The Maiden Voyage of the Arborville Saloon: Nick Woolums

Scott pushed forward as he pumped the pedals of his bicycle, moving shakily along the trail as he forced himself through the wind and rain. He had not known that it would storm, and in fact had expected it to be a gorgeous evening. Sun, cloudless skies, and gentle breezes were all in the local KCTC TV forecast, during which the even the meteorologist’s usual practiced, broad smile appeared genuine. Their weather report had been accurate, too, at least up until around seven o’clock. Scott had been riding for only a few minutes, looking up through the trees at a wonderful shade of blue that appeared limitless and inviting, when two great masses of dark clouds had closed in front of the sky like theater curtains. Next came the wind and then the rain, predictably, and now Scott’s drenched clothes clung to his skin. Weather in the Midwest wasn’t easy to forecast, of course, but even his 85-year-old, arthritic, human barometer of a grandfather had been known to make more accurate predictions than anyone Scott remembered seeing on television, and listening to that old bastard didn’t run up your electric bill.

Goddamned weatherman. This was supposed to be a nice, solitary evening, but more importantly, a quiet one. While it is true that Scott hated the silence in his bare, colorless apartment, the silence of an empty room is very different from the silence out on a heavily wooded bike trail. On a bike in the woods, everything is quiet except breeze blowing through leaves, crickets chirping, and the buzzing of tires on pavement. But in an empty room, there is no sound besides the droning of household appliances, blended together like an uninspired minimalist’s most boring creation. It made Scott feel nervous, like something important was supposed to happen that he didn’t know about. He usually broke the silence by turning on the TV, and he had a habit of watching news shows as a distraction. And nothing was more distracting than a modern news show full of deceptive euphemisms and rationalizations, all glued together with overdone music and graphics specifically designed to get a firm grasp on your attention and then annihilate it, like a rabbit wandering into a bear trap. They often left him fuming until he went to sleep convinced that exposing oneself to indefensible stupidity was just the price of cultural

literacy. In any case, it was better than the silence, and no doubt better than being at work.

At his work desk, Scott had a habit of madly thumping his right foot against the floor out of restlessness, like a one-legged tap dancer on cocaine, tapping out a single rhythm which could only have been inspired by the monotony of his surroundings. He spent much of the workday trying to ignore the inexplicable anxiety that seemed to follow him everywhere. When resting his head against his hand, which he often did, he would sometimes unconsciously push the two together so firmly that when he finally stood up to walk to the bathroom, everyone he passed could easily see the deep marks that were left behind. Combined with his usual pained, distant expression, and the fact that he never seemed to notice the people around him, the sight of him often made passersby uneasy. To Scott, riding a bike was an ideal outlet for the mania that always gripped him. It was a way to always be moving, and he hated to sit still.

He kept riding until a strong gust of wind picked him up and threw him into the tall grass on the right side of the trail. Though unhurt, he decided that riding was no longer an option. With considerable effort, he picked the bike up off of the ground and began walking it. He thought about turning back upon seeing water build up in the ditch on his left. He stopped and pulled out a pocket-sized trail map. He attempted to read it by holding it at his waist and bending over to keep it out of the rain. He only had enough time to glance at it, though, because the wind soon whipped it out of his hands and dragged it off into the woods. Shielding his eyes with his hand, Scott tried to determine where he was. The rain was thick, and it was hard to see very far down the trail, but he made a rough guess that he was not far from Arborville, a small community of around fifty people. There had to be someone there with a phone, or at least some kind of trailside shelter.

Scott quickened his pace as the remaining light behind the clouds began to fade. He occasionally glanced upwards, and over the next few minutes, the clouds began to travel more quickly through the sky, until their motion seemed nervous, frantic, and forced. The color of the sky gradually transitioned from a dark gray to a pale, hollow green, and for a moment Scott could not have been sure whether he was still on the same planet. He continued along the trail, shivering.

