I cleared my throat to answer.
“Did he ask for one?” Clete said.
“Sorry, my mistake,” the bartender said.
“Give us both a diet Doc. I need a bowl of gumbo, too,” Clete said.
“You got it,” the bartender said.
“Where you from?” Clete asked.
“California.”
“You ever hear of the Bobbsey Twins from Homicide?”
“That’s a new one on me,” the bartender said. He wore a white jacket, his hair slicked back.
“You’re looking at them,” Clete said. “You’re standing in the middle of history.”
“Knock it off, Clete,” I said.
“He knows I’m kidding,” Clete said. “You, what’s-your-name, you don’t take people like me seriously, do you?”
“My name is Cedric.”
“You knew I was kidding, right, Cedric?”
The bartender wiped the bar. “Two diet drinks coming up.”
He walked away on the duckboards, wadding up his bar rag, tossing it into a sink. My face felt small and tight; my eardrums were ringing. “Don’t do that again, Clete.”
“He’s foisting drinks on people. I set him straight.”
“Did you hear me?”
“Climb down off it, Streak.”
“Off what?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“No, I don’t,” I said.
“I gave up trying to pork everything in sight. Why? Because I’m old and I make an idiot of myself. It’s called recognizing your limitations.”
“See you later,” I said.
“Come back here.”
But I kept walking, letting the noise in the dining room swallow up my conversation with Clete and the temptations that were as abiding in me as sexual desire and, even worse, that had to do with guns and gambling and the rush of stepping through the dimension into a place I never wanted to go again.
Levon and Rowena and Jimmy were sloshed and had stupid smiles on their faces when I got to the table.
“Sorry, something just came up,” I said.
“You’re leaving?” Levon said.
“We’ll do it another time,” I said. “Thanks for inviting me.”