Bailey's Cafe Read online

  If anything, I’m a realist. It was the spring of 1942 and America was what it was. Cockeyed and mixed-up, new and still growing, with all its faults, I had no place else to call home. And the law was the law. I could either learn to bake bread and peel potatoes or spend the summer of ’42 in jail. I opted not to go to jail and ended up spending the summer on Guadalcanal. And that’s where I discovered that Japan was what it was.

  We weren’t getting into Tokyo

  From the moment my left foot sank into the level sands of that calm beach near Lunga Point (and I remember it was my left foot because the right was bracing me in the supply boat), I stopped calling those people Japs. There wasn’t any fighting that day. And my specific job was only to haul supplies through the coconut groves and set up base. But swinging my right foot out of that boat was to land me at war in the entire Pacific.

  No vet ever says he went to war in the Gilbert Islands. He might have fought only on those islands, at Makin or at Tarawa, but he went to war in the Pacific. Cause any man who’s ever been at war will tell you, you can feel everything that happens on the earth where you are. It’s one of the shittiest feelings you can imagine, the way it cakes around the soles of your boots as you first haul ass on up that beach toward those muddy coconut groves, ignoring your stinking sweat as you keep falling and dying at that very moment twenty-five miles away in Tugali, a thousand miles away in New Guinea. For the next three years me, the Brits, the Aussies, the Dutch, and the Filipinos were at war in the Pacific against the Japanese—and only the Japanese—

  We weren’t getting into Tokyo

  —as inch by inch, island by island, we were pushing them back. And they told me I was on the winning side, long before the A-bomb was dropped. But believe me, I understand about that bomb. Cause even with every Medal of Honor they gave me, every victory broadcast, every assembly called to hear the latest greetings from my supreme commander, I wasn’t gonna win a war from the sea or in the air, I had to win it on land—

  We weren’t getting into Tokyo

  —the enemy’s land.

  I don’t expect my unborn children to forgive me. But they have to understand how beautiful it was. The end of the world is blue. And it wasn’t about saving my life; I was willing to give that up for them—not my country, them. Without them I knew there would be no America. But when the sun rises at the end of the world, the sky and the sea are so blue they only deepen to swallow those streaks of red-gold. Yeah, I know I’ll be judged a coward. But I couldn’t march into Tokyo. I feared for my immortal soul.

  They had taken Guadalcanal. I was taking it back. I was trained to kill. They were trained to kill. And I fought them like a man. They came at me wading across the Ilu River with rifles. I cut them down with my own. And they kept coming. I cut them down with machine guns. And they kept coming. I finally stopped them with antitank canisters from guns meant to rip open steel. Their bodies covered the sandy banks of the Ilu; the treads of my advancing tanks gummed up with their flesh as I felt their heads popping under me like scattered coconuts. They lost Guadalcanal—fair and square—but for six months they still kept coming. I blew them back up into the jungles; I drowned them in Ironbottom Sound. What kind of people were these?

  They ate their own dead in New Guinea. And I stepped over clumps of jungle ants finishing what they left. Shit ran down my legs from dysentery and I shook until my teeth ached at night. But even with the damp rotting the clothes from my body and peeling the skin off the soles of my feet, I pushed them north to Buna, where they burrowed, like moles, into the ground. They became one with the very earth they fought to hold. In Buna. In Bougainville. In Tarawa. In Guam. Closer and closer to Tokyo. I couldn’t uproot them from the sea: three thousand rounds of artillery. I couldn’t uproot them from the air: six thousand tons of high explosives. I blasted those fucking islands into the middle of nowhere, and the earth still crawled with them under my feet. They dug and hid beneath sand. They dug and hid beneath coral. And at Iwo Jima they dug beneath hot volcanic ash. No victory without land. And the land I walked on was killing me. I slung aside my guns and picked up gasoline. I poured it into those holes and roasted them alive. I stood east of the stench from their burning flesh drifting up into the westward trades.

