The official launch of "Closer All the Time" by Jim Nichols happens March 10 at the Bayside Bowl in Portland. We can't wait for readers to get their hands on the novel that author Bill Roorbach calls "... a story built of sentences so beautiful I want to keep them like wild honey in a jar.”
As a special treat to fiction fans, we're offering a sneak peek at the opening of the book:
Johnny
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Johnny Lunden had ridden his old surplus Scout halfway to Portland, filling out applications and angling for interviews. That was always harder than working itself, and by noon he was more than ready to call it a day. But when he got back to Baxter—tired, wind-burned, and thirsty—he saw a help wanted sign in the picture window of the town’s new restaurant, and after throttling back to think about it, he went ahead and pulled the Indian over to the curb. On the sidewalk he ran his hands through his hair and smoothed his mustache.
What the hell, he thought. One more won’t kill you.
His reward for that impulse was a painful half-hour in a cluttered little office at the back end of the building, listening to Alva Potter expound on modern business philosophy. Alva had it all figured out: You had to be sharp, and you had to compete. Business was like war—to put it in a context that Johnny might appreciate—and he could be thought of as the commander whom the troops must follow.
“You with me here?” Alva said, chin raised.
Johnny couldn’t help clicking his heels together lightly and saying, “Sir, yes, sir!” at this point, but the commander was enjoying the sound of his own voice so much that he barely noticed. Johnny managed to restrain himself for the rest of the interview and ultimately walk away with an application in hand and Potter’s man-to-man pledge—Johnny had to bite his tongue here—to give him fair consideration.
On the way out Johnny swung by the bar to reconnoiter the work space. He liked that it was going to have a sports theme, with an emphasis on fighting, boxing portraits hung on the walls. And the bar itself was set up pretty well, except for the glasses rack directly over the ice sink. As he looked it over, the kitchen door bumped open and a guy his own age came out with a tray of wine glasses. He set the tray down, gave Johnny a nod, and began slipping the glasses stem-first into the rack.
“Don’t drop one,” Johnny said.
The bartender shot him a look.
Johnny held up his hands. “I’ve been there, brother.”
The bartender grinned. He knew what Johnny was saying: If you dropped a glass it would fall directly into the sink, and after you’d picked out the shards you’d have to replace all the ice. You’d scoop out what you could, and then you’d have to use buckets of hot water. And naturally this would only happen when you were deep in the weeds, with drink orders piled up and waitresses spitting nails.
“I’m guessing it’s somebody’s own design,” Johnny said.
“Bingo.” The barkeep carefully put the last glass away. “So how’d it go in there?”
“I learned that business was like war.”
The bartender made a face. He reached into the cooler for a bottle of beer, levered the cap off, and set it in front of Johnny. “On him,” he said. Then he took the cork-bottomed tray back to the kitchen.
Johnny watched little bubbles rise through the ale. He was supposed to be behaving himself. But Sarah was working at the Realty, the boys wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours, and it would be rude to just walk out. It could even affect his job prospects. So he sat down and drank, which obliged him, when the bartender returned, to purchase another so he could leave a little something for a tip. The bartender was Navy—Johnny had seen the anchor tattoo when his sleeve had ridden up—and Johnny always tipped fellow vets.
“Will he mind me sitting here?” Johnny thought to ask.
“He’s gone out. Got a big war council or something.”
Johnny smiled and raised the beer. He’d almost finished it when Early Blake came in, saw his near-empty glass, and ordered him a refill. All right, Johnny thought, just one more, since it’s him. But then you head home.
He asked Early how things were on the flats, and that led to stories about falling out of skiffs, stepping into honey pots, and dodging the clam cops. The bartender laughed and set them up again.
It was like a conspiracy, Johnny thought, with awe.
The bartender did a magic trick involving ashtrays and shot glasses, and then Early related how when he was a young fellow he’d run up the river on a foggy day to steal an outboard from a guy who’d owed him for ten pecks of clams for over a year. The deadbeat had had a second outboard, though, and he’d come after Early and actually fired a couple of rounds at him through the murk. Early had to lay low in Preacher’s Cove until the guy gave up.
It was a long, well-told tale, and by the time it was over they’d switched to Bacardi, but Johnny was careful to dilute each drink by eating the ice at the bottom of the glass. He forgot to keep track of the time, though, and later when Early looked at his watch and said, “Lord Almighty, how’d it get to be five o’clock?” Johnny was shocked.
Then he remembered the school bus and his kids.
“Yikes,” he said, and got to his feet.
Early Blake laughed. “Somebody’s in trouble.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
Outside Johnny looked in disbelief at the lowering sun. He’d wondered en route to the door about walking home—it wasn’t far, and he wouldn’t have to worry about running into Chief Foss, who was always willing to pull him over—but now he dismissed that idea. He just couldn’t afford the time. Also, he’d have to explain why he hadn’t driven. And there was one other reason: In Baxter people would stop and offer you a ride, and if that happened it would get around that he’d been drinking again.
So he threw his lanky frame over the bike, jammed three pieces of Juicy Fruit into his mouth, and pulled gently out into the street. He rode past the big Main Street flagpole and leaned around the corner to head slowly down Knox, past the Baptist Church with its high, white steeple and wide, groomed lawn. When he reached the bottom of the hill he was close enough to home to stop worrying about Chief Foss, but that only took his mind back to Sarah. A cold lump formed in his stomach, as if all the Bacardi-flavored ice was somehow reconstituting itself, and he wondered what he was going to tell her this time. He’d already worked late, had a flat tire, met an old friend. He wished to hell he could still joke his way out of trouble.
He’d been pretty good at that once upon a time. Inspired, even. Once he’d claimed to be an extraterrestrial, stranded on Earth, unable to understand the earthling concept of time. It had been a reference to a bad movie they’d taken the kids to see at the Baxter drive-in, called Mordak from Mars.
“Mordak sorry!” he’d said, circling Sarah with exaggerated, heavy-gravity steps, his imitation so dead-on that finally she’d had to smirk despite herself.
Afterward he’d used the routine shamelessly, and eventually it became a family joke. He and the kids would walk like Martians, chanting, “We come in peace!” as they followed Sarah around the house.
Or they’d be heading to Portland to visit Sarah’s parents and to pass the time he’d tell them Mordak stories. One trip he told them about his escape to Earth in a ship fueled by astro-poop, and the boys made faces from their seats in the back and kicked their feet and said “Daaaad!” Then he told them how he’d spent 146 years hiding out on the moon, spying down on Earth, looking for the perfect mate, and how he’d finally found their mom.
“Lucky me, huh?” Sarah had said.
There’d been a little something in her voice, because it hadn’t been all that long since he’d come home at two in the morning with blood on his knuckles—sometimes he made a lousy human being— but he’d ignored it and pressed on.
“Mordak happy now!” he’d exclaimed, and they had rolled down Route 1, through small towns, past hayfields, and into stretches of pine woods, and he’d kept at it until everyone in the car was snickering helplessly.
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