Asides at the Crown and Anchor

May 11, 2001, Austin Texas

by Walter Agnew Moore II, Roving Correspondent

(Names changed to protect my health)

We're sitting in the Crown and Anchor, (Sleeves), (Joyce), and I, and we can't figure out why the girl is so alluring. You see her? The one over at the second pool table. She slowly stalks around the table, taking her time chalking the cue, and she seems to be winning most of the games. A faceless mob are back in the shadows with her, but she is the only one you watch And why? Other than a frizzy little hippy-girl haircut that works on her, she's not what surreptitious peeks at Daddy's Playboys have trained us to go for. She's basically as curvacious as a Stonehenge menhir, and fairly squatty to boot. She's not going to any special effort to be noticed.

Still, we watch her.

(Sleeves) is almost done with his PhD in Linguistics. He's going to be the next Chomsky. He lives for the subject. (Joyce) is an honest-to-God poet who is like vinigar-- the first time you're exposed to him, it'll put you off, but then later you miss him if he's not there. Me, I'm passing time after a long day fixing a tape-player in my car.

I have told them both about my moronic neighbors who stay up until 4 am getting baked and who then have loud, rambling conversations that consist of equal parts outrageous lies, the word "fuckin", and the word "dude". An example:

"DUDE! I like was fuckin walkin down that fuckin Bourbon Street, dude, and like fuckin 15 dudes were gonna fuckin jump me dude, said they was gonna take me out fuckin Louisiana-style, know'm sayin dude? And like POW I fuckin turned right then and fuckin clocked one of em, dude, and I said 'Fuck Louisiana-style, that's Texas-style, dude!' They fuckin ran, like dude...FUCKIN-A, DUDE!"

It's quite a catchy way of speaking. At first (Joyce) is repelled by the butchery of his English language, but after the first pitcher he gets into it, and then it's "DUDE! DUDE! DUDE!" whenever there's a pause in the conversation.

It's my turn to get a pitcher. The line isn't too bad. I cut in front of a tall girl who seems to be hanging back, but she just smiles a wise smile at me. The guy in front of me orders and says to put it on the Jenkins tab. So as soon as he walks off I tell the bartender to put mine on the Jenkins tab too. We burst out laughing and he chides me: "You never open a tab, but you'll use somebody else's!" I tell him not to worry, when I steal something it'll be worth a year's salary, and just gimme a pitcher of Shiner.

(Tall Girl) says "Good Man!" and slaps me on the back. Then she edges up to the bar and says for him to get her 6 bottles of Shiner beer too, and put it on the Shiner Beer Rep tab. I clue in really fast-- "You're a beer rep? You oughta love me, I'm keeping your company in business!" and she immediately says: "And put his pitcher on my tab too!" and winks at me.

Beer Rep Girls-- is there anything they *can't* do?

(Joyce) and (Sleeves) are quite naturally in awe of the scene they have witnessed from our table a few feet away. I take that as my due. Walter the Lucky. Then we watch (Pool-Shooting Woman) again, and as she talks to her friends she puts a silly straw cowboy hat on her head. Like a flame blowing out, all her appeal is gone, she transforms herself from the pacing tigress into just another silly girl in a bar trying to be cute to get attention.

She leaves with her crowd, who turn out to be a bunch of dumpy little boys trying to act like Cholos from the East Side, walking with that little tough-guy attitude that just makes me think they're scared shitless. Wonder why.

That's about the time that (Sleeves) starts talking about (The Russian).

He's only seen her once, at a Linguistics conference in Mississippi. She was breaking up with her husband, and she and (Sleeves) had some kind of sexual marathon, to hear him tell it, that must have unhinged his brain, because he is talking about going to the Ukraine (I guess they kicked her out of the US), finding her, marrying her, and bringing her back here.

He doesn't even seem that drunk. (Joyce) and I are stupified. Married? After one week-end's grub-fest? I have met several of the women that (Sleeves) has dated over the years, and the nicest way I can put it is that they REALLY seemed to love life, and I can't imagine anything (The Russian) could do that they didn't already try.

But somehow, she's got him in a voodoo whammy.

He gets mad because we keep calling her "the Russian". "She's Ukrainian, dammit!" We just come back with "Everybody east of fuckin Berlin is a fuckin Russian, dude!"

We try reason: "You are dealing with a woman from a culture with four generations under Communism, preceded by millenia under czars and Mongol over-lords. This is not a place where you prosper by telling the truth. She just wants to use you to get back to the land of the round door-knob, the big PX, the coca-cola and chevrolet!"

We try mockery: I simulate (Sleeve)'s thoughts as he wallows in a bed on a hot Mississippi night, freezing-cold motel air-conditioner blasting over him, "Ah, she LOVES me!" then I switch to a high-pitched Russian accent as She thinks: "he is almost ready, he vill do vhat I vant!"

Not one thing works. That Russian put the whammy on (Sleeves). I leave for a second to walk down to the convenience store and buy cheap beer-- I have a plan. I am going to give the cheap beer to my moronic neighbors and hang out with them while they spin their dude-fuckin-dude tales, a tape-recorder hidden in my pocket.

When I get back to the Crown and Anchor, our table is empty.

© Walter Agnew Moore II 2001