Free Portland Noir by Kevin Sampsell Page A

but sitting in a chair all day while time comes and goes, comes and goes.
    Now it’s a few minutes later, I think. Could be more than a few. Truth is, I’m not sure exactly where I am. But that’s because my eyes aren’t any good in the dark, not because I’m lost. I’m right above Oaks Bottom, somewhere. It’s just that the landmarks are hard to make out. But there’s a tavern here. I don’t remember seeing it before. But it’s so old, I must have seen it without noticing. Or noticed without remembering. That’s what getting old is, I tell you, nothing but solitary seconds adding up to nothing.
    I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here. Or why I’m in front of this new old building. Squat little windowless place looks like it’s made out of tin, painted white and red, with a tall sign in the parking lot: Riverside Corral. Then I remember: I should drop in for a quick minute and find out if anyone’s seen Dorothy. Could have happened. The old dame knew her booze. Maybe she dropped in to the Corral for a quick Scotch on her last rambling.
    I take a deep breath. Which at my age is something of a miracle right there. And figure I have maybe another couple of hours before I’ll need to head back to the “home,” before they might start to miss me. So this can’t take long.
    I walk in, planning to sidle up to the bar and question the keeper. But the music, if that’s what it is, is loud, and what I see stops me dead: two stages—one dark, one light—and on the stage lit in flashing colors a naked woman with long light hair swirling as she gyrates above the money-filled hands of two men who look like twins.
    Is that …? It’s Dorothy! I’d know those broad shoulders anywhere. How could … no, wait, I blink and see now it’s not her. Of course it’s not. I’m confused. What else is new? But for a moment there …
    I would give anything to see her again. To touch her again. To stand here near her again.
    “What can I get you, old-timer?” the bartender asks. He’s twelve. Well, probably mid-twenties, pointy blond hair and a hopeful scrub of mustache.
    I forget where I am, forget why I’m here. Looking around, seeing the dancer again, I say, “My wife.”
    He smiles. “I don’t think so.”
    Then I’m walking through the parking lot, using my flashlight so I can access the trailhead and make my way down the steep bluff toward the trail. I’m too old for this, I know it. All the walking could kill me, even though I’m in pretty good shape. But I can feel through the soles of my feet that Dorothy has been here, and if it kills me I’m still going to find her.
    A series of switchbacks gets me to the bottom, though I’m so turned around I’m not sure which way to walk. Time comes and goes like the wind, and I see the moon blown free of clouds as though God himself has turned a light on for me. It shines across the lake. Looking up through a lacing of treetops, I see the now-moonlit mausoleum. So that’s where Dorothy must be.
    I begin walking north. Maple, cedar, fir, wild cherry, black cottonwood. The water makes a lapping noise just to my left. It sounds spent. Stumps sticking out of the shallows create eerie shadows that seem to reach for my ankles.
    Rising out of the water, just beyond a jagged limb, I see a figure stretch and begin to move toward me. From the way it strides, I know it’s my son, it’s Jimmy. He’s wearing some kind of harness that weighs him down, but still he seems to glide on the lake’s surface, so light, so graceful.
    Jimmy was never trouble, even when he got in trouble. That time, when the cops came to our door, it was only because he’d gone to protect his best friend, Frank. Johnny Frank. Or maybe Frankie John. I don’t remember. A wonderful boy, just like my Jimmy, but a scrapper, and that one time he was surrounded by thugs and Jimmy went in there and—
    Oh, Dorothy was so good with our son, all that time they spent at the musement park, and Jimmy lost