You can have your Pick

Cappy Jack ©2004

“I heard his breastbone snap as loud as could be, ‘Crack!’, he stopped immediately and looked down. He put his fingertips on his chest, raising his elbows up, kinda looked like a chicken, and smiled. With his chin down, I thought I could have cold-cocked him, no trouble. But I wasn’t gonna, we were both having fun. No, it was a grimace,… yes, his smile disappeared pretty quick.”

A big man, Jack posed with his own meat hooks daintily draped on his brown leather jacket and laughed at the thought of thirty odd years ago. Tom had swooped up in the middle and looked at Jack laughing, head back, a bellow that brought looks from the bar. He sat next to Bram, the two big men, one black and the other a red Dutchman, blocking the view to the body language that went with such a laugh, a squirming, hopping, then laying back with contentment.

“That’s impossible. Maybe with a blackjack or a bat, nah, not with your knuckles.” Brammie’s lazy eye fixed a stare at Jack, his Duvel sat empty, no smoke clouded this computer guru, but Jack thought that Bram never punched anybody. That was a question Jack asked his Dutch friends once he got to know them. Personal information that sensitive, asked as a direct question, was usually preceded by a story. Jack exposed himself to get the same access with the same refrain, “Above all else, I value my anonymity.” Jack asked about Double Dutch most often, starting fiendish tales of contrariness. But where was the Dutch ruthlessness that made the Golden Age?

“What the hell are you talking about?” Tom opened his long leather jacket, pulled aside his silk scarf, as if by magic his silver fixins case came into his big ringed hand, opening with a ‘poof’, coming from his pursed lips. Dewie’s face showed up to the window that started with the ledge Saunder sat on, he rolled his eyes at the group of men seated in the best spot in the house. All the woman marched past, stepping down the three steps like a run way, shedding jackets and showing off their stuff to everybody. Jack gave them glances but no encouragement to come over. The barmaids hovered around the table too much, trying to take orders from men intent on not giving them.

“Marcy, Twvee Duvels, astublieft. Tom, you want something?”  He held up a palm to hold her, she looked at him, frozen like a deer. Tom looked her up and down, smiling, then glancing at Jack’s eyes with a nod, “Sure. I’ll have a Jack Daniels, straight up.” Brammies arm grazed the young barmaids low slung breeches, her red thong riding high but not over her bracelet tattoo. “I know what you like, Tom.” She flashed her backside close to the men’s faces, turning with a wink to Jack. Saunder nursed a Palm, was too intent on rolling a joint to look up at Dewie, the other men ignored him completely in favor of Marcy’s swing walk back to the bar, her long red hair shaking back and forth. The music was hot, some DJ tightness, down in the background where it belonged. The coffehouse was nearly full on Thursday evening, second shift, although Jack had sat straight for four hours by now. Been through the six o’clock shift change, said good bye to Dannie, Manon, and the afternoon crowd. Jack liked this group of boozers while they were young in the evening. He liked to call this first round of drinks his salad hours, a take on salad years, the old saw about the best time of your life.

“I was describing a unique sound. Bram went through a litinany of sounds he has heard that I have never even known about. I mean, I like wave files, too, but they are infinite! A sound of Nature, a real sound heard, maybe, only once, is something to remember. To share. I told him what a human breastbone snapping in two sounds like.” Jack stuck his chin out a little and grinned at Tom, caught Bram’s disbelief and fielded it.

"Well, now you have to tell the whole story. This sounds aggressive and I thought you told me that you were a ‘sheep in wolf’s clothing’.” There was no way around the fact that Jack was a menacing looking figure, if only in his sudden movements. He was like a big cat, stretching all the time, changing positions, sitting for hours in the same spot.