After fifteen minutes or so he saw a road intersecting the trail, and knew he was near Arborville. The small town was comprised of ten or fifteen houses which sat on either side of the road, clustered near the trail. Directly west of the northbound trail was a small bar, the Arborville Saloon. Scott had never visited this place in all his years of riding past it, and he figured that now was as good a time as any. He walked his bike up to the door and leaned it against the building. He instinctually grabbed his keys and bent down to lock it up, but then leaned back and chuckled nervously, remembering how unlikely it was that someone would come outside in this weather to steal it. He approached the door cautiously, still with the unshakable feeling that something here was wrong. Peering into the bar through a small window on the door, the place seemed completely abandoned. There was no furniture visible except for the counter which sat inconspicuously in the corner. Strips of old insulation, dust, and bits of sheetrock covered the otherwise bare plywood floor. As he backed away from the door, he noticed how poorly the building had been constructed. It almost seemed as though instead of having a solid foundation, the whole place was resting on concrete blocks, which raised it a few feet off the ground. Architecture at its finest, he thought.

He then made his way to each house in town and knocked on the door, but it was useless. No one answered, and he assumed his knocks were being drowned out by deafening rain and thunder. The water on the road was now up to his ankles and, slightly desperate, he returned to the saloon. It was actually an ideal place to stay. Since it was set a few feet off the ground, he wouldn’t have to worry if the water rose a few feet. He wasn’t fond of the idea of breaking and entering, but he doubted that anyone would mind, and anyways, it wasn’t locked. He shut the door behind him, insulating himself from the noise outside. It felt strange to walk out of a place so viciously alive into one so pathetically lifeless. The building consisted of one room, which was about the size of an old one-room schoolhouse. He walked over the far right-hand corner, lay down on a bed of sheetrock dust and torn insulation, and went to sleep.

After what couldn’t have been more than five minutes, Scott woke to the sound of glass breaking as a small tree was blown over and smashed the window on the east wall of the building. Startled, he hit his head against the wall, and stumbled around dizzily for a moment. Heavy rain blew through the shattered windowpane and onto the floor. Scott peered out into the storm to see his bike floating away in the floodwaters. Goddamned weatherman, he thought again as he watched it being carried back home without him. Even worse, the water was now almost up to the window and was still rising. Having realized what was to come, he felt an explosion of adrenaline right above his gut, making his heart pound mercilessly until his head started to ache. He was fucked, and he knew it.

He swiveled around and began to crawl erratically about the room on all fours like a cornered animal, trying to find something that might help him. His left hand came down onto a shard of glass from the broken window, piercing his palm, and his hand slipped out from underneath him.

“Ah, shit!” he yelled as he fell to the floor. He laid there for several minutes, shakily drawing in deep breaths. After some thought, he carefully pulled the glass out of his hand in one quick motion, wincing and then pressing his wounded hand into his soaked t-shirt. He began to feel light-headed, but luckily the bleeding seemed to be slowing. He started to feel as though he was slowly rocking back and forth, and he pressed his hand tighter into his shirt. He sat up, trying to reorient himself, but as he looked out the window, he realized he was not imagining the rocking sensation. The building itself had been lifted off of its base and was actually bobbing up and down, floating in the water. He watched the other houses move past him, and then felt a crash as the building struck the trees at the edge of the forest. Scott continued to rise along with the water until the building had nearly risen above the trees. He opened the window on the north wall, and stared into the storm. The surface of the water was tinted green, reflecting the pale sky. The very tops of the trees, whose branches had been picked clean of leaves by the storm, slightly jutted out of the water like an old man’s frail fingers. Soon they disappeared under the water, and Scott began to move freely along with the current. For a while he could hear the tree branches clawing at him from underneath the floor as he passed. He fell asleep to that sound, but only after he became more tired than he was afraid.