  And it was west to Tokyo. But Lord, there was still the Philippines. Corregidor. The Rock. I was getting tired of these bastards. They wanted this lousy, stinking land: I’d bury them in it. I sealed them up alive in the ground. They blew the tunnels open. I sealed them up. They blew them open. And finally they blew themselves apart. Scalps, arms, and legs raining down with bits of gravel from thirty feet in the air. Leyte. Mindoro. Luzon. Seasick from the monsoons. Knifed by cogon grass. I started jumping at the sound of my own heart, trudging through the dark ruins of Manila. I kept jumping at the sound of my own heart, even in my dreams. Like the bombs overhead, pounding, pounding, pounding. I left one out of seven Filipinos sprawled in the streets of Manila, liberated from the Japanese.

  I’m a soldier. I follow orders. But I beat them and they don’t lie down. I win and they don’t lie down. They rise shrieking and laughing from the graves of Guam. Pitchforks against machine guns. Empty bottles against grenades. Baseball bats against Sherman tanks. God, I am so sick of killing the living dead. What kind of people are these? The people waiting down there in Tokyo.

  The city lies below my B-29. I’m a soldier. I follow orders. I spray napalm from the air to send rivers of fire running through the streets. I burn ammunition factories. I burn shipyards. I burn schools. I burn hospitals. I burn homes. And they still keep coming.

  One last island before Japan. But in Okinawa I couldn’t stop the shakes. I chewed up the palm of my hand and spat out the blood to keep from dozing at night. I could stop myself from sleeping, so there would be no dreams. But I had to breathe. And it was in the air, flowing from its source just three hundred miles away. The divine wind. Kamikaze.

  The wind fluttering the edge of her flowered kimono, unraveling the baby’s swaddling band as they hurled down the jagged cliffs of Saipan. And only twenty-four years on that island. I packed dirt up my nose and panted through my mouth. But I could still hear it. The divine wind. Kamikaze. I jammed empty shell casings into my ear canals.

  Saipan. A family picnic. All bathed. New clothes. A hundred hands pressing a hundred grenades to a hundred navels; the explosion of a hundred entrails. And only twenty-four years on that island.

  One thousand and five hundred years in Japan.

  I could still feel it on my skin. The divine wind. Kamikaze. I took my trembling hands and plastered my body with mud. It wasn’t enough. I rolled in the mud, howling up into the hills of Okinawa. Begging for any god to take it all away. I couldn’t set foot in Japan.

  The very young, the deformed, and the old were waiting for me in Tokyo. And you gotta understand how blue it was. How beautiful, soul-wrenching blue. And you gotta understand we were winning the war. There’d be no judgment passed on me for what was to happen in Tokyo. I wasn’t a coward. I could go in and do my duty. It became just too unbearable to know I’d be doomed to come out alive. Take. This. Cross. From. Me. And yes, I offered any god who would answer even the rights to my unborn children. And the only god to answer claimed them.

  Pika-don. The earth melted open and gave birth. My salvation rose like the head of a newborn. Tears streaked down my face. Its own face gleamed brighter and its breath burned hotter than the sun. It set the sky on fire as its typhoon winds swallowed the puny kamikaze. I was saved. Hiroshima in exchange for my soul. Count the bodies. I’d left more dead in the streets of Manila. On the hillsides of Okinawa. Pika-don. Just count the bodies. But then Nagasaki—where it turned to claim our children. The unborn children.

  My seed rained on that city from black clouds, withering the camellias, curling the leaves of oaks, scalding the feathers of songbirds. My seed flowed with the inland tides, sweeping heaps of trout and salmon into piles among the rotting sea turtles. So gentle those tides, as
the seed seeped out into the North Pacific, moving slowly, spreading east, nurtured within warm currents across the curve of the earth. It was a long journey. Across a new age. Most of us had shipped back home and I was pocketing my discharge when I saw a Jew of those seeds finally hitting the rocky coast of San Francisco. A heavy Jog was misting around my face as the churning surf sprayed them up into the air. A cool breeze was blowing over my shoulders—steady and heading due east. I felt their hard shells sting my cheeks as they blew on past. It was too late to mourn. Too late to wish there might have been a different prayer. Right here on this soil, we’d be forced to watch them grow. To watch them lead. My prayers had saved me, but the one god to answer went on to spawn for this country the sons—and more sadly, the daughters—who could have marched into Tokyo.

