All Bets Are Off (for Cormac McCarthy)

Here comes Chinaski, they said among themselves, heads 
lowered to the table in a strange attempt at secrecy. 

There he was, reasonably well-dressed, no trace 
of the cemetery nor lapse in hygiene nor 
angst nor impatience incurred from his being 
aroused from (supposedly) eternal slumber. 
Trim beard. Even step. Dancing eyes 
with small, resilient magic. 

He moved with a keen dexterity that if found in a true storybook 
would protect him against the annoying ruminations 
of the interlopers, 
his hands investigating his pockets for various items of value. 

They recircumvented as he approached the waiter, 
the restaurant. Good afternoon, my man, he said. I wonder 
if I could get a table? And of course he could. The place 
had a policy: No fucking around at the expense of honored guests; 
stock the necessary furniture, the appropriate refreshments; 
if it means setting a fire to get rid of stupid people 
then a fire will be set. 

The waiter sat Chinaski, asked him how to start. 
A Heineken. And a double blended Dewar's on ice. 
I'll have them in a moment, the waiter said. 

The interlopers took courage and resumed their previous gossip. 
Fragile declarations of wisdom and stubborn refusal to 
confess shortcoming or even expose their collarbones briefly 
to verifiable criticism. Greedy pricks, in other words. 

Nearly three decades underground had begifted him 
a gorgeous sense of hearing and with it he listened 
to the men pretending to not be jealous 
and he listened far beyond the restaurant, too. 
His waiter returned with the drinks. 

He set down coasters, placed the bottle on one, 
the scotch & water on the other, the empty glass 
rim-down remained on his tray, a curious afterthought 
that Chinaski mercifully didn't comment on. 

Your order, sir? 
Five minutes, he said. 

He began to rehearse the inventory of his life. 
The hapless, unhappy marriage in Texas. 
The jobs, the women, the readings, the wild letters 
of the disenfranchised and the underappreciated. 
He noticed with affable bemusement how the gods 
had neither tempted him with earthly promises nor 
punished him for trespassing into their affairs. 
He took the bottle in two fingers, turned it a half-rotation, 
lifted it, drank about half, returned the bottle to the cloth. 
If the men made comments about trying he didn't hear it. 
He felt the beer and the street moving within and without him. 
Everything he touched and didn't touch responded like a typewriter. 
Glorious machine music, starving traintracks from nowhere 
to everywhere, the spiritual bear in contemplation, the grateful boxer -- 
20 yrs. old and unfamiliar with the jailcells and chains. 

He finished the second drink, the ice remaining stoically in the glass. 

The waiter correctly sensed he wouldn't ask for any meal. 

He stood up from the table, removed his wallet, removed 
a well-traveled Twenty and set it beneath the saltshaker. 
He put back his wallet, straightened his thriftstore suit. 
And as he moved into the next waiting horizon 
he thought he heard a piano but didn't know who's joy 
the notes were attempting to convey. 

****