Scott woke up the next morning, and before he opened his eyes, he listened. He could hear that the wind had died down, but it sounded as though the rain was still falling steadily. He didn’t open his eyes until he heard a voice near his head.

“Mr. Lindman, the day has nearly begun. I trust that you still plan to attend to your work on this most splendorous of mornings?”

Scott jumped, in disbelief that someone else could have made their way into the building. He opened his eyes to see his boss, Mr. Campbell. This man had an annoying habit of saying everything in twice as many words as was necessary. He was a small man whose white hair was always slicked back. It was obvious that he liked the way he looked when he held a cigar between his lips, surrounded by his thick goatee. Despite the routine disrespect and verbal abuse he took from his superiors, or perhaps because of it, he carried himself in a way that suggested he was admired by everyone around him.

“S…Sir,” Scott stammered, who was still trying to get his bearings. He was still in the saloon, but two desks had been set up in the corner, one of which was occupied by a man Scott recognized from the office. “What are you doing here?” he asked Mr. Campbell.

“That’s not really important, Mr. Lindman.” He chuckled, and smiled reassuringly. “But I can see Mr. Ackers sitting at his desk, working, and well, what is it they say?” He paused dramatically and looked towards the sky, tapping his index finger against his chin, trying to recall what Scott was sure must have been some old gem of a proverb. “When in Rome?”

He didn’t finish the sentence, which bothered Scott. And while most people would assume that “do as the Romans do” was implied, Scott suspected that Mr. Campbell had no idea how the saying ended.

Still smiling, he raised his eyebrows and patted Scott on the back to signal the end of the conversation. He stood up and walked over behind the counter, which he was apparently using as his desk. Scott sat there for a while trying to decide what he thought was going on, and as his thoughts began to trail off and jump sporadically to every corner of his tired brain, he gave up and decided to head to his desk. He quickly changed out of his still-wet shorts and t-shirt into a pair of Dockers and a white button-up shirt and tie that were sitting on his chair.

Scott took his seat, still not fully awake, and looked for the work that needed to be done. The only paper on his desk was a memo titled “Re: No Bathroom.” It explained that their new office did not seem to have a bathroom, and instructed the employees to piss out the broken window. The same protocol applied if they needed a shit, although they were told that in this case they were to warn the others first, and to take extra care not to fall out. Scott remembered seeing a port-a-potty right next to the trail, and supposed that it must have served as the shabby venue’s restroom while it was still on the ground. No wonder it had closed.

He booted up his computer and checked his messages, of which there were very few, and all from Mr. Campbell. Each had spreadsheets attached, which were full of numbers for Scott, the accountant, to work with. He began work just as though it were any other Monday morning, and for a few days he plugged away at finishing each day’s work, which was sent to him each morning. He wondered where the numbers were coming from, though, since there was no way of contacting anyone outside of the saloon. Of course there was no internet, and all of Mr. Campbell’s messages were sent to Scott through a local area network. Not to mention that presumably, their office back in the city was deep underwater right now.

He kept a close eye on Mr. Campbell. The boss sat off to the right side, and spent most of each day staring at his computer, sneaking an occasional shot of the scotch he found underneath the counter (very discreetly, or at least he seemed to think so), and occasionally typing for a few minutes at a time. Besides this, he spent much of the day staring out the window, and now and again he smoked a cigar while resting his feet on the counter. Scott was certain that he only used the computer to make up the numbers that he sent to Scott in the morning. This hunch was confirmed, as far as Scott was concerned, by the brief, evasive glances that he occasionally received from Mr. Campbell, whose narrowed lips and furrowed eyebrows betrayed his hopelessness.

He didn’t talk to Mr. Ackers, his only co-worker, very often. In fact, Scott avoided him almost entirely after a conversation they had on the first day in the floating office.

“Heavens!” said Mr. Ackers. “Would you mind giving me a closer look at your hand?”

