El Oro No-No

Doug Donnan

Executive Editor/OM-GEN+                                                                                              

donnan.doug@yahoo.com

* Note: This little beach bum story is a piece out of my 'Sanchehez & Callisto' series.

"El Oro No-No"

by

DOUG DONNAN

         

                                      

                                  (Uptown Mendocino, Northern California)

    “What’s your pleasure…gentlemen?” the portly bartender asked with more than

just a hint of sarcasm in his voice. 

     “Two of whatever ya’ got there on draft amigo,” Calisto replied with a flip of his

crooked finger at a singular brass stanchion that grew out of the center of the stained

oaken bar top. He looked around the dimly lighted tavern from a dipped-chin point just

above the long cigarette burnt bar rail. “Make sure they’re good and cold barkeep,

‘cuz we got us a powerful thirst to slay,” he declared as he scraped back his tangled tuft

of snow white, cotton candy hair.

     Sanchez, his silent partner, removed his oft-creased Stetson hat and held it out just

in front of himself as if it were some sort of collection basket. He hung his head slightly

in a kind of pathetic display of solitude. The diminutive Mexican was as silent as a monk

in a mortuary.

     The bartender pursed his fat lips in surprise as he pushed his hands up into the rolls of

midriff that overlapped his sail-like white apron.  He was only seconds from ‘inviting’ the

tattered twosome of Calisto and Sanchez to ‘hit the road’. But business was slow and he 

was somewhat bored so he decided to play along with the two decidedly peculiar drifters.

     “Well, well,” the bartender replied with a mocking bow. “I see. Will that be cash or

charge your majesty?”

     Calisto bent low and spat a dark gob of something into a yawning copper cuspidor

down below.  Then he slowly raised up his ruddy face and managed to focus two myopic

bloodshot eyes back at the broad and burly bartender. He kept his gaze riveted on the

brooding man as he fished his right hand around in the pocket of his dark, drooping

Goodwill jacket. He soon pulled out a little elongated purple velvet jewelry case and

slapped it down with a re-sounding whap on the bar top.

     “Take it outa’ this little beauty my friend,” he said softly with a wry smile as he

snapped open the box to reveal a sizeable gleaming gold briquette.

     “Holy sitz bath!” the bartender exclaimed as he almost stumbled backwards into a

trayof glasses just behind him on the back bar. “Where’d you get that? Is that a real

gold bar?”

     “Real as you’ll ever git ta see,” Calisto replied curtly. “Now, how ‘bout them

cervesas?” 

     The bartender did a kind of hurried sand crab-like shuffle down the bar to pour

the two beers.  

     “Senor Caleesto,” Sanchez leaned over with a guarded little whisper, “The gold

bar there, we took it from the pocket of one of the ‘soonamee bodies…the Japanese

bodies lying onthe beach last night! It isn’t right that we should—

     “So what?” Calisto cut in as he snapped the case closed. “Finders keepers’ my

ol’ man always tol’ me my little beach-bum buddy. This is America, not Japan…

comprende-vu?”

     “Pero…but, it is stealeeng’,” Sanchez frowned as he replaced his wilted hat back

atop his slicked black head of hair. “Let’s take that back y entonces vaya con Dios!

It belongs to—  

     “God ain’t got nuthin’ to do with this here mi amigo,” Calisto said with an evil sneer

as he wiggled the case up in front of Sanchez’ pug nose “If he did, he would have struck

us down right then and there on that damn beach with only the pale moon as a witness.”    

     “I am leaving now senor Caleesto,” Sanchez decided as he raised up off his barstool

and then deftly scooted it back to the rail. “Mi padre once told me, ‘Do unto others as

you would have them do unto you!’ Vas a venir mi amigo…are you coming my friend?”

     Calisto shook his wooly head in surrender and then swept the case off the bar.

“That’s Matthew 7:12... the golden rule! Your daddy musta’ been a preacher! Damn

you anyway Sanchez,” he sighed as he slid off his barstool and cautiously retreated. 

     As the two beach Bedouins shuffled off for the saloon’s exit door the bartender

returned with the two frothy mugs of beer.

     “Say,” he called after them. “Where are you two birds goin’? What about these bee…

where ya’ goin’ with that gold bar?”

     Calisto stopped short there at the tavern exit and turned slowly around as might a

grand Shakespearean actor in some rousing stage play.

     “‘Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from

death.’ Proverbs 10:2,” he replied to the barman with a melancholy smile. Calisto

reached out and cupped a hand on Sanchez’ shoulder. “Looks like we’re goin'

 back to the beach ‘ay amigo?”

     “Si senor Caleesto,” Sanchez smiled back. “Vamos con Dios!”

                                             _____ The End _____