The Spider Truces Part 34

"Three ..." Ellis repeated. "What have you been doing all day, earning its trust?"

Gerd put his eye to the viewfinder. "Get me a coffee."

"You're the Dian Fossey of the electrical appliance world."

"Coffee ..." Gerd muttered again, "or I'll kill you."

Across the river, on the quiet streets of Covington, Kentucky, jobless men and uninterested children slouched on benches kicking up the dust. Next to the German washhouse, where women sat on the steps, Gerd parked in the forecourt of the Anvil Bar and Grill. A red neon sign flashed OPEN 24 HOURS A DAY 7 DAYS A WEEK. Beneath it, on a white-painted wall which glared harshly in the sun, were painted large blue letters, WE MAY DOZE BUT WE NEVER CLOSE.

Sitting at the horseshoe bar of the cafe was a thin, elderly woman who had lost most of her hair. Beneath her ap.r.o.n, her loose, sagging body was visible through the arms of a man's singlet. Her skin was the colour of ash. She was so lifeless, she made Gerd seem excitable.

A maze of small eating rooms led off from the bar. Each was clad in darkly veneered wood panelling and lit dimly by orange bulbs in wicker shades. It took time for Ellis's eyes to adjust to the gloom.

"This place I was told about," Gerd confided, examining a coffee-stained menu and turning to look for a waitress.

From the shadows in the corner of the room came a drawl. "It's order at the counter before noon."

The man who had spoken was sitting with two other men. All three of them looked to be in their seventies. They wore identical red and black checked shirts, the sleeves rolled up into a tight, thick, rope-like hem around their biceps. They had thinning hair, greased back. The man with his back to Ellis was a little slumped, as if he'd fallen asleep. Ellis stepped back into the dazzling sunlight of the bar and wondered how, in a town where the sun beat down so hard, the people could look so pale. A television was on in the corner. The bald woman smoked a cigarette and read the paper. Two elderly men sat on bar stools looking at their coffee as if it were newly invented. A goods train crossed the steel bridge one block south, prompting a flock of pigeons to evacuate the bridge and land on the concrete forecourt of the Anvil Bar and Grill, projecting a dazzling waterfall of bird shadows on to the white wall as they landed.

"What'll it be?" the bald woman asked.

"Scrambled eggs, home fries and toast, please. And a pecan pie."

"You want cream or ice-cream with the pie?"

Ellis stepped back into the gloom. "Cream or ice-cream?"

"Is it fresh cream?" Gerd asked.

"Is it fresh cream?" Ellis repeated to the bar.

"Uh-huh."

"Uh-huh."

Gerd nodded.

Ellis returned to the bar. "Cream, please. Also, a coffee and a gla.s.s of milk."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Not eating?"

"Yeah, I'm having the eggs."

"Then how about your friend?"

"Eh?"

"He not eating?"

"He's having the pie."

"Oh." The lady raised her eyebrows at the facts before her and shuffled into the kitchen. "He don't want eggs?" she called out.

"No, thank you," Ellis called back.

"And you don't want pie?" she called.

"No ... thank you."

"So, you're not having dessert and he's not having main?"

"Er ... yeah." Ellis called.

A man at the bar winked at Ellis and muttered, "She's on fire today."

As he sipped his milk, Ellis stole a glimpse of the three old men in the gloom. The man who had spoken stared back at him and didn't blink or look away. A waitress brought the food.

"Excuse me," Gerd said, the effort of trying to look pleasant neutralising his attempted smile, leaving only a grimace. "They said the cream would be fresh."

Ellis and the waitress peered at Gerd's bowl. Alongside the pie was an embankment of fluffy whipped cream, straight out of a spray can.

"That is," the waitress said, and walked away.

Gerd shrugged fatalistically.

"Pick a tune." The drawl came again from the man in the corner, who slid a nickel out in front of him and gestured Ellis to come over. Ellis obeyed. The man whose back was to Ellis was an identical twin to the man who had spoken, but his head was bowed and one side of his face was fallen. There were remnants of food and dribble on his shirt-front. Ellis looked at the nickel and yearned for the open road.

"Any tune," the man said, his southern accent hiding his tone from Ellis's untrained ear. He pointed to a small juke-box selector on his table.

"One on every table," he said.

"Oh," Ellis said, straightening up.

"The nickel goes straight through," the man said.

Ellis pulled a face at Gerd as he returned to the table and found the music selector hidden behind ketchups, napkins and the menu.

"What if he asks me to dance!" Ellis whispered.

"Choose carefully," Gerd advised.

There were seventy songs. Ellis didn't know any of them.

"Go E10," Gerd whispered.

Ellis peered at the machine. E10 was "Runaway Train" by Bo Fordford. He jabbed the b.u.t.tons but nothing happened. The Anvil Bar and Grill remained musicless.

"Probably takes a while," Ellis muttered.

"I'll have that nickel back," the man in the shadows said.

