Front Range Stranger: flatlander blues in a diagonal town

Her words, more of an insistence than a suggestion, are a strange request to be made of her rearview dash-camera as she attempts to reverse park her SUV. 

Any duck in particular?, I inquire from the passenger seat; gaze on the skyline.

What?, Yvonne asks of me, dark framed sunglasses hiding her evil little frazzled eyes. Damn it…, she groans and explains, no!, Vic, not a literal duck. Just, like, a rhetorical duck fucking. And I was speaking to the car, not you, so shut it. Okay, I say before shutting it.

Again she attempts to back her SUV through the ice slush and into a parking spot behind Morrison Holiday Bar. The mountains and low winter sun loom overhead as witness. And Old Man Winter, who sips a styrofoam cup of coffee from across the parking lot. Even if Old Man Winter spots Yvonne’s Colorado plates from his vantage point, he still likely figures the driver for a flatlander. He’d be correct. Somewhat. She’s a reformed flatlander. 

Yvonne pulls the SUV forward then reverses. Fuck a duck take two, she says. Calmly. Yvonne has a Chinese script tattoo on her left wrist, or maybe her ankle – you can’t tell under the layers of winter clothes. The Chinese script, I believe, was initially “adapt & overcome”. Through the years, the tattoo has faded and warped into, “meh, it’s fine”. She concludes her latest parking attempt and asks for my professional opinion, how’s that?

Fits like a glove if you’re OJ Simpson, I say after looking over either shoulder. Ugh, she groans and tosses me the keys, opening the front door in defeat. Jesus!, she says of the brisk air, it’s literally fucking freezing. Literally “freezing”, yes, I say. Technically, though, “fucking freezing” is colder. 

As I reverse the SUV with no better luck, Yvonne is approached by Old Man Winter who winds his way down the hillside towards her in the alley. Barely anybody here midafternoon, he says with kindness, park however you like. Yvonne is appreciative of the elder, apologetic, saying, thanks!, yeah!, sorry, it is the chauffeur’s day-off. Old Man Winter’s granite face doesn’t flinch at her joke. Yvonne doesn’t have a chauffeur, but Old Man Winter doesn’t know this and likely assumes she is from Vail or California. Nevertheless, he introduces himself to Yvonne as Howard. He’s dressed as if on an elk hunt. 

Visiting?, Howard inquires. Oh no, Yvonne says, hopping in place to keep warm. I live here. Near here. Howard nods, saying, the Rockies, the mountains, they live here. Lived here for a billion years. I couldn’t count that high if I took off my socks, Howard jests without smiling. The Red Rocks, that snaggletoothed  sandstone jutting out of the ground, they’ve only been here 300 million years. 300 million years makes them a visitor passing through, Howard says, geologically-speaking, they are a relative stranger. 

Ha!, well, Yvonne says, I guess I’m stranger. 

Literally stranger, I say as I step beside Yvonne in the alley. Technically stranger, she says with a shrug. Legally even, I say. Howard isn’t sure what to make of us. He scratches his long ear and leaves us for the backdoor of the Morrison Holiday Bar. We happen to be on the same path and follow him inside. 

The bar is bright for a daytime dive. The cold sun is pouring through the front window panes, casting a relaxing glow across the brown wood interior. The walls have memorabilia of local concerts, sepia photographs of long-gone floodwaters and Stegosaurus bone hunters. Most importantly, it is warm. Howard veers towards the pool tables in search of a challenger. Yvonne and I plod forward looking for comfortable bar stools. 

Our hike around Red Rocks left us shamelessly cold. There is no pride in snot bubbles. After Yvonne unwraps her scarf, I recognize the relative stranger’s face as my sister. She has a new fever blister. I forget what she calls this one. Yvonne names her stress-induced fever blisters after her tormenters and this one arrived after I came to town. Maybe she’s calling it Vic. 

Oh no, Yvonne clarifies, this blister is “Sleeve-You-Next-Tuesday”. 

