CHAPTER 2
1
1994 The Slippery Deck Tavern sat off Highway 103, which
runs the full length of the Long Beach Peninsula in the State of
Washington. With the Pacific Ocean on one
side, and Willapa Bay on the other, the land mass runs north and south for
nearly 35 miles, over 28 of them continuous beach. When the tide is out, the beach is actually a highway with a
speed limit of 25 mph, although many a car has seen it's speedometer pushed
past the century mark along that same stretch of hard wet sand.
During the peak traffic of
summer, occupants of the Slippery Deck were as varied as the means of
transportation they arrived in. Many
were professional types from the metropolitan areas that were within a day's
drive, like Seattle or Portland, pulling up in their BMW's and Infinities. Others came in what seemed to be the
vehicles of the 90's. Nissan
Pathfinders, Toyota 4Runners, Jeep Cherokees, Ford Explorers, or any other four
wheel drive that cost at least twenty-five thousand dollars before throwing in
the CD player and a cellular phone. A
trip to the ocean and the occasional snow storm was the only time they would
ever engage their four wheel drive systems, and even then they would need a tow
truck more times than not. Others would
show up with little more than a kite, a tank of gas, and beer money. The cars they drove where held together with
hundred mile an hour tape and a prayer.
These tended to be college students, young newlyweds, and potheads
looking for a cool place to cop a sunset and a buzz without a blue light
special.
Business slowed down a lot
in the off-season, when the sun seemed permanently obscured by wind driven rain
and fog. Most of the drive-ins and boutiques
closed all together during the winter, as the dozens of motels and cabin
rentals slashed prices in half to attract enough people to pay the utilities
and keep the mildew from completely taking over. What vacationers did come usually stayed at the bottom end of the
peninsula in Long Beach or Seaview, seeing no reason to drive another half an
hour to see a beach that remained basically unchanged. This left only the locals and people who
visited their property from time to time to carry the economy over until next
Memorial Day weekend, when the peak season would start anew.
The Slippery Deck Tavern, or
'The Deck' as she was known to the regulars, usually had more than it's fair
share of business in the winter. This
was due to the bartender, slash cook, slash owner, who poured the cheapest
schooners and ladled the meanest chili and chowder this side of the
Rockies. Luke Perry, no relation to the
teen idol of television fame he was quick to add, looked every bit at home
behind the taps and along side of the makeshift kitchen at one end of the
bar. He had the customary paunch of
thirty extra pounds for his height of five-nine, that bulged through his white
starched apron with the occasional chili or pickle juice stain sprinkled down
the front of it. His face was leathery
and wrinkled, more from the elements and the past than from time itself, making
an accurate guess at his age quite impossible. He was in fact fifty-two years old, and had once been a salmon
fisherman like so many of the others. His
left leg had been badly crushed in an accident while dropping, literally, a new engine into his
boat. That had left him too handicapped
to maintain his balance on rough seas, not to mention the pain that always came
when he got too cold. He now walked
with a pronounced limp, and most of his friends had taken to calling him 'Peg
Leg', which just added to the atmosphere.
So he sold his boat, and along with his life savings, purchased an old
run-down tavern named Sandy's Place and turned it into the Slippery Deck.
The inside of the tavern was
typical for the area, with glass floats and nets hanging from the walls and
ceiling, along with the ever present spider webs that only seemed to be noticed
in the light of day. On one wall was a
helmsman's wheel that looked real enough, but in truth had once been a wall
clock made in Taiwan that Luke had bored a hole through and left out back for a
year or so to get that weathered look. He had always been mechanically gifted,
which he put to good use by fixing up old pinball machines and a couple of
coin-operated pool tables that he resurfaced himself. Luke stopped polishing the huge mirror behind the bar, and
stepped over to give the chili a stir or two.
