Thinner(48)

Beyond all this was the bone-white crescent of Old Orchard beach, its whiteness now almost completely obscured by reclining sunbathers at just past noon on an early-summer day. But both the beach and the Atlantic beyond it seemed somehow reduced and cheapened by the erotic pulses and pauses of the midway - its snarls of people with food drying on their hands and lips and cheeks, the cry of the hucksters ('Guess your weight!' Billy heard from somewhere to his left: 'If I miss by more than five pounds, you win the dollaya choice!'), the thin screeches from the rides, the raucous rock music spilling out of the bars.

Billy suddenly began to feel decidedly unreal - outside of himself, as if he were having one of those Fate magazine instances of astral projection. Names - Heidi, Penschley, Linda, Houston - seemed suddenly to ring false and tinny, like names made up on the spur of the moment for a bad story. He had a feeling that he could look behind things and see the lights, the cameras, the key grips, and some unimaginable 'real world.' The smell of the sea seemed overwhelmed by a smell of rotten food and salt. Sounds became distant, as if floating down a very long hallway.

Astral projection, my ass, a dim voice pronounced. You're getting ready to have sunstroke, my friend.

That's ridiculous. I never had a sunstroke in my life.

Well, I guess when you lose a hundred and twenty pounds, it really f**ks up your thermostat. Now are you going to get out of the sun or are you going to wind up in an emergency room somewhere giving your Blue Cross and Blue Shield number?

'Okay, you talked me into it,' Billy mumbled, and a kid who was passing by and dumping a box of Reese's Pieces into his mouth turned and gave him a sharp look.

There was a bar up ahead called The Seven Seas. There were two signs taped to the door. ICY COOL, read one. TERMINAL HAPPY HOUR, read the other. Billy went in.

The Seven Seas was not only icy cool, it was blessedly quiet. A sign on the juke read SOME ASSHOLE KICKED ME LAST NIGHT AND NOW I AM OUT OF ORDER. Below this was a French translation of the same sentiment. But Billy thought from the aged look of the sign and the dust on the juke that the 'last night' in question might have been a good many years ago. There were a few patrons in the bar, mostly older men who were dressed much as Billy himself was dressed - as if for the street rather than the beach. Some were playing checkers and backgammon. Almost all were wearing hats.

'Help you?' the bartender asked, coming over.

'I'd like a Schooner, please.'

'Okay.'

The beer came. Billy drank it slowly, watching the boardwalk ebb and flow outside the windows of the bar, listening to the murmur of the old men. He felt some of his strength - some of his sense of reality - begin to come back.

The bartender returned. 'Hit you again?'

'Please. And I'd like a word with you, if you have time.'

'About what?'

'Some people who might have been through here.'

'Where's here? The Seas?'

'Old Orchard.'

The bartender laughed. 'So far as I can see, everyone in Maine and half of Canada comes through here in the summer, old son.'

'These were Gypsies.'

The bartender grunted and brought Billy a fresh bottle of Schooner.

'You mean they were drift trade. Everyone who comes to Old Orchard in the summer is. The place here is a little different. Most of the guys who come in here live here year-round. The people out there . . .' He waved at the window, dismissing them with a flick of the wrist. 'Drift trade. Like you, mister.'

Billy poured the Schooner carefully down the side of his glass and then laid a ten-dollar bill on the bar. 'I'm not sure we understand each other. I'm talking about real, actual Gypsies, not tourists or summer people.'

'Real ... Oh, you must mean those guys who were camped out by the Salt Shack.'

Billy's heart speeded in his chest. 'Can I show you some pictures?'

'Wouldn't do any good. I didn't see them.' He looked at the ten for a moment and then called: 'Lon! Lonnie! Come over here a minute!'

One of the old men who had been sitting by the window got up and shuffled over to the bar. He was wearing gray cotton pants, a white shirt that was too big for him, and a snap-brim straw hat. Its face was weary. Only his eyes were alive. He reminded Billy of someone, and after a few moments it came to him. The old man looked like Lee Strasberg, the teacher and actor.

'This is Lon Enders,' the bartender said. 'He's got a little place just on the west of town. Same side the Salt Shack's on. Lon sees everything that goes on in Old Orchard.'

'I'm Bill Halleck.'

'Meet you,' Lon Enders said in a papery voice, and took the stool next to Billy's. He did not really seem to sit; rather, his knees appeared to buckle the moment his bu**ocks were poised over the cushion.

'Would you like a beer?' Billy asked.

'Can't,' the papery voice rustled, and Billy moved his head slightly to avoid the oversweet smell of Enders' breath. 'Already had my one for the day. Doctor says no more than that. Guts're screwed up. If I was a car, I'd be ready for the scrap heap.'

'Oh,' Billy said lamely.

The bartender turned away from them and began loading beer glasses into a dishwasher. Enders looked at the ten-dollar bill. Then he looked at Billy.

Halleck explained again while Enders' tired, too-shiny face looked dreamily off into the shadows of the Seven Seas and the arcade bells bonged faintly, like sounds overheard in a dream, next door.