The inspiration is an arch-nemesis from her local brew-pub a few miles downhill. Yvonne pointed out the real Sleeve-You-Next-Tuesday last night when we popped into the pub for a beer. Yvonne explained, take a look at him and you’d guess he’s a tow-truck driver whose specialty is towing the cars of pregnant mothers and the blind, but he’s actually a fly-fishing guide. And a fucking fascist. And typical of fascists, Yvonne said, Sleeve-You-Next-Tuesday has a very specific sense of fashion. When he throws darts or sings karaoke, he does so sleeveless, parading around those softly-defined giant turkey legs for arms, bulbous shoulders descending into knobby fists. Yvonne continued her explanation last night, saying how Sleeve-You-Next-Tuesday got her banned from dart league for heckling. She argued she wasn’t heckling, she was literally offering encouragement. I told my sister it isn’t literally encouraging if it is sarcastic. Hollering “I bet you are great at horseshoes” isn’t literally encouraging to a darts thrower. Technically, Yvonne said, it is encouragement if you consider I had more than two glasses of champagne. That’s some fuzzy logic, sister, I told her. More bubbly logic, though, if you think about it, Yvonne countered. Literally. 

Having made ourselves comfortable within Morrison Holiday Bar, Yvonne begins calling me “brother” instead of “Vic.” I remain seated, but go into high alert. Yvonne only calls me “brother” when she wants to publicly proclaim me as an untethered bachelor. Yvonne has detected an attractive female she deems fitting as a potential future ex-sister-in-law. Today, it’s the barmaid. Hannah. Hannah is another acclimated flatlander from out east. We can only conjecture what she is like on more stable surfaces, but in Morrison, a town with the Tolkien motto “the Nearest Faraway Place”, Hannah wears a pigtail on either side of her mullet and overalls over a crop-top & ski pants. Nice to meet you, Hannah, Yvonne says to the barmaid, can I get two beers?, one for me and another for my brother who is nursing a fading tan-line around his ring finger, please?

Subtle, Yvy, I say. Real subtle. 

Look!, brother!, Yvonne says loud enough for Hannah to overhear as our pints are poured. Look!, your ex-wife only loved you for your charm and your personality and for, like, having cojones that crack together like billiard balls when you walk downstairs. Those were her words, by the way, not mine, Yvonne clarifies. But!, brother!, she didn’t love the real you! She didn’t love you for your money like the rest of us do. She didn’t love you for not being excessively tall, like mom loves you. And your ex did not appreciate the way you dance pretty good for a white guy, which your nieces find to be your most redeeming trait. 

Hannah sets down our beers, gives us a courtesy grin and departs up bar. 

Yvonne considers the exercise is a success. She says, and now “the” “bait” “is” “set”! Why?, I ask my sister, why are you using air-quotes, Yvy? They are not “air quotes”, Yvonne says, I am doing four hooks, like “hooks” going into the “fish mouth”, setting the “bait”. O’okay, I say. 

But while we are on the subject…, Yvonne says. What subject?, I ask. The subject of bad life choices my brother has made, she says. We are not on that subject, I tell Yvonne, you are on that subject. My sister shrugs, saying, while I am on the subject of your bad life choices, may I ask why you couldn’t get a mail-order bride from Russia like a normal nerd? Why’d you have to go to an abandoned church at midnight to say “Bloody Mary” three times into a mirror to meet your wife?

All this hindsight vilifying, I say. You liked her when she and I were married. 

Only because recency bias, Yvonne says. What has she done for me lately? Besides, you’re the one with hindsight! Be… cos… your head’s up your butt. Get it? Hind… sight? No, but, brother, you once said to me, “love is a beautiful burden you must be willing to carry”. But look at you now. You’ve got a broken wheel barrow. 

I say a lot of stupid shit. My wheel barrow is fine. 

Says the man whose heart monitor beeps whenever he farts on a hard surface!

I ignore her. She keeps going. It was a dead giveaway, Yvonne says, when your ex’s wedding vows ended after “A, E, I, O”… Get it? Do you get it, Vic?, my sister asks while cackling at her own joke, slapping her knee, wiping away a new snot bubble with the back of her sleeve. I don’t think you get it, Vic. Wedding vowels? She didn’t mention “U”. Jesus, tough crowd. She sees Howard emerging from the pool table room. Howard, my money is no good in these hills!, Yvonne calls, but Howard doesn’t hear her. 

Oh damn, Yvonne says while drying her eyes, I think I peed a little. 

At some point during her Coloradan residency, my little sister became tougher than me. Or, at least, she became tough in the present tense. It’s the future where she gets nervous. Yvonne is a blue sky worrier, anxious over unmet anxieties. In a crisis, though, she is a calm voice in the storm. Even before Colorado. Back in Florida, I saw her captain a hotel through a hurricane. I was hunkered down with a twelve pack of beer as Yvonne was manning the front desk, field marshaling housekeeping to batten down the front sliding-doors with furniture and calling each room looking for guests who hadn’t come down to the safer ballroom to wait out Hurricane Charley. 

