and try to make the poor bastard like him and I had no stomach for the bullshit. I declined the invite and turned in the direction of my rusty 1965 Olds. Then I saw Peter McKay coming up behind me.
“Mr. Waverly,” he said, “hold up for a moment please.”
I did. He caught up and pressed a twenty-dollar bill into my palm and gave my forearm a little squeeze with his other black-gloved hand.
“Just a small tip for your dealing tonight, Mr. Waverly,” he said. He looked me up and down and smiled a little. “I did well, in spite of the rather bizarre group we had assembled. Thank you. Do you do this sort of thing often?”
“Not much, anymore. I just owed Nick a favor—from the old days. Nick and I go back a ways.”
“I see, uh huh. Well, maybe I can use you some day.”
“Sure, anything,” I said, nodding my head like a puppy eager for a bone. By that time we were at my car door so I climbed in and cranked her up while Peter trudged off to his dark green Mercedes diesel. I buttoned up my brown corduroy Marlboro Man jacket and drove away.
* * *
It’s clear to me now that the card game was the catalyst for all the sordid events that followed. It was a night where Fate came in and shoved us all into the Big Mixer, threw in some glue and nails and pushed the puree button. But the beginnings of the story go back a little further. Back to earlier that winter when I was still wheeling hack for Minnie Green and her Blue and White Taxi Company.
It was late January of 1978. Football season was over; the lights from all the Christmas trees were out. On my right the ancient Arrowhead Bridge and a rusted railroad trestle watched silently in the cold distance as I rolled toward the John Blatnik High Bridge, the concrete-and-steel span that would get me across the water to the other side. I could see the yellowed ice of the bay stretching out to the mouth of the St. Louis River. It’s called the St. Louis River but it’s a long way from Missouri. Along the side of the road naked tree branches stretched out like arthritic fingers, straining for warmth that wasn’t there. Over to my left huge grain terminals loomed darkly behind rows of faded, empty boxcars. The wind was coming hard off Lake Superior, pushing and shoving at the taxi’s aging suspension. The heater was on full blast but icy drafts whistled through. I was headed to the Wisconsin side of the bridge and the north end of Bay City—a low spot on the geological survey where the losers, the lost and the sexually disenfranchised washed up like flotsam and jetsam. A place where I felt strangely comfortable. There was nothing to prove and somehow that was a good thing.
Sure, Bay City had its good people and its quiet neighborhoods, like anywhere else. But there was also something strange over there, something peculiar—a feeling that lingered on the edge of comprehension. It was a place where you might find someone as indifferent or as desperate as you. Someone just as willing to go crazy, attempt suicide or commit a crime. Someone just right.
First thing comes to mind when I think of Tugtown is alcohol. Booze. Liquor. Firewater. Rotgut. For guys like me who grew up on the other side of the bridge, Bay City was a place for first-time experiences. Maybe your first drink in a bar or the first time you bought beer with a fake I.D. Maybe the first time you had a pool cue broken across your back or your ear bitten off in a fight—could be anything. This was a town where anything could happen, when the stars were right.
From the top of the bridge now the three-story skyline spread out in front of me, dark, decaying and slightly greasy, like a 1930’s version of a Dickens’ novel from an alternate universe. I could see U.S. Highway 2 as it wound its way out of town toward a barren and gray frozen wasteland of snow and fir trees and the occasional country bar or small town. Wisconsin—Devil’s Country: birthplace and home of enterprising serial killers Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer. Endless miles of two-lane roads and a population of outlaw bikers second only to the great state of California.
Dahmer was probably busy grilling up his neighbor’s cat about the time I turned onto North Fifth Street, the primary gateway to the strip clubs and massage parlors, gambling joints, rock ‘n’ roll bars, whorehouses and bad restaurants that were the pulse of Bay City’s erogenous zone. Wisconsin’s legal drinking age was eighteen, recently brought down by the state legislature from twenty-one, and the party was always on. The town’s funky old saloons were filled with raucous hordes getting drunk and doing drugs and raising general hell. Cash flowed as fast as the liquor as wild-siding kids poured into town like beavers to a birch tree farm.
