There Ain’t No Mothman In Ohio (everyone knows)

Hogg Haven: dubious trough. The blistered barstool cover is a nice touch. No duct-tape refurbishing. Pure, unadulterated, zit-popped cushion. It truly brings together the ground-zero apocalypse aesthetic of this redbrick rustbelt pub west of the Ohio River. I slide my posterior across the seat’s burst blister and meet nothing but resistance. The cushion is petrified through epochs of spilt grog & settled carcinogenic smoke; it refuses to conform to my weight. Nope. Not happening. This barstool has seen darker nights. And whiter thighs. 

The locals here, I’ve found, are skittish people. Understandably. The town was settled in 1790 by the cousins of Marie Antoinette fleeing the Reign of Terror. Ergo Gallipolis, “City of Gauls”. Upon my entry to Hogg Haven, the bar patrons receded into the enclaves of the interior. As if I was Robespierre dragging along a guillotine. Or perhaps it was my baseball cap they found offensive. There aren’t likely many Cubs fans around here. Pirate fans, maybe. From upriver. Or Reds fans downriver. My hat is worn not as a mark of tribalism, but to improve upon my anonymity. I prefer not be recognized by anyone I might’ve met at the chamber of commerce event this afternoon. 

Beefeater Bill, however, is still dapper in the slacks and dress shirt he wore at the banquet. This is how I found him at the motor lodge pool deck twenty minutes ago, drunk on martinis and lounging on a sun-warped plastic chaise. I told Bill it was my intent to take-in a little local flavor. I offered no invitation, but Beefeater Bill doesn’t need a welcome mat to walk through a door. How grand?, Beefeater Bill said as he rolled off the patio chair. I will tag along, he said. 

Having arrived at Hogg Haven, Bill expresses his approval. I feel like I have been here before, Beefeater Bill says. It is possible. Beefeater Bill is known for two things: his ability to consume vast amounts of London dry gin & a trail of bastards he’s left behind from the Adirondacks to the Cascades. Have we met before?, he asks the woman behind bar while smiling his salesman smile. Or not, he says, shrugging at her indifference. Different donut, same jelly, he says of either Hogg Haven or the barkeep. I am unsure. He’s used the same metaphor to describe both cars and ex-wives. Different donuts, same jelly. 

Beefeater Bill places his cigarettes on the bar and orders a whiskey. The woman behind bar asks if he wants it on the rocks or neat. Neat, Beefeater Bill says, save the ice for the polar bears. Switching to whiskey?, I ask him. At his age – shit, at my age – jumping tracks from martini to straight whiskey is enough swerve to blow a kidney. Beefeater Bill explains, I would normally go home with the whore I paid for, but this doesn’t seem like a gin joint which serves a proper martini. The woman behind bar sets the whiskey glass down hard and asks if I have decided. Just a pint, I say. Guinness. 

Where you from, sweetie?, Beefeater Bill asks the bartender. Beefeater Bill is of the old guard. His latter century charisma has been dragged into the present day, kicking, screaming, muddied, but mostly unchanged. Her name is Kim. He asks more and she tells more. Always with the questions. 

Beefeater Bill once said to me, Vic, you go into a negotiation, whether its an arms deal with the Saudis or your wife is buying a new car, and what you want to watch for is who is asking the most questions. Whoever asks the most questions is controlling the room. 

Kim says she’s from across the border in Charleston. How grand?, Beefeater Bill says. West Virginia Slim, he says, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” 

Kim does not follow Beefeater Bill’s reference and busies herself down bar. She may have come a long way, but Charleston, West Virginia is not far from here. The most direct route is to take the Silver Memorial Bridge across the river into Point Pleasant and then meander through the mountains from there. It is the most direct route, as long as you are not easily spooked. The original Silver Bridge collapsed into the Ohio River in 1967, killing at least 46 people. Point Pleasant, on the West Virginia side of the river, received the bulk of the press coverage, but Gallipolis is the closest Ohio town to the disaster. Over fifty years later, there are still echoes of tragedy. Everyone here knows someone who was impacted, literally or figuratively. Not that they are eager to talk about it to us, a couple of dodgy passersby. 

Were you here for the “big splash”?, Beefeater Bill uncouthly asked a chamber member earlier today. He’s also been whistling My Fair Lady since we arrived in town. 

Beefeater Bill is given a lot of leeway. Do people like him? Unlikely. But someone, at some point, perhaps the Committee of Public Safety, declared Beefeater Bill a genius. He’s been lounging on his laurels ever since. Do we need a solution? Call Beefeater Bill. He’s a genius! He’ll figure something out.

