Hello Angelina

I Fall In Love Too Easily

Angelina poured down her first pint of the night in ten seconds flat, standing right there at the bar. Her job as a field reporter for the local news had given her the unenviable task of performing a mock interview of Charlie, the pelican who had taken up a roost on Oceanside's pier railing, just east of the bait shop. That interview hadn't gone well. Charlie had bitten the microphone out of her hand and taken her arm, up to the elbow, into its expansive beak. The effort of freeing herself had caused her a great deal of difficulty. She screamed and flailed at the bird. Feathers flew, and the great wings spread as the bird took to the air, lifting Angelina with him. Angela screamed and flailed and poked him in the eye. He dropped her back down to the pier, minus her microphone and her wristwatch.

After the pelican incident, Angelina stalked up to old Highway 101, the Coast Route, steam wafting from her ears as she entered the Oceanic Brew Pub and ordered up a pint of bitter stout from the bartender, her cousin Raphaela. Bottoms up, went that pint. "You O.K., girl?" said Raphaela.

"Pour me another," Angelina said.

Before Raphaela could complete the pouring of the second pint, a man with a man bun and a tattoo of a snake slithering up his neck slipped in and said to Angelina, "I've got this, pretty lady," placing a sawbuck on the bar.

Angelina's first instinct was to tell this fool that she drank for free when her cousin was behind the bar. But she held her tongue; some wanker wants to spend his money without a chance of it paying off, let him.

"So, what's in the news today?" Bun Man asked.

So, thought Angelina. He recognizes me. As someone who appeared semi-regularly on local T.V., she did have something of a minor celebrity thing going for her. "Well," she said, leaning back on the bar. "There's that pelican that hangs around the pier. I think he's going to die tonight."

"Charlie?" said Bun Man.

"Yep," said Angelina after a small sip of her second pint of the night. "I poisoned him."

"Fuck me," said bun man, taking a step back from her and going bug-eyed.

"Not likely," said Angelina, as her prima Raphael set her second pint on the bar.

Bun Man slunk away. Raphaela pocketed the twenty-dollar bill and said to her cousin, "Why don't you go sit with Larry." Larry was a sax man, and played at the Oceanic from time to time. She pointed to the booth where Larry Lenihan and Hobgood Rivard had set up shop. "That way you won't have to worry 'bout gettin' hit on.

The piano, under the influence of the ghost of Raphaela's mother, Juanita—taking a cue from the looks of nearly every man in the place as they checked out Angelina—slipped into a hushed, gentle version of the Jule Styne/Sammy Cahn song "I Fall In Love Too Easily,"

Hello Dolly

Angelina headed toward Larry and Hobgood's table, the fresh pint in hand. She sidled up to the two men. "I could use a place to sit, gentlemen; would it be alright if I joined you?"

Larry, who recognized the woman from her dance on the pier—he had played his saxophone to inspire her—thought of the lyrics of Louis Armstong's "Hello Dolly."

"Take her wrap, fellas, find her an empty lap, fellas."

But she had no wrap, and Larry thought an invitation to sit on his lap might get him a slap, so he slid in on the booth bench and patted the wooden seat and said to this beauty who was probably the age of his eldest granddaughter: "We'd be honored, my dear. We'd be honored."

The threesome chatted brightly. She smiled and laughed easily, and asked the two old fellows—with a seasoned interviewer's grace and a genuine interest in the stories they had to tell—probing questions about their lives. Larry loved it. He had achieved a place in life where romance was unnecessary, more of a bother than it was worth, and certainly this vibrant young woman at the peak of her beauty, who was probably about the age of his eldest granddaughter—had no interest in him in a romantic sense. Or in Hobgood Rivard, a rumpled and forlorn- looking man old enough to be her father. But the company of this gorgeous and amiable girl lifted the men's spirits, though Hobgood was conscious of his missing front tooth, his missing hair, his pot belly and his generally slovenly appearance. The girl seemed not to notice, or care. She seemed also to like beer and chatting, and Larry Lenihan considered himself and his friend the two luckiest guys in the Oceanic Brew Pub. Maybe the world. So did several young bucks who were circling them like hyenas.

"You know," Larry said, after Angelina had told him the story—in a beer-loosened, humorous, self depecatory way—of the interview with the pelican, describing in detail how the bird had tried to carry her off over the ocean, "I think the thing with the bird must have happened after you did that bouncy dance step to the sound of a saxophone."

Angelina's eyes went big. She touched Larry's arm. "That was you? The guy with the horn?"

Larry laughed. "And you were the woman doing the Charleston."

This was all news to Hobgood, who watched Angelina as she slipped her cell phone from her purse, pulled up the Oceanic's website and punched a few buttons, sending a message to the bar to deliver three more beers to table number 13, as Juanita at the piano, watching her niece and the two mature dudes, tinkled into the old tune from 1931, sung back then by Bing Crosby, "Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams," a sparkling up-tempo swinger in the ghost hands of Juanita—a song just made for dancing, to Angelina's ears. So she asked Larry to dance, and Larry said his hip was bad, and dancing was a thing of the past. So she refused to take no for an answer from Hobgood, grabbing his hand across the table and taking him out onto the Oceanic Brew Pub's dining floor. Hobgood, loosened up by the Sea Lion Pale Ales—and knowing that there was no way he was going to be allowed to refuse—bounced into a combination jitterbug/cha-cha with this enchanting woman, proving himself an inexpert and clumsy dancer who made up for his deficiencies with a goofy, don't give a shit who's watching, what do I have to lose energy, as the news lady let go of his hand and did a pirouet, skidding to a full stop when the delivery drone came by to hover at table thirteen, allowing Angelina tp prance over and lift away a foam-topped pint.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

A lull on the food orders settled in around nine o'clock, and Roy Leahy, the Oceanic's owner, took the opportunity to step out of the kitchen to talk to Raphaela.

"Your mom's hangin' around," he said to her, nodding toward the piano, where the apparition of Juanita Johnson sat, seen only by the eyes of Raphaela. Everyone else saw an empty piano stool, the keys depressing themselves without outside help, treating the place to a soft, subtle version of the old Frank Sinatra vehicle, "In the Wee Small Hours."

Raphaela wiped a tear drop from her cheek with a knuckle and nodded. Mom came around sometimes, but not often enough.

Juanita slipped into a soft version of Rodgers and Hart's "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," in honor of her niece Angelina, who sat, having a fine time ordering up another round on her cell phone at table thirteen, where she sat in the company of a pair of scruffy, disolute- looking guys who were both way to old for her.

"And I think," Roy continued in his chat with Raphaela. nodding in the direction of table thirteen, "we're going to have to cut your cousin off." And start charging her, he mused, for every beer she orders.

Comments