The Standoff

“Miss Lucile, I’ll be leaving for the day.”

Already in the doorway to the office, she took a breath to reply but simply nodded as if she was going to say something but thought better of it.  This habit made her seem wise and contemplative, just the sort of girl who would be the secretary to a judge.  Gusty knew the truth of it, though he couldn’t bring himself to fire her.  People opened up to her guileless silence.  She was the repository of the town’s whispered hopes and dreams.

Judge McClellan moved in strides and Honcho in lurches.  The trip to the door was like an elephant and an ostrich trapped in a tango.  Their triumphant exit was dampened further by the long-standing unspoken and awkward mutual infatuation between Honcho and Lucile.  The town knew that they held a candle for each but letting the two of them know would snuff out a source of amusement and conversation for the everyone.  The weather and funerals played second fiddle to stories of their inept courtship.   

Lucille stood squarely in the doorway.  Her slight figure left no amount of polite passing room on either side.  Judge Gusty halted a committed stride just in time to end up comically close to his secretary.  Honcho completed the tight triangle out of habit before noticing who blocked their way.  Once there, he froze.

Now, Judge McClellan believed in allowing time to sort things out.  His patience was calculated, though.  He generally knew what people were going to do and preferred to let them figure things out.  They learned more that way and he got re-elected because his rulings always seemed so reasonable. 

He stood looking at Lucile and Honcho.  She was facing the Judge’s chest but stealing glances at Honcho who was staring at her shoulder but enjoying the proximity.  It was a standoff of the romantic sort. 

Judge McClellan tried a series of sentences.  After each he paused for a response.   But she neither spoke or moved out of their way.

“Lucile, Honcho has created something special.”

“It’s a beer.”

“I believe it will change our lives.” 

At the last, her gaze shifted from Gusty’s chest to Honcho’s eyes.  For the briefest of moments she seemed ready to speak.  Instead she stepped back like a saloon door standing rigid and staring at nothing.  Gusty steered his friend through the door and out of the building. 

“That was a good lesson, Honcho.  Some things aren’t solved by beer.”

In the beginning...

Gusty McClellan looked up from the paper to see his future standing in the door.  Honcho Stickie stood taller than his height beaming with a bottle in his hand.  A man in all respects average but the twinkle in his eye, Honcho was always up to something.  Without breaking eye contact he crossed the room holding the bottle out in front as if he wanted it to arrive first wherever he went. “This is it, Judge. Taste it and tell me if it’s not.  I believe it is.” 

A mountain moves easier than Gusty’s hand to that bottle.  Honcho’s schemes were forever complicating his purposely predictable life.  But a friendship longer than memory has a power men don’t question.

The eye contact intensified as Gusty tilted the bottle to his lips.  A blink now would let his friend down and break the mood.  He aimed to play along, but the beer in that bottle had different plans.  Like a cloud burst on a hot July day and the blue sky afterward, the taste moved with a sweeping rhythm of its own. Gusty’s eyes closed and his imagination opened.  After a few moments, he said, “It’s wetter than water.”  Honcho replied, “That’s what I thought.”

Honcho had brewed a batch of sunshine in a bottle.  He’d always thought that plans were made for breaking.  So, he’d never made any that lasted long.  That’s where Judge McClellan came in.  He seemed to know what tomorrow would bring.

Well, not anymore.  “Honcho, if you kept this to yourself, I would consider it stealing.”