To Luke, good chili was like good booze. You had to age it, and it got better every day. This batch was going on four days now. He wasn't sure if that was kosher with the
state inspectors, but they had never asked, and no one had ever gotten
sick. He changed spoons and stirred the
chowder too, but he never let it go past a couple of days. The seafood aroma from the clam chowder
permeated the air as it mixed with the freshly brewed coffee and the ocean
smells coming through the open door.
The rain, light but constant over the last two days, made the air even fresher. It was quiet for a Friday, with the ceiling
fan and the steady staccato of the rain gutters overflowing onto the walkway
the only sounds to be heard. With all
of his morning chores now completed, he poured himself a half cup of Starbuck's
and sat it on a worn out cork coaster below the bar. He pressed a button recessed into the wood panel above the
coaster and counted to three in his head.
As he did, the remainder of his cup filled to within a quarter of an
inch of the top with brandy. Luke Perry
was many things, including clever and discreet, but first and foremost he was
an alcoholic.
There was only one customer
at the tavern, and he was almost as much a part of the decor as the helmsman's
wheel. Thomas Engelhart had been coming
in every day since the Slippery Deck had opened. There was a picture of him shaking Luke's hand with a dollar bill
taped beneath it framed behind the bar.
'Our first customer, and our first dollar, April 17, 1978.' was written
in longhand underneath the wrinkled currency.
After his wife had died
giving birth to Edward, Tom had struggled on alone raising his three children,
putting one of them through college.
His whole world had seemed to turn to shit, and it had been one big
catastrophe after another. Too many to be
a coincidence he used to think. Now he
refused to think about them at all, except sometimes in his sleep. It was then that his subconscious would
override the alcohol and thrust him into nightmares that were unfortunately
too close to reality. After those
episodes, he would go without sleep for days, until he finally took a sleeping
pill along with his daily allotment of beer and scotch. He knew his drinking would kill him someday,
if mixing drugs and alcohol together didn't do it first, but it would be a
small price to pay for a little peace of mind.
The 'Big Sleep' would be a welcome change of pace, and why he hadn't
done it himself with a bullet or a whole bottle of pills by now he could never
quite figure out. Probably some
leftover guilt from his childhood years as a forced practicing Catholic. If there were two things you always got
enough of in a Catholic household, it was going to mass and guilt.
Tom and Luke were a lot
alike in some ways, enough to become close friends over the years. Both had worked hard at their labors of
love, or destiny to be more precise, before fate had thrown them a curve ball
and changed their lives forever. Tom
had farmed the land in the plains of Nebraska, on the same patch of dusty earth
his father had, and his grandfather before that. Corn and a few cattle somehow paid the bills each year, with a
little left over to start up again the next season.
Luke's lot in life was the
same, as the Perrys were fisherman as far back as the family tree could be
traced. It had almost broken Luke's
heart to sell his boat, and to face a new life as some landlubber pouring
drinks for city folks and real seamen.
Thomas' story was to finally end up the same way too, for he had to sell
the farm before it was all over, and take a job as a mechanic and part time
tractor salesman to get the kids through college. Once that was accomplished, he had sold their house in town,
bought a used truck and travel trailer, and slapped what little was left in a
money market account. Between interest
on that and Social Security, he had taken over two years to travel across most
of the continental United States, finally parking his rig as cheaply as he
could at an RV park on the Pacific Ocean.
He could go no farther without a boat.
Luke had sold his boat, and could hardly give a rat's ass about any land
out of sight of the ocean. So here they
were, at the same place in time, and they shared their misery together, with
the help of their mutual friend, the bottle.
While Luke had no living family
or relatives that he knew of, Tom did, and some of them were living right there
in Washington State. He hadn't talked
to any of them since he had left Nebraska, but it wasn't hard to keep track of
his oldest son Jonathan, who had entered the political arena shortly after
graduating from WSU. His other son,
Edward, had ended up working for Jonathan, as he had read in some blurb in the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, as an advisor.
Tom would never figure that one out, but if it concerned Edward, he'd
just as soon not have anything to do with it.
