Short story: Lunar Light
She was one good looking tall drink of water, legs long as the towering yellow pines in the deep forest surrounding the place, a figure like those grand carvings of women that graced the prows of the giant prides of the long ago British fleets, flowing sun blonded brown tresses, high forehead, alert brown eyes, lips like the dessert buffet at The Cloister on Sunday. She was desired, coveted, flat out wanted.
Her name was J’anna but everyone who ever came across her soon came to know she was The Moon Beam. There was a silvery gleam to her and under the low slung lights and mapled walls and long mirrors of Southern Woods’, she glowed.
In her Daisy Dukes, tight T-shirt that almost always read “Fool, What Are You Looking At!?” or some knowing variation of that theme and her quick shuffling pink flip flops, she was a classic and she knew it, and usually in good humor. It was often said that her clothes fit her so…so well, so formfully that you couldn’t just tell her sex, you could tell her religion. And such was worthy of prayerful attention.
She was from up around Macon and rumor had it that her Daddy was a doctor and she had run off from home early, that she had been around the block more than a few times with great adventures and alternately rich and trashy lovers but no one had ever confirmed a word of any of it. The scent of Wild just smoked off of her.
She danced around all inquiries and kept her eye on the ball, the business of moving alcohol and conversation across the slats of her scuffed elbow shined mahogany bar.
Her voice was deep and dripped with the syrup of the deep south. When she said ‘Hay’, it stretched out for seconds and was captivating. That’s all it took to charm whomever was lucky enough to be blessed with her greeting.
She laughed large and loud, took plenty of shots with the guys and was the mistress of all ceremonies. She never seemed to take any night off save Monday. Mondays were always slow as everyone had pretty much drunk enough over the weekend. Like the regular once said, “”I got too drunk yesterday.” And his friend asked, “A real bad one?” and the fellow corrected him with, “Naw, I just got drunk twice yesterday.” It was that kind of place.
No one knew where she lived. She kept it like that.
She was the queen of the bar at ‘The Woods’ in Sylvester, Georgia. Sylvester sat up to the north by a few hours from Thompson, the Quail Shooting Capital of south Georgia and arguably the entire USA.
The customers ranged from the richest and most influential plantation owners from all over with a heavy concentration of Atlantans and Masters of the Universe and Yankee hedge funders and bond traders to farmers and field hands and merchants and visitors and guests and lots of folks who had just heard about the place and The Beam and wanted to see for themselves.
When not serving and yacking, she always wiped the bar down, her towel buffing her workplace to a constant shine. There was no fighting or aggressive nonsense allowed. That kind of transgression would get a guest tossed in a New York Minute.
Some bad language was allowed but it had to be artfully, even carefully done or that would get you a ticket out too.
The place opened at five and closed at midnight. It was late autumn, getting chilly. Some of the help had laid a fire in the old bricks and lit it up with some good fat wood about a quarter til open.
There were a few cars and trucks in the dirt lot, fellows sitting waiting.
At five sharp, Beam pulled the yellowed string on the neon “PBR Here- We’re Open’ in the front window and it flickered to red white and blue life. And folks, almost always men, would wander in to have a few or more and visit with Beam and her helpers and be comfortable and more at home than they were in their other homes and they would give Beam excellent tips and better attention. And they all knew, she was to be left alone.
And each night, Beam would turn the lights down and back up at 11:30 and it was last call and it was, no exceptions. It was expected that the too drunk would be helped out and at midnight sharp, the front door was locked and the Open sign turned off.
And then Beam and her helpers would clean the place up and get ready to go again on the morrow.
And then they’d all leave, disperse to wherever.
And The Moon Beam would sit in her car and smoke a cigarette and think about where she would go next.
There was a fellow waiting for her back at her place. He hadn’t been around long and he wasn’t going to be around much longer. He just didn’t suit. Most all of them just did not suit.
And then her red tail lights followed her out of the dirt and gravel and she drove and smoked and thought about her next adventure. There was no moon, just stars in the dark.