Chapter 18: Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Part 18

EPISODE with JASON "SWINGO" JONAS

October, 2007

CIRCLEVILLE, OHIO

Outlined against the silver air of the night behind it, a shadow-form moves ominously through a short tunnel-like space. A man pops through the inner door into the brightness of a low-ceilinged restaurant-pub. He is the medium-sized fellow who conducted the late-night interrogation in the industrial complex. In a scarf and sport coat, he has the look of an academic. He walks to the bar, giving exaggerated space when nearing any table or individual. He sidesteps a waitress bearing a platter of sweating fries, glistening burgers, and oozing pizzas. His round, thin-rimmed glasses tap a Coors Light chandelier and set lights swaying over the pool table.

"I was hoping I might run into Gerald Cain," he says with the accent of a newscaster. "He been in tonight?"

The bartender - a broad, blonde, fortiesh woman - casts her eyes around. "Gerald Cain..." (She rhymes "Gerald" with "world.") "I don't know no Jerrrrld Cain cep'm that's...." She looks to a horse-jawed man at the bar two feet to her right. "Audley, 's that...?"

"Skeeter," says the man deeply like a Sam Elliott-impersonator, his molars clamped together. "Went to high school with him." (He says, "Wen dahskoo withum.") Then he looks back to his beer and broods into its amber depths like it is a wishing well full of visions.

"Yeah, misser, thet's Skeeter," says the bartender.

"Skeeter!" says a fuzzy-voiced fellow at the bar beside him. "You frienda Skeeter?" He is a very light-skinned white man with a small, tidy mustache. His shoulder-length brown hair is swept back behind his ears and held in place by a pair of glasses perched on top of his head. He looks about thirty five and dresses like a seventies rock star: tight jeans and a flowery shirt unbuttoned to the middle. On the stool beside him is a longhaired, denim-clad woman, young enough to be in high school. She looks at him worshipfully.

"Skeeter and his friends were just in here," says the bartender. (She says, "Skeeter niz frenzer jessanear.") She addresses the man who has just spoken, by then hovering possessively over the girl on the stool. "Fran, you know where Skeeter's got off to? Think he's going to the Rock?" (She says, "Goint the Rock...")

The man nods and says something back.

"Fran thinks he's oft the Rock," says the bartender.

"So I'm looking for something called 'the Rock'?"

"River Rock House," says the bartender. "Right out the parking lot. Right side, bout eight miles. Right fore you get to town."

****

EPISODE with JASON "SWINGO" JONAS

October, 2007

CHILLICOTHE, OHIO

1

With a clammy gust, the broad back door to the one-floor building flies open. Baseball hats lift and turn toward it, posing like artillery training their barrels on a target. Looking like he expected a stronger spring on the door, the man who enters looks no more at home in this establishment. He turns back to the door to close it, rousing some interest in the ten or so people at the bar and tables who can see him. He approaches the bar and stands below one of the TVs. An NFL game is on, and his thin glasses reflect aspects of the screen. "Help you?" says the bartender, a willowy bleached-blonde.

"Do you have Guinness on draft?"

"All's we got's bottle. No draft."

"Well that's OK. Got Heineken?" The barmaid shakes her head. "A... Molson Canadian?"

"All's we got imported's Rolling Rock," says the bartender over a furious strike from one of the bowling lanes. "That's from Pennsylvania."

"And Pabst," says a gravel-voiced fellow right beside the newcomer. (He had said, "N Pepst.") "That's all the way from Columbus." (He had said, "Thet's aulth waferm Clumbis.") The man has a long jaw coated with thin salt-and-pepper hair. Long and lean, he is wearing a worn trucker's cap and a denim jacket.

"Rolling Rock, please," says the man in the blazer. "And a big water, no ice."

He takes a seat at an empty table where he opens his briefcase and studies some papers. One by one the hat brims dip over their beers or turn to the NFL game on the tube.

In fifteen minutes the man in the jacket is back. "I was told I might find two people I need to talk to here. One's... (he looks into a wallet-planner) Skeeter... And the other's Robert... SSSSSS-Chinnie?"

"You the social services?" she says. The hat-brims near him lift again and point toward him like the bills of giant predatory ducks gauging the value of a strike.

"No, no, not at all," says the man in the jacket. "They have something for sale. Somebody told me they might be here for the football game."

"Well.... Rob Schenne..." (she says, "Shawnee") "he's right overt there." She nods to a table holding three strong-looking men fifteen feet off into the interior.

Water in hand, the man in the jacket walks up. Each seated man looks straight ahead. "I'm looking for Rob Schenne and.... Skeeter?" he says. "I hear they found a certain item, and I'd like to make them an offer for it."

The men at the table make brief eye contact. "What kind a something?" says a twenty-year-old in a black-and-orange Browns cap and a well-worn T-shirt. "And what are you offering?" (He says, "En wutchew offern.") The newcomer studies him. Chestnut-haired, about five-eight, he has long, ample, simian arms. He looks like he could be a wrestler or a gymnast.

"I heard they found something in the ground around here," says the man in the jacket. "I heard it was something like this." He sets his water on the table, reaches into his folder, takes out a typing paper-sized photograph, and sets it on the table. It is the image of the human jaw made of crystal. Its perfect teeth glisten. The two older men shift their eyes.

"Where joo git that!" snarls the young one.

"Are you the ones offering it for sale?" says the man in the jacket.

"We're askin the questions round here," says the young one. "Howjoo fine out about it?"

"It's not that big a secret if you put it on the internet."

"What are you going to give me if I do ha-ave that objict?" said the young one.

"Already got a buyer," says the sturdy, bearded fellow presumed to be Skeeter. "Already sold." (What he says is, "Orridy gotta bar," and, "Orridy sowed.")

Something happens in the televised football game that raises roars or groans from several tables. The man in the blazer takes a seat. "Listen, the State University System could make you an offer that would be at least equal to whatever you're being offered. No questions asked. The Ohio Archaeological Society would at least match it. And you wouldn't have to worry about any sort of repercussions with the Native American Graves Repatriation Act."

The young one laughs, rocking, ape-arms making a fort around his bottle. Skeeter guffaws. It comes out, "Pahep." The third man at the table laughs. His laugh is like a sniffle.

"Git on out a here now," says the young one."Ub-fore somebitty gets tarred a ye."

"Anything you could tell us about where you found it would help us."

The young one looks straight at him for the first time. He has a long sharp nose and pea-sized blue-green eyes. His hair is curly and sprouts from under his backwards-facing cap. His long pale cheeks have acne scars. "You got no call to come running round here with yer... with yer..." He throws a fistful of greasy popcorn all over the upper quarters of the man in the jacket. At least one of the puffy kernels pats on the lenses of his glasses, and others leave pale pieces of themselves on his coat. Three men at the neighboring table break up quietly, their baseball hats bobbing over their beers.

He stands. His voice goes high and whiny. "You've got no right to treat people that way! I was just asking... I was just asking..." He takes his full water glass and pitches its contents in a slanting motion into the faces and upper quarters of the three seated men. Then, as if terrified by what he has done, he dashes out the side entrance. It is not the door by which he has entered.

The men at the table sputter, curse, and wipe their eyes. Then they jump to their feet. Chairs clatter to the floor and the table grinds. One after the other shoots out the narrow side door pasta home-painted version of the Cincinnati Bengals tiger-face icon on the wall above the handle. The size of a beachball, its hue is not quite right: brick-orange, almost adobe. The artist has missed its threatening scowl, too; the expression he has left it with is oddly mournful.

[To Be Continued...]