The nickel had, as promised, gone into the slot and straight out again. When Ellis returned it, the man pointed to the bench alongside.

"Have a seat."

Ellis sat there, beside a Zimmer frame.

"Where you boys from?" the man asked.

"European, I'd say," the non-identical third man added.

"From London," Ellis nodded.

"Your friend sounded German to me," the man said.

"Yes, he is," Ellis conceded.

"Then he's not from London," the non-identical man stated.

"No."

Gerd came over. "h.e.l.lo," he grimaced. "My name's Gerd. I'm a photographer. We're doing a road trip. Ellis here is my a.s.sistant." He shook hands with the two men facing him. When he held his hand out to the man with the bowed head, the talkative man raised his hand to block him.

"My twin, Dutch, is disabled by a stroke."

Dutch moved his head slowly round and smiled a lopsided smile at Gerd.

"We're both seventy-two years of age. This here is Warren, our younger brother by a year."

The men exchanged nods and smiles. The talkative man, the one whose name they didn't know, asked Gerd what sort of thing he took photographs of. Gerd told him. The men laughed.

"You make money doing that?" Warren asked, on cue.

"They make books of my photographs," Gerd said. "If the books sell, I make money."

The talkative one leant across to his twin.

"These boys here take photographs of vending machines for a living, Dutch!"

Dutch sneered with half of his mouth.

"You don't like to photograph people?"

"This man does," Gerd said, slapping Ellis on the back. "He's photographing people who have lived in the same place all their lives."

The talkative one took the bait. "You notice Walnut Street when you came into town?" he asked Ellis.

"No, sir," Ellis replied, scolding himself immediately for adopting Little House on the Prairie lingo.

"This here is Main Street we're on. Us three boys were born on Main Street. Now me and Dutch live on Walnut Street which is directly off Main Street and Warren lives on Main Street with his wife. I'd say we all live within two hundred yards of the house we were born in."

"Right," Ellis said, non-committally Gerd stood up. "I'll leave you to it, Ellis." He wished the men a good day and went outside with his camera. Ellis cursed him for leaving and stared at the empty doorway a little longer than he should have.

Dutch raised his head slowly. He was dribbling. His younger brother leant across and wiped his mouth. Dutch fixed his eyes on Ellis.

"Hit the black b.u.t.ton," he croaked.

"The black b.u.t.ton," Warren repeated. "You haven't hit the black b.u.t.ton."

Warren's eager eyes directed Ellis back to the table he and Gerd had eaten at. Ellis went to the juke-box selector, found the black b.u.t.ton and pressed it. The music started and with it a high-pitched whine from above Ellis's head. Looking up, he saw, in a corner of the room, a small flower-patterned curtain sliding noisily along a rail to reveal a curved gla.s.s cabinet. Inside the cabinet, a miniature model jazz band played to the music. The band members were a foot tall. They were figurines of large-headed black musicians with white tuxedos, fulsome pink lips and oversized toothy smiles. One sat at a miniature drum kit, one held a saxophone to its mouth, another a trumpet. There were a dozen of them and they jigged about with their instruments as the music played. In one corner, a trombone moved back and forth on a rail and where the trombonist had once been there now sat a Barbie doll in a sequined blue evening dress. The handle of the trombone drilled repeatedly into Barbie's face, where a disheartening hole had been gouged out of her eye socket.

"What happened to the trombone player?" Ellis asked, with a forced smile.

"Someone hung him," the unnamed man said, patting the bench next to him.

Ellis sat.

"Barbie's been there many years," Warren added. "She wasn't there originally, as you've worked out for yourself."

"We didn't hang him," the man said. "There was some of that going on when we lived on Main Street in the fifties, but not us. Murder is wrong when you count to four and stop to think about it."

"Have you tried the pumpkin pie?" Warren asked.

"No, I haven't," Ellis said, feeling his enthusiasm for his first photography project wane.

"Can't beat Dolly's fresh pumpkin pie. Why don't you order some?"

Ellis presumed that Dolly had to be the bald lady at the bar. He wondered if Dolly was dying. He felt queasy about eating food prepared by a terminally ill person and was pretty sure that midsummer was not pumpkin season. The whole issue of what const.i.tuted fresh food at the Anvil Bar and Grill was not one he wanted to raise again.

"I'm full," he said, and patted his stomach appeasingly.

Dutch slid his bowl of half-eaten pie and dribble towards Ellis and nodded, inviting Ellis to finish it.

Ellis's heart sank. "That's kind of you, but I'm stuffed, really."

The unnamed one picked up the conversation. "When we lived on Main Street, we devoted a lot of our time to the battle to keep America as G.o.d intended it to be."

"Right ..." Ellis murmured.

"A battle we lost."

"Mmmm ..."

Warren leant forward and fixed Ellis in the eye. "Poor Dutch, here, he still enjoys a slice of pie. He ain't been robbed of that pleasure. He eats a bowl of pie with cream most days of the week. We come here every day. Dutch enjoys it. He's still the same brother we knew and loved."