Beefeater Bill’s intellect has been celebrated for so long, he’s disassociated from reality. My preference is to think him a spoon-bender. I think he thinks he could bend a spoon with his mind if he thought hard enough. I mentioned spoon-bending to him once. He may have briefly considered it a compliment (he is no skeptic when it comes to praise) and moved forward with whatever diatribe he insisted on continuing. He doesn’t care much for discussion topics proposed by others. And he doesn’t care for conversations which do not allow for opportunities to interrupt. Podcasts, for example, are a vile thing which leaves him spitting mad with frustration. 

The Guinness, even served in a mismatched pint glass, brings me comfort. I drown out the rabble beside me and attune myself to the massive waterway flowing through the hillside. River towns vibe differently. A low indecipherable rumble as earth and water go their separate ways. 

Kim, having been asked the origin story of each of her visible tattoos, has stopped responding to Beefeater Bill’s questions. Bored with his bartender’s lack of shine for him, Beefeater Bill scans the bar for other signs of life. I take advantage of the brief quiet to ask Kim, do you get a lot of folks in here asking about the, uh… the Mothman?

Kim scoffs at my comment. She mutters, murderation. Kim completes filling a pint for another customer before returning to me to say, there are two types of people who ask about Mothman. The first type are those who see the statues in Point Pleasant and have heard the story for the first time. They’re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and want to know all about it. The second type are the hard-ons who’ve read everything about Mothman and the Jersey Devil and the Ohio Grassman, but play coy because they don’t want to sound like an idiot and these are the people who ask, “you get a lot of people asking about Mothman in here?”

Are we talking about Mothra?, Beefeater Bill asks. Or is a “moth man” just a guy attracted to a woman’s headlights? Sign me up!, he says with a laugh.

You tell him, Kim says to me, s’posing you’re the expert.

In the days leading up to the Silver Bridge collapse in 1967, I say to Beefeater Bill who’s attention is captured for the time being, there were sightings in Point Pleasant of a flying creature, 7’ tall with a 10’ wingspan. The creature had hypnotizing red eyes and would screech at witnesses as it chased after them. Skeptics say it was likely a sandhill crane who got lost along its migration path. Bullshit. I have been attacked by sandhill cranes in Florida and while they do chortle like dinosaurs and while they are aggressive, you would never see a sandhill crane and confuse it an anthropomorphic moth. Frequency of Mothman sightings dropped severely after the bridge collapsed, leading many to rationalize the Mothman was here to warn the people of West Virginia about the pending disaster. I have always been curious if the Mothman visited this side of the river to warn motorists coming from the Ohio side of the bridge…

Oh. I look up from my beer to realize I am alone, talking only to myself.

Beefeater Bill has become indisposed elsewhere. Elsewho. A young woman has entered the bar only to immediately be absorbed into Bill’s dominion. Her dyed-black hair is long and entangled with pink extensions. Her face is glittered, bare arms too. Her clothing is both slovenly and colorful, droopy pants with a bright halter-top exposing 90% of her torso. Her chipped fingernails are varying colors. She has the doe eyes of a deer on mescaline.  

Who are you?, she asks reaching a hand past Beefeater Bill to me. This is Undertow Joe, Beefeater Bill says of me, he is the personification of a wet-blanket. All he eats for breakfast is milquetoast, he says. I shake her scrawny hand and re-introduce myself as Vic. Her name is Shiloh. Oh hi, I say. Shiloh. 

Shiloh is electrified atmosphere. I suspect she’s consumed nothing but energy drinks over the last week. I could feel my hair lifting off my scalp. At least lift off the back of my neck. I’m surprised her touch didn’t provide me a static shock. Her moves are erratic, her speech is empty excited jargon, aimed at either Beefeater Bill or me. He & I are seated on stools with our backs against the bar. Shiloh leans towards us as she speaks, pressing her pelvis alternatively into any four of our outward knees, hands pawing at our arms to incite our attention, maneuvering to & fro like a pollinating bee. 