“I was exercising with Larry in the old army barracks at Penn State, circa 1966. Funny place, the dorms were stuck between the school’s nuclear reactor and a chicken farm. I don’t know which was worse; the constant noise of the chickens or the silent threat from the concrete dome. We were fighting, gentlemen’s rules, bare fisted in his room, the bunk beds, desks and chairs made the ropes of our ring. No hitting below the belt or above the neck. Other than that, we boxed until exhaustion. Good workout, but you have to do it with layers of clothing on, the bruises are wicked. We had done it several times before. He was my neighbor across the hall. He was a polack from the coal area in Pennsylvania where my Grandfather preached. We got along real well, drank Strohmeiers beer together, warm usually, couldn’t leave it in the communal fridge. Anyway, Larry was as big as me, so we were evenly matched. Remind me to tell you the time I wrestled a West Virginian my size. “

Jack took a sip from the sniffer glass Bram had just poured for him, the other men sipped from the toast that followed Jack’s pantomine fists, their clicks silent pause filled with caution. Deliberate mayhem was risky, bare knuckle boxing was in the league of gentlemen and rogues alike. He spoke in a way where no one overheard. Like the time Tom spoke of shooting another man, these were best whispered words, away from women, ‘They scare easy.’, Tom’s explanation of his sotto voca and Jack’s groweling mew. Tom came from Arkansas, one hard knock after another. He weathered well and flourished here in Amsterdam. A black man of disguises. Snakelike stares kept men away but the woman felt, wanted, his power. Few men could keep his attention the way Jack held forth right now. The ladies lost their smiles when they saw they were being ignored by the finest male specimens in the house; heads down, waiting for the punch line.

“The accordian is under the bed, somethings get knocked down, you know, and we are dancing around at arms length. I’m focused on timing, just about ignoring his blows. He hits hard but doesn’t go defensive points, my arms and shoulders took a beating. I see an opening, throw a right hook, reaching my full extension just as my knuckles hit him dead square center chest. He was flat footed, too and I’ll never forget the look of surprise on his face after the initial crumbling smile. The ‘crack’ was audible over in my room and Alan came over. We didn’t know at first what I had done to Larry and he got scared enough to stink. I usually like the sweat smell from our work outs even though Larry eats kielbasa and farts sauerkraut, but the stink of fear is palpable, I don’t like it. Smelled enough of THAT in the war later on, even my own once at a Customs detainment in the old Ide Wilde airport in New York.” They all screwed up their noses at fear. It was alright to have a rollercoaster feeling of fear but to have it hang in the air, stinking up the place….too much.

“Did he live?” Tom’s question brought guffaws from all but a choke of hash smoke from Saunder, who finally got his mix going. He passed the perfect joint to Jack. Such a smile broke over his face, the thin stream of smoke from his nostrils formed clouds over his silver eyebrows, head tilted back, he pulled back his shoulders, a brace, his military bearing was unmistakable.

“Yeh, he lived. Didn’t play the accordian for awhile. I used to like it. My little Amish roommate, Alan, would stick his fingers in his ears and make faces when Larry played his heart out across the hall. He knew about ten polkas and was good for two hours of top volume squeeze box just around the time you wanted to study. That was my best semester for grades, my freshman year, nineteen sixty-six. Flunked out after the next year. They said, ‘Come back when you’re serious.’ I said, ‘Fuck you’ and joined the Corps. Listen! Snap a chicken’s breast bone in two sometime. Then amplify it a thousand times and you’ll know what I heard that day. Glad it didn’t happen to me!” Jack rubbed his scarred hands together and threw a short jab at Tom. Lazy like but with a snap at the end. Lightening fast, Tom had his hand up and his palm took Jack’s fist for a sharp slap. The smoky air was jarred motionless for a moment. A blast of air followed three beautiful young women into the Green House, walking the walk in front of a den of older men. All the heads swiveled to the corner ring side seats, again, at the slap. The pretty new things opened their coats for the men, smiling at them and turning on their heels. The men finally looked back at the ladies like the show offs they were.

“What about you, Brammie. Ever hit anyone?”

“No, But I can pick one.”