Free Night Swimming by Robin Schwarz Page A

marijuana.”
    “Oh,” Charlotte said. She’d never smoked marijuana before.
    “You wouldn’t do anything extravagant? Maybe visit a place you’d never been? Buy something expensive?”
    “Well, darlin’, seein’ as I don’t have so much money, I think I’d have to content myself with lovin’ up my wife a little mo den usual, spendin’ mo time wit doze gran’babies of mine, an’ sittin’ unda dat big ol’ oak tree I gots an’ enjoyin’ dat sweet, happy ganja of mine.”
    “But what if you did have money, Henri? Say two million dollars. Then what would you do?”
    The old black man put an ice cube to his forehead. It was hot in the bar. Only a single fan turned around, and reluctantly at that.
    “Well, den, pretty lady, after I buy my wife da lovliest dress dis side of da Mississippi, I’d go and sit under dat oak tree wit all my friends and spread da joy an’ good feelin’ around we all gets from dat ganja.”
    “That’s all?”
    “Actually,” he said, “dere is one mo thing I been wantin’. A brand-new fishin’ pole. I just seen one da other day down at Tyrone’s Fish an’ Bait Shop, an’ it’s a beauty. I’d get dat rod fo sure, Charlotte, an’ go fishin’ dat afternoon.”
    “That’s what would make you happy?”
    “As I sees it, life is hard, sweet Charlotte. But if you gots dat special thing dat makes you happy, den you gots youself everythin’.”
    “Never thought about it that way, Henri, but you’re right about one thing—life is hard. Why does it have to be so damn hard?”
    “Da Lord do dat for a reason. If’n it come too easy, den ya don’t know what you gots. You takes it for granted. You might have you-self a diamond, but if’n you comes by it just by luck, how you gonna know its value? No, I thinks da good things gots to come to ya a little harda den dat. Dats da part dat gives ’em dere significants. It’s all about da honey, Charlotte; it’s all about gettin’ dat honey out of da rock.”
    “So, Henri, do you think that sadness is good, too?”
    “Hell, yes. A little sadness is good for everyone. It’s da only way ya gets to happiness. If you happy all da time, you gots nuttin’ to compare it wit. No, sorrow is a gift, Charlotte. You takes it, you tip your hat to it, an’ den ya moves on. But ya gots to acknowledge it or else it will have ya fo breakfast. Give sadness its due and move on.”
    Honey from a rock.
That’s what he said. That’s what she’d remember.
    He poured Charlotte another drink and one for himself as well.
    “Here’s to you, little lady, wherever life’s fixin’ to take ya.” He lifted his glass. “Gots to click, Charlotte; clickin’ keeps the devil away.” So with both glasses held high, they clicked. He leaned toward her and whispered, “Remember, pain is just the messenger dat happiness is comin’, Miss Charlotte. So beez happy.” He raised his glass again. “One fo da sorrow an’ two fo da road.” And they clicked again. “You can never click too much!” he exclaimed, then threw his bourbon back in one shot and smiled. Charlotte lifted her glass and followed with a toast of her own. “Here’s to getting that honey out of the rock, Henri.” And then she drank her bourbon down as if she were drinking water from a tap, and nearly choked to death.
    Henri made sense. She was looking at a happy person, a person who had everything. All he needed was the time to enjoy it. And he would. Charlotte slipped Henri’s tip next to her empty glass. She would be well out of the bar when he cleared it. Five thousand dollars lay folded unassumingly in a napkin. Five thousand dollars because Charlotte believed that sometimes good things
could
just come someone’s way. At least that’s what she wanted to believe: that once in a while, maybe life didn’t have to be that hard. And that was still okay with the Lord, and if not the Lord then at least with Charlotte. She had scrawled something on the napkin just before leaving the