The Wrecker

I'm sitting at the bar in the semi-gloom of the Silver Dollar, as far away as I can get from the loud music. A babe comes through the door. It's still before nine, too early for anyone else to be eyeing the sign taped to the bar mirror: nobody's ugly at 2 a.m. I watch her in the mirror. She looks around—a dozen or so patrons, the usual crowd. The Dollar is still a working-man's bar, no video games, no retro pinball machines, no happy hour, no grill. The clientele comes from the big Basque bakery next door and what's left of the failed industrial park down the road where I live. About a fourth of the customers are women: after eight hours of unloading ovens in 110-degree heat, they're here to replace body fluids, and they're not romantically inclined, but that's weekdays. Fridays—paydays—like tonight, and Saturday nights are different.

This woman is dressed mostly in white. Blond, probably in her late twenties, shapely. Stunning. If we're looking her over, she's looking us over too, unhurried, calm, unaware of the effect she's having, or maybe just used to it. Her eyes are adjusting to the low fluorescent lights and the kind of alcohol-induced boredom that takes the place these days of outlawed cigarette smoke. The woman walks over and sits down beside me.

I look what I am: a forty-three-year-old tow-truck owner and operator. Tall, like my mother's brother. I went through the windshield of a Camaro when I was a kid and the scars crisscross both sides of my face. I briefly thought I was tough, and got my nose broken twice while I was in the army. I stay in shape because I'm crawling around wrecked cars night and day. My hair is thinning on top, which I don't notice too often. Even in my driver's license photo, I look normal.

I'm still in uniform, my dark blue coveralls with Dwight over the pocket and the name aaace towing stitched across my shoulders. I don't stutter; I can spell; it's aaace so my ad in the yellow pages will be first, stand out. Trust me: it makes a difference. I'm in a competitive business.

I'm thinking this woman might be part of the fallout from the book about the Silver Dollar written eight years ago by a sociology professor at one of the local colleges. We called him Doc; he liked that. He'd bring his seminar class in on Saturday nights. Cellophane-wrapped young women and men, untouched, who turned everyone's head, as if we'd all gotten a magic wish: twenty years off our ages, young enough to act foolish again. We learned words like ambience and acculturation. When the book came out, Closing Time at the Silver Dollar, you couldn't get in the place; it was jammed with gawkers. Local tv kept doing segments, and the newspapers never passed up a chance to mention the place. City officials, politicians, famous athletes—you name it, they were there. Everyone knows the rest of the world wants to come to California, but not necessarily to the capital. A tour bus full of people from Warsaw, Poland, stopped here once. Our part of Sacramento had never seen anything like it. Larry had to hire two more bartenders. We locals from the neighborhood were left outside. It didn't last: a year, eighteen months. It was like a blackout: the electricity goes, you're left in the dark, the lights come on, it's over; and you go back to where you were. A brief interruption. Doc still comes around—misses the camaraderie of the Dollar, he says—and shares his opinions and keeps track of things. He's the one who taped the other sign on the bar mirror: never go to bed with anyone who's got more problems than you. Sigmund Freud. Sex and money are his usual topics.

I'm perplexed...