Halcyon Days: Chapter 31 (Patreon)

All eyes are on us as Raymond and Mei share their embrace.

“What’s this ‘Grandpa’ stuff?” Raymond says as the hug parts. With a wrinkled hand, speckled with liver spots, he pats her cheek in a way that only a grandparent could get away with giving another adult. I suspect he’d given her that little pat since she was a baby.

Mei’s jaw clenches as she squirms with embarrassment. “Yeye.” She says, stepping back from him and straightening up to look him eye to eye. “This is Dusty.” She looks at me, flashing my a look of apology, and says. “Dusty, this is my gra… This is Yeye.” Quickly her attention snaps back to him. “Who isn’t supposed to be here. Bowling canceled tonight?”

“Roof leak.” Raymond’s affable energy disappears. As the opening chords of All Along the Watchtower hit in the background he slowly looks up at me, dark eyes piercing straight through me. He was a senior citizen half my size but in that moment I was a lost, lonely boy who had wandered into enemy territory. In that inky gaze I can see that this is a guy who’d seem some shit, a guy who had DONE some shit, and it sends a chill to my core. Studying me closely he holds out his hand. “Dusty.” He says, testing my name on his tongue, as if the sound alone might tell him something about me. “You can call me Gunnery Sergeant Ling, young man.”

Mei visibly winces, her emotions around her grandfather seeming to flow more openly than anywhere else I’d seen her. “Don’t call him that, Dusty. He’s messing with you.”

Though his hand was small and slender his grip was firm with wiry strength as I shake it. “Nice to meet you, Sir.”

He keeps my hand grasped, shaking it and keeping me rooted to the spot as he continues to look me over. “So this is the southern boy I heard about. The one roughing up our local lads.”

Mei gives Raymond a pointed glare, quietly signaling to him ‘You’re embarrassing me, Grandpa!’.

“Only when they deserve it, Sir.” I say, firm but respectful as I somehow manage hold his pointed gaze. “That whole thing’s been overblown.”

STILL shaking my hand he asks. “Where you from, Dusty?”

“Georgia, Sir. Athens.”

With a slow nod he lets go of my hand. “I knew a couple of roughnecks from Clark County back in the Delta.” Beside me Mei is rolling her eyes and biting her tongue. He continues. “A couple of big corn-fed bastards. Strong as bulls they were, though half as smart.”

“Yeye!” She hisses, then looks at me. “I swear he doesn’t usually talk like this.”

Ignoring his blushing granddaughter Raymond continues, his narrowed eyes never leaving mine. “Tough as old leather when it counted though. Could look you in the eye when you shook their hands.” With that comment I realize I’d just passed a test by holding eye contact during our long shake. “When the shit went FUBAR them boys didn’t flinch.”

“My Ma always says that Georgia boys are peaches.”

He raises a perplexed brow, as does Mei.

“Soft and sweet on the outside but we got a stone hard pit on the inside.”

“HA!” His ‘tough veteran’ persona shatters as he lets out a big laugh. “Never heard that one before. It fits.” His dark eyes drift to Mei, love beaming form his gaze, then return to me. “So, newcomer. What are your intentions with my granddaughter?”

“And we’re done.” Mei steps forward, grabs her Yeye’s arm and, whether he wanted to or not, hauls him back toward the table he’d come from.

“Hey! We were just getting to know each other.” He protests while he is dragged away much to the amusement of the rest of the room, particularly his cribbage partners. He waves back at me. “Nice meeting you, Dusty.”

“You too, Raymond.” I say through my chuckles.

“If you hurt my Mei Mei I’ll…”

“Yeye!” Mei PLANTS him back down on his chair with a death grip on both his shoulders. “You are done!”

As his friends howl with laughter I give him a respectful nod back. “Message received, Sir.”

He shoots me a grin then turns, pulls Mei down to kiss her cheek and whisper something in her ear. Whatever he says makes the tension drain from her shoulders. She stands and marches back to me. Without even a pause she grabs my arm and hauls me along with her, just the way she’s done to her grandpa, taking me to the table in the opposite corner, as far from the game of crib as it was possible to get. She sits me like she did with him then takes the seat next me, her back to the room.

“He’s nice.” I say, my smile impossible to hide.

“He wasn’t supposed to be here!” She grumbles.

“It’s a small town.” I quip, echoing back the line she’d said to me earlier in the day.

“Too small.” She says.

From the other side of the Legion we can hear the group openly talking about me. “He seems nice enough.” “Yeah, but everybody knows those red-heads have hot tempers.”

Again Mei’s jaw clenches. “Ignore them.”

Just then the big bartender steps up to our table with an affable grin. “What’ll it be, Mei?”

“The platter and two beers, Otis.” She says. “Busch Light.”

“Beer?” His thick brows rise. “Since when do you drink beer? You hate beer!” With pursed lips she stares daggers back at him as in a flash I realize that she only drank beer with me the night before so she could 'fit in' and seem 'normal' through my eyes. She hated beer and yet she had sat there drinking it with me without complaint. And it is not lost on me that she chose the brand that I ordered at The Post. Picking up the meaning of Mei’s glare, too late by far, Otis tries to recover and says. “Of course. A platter and two pints, coming up!” Any slim hopes of deception are obliterated as he gives her a big wink as if I couldn’t see it as plainly as she could.

From across the room comes a loud whisper. “She ordered beer!”

With a defeated sigh Mei says. “Make it the half platter. And Otis.”

“Yeah?”

“Could you turn the music up?”

Otis looks across to her grandpa’s table then back to her. “You got it, Mei.” He looks down at me. “Welcome to Halcyon, Dusty.”

“Thank you, Otis. I feel welcome.”

With that he turns and walks back toward the kitchen to start cooking our order, turning up the Hendrix just loud enough to muffle the chatter along the way.

Beside me Mei’s eyes are closed, her fists gripping her dress, as she worked to control her breathing. From her perspective our second date was already nearly as big of a disaster our first though for my part I was having the time of my life. Seeing Mei knocked off kilter like this, seeing the fallible woman beneath the perfect facade, only made me fall for her more. The moment passes quickly. She straightens up, raises her chin and opens her eyes.

Cool, calm and collected she turns to me. “We eat and we get the heck out of here, understood?”

“I don’t know.” I say, giving Mei back a bit of her own deadpan delivery. “I like the atmosphere here.” As her eyes narrow with a withering gaze equal to her grandpa’s I fight back a laugh and say. “The night’s still young.”

“And you’ll be spending that night alone if you’re not careful.”

“Eat, drink, leave. Got it!”

Chapter 32