THE PALE LIGHT OF SUNSET: SCATTERSHOTS AND HALLUCINATIONS IN AN IMAGINED LIFE

Midnight Pub - 1960

109 1960 Midnight Pub I just need to travel. And so I do. But I do not mean to end up here, Washington, D.C., late one summer night. Some sort of scene out of a 1940s movie. Three o’clock in the morning and lost in the big city, a light rain falling, dim street lights, my vision blurred, my head aching. The headlight on the bike keeps blinking on and off as I cruise the street. I know there is an electrical short in there somewhere, but I have never been able to find it. So I ride slowly, peering through the rain and blinking light, trying to make some sense of where I am, trying to recognize some landmark that will lead me out of town. I ride past a pub just closing, one of those places down a short flight of stairs and through a heavy door into a basement. A couple stands at the bottom of the stairs, in the open doorway. They seem to be waiting for something. I stop at the curb and look down at them. No one wears helmets in these days and the rain pours across my goggles and runs down my face. Lee Maynard 110 “Hey, kid,” the man says, “come on down here until the rain stops. None of us going anywhere.” He speaks loudly, trying to be heard over the idling of the bike and the sound of the rain. I am afraid to go down there, but the rain is running inside my shirt and my vision seems to be getting worse. And, besides, I have no place else to go. I shut off the bike and go down the stairs. We all go inside, leaving the door open, and sit at a low table. In the center of the table is a bottle of some sort of liquor. I am not sure what it is, but somehow I think that it is expensive. There are four of us—the woman, the man, me, and some guy who comes out of the back room with a pot of coffee. The woman is blonde, her hair hanging in damp, stringy curls. No one says anything. The guy with the coffee doesn’t seem surprised that I am there. He pours coffee for all of us, then adds to the cups from the liquor bottle. We drink, sipping slowly, the heat feeling good inside my chest. There is a piano in the middle of the floor and the coffee guy goes over there, starts running around some chords with light placements of his hands, long, low, lonely chords that rumble slightly in the dim room. The blonde gets up, takes me by the arm, walks me to the piano. I shuffle slowly across the floor, walking stiffly from the dampness and the constrictions of my wet clothes. The piano player grins. “You walk like Walter Brennan,” he said. “Who’s Walter Brennan?” I ask, and he laughs. “Where the hell you been, kid?” he asks, still playing the chords. “Around . . . traveling . . . in the mountains,” I mumble. “Yeah, I can see that.” “I’m from West Virginia,” I say, before he can ask me anything. He doesn’t say anything. I don’t think he really gives a damn where I am from. The Pale Light of Sunset 111 The woman stands behind the piano player and starts to sing, her voice breathing through the room like velvet paint. The softly sculpted sounds flow their images into the room, into my mind, mix and curl with the sounds of the rain outside, crystalline, disciplined sounds carefully thought out, carefully released. I have never heard that kind of singing, not right there in front of me, not right where I can see the rise and fall of her breasts and count the tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Cool words, combining to make me warm. One of the best nights of my life is only two hours long. By five o’clock the rain has stopped, the singing stops, and there is a layer of dull light in the sky above the city. We climb the stairs out of the pub and the piano player locks the door. The woman takes my arm. “Will that thing carry two?” Her question is soft, as though she is merely curious. “Yes, ma’am, but the seat’s wet...