between us. “What's your name, boy?”
“Charlie.”
“Come inside, Charlie,” he
said, and headed into the cabin.
Inside the cabin, there were
tables with neatly lined up totems and plaques, all painstakingly
carved with incredible detail. Here and there were pieces carved of
stone, too; some soapstone, and some jade, and all of great quality. Jonas waved a hand dismissively and said “These're nothing. Now,
Audrina's eye, that was a careful piece of work.”
I shuffled my chair closer like a
kid at a campfire story-swap. “Tell me about it.”
Jonas exhaled noisily. “You
ever tell a lie, Charlie?”
“What?”
“Simple question, ain't it?”
I shrugged. “Sure, I guess. As much as the next guy. More when I was a kid.”
“Why'd you do it?”
I felt awkward enough already,
but Jonas' line of questioning was putting me off balance. “I
dunno. 'Cause I didn't want to get caught.”
“Right. You took a measure of
things, and you found that the truth just wasn't good enough.”
I could see where this was going.
“Did she commit a crime or something?”
“Oh for crying out loud,”
Jonas snapped. “You're missing the point entirely. Listen,
suppose for one second that you did have the truth. What would you
do with it? Take it to her, throw it in her face?”
“No,” I replied. “I think
the truth is something you celebrate, or remember. You learn from
it.”
Jonas stuck out his jaw. “Okay. Suppose the truth went something like this. A sweet kid, maybe too
trusting, maybe too naïve, gets in deep with the wrong boy. And
suppose one day that boy decides he doesn't much like her face for no
damn good reason other than that he was a son of a bitch with daddy
issues? What's in it for the kid? What's to be learned, celebrated,
worth remembering?”
I hesitated. “Is that the
truth?”
“Maybe.” Jonas turned his
back to me, busying himself with his carvings. “Point is,
sometimes the truth ain't good enough for people. Sometimes, you get
things we call stories. So tell me, Charlie: what do you want to
tell, and how do you want to be remembered?”
I didn't answer him. We sat
there for a good, long while, the smell of cedars the only thing I
was aware of.
* * * *
The next night Troy insisted on
taking me back to the Hook, Line and Sinker to see Audrina. Word had
spread that I was digging for the truth about her eye, and several
patrons had gathered to hear what I had to say. Audrina must have
had an inkling about it too, because when I got there she was waiting
behind the bar with her arms folded.
A silence fell over the crowd. Audrina said “I hear that you've got a story to tell me.”
I nodded.
She held out a hand. “Charlie,
right?”
I nodded again.
She shrugged and went under the
bar for a glass. “I'd love to give you a beer for this, if you'll
let me.”
I looked into her eyes. She
stared back at me evenly from two different shades of dark blue.
I said “Well, it goes something like this...Our Audrina here, she was a forest ranger, see...”
I said “Well, it goes something like this...Our Audrina here, she was a forest ranger, see...”
Audrina smiled at me and poured
me a pint.
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