There is something off. Beefeater Bill, the spoon-bender, suspects nothing; he is used to young barflies attracted to his elephantine musk. Kim, behind bar, is as unamused as ever and unalarmed by the new convert to the Church of Beef. Shiloh, as flighty & spontaneous as she seems, has an underlying determination about her. I think that is what I find peculiar. Is her presence coincidence or consequence? She’s flirty, but at an angle not clearly defined. Asymmetrical. She lacks the direct transactional baiting of a working girl. But she is after something. And someone is after her. Shiloh arrived with a shadow man who lurks in the darkened foyer near the bar’s entrance. After Shiloh has worked us into a manic conversational froth, she waves over the shadow man, introducing him as her uncle, Henry. I promised my uncle, Shiloh says with an impish grin, that I would get him laid tonight. Ha-ha. Chuckles all around. Wait, what?

Henry. He speaks limited English, expressing himself mostly through giggles and smiles. If he’s American, he’s a recent immigrant; Henry did not come over on the Mayflower. His pocked face suggests a difficult upbringing, but his leather jacket is nice and he shows off a thick billfold when he pays for a round of Jäegermeister. I’d haphazard a guess he is a Filipino seaman in port as his ship makes its way between Louisville and Pittsburgh. 

I take an intermission at the urinal. As I attend to matters, I review the graffiti of the bathroom walls, looking for warnings or any prerecorded knowledge of Shiloh. For a good time call, maybe. Or beware the organ harvester. I find nothing. 

On my return from the lavatory, I notice Beefeater Bill, Shiloh and Henry have migrated away from the bar to a hightop table. Beefeater Bill is holding court, captivating his audience with tales of derring do. Shiloh asks when is the last time he’s gone skinny dipping. Beefeater Bill’s eyes light up as he says, hopefully fifteen minutes from now! Uncle Henry laughs the hardest. 

I find my unguarded half-full pint residing on the bar top. Alone. Half-empty. I give the dark stout a hard scrutiny. Could I get a fresh pint, please?, I ask Kim. New glass too? It’s gotten warm, I say, lying. I’m as paranoid as the Scarlet Pimpernel having a draught of ale in revolutionary France. 

Undertow Joe!, Shiloh calls me over to the table. I arrive with my new pour. Beefeater Bill has an apt student in Henry, allowing Shiloh to focus her attention on me. Oh my god, she says, we were just talking, when was the last time you went skinny dipping? Oh?, I say to her, not the river, that can’t be safe… Ha!, she laughs and claps my chest with her hand. Shit B, she says, you are tight. You need a shot! Let’s do a shot! Unless you need something heavier? Her pierced eyebrows are perked with suggestion. 

I give her the courtesy of a pause, pretending to consider the possibilities. No, I say. I am good. For now.

Ugh, Shiloh expresses her disgust and returns to Beefeater Bill’s side of the hightop table. He’s deep into one of his monologues, discussing how as a kid in Minnesota, they would go watch bridge jumpers. Suicide attempts. Presumably victorious suicide attempts, he says, but we didn’t stick around to see if anyone swam ashore. You know what is most funny?, Beefeater Bill asks them, is suicides always jump facing the city. They never face away from the society that spurned them. They want to be witnessed.

Hilarious. 

Twice this evening, Shiloh has insisted to us she promised her uncle she would get him laid. Both times, I told her, I am not sure this is your crowd. You might have better luck up the road at the Buffalo Wild Wings. Shiloh ignored my advice, bouncing instead to the positive affirmations of Beefeater Bill. I wonder if the spoon-bender, who never questions a compliment, has thought this through. The Filipino uncle in town for the night. The niece, who is as exotic as a baked potato. I am no geneticist, but I doubt there is any shared DNA between “uncle” and “niece”. And as far as her sworn mission to get him laid, Shiloh has yet to move King Henry towards any queens on the chess board. It seems clear Shiloh’s uncle is looking for a dude to bunk with. What isn’t clear is what Shiloh is hired to do. Is she a pimp of sorts? An entrepreneur, capitalizing on market demands, working on a finder’s fee? Has Henry been banned from dating apps and require additional resources? She might have Beefeater Bill salivating with talk of skinny dipping, but when she turns out the lights in Beefeater Bill’s room at the motor lodge, who is crawling onto that mattress?

I’m leaving, I announce after settling my bill. Say it ain’t so, Undertow Joe!, Shiloh says. C’mon, man!, Beefeater Bill says halfheartedly, one more drink! Shiloh asks, why are you going so soon? Because, Beefeater Bill says to her, Vic is going to look for the Mothman. He adds a creepy, oo-oo-oo! 

What?, Shiloh says quizzically. She wasn’t here to listen to my earlier lecture on cryptozoology. Shiloh shakes her head at me vehemently. No, bruh!, not on this side of the river, Shiloh says. Everyone knows there ain’t no Mothman in Ohio!