  It seems as if I stood on that wharf for years. Behind me all of San Francisco was going crazy with victory celebrations. The boys were home. People danced in the streets with beer bottles and champagne. Church bells were ringing. Firecrackers were exploding, a little too loud for my taste; but the Roman candles whistling and sailing across the top of the hills were pretty with their trails of red-and-silver smoke, and when they landed they wouldn’t leave craters in the ground. The fellas couldn’t understand my staying down by the water. I had to come on up—it was a wide-open town. Anything you wanted to eat. Drinks on the house. And even the hookers weren’t charging. A smart move for the professionals, because right then most women were ours for the taking.

  But the surf beating over and over against the edge held me. The fog had thickened so that I could no longer see the water, but the sound was there: susshing … susshing. What do we do when the party is over? I knew life was going to be very different (A different prayer, could there have been a different prayer), and I felt it just wasn’t worth it. Before Hiroshima it had definitely been worth it. I still believe this country had even been worth Hiroshima happening, but at the very moment of Hiroshima happening, it all stopped being worth it. You get a man like that, with thoughts like that, staring out over the edge … The only world worth existing for me in that white shroud was the sound of the surf, and I already knew what the surf was bringing … susshing … susshing … A hand reached through the fog and touched my shoulder.

  —There’s a customer waiting, Nadine said.

  Startled, I turned around and she was standing in back of me. And in back of her was this cafe. The scarred old counter. Peeling linoleum. A haphazard line of wooden chairs and tables at the front window. Greasy white smoke clouded around us from the hot grill. I stared at the spatula in my hand and I could hear the sound of the hamburger sizzling on the grill. It was burning, and without thinking I flipped it over. We were in business.

  I never changed the name of this place. When I found myself in here from that wharf in San Francisco, the name Bailey’s Cafe was painted across the front window in those same red letters trimmed with gold and I saw no reason to remove it. Because of that, folks think my name is Bailey and I see no reason to tell them otherwise. These people aren’t my lifelong buddies; they don’t need to know my name. Some of them think Bailey is my surname and they’ll call Nadine, Mrs. Bailey. And she’ll answer to that as much as she’ll answer to anything. Nadine isn’t particular about what they call her as long as they don’t expect her to get up from behind the counter too often and serve ’em. Not that my wife is lazy; she’s helped me make a lot of improvements over the last three years. She sewed the red-checkered curtains herself and went out and found the brass rail to hang ’em on. The double-door Frigidaire was her idea and so was the jukebox.

  It’s just that Nadine feels that folks shouldn’t get the wrong idea about this place. If we start serving ’em too readily, they’ll begin thinking we’re actually in the business of running a cafe. Forgetting how it happened they stumbled in here, they’ll start looking for us when they’re hungry. And then when they don’t find us, they’ll start asking questions. Hey, why wasn’t this place here last month when I came by? I could see if you’d just closed down—but the whole damn building was gone. Life’s too short to spend time trying to explain the obvious to the idiot. If they can’t figure out that we’re only here when they need us, they don’t need to figure it out.

  I guess whoever Bailey was—if there was a Bailey—he knew this place had to be real real mobile. Even though this planet is round, there are just too many spots where you can find yourself hanging on to the edge just like I was; and unless there’s some space, some place, to take a breather for a while, the edge of the world—frightening as it is—could be the end of the world, which would be quite a pity.

  THE VAMP

  —I need a menu.

  —We’ve got no menus.

  —All right, give me a hamburger. Hold the fries.

  —Hamburgers only on Tuesday.

  —Some roast beef, then. Make it lean. And …

  —No roast beef till the weekend.

  —So what can I get today?

  —What everybody else is having.

  —I don’t eat corned-beef hash.

  —That’s what we got. And warm peach cobbler.

  —I’m not eating no hash. How’s the peach cobbler?

