Jim dubbed his pub “That Good Night,”
after his favorite poet’s most notable poem.
Jim lived in Clydach, Wales, only 9.2 kilometers from Dylan Thomas’ home
in Swansea. The pub was at the edge of
town, just past the attached and semi-attached homes, just beyond “the Mond,”
Clydach’s nickel refinery, where Jim had worked for over forty years, until new
manufacturing processes depleted the workforce.
Jim was fine with that. Pub life
was what he wanted now. Except, the
pub’s neighbors were the sheep and cattle in the nearby fields.
“Why’d you want to be here?” his wife
Mary asked. “We’re nowhere near
anyone. Can’t call this the neighborhood
pub, now can you, my dear?”
She was right. “That Good Night” was vacant most of the day,
except for a straggle now and then. But,
once a day, at 13:00 on the dot, the tour bus drove onto the pub’s gravel
lot. Then, for an hour, Jim had clients. He’d hear the bus’s wheels churning on the
gravel, hear the hiss of the pneumatic brakes pumping, hear the wheels screech
to a stop, hear the gears crank and rattle, and then hear the hush of the bus’s
door open. And out they came, tourists.
Jim stood behind his bar counter,
sipping on a pint of his finest, a wet towel over his left shoulder, and waited
for the pub door to open.
Inevitably, invariably, without fail,
the first tourist would enter, always wearing shorts, a Union Jack T-shirt, one
size too small to cover his girth, a camera around his neck, the talisman of
the tourist, and say in his best British faux accent, “Haloo.” Then he’d wave what all Americans thought to
be the official Queen’s wave, an upraised hand dancing a rotating tango, and
say, “a pint of your best, matey.”
Jim always responded, “Prynhawn da,”
good afternoon in Welsh, lilting like birdsong hopping on a telephone
wire. “How can I serve you, me Lords and
Ladies.”
The tourists, inevitably, invariably
tittered, poking each other, saying, “Hear that Mabel. I’m your Lord from now on, ha!”
“I’ll take a G and T,” said one man,
sure that he had picked the correct British drink.
“Yes, me Lord. And you sir?” Jim asked the man behind.
It always got odd at this point. After the requisite G and T, drink orders
ranged from “Gimme a Bud” to “I’ll take a 7 and 7” to “I’d love a Grasshopper” to
“How ‘bout Sex on the Beach,” drinks that Jim couldn’t and wouldn’t fill.
“Sorry, me Lords and Ladies. We are limited to the best of the Isles. I can offer pints, half pints for the ladies,
an orange squash, brandy, and maybe a snifter of cognac for the gentlemen.”
The crowd would settle, look around the
pub for “British” things, like dart boards, wonder why there wasn’t an Irish
band playing “Molly Malone,” assuming that all of Britain was the same country,
and then ask, “Where’s everyone? Why’s
no one else here, barkeep?”
Jim would shrug, the bus’s horn would
honk, the driver would appear and say, “Hurry on folks. We’re off to Swansea now, Dylan Thomas’
home.” The tourists would take their requisite
photos with Jim, wearing his bowler, buy a few souvenir shot glasses, and then
they’d file out, thinking to themselves, “Yep, I just saw me a real-time
British pub.”
Jim watched them leave. He’d hear the bus door hush open, the gears
crank and rattle, the pneumatic brakes release, and the wheels churn on the
gravel—harsh sounds he remembered from working in the nickel refinery,
deafening noises that led to employee hearing problems for decades.
Once gone, the tourists left Jim in
silence, the silence he treasured after forty years of clamorous din.
About the author
Steve Gerson writes poetry and flash about life's dissonance. He has published in many journals plus his six chapbooks: Once Planed Straight, Viral, And the Land Dreams Darkly, The 13th Floor, What Is Isn’t, and There Is a Season.
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