And he didn't. His only
daughter, Janice, was last seen leaving home with some long hair from Lincoln,
Nebraska, in a run down GMC pick up.
Their only plan was to meet up with some friends in Denver and then head
out to Oregon somewhere. Long Hair, he had never bothered to
remember his name, had mentioned something about a commune. He hadn't heard from either one of them
since, not that he had left much of a forwarding address. They could be in communist China for all he
knew.
It wasn't that he didn't
care, just the opposite actually, Janice had been his favorite. She was the one that had remained sweet and
innocent, or so he had thought, on a family tree that had gone sour, due to
one particularly bad apple. He didn't
blame her for never calling, or writing, or coming back. She had gotten away the first chance she
got. His only regret was that he hadn't
done the same thing sooner himself. But
that was water under the bridge, not to be pondered on for long, or the
nightmares would return again. Just
another reason to start drinking, and as soon as Luke opened up the Deck and
was ready for some company, that's exactly what he did. Every day.
He figured it would be that way until he died, and that was fine by him;
until the phone rang that January morning, and for the first time since he had
left Nebraska, it was for him.
2
Jonathan Engelhart was
deeply concerned about his political future for the first time since running
for city councilman back in the early 80's.
He had won by the narrowest of margins, which had launched a career
since filled with landslide victories and swift advancement up the political
ladder. One of the Washington state
congressman, Brent Sherill, had died in an unexplainable light plane crash upon
returning from a fly-fishing trip in Alaska.
Due to the length of the time remaining on his term before the next
scheduled voting period, an emergency election was to be held in March. Every Tom, Dick and Harriet with their
sights on Washington D.C. had thrown their hat into the ring. Jonathan had tested the waters too, and
somewhat hesitantly, had decided to also announce his candidacy. He felt that maybe it was a little early in
his career, being only forty-three years old, but his brother Eddie had
convinced him that he was being typically over-conservative, which he was,
unlike his political views.
Chances like these didn't
come every day, although it was a sad day indeed, Eddie had reassured him, with
a slight curl of a smile that erased all believability. Eddie was sure that it was the right move,
at the right time, for the right man, and the rest of his small staff had
agreed unanimously. Eddie had let the
cat out of the bag before Jonathan had even made up his mind to tell anyone
else, which really pissed him off.
Eddie was so good at doing that, he often wondered why he kept the
little prick around, and he had almost given him the boot a hundred times in
the past. There were just two things
that kept him from that, two things that everybody else seemed to know also, or
at least feel. One, Eddie was always right. It was almost scary. Two, never cross Eddie. There was no almost about that being scary.
And when he was willing to admit it, no one knew that better than Jonathan
Engelhart.
Jonathan looked up from the rough draft of a speech he was to give at some fund raising banquet that night. He didn't even bother to memorize the schedule any more; he had a secretary for that. He didn't know how much a plate it was, or how much cash would be added to the coffers, Eddie took care of that. He didn't have to worry about what he would say or whether the topic would be appropriate for the audience, he had ghostwriters and volunteer PR people covering those details. His clothes would be picked out for him, down to the tie and cuff links. They would be dry cleaned and pressed and ready to slip into just prior to the engagement. He felt like a knight being prepared for battle, or better yet, a high paid call girl. 'Here, just wear that, say this, humor them, and we'll count and collect the money. Just perform on cue, and we'll do it again tomorrow.'
What happened to his agenda, his goals and dreams for a new and better future? He had told himself that when he finally got
into big time, national level politics, that he could finally accomplish
something tangible, something satisfying, something with meaning and
purpose. Now he wasn't so sure. He felt more and more like Pinocchio, a
puppet who's nose grew every time he told another lie, and all he really wanted
to do was become a real
person. What a bunch of bullshit. He was about as real as the shape of
Madonna's bra, and he was very seriously contemplating withdrawing from the
election just to see if he still had any control over his own life when his
private phone rang.