Yvy, I say to her at Morrison Holiday Bar. I’m proud of you. You can’t park worth shit, but you are one tough bitch. Yeah, well, Vic… Yvonne said, dabbing her new fever blister with balm. I didn’t score the most chardonnay naps at pickle-ball camp in Steamboat Springs by being lily-livered. What does that even mean, “lily-livered”?, she asked. It doesn’t matter. Colorado moms have to be tough, Vic, Yvonne says. Colorado moms have to know how to start a fire by rubbing together two cans of Pringles. I once saw a flatlander woman in King Soopers, she was new to town and totally out of pocket, in tears. She was crying about how the dingo ate her baby carrots. I told her, “girlfriend, there are no dingos in Denver, only coyotes who valet cars at Outback Steakhouse.” 

Jesus. 

Oh, don’t worry about her, Vic. She’ll be alright, Yvonne says. Flatlander blues in a diagonal town. She just needs to acclimate to the altitude. And get used to side-stepping goose shit. 

Goose shit?, I ask between sips of Colorado Native ale. 

It’s literally fucking everywhere. Sorry, I mean it is fucking literally everywhere. It’s why I can tell you to shut the fuck-up about Bigfoot. If there were Bigfoot in Colorado, there wouldn’t be so many fucking gooses. All these geese wouldn’t stand a chance next to a family of Bigfeet. Those Sasquatch would be breaking goose heads like pistachio shells, cracking goose necks with a snap of their fingers. When they come out of hibernation, springtime would sound like West Side Story. Yvonne starts snapping her fingers and saying “dead goose” with each snap. It’s tiresome to listen to after five dead geese. Long story short, it’s a goose massacre, my sister says. A “goosacre”. No more goose shit. 

But then what would the streets of Denver look like with all the Bigfoot greasy geese shits? 

Cherry Creek would look more like cherry cola. All that raw fowl in their Bigfoot bowels can’t be good, Yvonne says before letting out a little beer belch. I echo the sentiment. 

Howard, the parking lot welcoming committee, has meandered over towards us. He asks, do you like Willie Nelson? Yes, of course, Yvonne and I confirm. Do you like Johnny Cash?, he asks. Absolutely. Alright, Howard says, then I know you aren’t spies. 

We aren’t spies, Yvonne says, we just like a good bar. Y’know the Colorado term “peak bagger”, Howard?, she asks. It is a mountaineer who is collecting 14,000’ summits like their brownie points. Well, my brother, Vic, he is a “dive bagger”. He goes around the world collecting dive bars. Howard nods at this, saying, well, Holiday Bar looks like a dive bar because we like to keep it comfortable. But this is no dive bar. Look at the bar top. That is the finest slab of Colorado granite you will find this side of Capitol Hill. Yvonne and I act impressed at the stone bar. Ooh, we say. 

You’re from the city?, Howard asks her, or Boulder? Oh no, Littleton, Yvonne says. I’m from right down the road. East as the marble rolls. Howard seems satisfied with this. I ask Howard, what kind of spies are you expecting around here? Yvonne suggests, probably a lot of granola-breathed crunchies who don’t appreciate good music arriving from the People’s Republic of Boulder? He nods, we get our fill of them. They think Morrison is their own private bicycle lane. But these hills are wilder and more untamed than they think. And Morrison will remain that way as long as I’m around. The fellow who owns this place was a commander in the navy, Howard tells us. He was in the Pentagon on 9/11. Then he decided to come home to Colorado. Yeah, Morrison is like a land-locked navy base, except the mermaids don’t sing for you here. And neither does the Al Qaeda. 

Interesting, I say. I bet if Al Qaeda did get a sleeper cell into these foothills they’d do alright. Howard turns to me, his granite face frowning. He’s aghast at the suggestion. Well, I explain, between their mountain experience and their horsemanship and adaptability, they might settle in nicely. Next thing you know, they’ve got the best pub darts team in Littleton. 

Nah, says Howard. If Al Qaeda hid out in these mountains, the Sasquatches would make soup with their bone marrow and make love with their skulls for breakfast. Pardon my color, young lady, Howard says to Yvonne. He then excuses himself to leave by saying, you both have a blessed day.  

Ugh, Yvonne slumps down on her barstool. Again with these fucking Bigfoots, she says. I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry. 

I can relate, I say. 

My sister snorts. You literally don’t have a choice, brother. 

I guess you’re right. Technically.