No Moon In January by Joe Mallon

Danny got to Average Joe’s early.  Ten o’clock.  Before Bobby.  Before he lost his nerve.

Maybe ten people there, a couple along the bar, a few at the tables.  A geezer sat on a stool near the door, with a cop’s buzzcut and a hard stare. A baseball bat leaned against the wall.

He couldn’t figure why Joe kept the tables.  The guy spit-shines the mahogany bar like it was a North Side fern bar but keeps these mold-infested Formica pieces of shit.  Didn’t bother Danny none.

Jukebox didn’t bother Danny none neither.  Either Covid or a guy with a beef killed it.  Joe either didn’t give a shit or never noticed the difference.  Either way Danny never heard a song come out or seen a quarter go in.

The table in the far corner was the darkest spot in the joint.  Except for that flickering 40-watt bulb.  Goddamn Joe.  Thing had been flickering for a month.  Next time I’ll bring my own goddamn light bulb.  But not tonight.

He put his coat and hat on the chair facing the door so he could watch for him.  Walked up to the bar.  “Two Buds, Joe.” 

Joe grabbed two longnecks from below. Put two coasters down, the beers on top of them.

Danny dropped a ten-spot on the bar.  “I’m takin’ ‘em to my table.  Don’t need coasters for Formica.”

Joe swept up the ten.  “You ain’t leaving rings on my mahogany.  Sloppy.  All it takes is a second.”

“Jesus, Joe.”  He picked up the beers.  He jerked his head towards the light.  “I’m gonna unscrew that bulb.  Driving me batshit.”

Joe shook his head.  “I got four lights in this place. Got one out.  Can’t lose another one.”

“I’ll bring two more next time I’m in.”

Joe pulled the tattered shammy off his shoulder.  “Got my own damn bulbs.”  He squinted at the fine wood.  “Shit.  Look at that.”  He dipped the shammy into an open can of Gilboy’s Paste Wax.

“What?”

“See?  This what happens.  Guys like you come in, don’t use a coaster.  Now I got a ring on my mahogany.  “Places like this. That’s how they die.”

Danny didn’t see shit.

Joe started rubbing the perceived ring, leaning into it.  Should try using a rag that didn’t smell like stale beer.

“Bobby’s coming in.”

Joe stopped.  Looked up.  His face tightened.

“Bobby McQ?  He’s comin’ outta the house?” He picked up a shot glass, started buffing it.  “Should’a told me.” 

Danny nodded.  “Telling you now.  So I need it dark.”

“Should’a told me before.”  He shook his head.  “Things always go south with Bobby.”  Shrugged.  “Yeah, go ahead, unscrew it.  I want those two new bulbs tomorrow night.  Can’t have these guys sittin’ in the dark.”  Nodded at his customers.  “They got rights.”

“Sure, Joe.”

Danny walked back to his table with the two Buds.  Left the coasters.  Unscrewed the offending lightbulb.  Sat down to wait.  He put the odds at two to one against Bobby showing. 

No one came in or out while Danny waited.  Slow night.  Every night was slow at Average Joe’s.  That’s the way Joe liked it.

Time went by.  Eleven o’clock.  No Bobby McQ.  Well that’s that, he thought.  A no-show.  He sighed, took a long pull on the Bud. Stood up to leave.

The plywood door at the front of the bar opened, bringing with it a blast of arctic air off Lake Michigan. And Bobby McQ.

Bobby stood in the doorway.  Only guy Danny knew that wore a black leather duster.  Floor length.  With a hood. Had to be twenty years old, looked like a hundred.  His ragged salt and pepper beard, what you could see of it, was covered in thick ice.  Must have been a long walk. 

The geezer stopped Bobby at the door, blocking his path with a taut forearm.  His eyes flicked to the bat leaning against the wall. Looked at Joe.  Joe gave the slightest of nods. The geezer and Bobby whispered to each other.  The geezer nodded again, this time at Bobby.  Bobby stepped away and scanned the room.

Danny motioned to him with a nod of the head.

Bobby’s black army boots broke the silence as they thudded slowly, methodically, across the worn plank floor.  One man in a ragged Sox cap looked up, gave Bobby a fleeting glance, and went back to his sorry drink. 

He slid into the chair across from Danny, the hem of his coat dragging onto the floor.  The melting ice and snow slithered down his coat, a muddy puddle of slurry underneath.

“Whaddaya say, big man?”  With an attempt at a smile, Danny slid the now-warm bottle of suds across the table.  “You can take the shades off.”  He pointed to the now dormant light.  “I unscrewed the light bulb.”

“I’m good.”  Both men tipped back their beers with a long pull.  “It’s piss warm.”

“You’re late.”

Bobby McQ flipped back his hood.  “Things to do.  What’s up?”

“You’re shittin’ me.”

“What?”

Danny smiled thinly.  Shook his head.  “You’re wearing a black coat with a black hood.  Black wraparounds.  And now I see a black wool cap covering your eyebrows.”

Bobby’s wild black hair flowed out the back of the hat.  “Cold out.”

“Yeah, still.”

Bobby shrugged, unsmiling.  “Nothing new.  Not like you never seen me before.”

“You could try another color.  Maybe violet, match your eyes.  Then again, never seen your eyes.”

“Grey.”

Danny nodded.  “Course they are.”

Bobby leaned forward and folded his hands on the table. Hard eyes locked on Danny.   “You made me come out of my home.”

Danny glanced at Bobby McQ’s watch.  “You have black tape over your watch face.”

“Don’t want to talk about my watch.”

“Okay.”

Bobby looked at his hand.  “The light from the watch face.  It hurts my eye. Like driving a nail through it. ”

Danny contemplated this.  A fucking nail? 