“Alright,” said Scott. He hadn’t been able to use his left hand after the glass shard had pierced his palm. Without looking away from his computer screen, he held his hand out for Mr. Ackers to see. He leaned forward to see it, and then

“In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” said he said quietly as he crossed himself. “You, it seems, bear stigmata.”

Scott laughed, though with a twinge of sarcasm. “Nice one. That was clever. Actually, I got this when a huge shard of glass stabbed through my hand and it now it hurts like hell. But thanks. That was funny.”

“No, sir, you don’t understand. You have been allowed to participate in Christ’s suffering. You are very blessed.”

Scott swiveled around to face Mr. Ackers, his raised eyebrows nestled tightly beneath his hairline. “Blessed?” The look of disbelief faded from his face, and he leaned back in his chair with pursed lips, staring at Mr. Ackers’ desk and nodding his head as though reconsidering the man’s statement. “Well if that’s the way you feel, I’d be more than happy to nail your hand to your desk with this letter opener,” he explained calmly. “Both hands, if you want. Then you could be even more ‘blessed’ than me.”

Mr. Ackers began to shake his finger at Scott. “Now look, I’m not going to sit here and let you disrespect—”

“Then may lightning strike me,” Scott said, the anger returning to his face. “You stupid, fat fuck.”

For several days, Scott worked at his desk. At times he became so accustomed to the slow rocking of the floor, and the view of the sea outside the window, he forgot that he was not in the office in the city. These things faded from his awareness just like the tapping of his foot, the clicking of Mr. Ackers’ typing, and the hum of his computer. At times, he even ceased to be aware of the work he was doing, as it had become second nature to him. In these moments, Scott was aware of absolutely nothing. Although numbers flew through his head, and every bit of him was shaking wildly from the stress of confinement, he was tuned out of all that and everything else. It was at first comforting and then horrifying for Scott when he realized how little his life had changed after the flood.

This realization eventually led him to abandon his work. It happened one afternoon about a week after Scott’s first workday in the saloon-office, when he noticed that Mr. Campbell had taken to drinking his scotch in plain sight during office hours.

“Excuse me, Mr. Campbell,” said Scott. “Can I have the rest of the day off?”

“No, sir,” he said with a friendly grin. “I’m working, Mr. Ackers is working.” He pointed at Mr. Ackers, who didn’t look away from his work. “And of course, as they say, ‘when in Rome.’”

“‘When in Rome’ what?” asked Scott, testing him.

“What do you mean?” Mr. Campbell asked impatiently.

“What’s the rest of the saying?” asked Scott.

“Oh, right. Well uh, ‘when in Rome,’ uh…” He stammered as he looked around the room, trying to find something to help him remember. He looked confused.

“When in Rome, uh, many hands make light work.” He ended this sentence quite decisively, and it made Scott want to cry.

He stayed at his desk for a while longer, until Mr. Campbell fell off of his barstool after one too many shots. He walked over to the window, and looked into the sky, which had changed very little since that first morning. It was still gray, and it was still raining. The sea around them, (or ocean, or whatever it was) was still calm.

He wondered if it would always be like this, and if it was like this everywhere. If not, how long would it take for the waters to recede? How far from here was there land that was still above water? He glanced back into the saloon, where Mr. Campbell could be heard shuffling around on the floor behind the counter, and Mr. Ackers glared at him and then returned to his work. He was unsure about a lot of things, but he was certain that waiting wouldn’t change anything. After all, he thought, I haven’t only been waiting a week. I’ve been waiting for years. At this, the rain started to fall more violently again, the wind whipped huge waves of water into the air which beat against the wall, and the sky turned that unforgettable shade of green, as though trying to discourage him from doing what he now saw as his only remaining option.

Scott’s face once again produced that pained, distant look that his co-workers had been so familiar with, but this time his eyes were moist, and grew slightly red around the edges. He looked out into the storm, and then back into the saloon again. With resolve that surprised even himself, he stripped down and dove out of the window.