  —Divine.

  New customers are a pain in the butt until they get into the rhythm of things. Fried chicken Mondays. Hamburger Tuesdays. Hash Wednesdays. Pork chop Thursdays. Fish on Fridays. And a weekend open house: breakfast, lunch, dinner: your call.

  Since they’re only getting one thing a day Monday through Friday, and anything they want Saturday and Sunday, why print up a menu? But you’d be surprised how long it takes that to sink into some people’s heads. It’s been a real lesson for me in human nature. During the weekdays some act offended that they’ve only got one choice and want to argue and get all loud, like somebody’s keeping ’em from going to other cafes. Or they could come back on the weekend, when we’ll give ’em anything they want. But the weekends bring in another type of character, who don’t believe it when you tell ’em it’s really anything they want. They sit there confused and silly, craning their necks all around, asking over and over for a menu.

  Then there’s the weekend joker who’s gonna test the house policy. Instead of asking for what they’d really like to eat, they start auditioning for the Texaco Star Theater.

  —Anything I want? All right, peanut butter and fried pickles on a club roll.

  —Sweet pickles or dill pickles? I ask as their grin starts fading.

  And after rummaging back in the storeroom, that’s just what I bring to their table, along with my souvenir baseball bat. Josh Gibson signed that bat for me after an East-West Classic, and they can see his name real plain as I thump it against the table leg while I explain the check. If they eat the peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich, it’s on the house. And if they don’t eat it, I’ll make sure they pay me for my trouble.

  Usually they eat it. And the next time they come back in, they act like people.

  Any of my customers can tell you, I’m not a nice man. But I’m good at my word and I call ’em the way I see ’em. On one hand, this summer isn’t gonna be so bad, cause it’s mostly my seasoned regulars. On the other hand, it means they know enough about each other to keep a running feud going on. Everybody wants me to throw the other body out of here. Like this place is their personal discovery and only for them and their kind. I know more about some of them than they know about themselves, and they all boil down to only one type, or they wouldn’t be in here in the first place. You can’t tell them that, though. And when things get too heated, I just turn my back and lean over the grill like I’m doing something miraculous with a chicken, Monday, or a hamburger, Tuesday. But I can recognize their voices with my eyes closed.

  Meet Sister Carrie. Cornerstone of the Temple of Perpetual Redemption:

  —Lord Jesus, it don’t make a bit of sense, all this riffraff and scum in here. I can barely swallow my food looking at the likes of them. Lord Jesus, please, protect
my Angel from the filth and abomination taking over this world.

  Sister Carrie is one of those who can’t come in on the weekends. Tell her she can have anything she wants and she starts shaking like a leaf. She’d starve before she’d answer you. A woman afraid of her own appetites.

  —Now, I could see, Bailey, if this wasn’t a respectable place. If this was one of those dives on the other side of town. But you’re right around the corner from the Temple. But, Lord Jesus, I never know when it’s safe to bring my Angel in here. Never knowing what she’ll run into. And if any of this filth and scum tried to proposition me or my Angel, if this filth and scum ever …

  Now, meet Sugar Man. All-around hustler and pimp:

  —No need for that dried stick to be cutting her eyes at me. Five-alive, she can rest easy. I only mess with women like her in my nightmares. Bailey, give me a plate of that hash, and make it steaming hot.

  He’s a little man, Sugar Man. Dresses to the nines and practically lives in a 1936 Duesenberg. Another weekday player who comes in and orders the only thing we have to offer as if it was his choice.

  —Five-alive, this is good eating. And tomorrow you better have pork chops. You know me and pig meat.

  A little man, Sugar Man. Tiny hands with big diamond rings. Tiny feet in alligator wingtips.

  —Total her up and give me the damage.

  We have to charge him three times what the meal is worth because he’d insist on paying it anyway.

  —Good, now I’ll be able to breathe with the likes of that out of here. Angel, honey, don’t chew with your mouth open. The lowest thing in creation, something that lives on women. And somebody tell me, what decent man would wear a purple suit?