I cruised by the Wisconsin Steak House and then a little seaweed green wooden garage in an open field with a hand-painted sign on the door advertising “Hubcaps For Sale.” As the sun began to sink below the western hillside, flophouses and greasy spoons and blockhouse bars cast dark silhouettes. On my right was the Viking Bar, famous for drinks as cheap as a boat whore and strong as a trucker’s breath. Then came the Nickel Street Saloon, the High Times and the Heartbreak Hotel. One Harley leaned on its peg in front of the High Times. On my left was the Boulevard Lounge where the strippers sold cocaine between dances and pussy after hours.
I was thinking maybe I should stop in after my shift was over.
Next up was Johnny’s Bar; where once a three-hundred-pound customer killed his drinking buddy by jumping onto the poor slob’s chest and crushing his heart. Good times. Then came Tony’s Cabaret, the Twin Port’s’ only gay bar at the time, and Al’s Waterfront Lounge, where huge Great Lakes ships rested on the frozen bay behind it like bathtub toys for giants. Up ahead past Tower Avenue Fifth Street came to a a dead-end at a big mound of dirt and a barrier consisting of three black-and-yellow-striped boards bolted to metal posts stuck in the pavement. Beyond that I could see a bleak flat area stretching out dark and endless, dead brown weed stocks and piles of snow-flecked coal lying next to rusty railroad cars and the ghostly hulls of semi-trailers. A phalanx of railroad tracks spider-webbed around a metal hangar and led out of town toward better places.
I turned left on Tower and headed uptown. The streets were pretty empty, as it was still early. Away from the waterfront the bars went upscale. In Bay City this meant they were cleaned once in a while and had bouncers. At least a few of them did. I drove by the Cave Cabaret, featuring The Zenith City Gloom Band, and past a “Girls, Girls, Girls” sign at the Castaway. Then in a blur of neon and exhaust came the Casablanca, the Brass Rail, Zanuzowski’s, Yellow Submarine, Tommy Byrne’s, the Poodle Lounge, Dugout Bar, the Capri, the Lamplighter, the Androy Hotel, the Elbow Room, D.T.’s, the Anchor, the Douglas, Betty Boop’s, the Kro Bar, the Trio, the Classy Lumberjack and the Red Lace Massage Parlor.
Just past Bob’s Chop Suey House, I turned left and went to John Avenue—appropriately famous for its three whorehouses—turned right, drove down one block and parked in the glow of the Port Town Hotel sign hanging from the wall of a dark brick flophouse. Across the street was a Laundromat and a closed café—DINAH’S KITCHEN, on a faded sign.
I was five minutes early for the pick-up so I pulled out a Kool from my pack above the visor and fired up with some matches from Jasmine’s Lounge, Where You Always Have A Good Time. I flipped the button on the transistor radio lying on the seat. Jagger came on wailing about love in vain. About that I thought I knew. Then something crossed through the glare from the naked bulb in the pea-green hotel entryway and I turned to see two good-looking girls strutting toward my cab. I remember thinking it was my lucky night.
I feasted my eyes on a tall, dark-haired, clean-faced beauty in a long brushed leather coat. Dark tortoise shell glasses, hair stuffed up inside a floppy brown felt hat and a black silk scarf tied loosely around her neck. The other girl was a short blond with long straight hair—cute in a baby doll sort of way. She wriggled inside a bird’s egg blue high school letter jacket with a white W on the front. The girls got in the cab, followed closely by a rush of cold air and the scent of sweet perfume, alcohol and chewing gum.
I was putty in ten seconds flat.
I drove them over to the Castaway and the only thing I could think of to say was, “You girls from around here?” The blond answered yes and the brunette said no. Then they laughed and stared out the windows. I did the same, still trying to think up something clever to say, to no avail. The