“Got a favor to ask,” Danny said.

“Figured.”

“I need you to do this.”

Bobby shook his head.  “Last time I did you a favor…”

“I know,” said Danny.  Things went sideways.  I live with it.”

“You live with it?  That’s your answer?  Christ.”

Danny nodded.  “I tried to visit.  You turned me down.”

“You should have stayed out of it.  None of this would have happened.”

Danny signaled to Joe, holding up two fingers.  Joe nodded. 

Joe popped two more Buds, brought them over.  With coasters.  “Bobby.”

Bobby nodded.  He took the cold Bud in his hand.  He tilted it up, letting the golden brew glide down his throat.  He killed half the bottle, returning it to the center of the coaster.  He looked up at the defunct light.  “You break that light?”

“Unscrewed it.”

“You did that for me?”

Danny shrugged his shoulders.  “You like it dark.”

He nodded.  “Think that gets you off the hook?”

The icy wind howled outside, rattling the front door and whistling through it.  Danny shivered. He tapped the table.  “I want you to try again.”

Bobby took off his shades.  Blinked his eyes.  Squinted, like he was adjusting them to the light.  Only there was no light.  He stared at Danny.  “How is she?”

Danny winced.  “Like you.”

Bobby nodded, considering this.  He slid Joe’s coaster from underneath the Bud.  He ran his fingertips broodingly across and around the cheap pulpboard, felt its rough colorless fibers, looked up at Danny.  “I get by.” 

“My sister?  Not so much.  She’s broken.  And yeah, I know.  I should have stayed out of it.”

“She come out?”

Danny shook his head.  “Not since summer solstice.  Says something about rage. Rage against the light.”

Bobby pursed his lips.  “She said that?”

Danny tilted his head.   He paused.  “Yeah, so?”

“You got it wrong.  It’s ‘Rage against the dying of the light.’”

Danny snapped his fingers.  “That’s it.  That’s what she said.”

“From a poem.  It means she’s fighting it.”

“Fighting what?”

Bobby shifted in his seat.  “Death.  Summer solstice.  The light starts to fade.  She’s raging against the dying of the light.”

“Holy Christ, you don’t think she’d…”

“Kill herself?”  He shook his head.  No.”

“Jesus, Bobby, I’m fucking clueless with her.”

“Don’t blame her.  Summer solstice. First day of summer.  That July sun hits?  It eats your brain.”

Danny rubbed his chin.  “Funny.”

“What?”

“She said the same thing.  Eats her brain.”  He hesitated, voice choking.  “If you could see her eyes…  What it did to her…  Jesus Christ.”

Bobby McQ leaned forward, palms on the table, stared into Danny’s eyes.  “You go outside?  Sunglasses, hat, doesn’t matter.  It’s like hell is sitting on your head.  You can smell the sun.  Like burnt lava.  It’s the devil.  It’s like Helios himself has damned us.”

“It’s bad, I know.”

Bobby shook his head.  “No you don’t know.  It comes in through the roof, through the windows, through cracks in the mortar.  Nowhere is safe.”  He hesitated.  “I live in the cellar.  Helios has to work his ass off to get to me if I stay in the cellar.  Alone.”

“Who the fuck is Helios?”

“Look it up.”

The two men sat in silence, in the stale dimness of a forlorn tavern in the oldest neighborhood in the city.

“She painted the windows black,”  Danny’s voice shook.

More silence.

“Can’t you help?” Danny asked.

“She doesn’t want help.  She doesn’t need any.  She’s fighting it on her own.”

“Both of you.  You talk in goddamn riddles.”  Danny shook his head in exasperation. “Dying light. Brain eating.” 

“What do you want me to do?”

“Christ, Bobby, I wish we never met you.”

“Yet here we are.”

“I’m asking you to help, for fuck’s sake.”

Bobby’s eyes burned.  “You blame me.  But you ask me here to help.”

“Look, I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes.  You did.”  He paused.  “But you haven’t told me what you want me to do.”

Danny threw his hands up.  “I don’t know.  Get her out of the house.  Go somewhere with her.  Do something, for Christ sake.”

“Like a date?”

“Jesus, maybe. Yeah.  Like a date.  She’ll only come out for you.”

Bobby shook his head.  “She won’t come out for me.”

“She used to.”

Bobby McQ leaned forward, his grey eyes peering at Danny.  “What makes you think she’ll come out for me?  What makes you think I want her to?”

Danny slapped the table.  “She’ll only come out for you, and you damn well know it.  And you damn well want to see her.”

He glared at Danny.  “You know all that?”

Danny’s voice turned into an intense whisper as he leaned towards Bobby.  “Don’t tell me you didn’t know why I wanted to meet.  You knew.  Then you stood out in a fucking blizzard stomping your feet and flapping your arms for an hour because you were too chickenshit to face me.”

“Fuck you.”

“But you came in.  You want to see her.”

“I…” Bobby whispered.

A blackness enveloped the two men as both sat back in their chairs.  Only their heavy breathing interrupted the brooding quiet.

At long last, Bobby put on his wraparounds.  He stood, looking down at Danny.  “Tell her I’ll be here.  Tomorrow. Ten o’clock.  Same table.  Same darkness.”

“That’s fast.  Don’t know if I can talk her into it.”

Bobby shrugged.  “That’s the offer.”

“Okay.  I’ll see what I can—”

Bobby tugged on his gloves.  “It’s January.  We got a deep freeze with no moon.  She’ll like that.”  Bobby flipped his black hood over his head.

“You think she’ll come?”

  Bobby didn’t answer. He stared at Danny, turned, and walked out into the cold January night.

Joe Mallon

Image: A misty, full moon sailing in the clouds from Pixabay.com