Lime in Salt

By Brian Karre

Red Brooking puts together Boca Raton beach chaise lounge chairs for a living. He has had a limited number of what he describes as real moments in his life. Red defines real moments as vivid memories or unforgettable experiences. His time with the opposite sex hasn’t left him with much to think back on either. This self-proclaimed loser never gets the girl. Anne, an acquaintance and former love interest, signs Red up for a vacation getaway that may give him the real moment he has always been looking for: a trip to Fog Post Rest, a reclusive hideaway just inside the Canadian border. On the trip to this exclusive resort Red encounters the Rainbow Harrier, a bird rarely seen by man. This is something he will never forget.
While there, Red chases women and gets to know the local folk. He spends long nights down at the Old Canadian Ice Tavern and splashes a little life on his arid, barren existence. But does he get the girl? The guy always has to get the girl, right?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532082672

Brian Karre

Brian Karre wrote Lime in Salt while living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming working as a radio announcer for KZ95. Originally from Omaha, Nebraska, this story was inspired by his move to the Rocky Mountain west. He describes this short novella as a compilation of observations, opinions, notes and ignorance from life in his twenties.

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Copyright © 2003, 2007, 2019 Brian Karre.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-8266-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8267-2 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 11/05/2019

CONTENTS

Chapter 1     For A Living I Put Together These Chairs

Chapter 2     Fill This Out

Chapter 3     Sunday Post

Chapter 4     Texas State

Chapter 5     We Were Running Late For The Flight

Chapter 6     The Hollywood Suite

Chapter 7     Melting Creek Pass

Chapter 8     Black Peak

Chapter 9     The Upper Deck

Chapter 10   Canada’s Old Ice Tavern

Chapter 11   I’m Supposed To Be In The Hollywood Suite

Chapter 12   The Yellow Beater

Chapter 13   The Rise And Fall Of Merv Roon The Common Loon

Chapter 14   Everything Gets All Weird When People Start Messing With That Bird

Chapter 15   Love And The Theory Of Positioning

Chapter 16   The Salt Of The Earth

Chapter 17   I Hope The Guy Gets The Girl. The Guy Always Has To Get The Girl

I don’t really have a lot of stuff. Possessions or things that might define a resident like souvenirs or photographs. I’m not complaining or anything. That suits me fine. The last thing I want is to be defined anyway. Guests who’ve come in my place always ask me, Did you just move in? There is one corner I am working on. I bought this little Japanese lamp, a shoji, and it’s sitting on the ground next to a couple of plants. Under the circumstances, looking at this one decorated corner of my room, I feel worldly. A couple of drinks I had earlier tonight have made these perceptions more dramatic in definition. I had two drinks at my neighbor’s house, and they would not let me leave without a drink in hand for the trip home. I am not sure what was in it; the rim had a lime and salt.

CHAPTER 1

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FOR A LIVING I PUT TOGETHER THESE CHAIRS

I guess the title of this chapter gives you a little insight on the career path I have chosen. Dropping two feet in the middle of a sunny afternoon, while laying out on a Boca Raton beach chaise lounger is about the only way I will be able to affect your life. Unfortunately, that happens more than I would like it to.

It’s 11:00 a.m. and I am an hour late for work. I awaken with salty lips and a pungent ridge of warm tequila breath. After a quick shower, mostly me gargling, I put a little more toothpaste on my brush than normal, spit; dress, pour some juice into a cup, grab a small package of peanuts and head out.

Candledick was outside watering the plants on his deck in our apartment condo-plex. I call him Candledick because his real last name is Candlestick. I call it an apartment condo-plex because some people in the complex actually own their apartment and others like me, a bad chaise lounge assembler, just rent.

Candlestick called for me. I ignored him. He called for me again. This time I had to look.

Did my electric margaritas light your ass up last night?

See, now that right there, that little play on words with the electricity and the drink lighting me up, is the reason I am not compatible with this world. I suppose if I could just come up with some unoriginal play on words like he just did, I could walk out of this conversation feeling like a normal person, but I couldn’t. I just looked at him and nodded. He nodded back and smiled like a guy would smile if he had triumphantly lit somebody’s ass up with an electric margarita and then went back to his plants.

You know a Candledick. We all know a Candledick. Married early in life, around 22 or 23, completed college in four years and had a career waiting for him at some big company, but only after spending a graduation summer on a beach.

He’ll work there thirty or forty years, and then retire at like fifty-five or sixty. He’s either got life figured out, or he doesn’t. I guess if he is watering plants and not working on a Saturday morning, he must have things kind of figured out.

I didn’t get to drink my juice until after I had been at work for a half of an hour or so. Tart orange pulp blended with mint in my toothpaste. I had a few peanuts to take the freshness out of my mouth, had another drink of juice, and then the juice began to taste a little more normal.

Luckily, I had finished a chaise lounger in record time and my boss had no idea I was late. It’s how life works out sometimes. Sometimes things go smoothly. Sometimes we run into problems, yet we are always judged as if neither had anything to do with the result. Black and white, win or lose, you know.

After a couple more chaise lounges and a few, fifteen-minute breaks, my boss told me to take off early. This does not happen often. In fact, the whole store looked as if it were about to close early. I say that because some of the lights in the back had been shut off, similar to the times when the store is about to close. Wheeling my pallet of completed chaise loungers through the reserve stock doors and dropping them off in their designated area, I look at a clock and see that it is 5:35 p.m.

CHAPTER 2

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FILL THIS OUT

On my way out, my boss gives me an entry form for some company trip a couple lucky winners from our region will get. Our chain of retail stores exists in five states throughout this part of the country, so I pretty much have no shot. As I reached for the trash can, this girl named Anne who worked in the apparel department at the store, grabbed my arm and pulled me over to a table within this restaurant at the front of our store. It’s a store and a restaurant, I guess.

Fill this out, Red!

Red is my name. It’s not a nickname or anything. It is actually my real name. There was a fairly large gathering of employees filling out these entry forms when Anne gave me a pen. As I was just about finished filling out the entry form, I looked up and saw Anne staring at me, kicking one of her legs on the ground and looking around like she was in a hurry to get her pen back, and get the hell out of there.

I looked around. Just about everyone was gone. A pretty large stack of forms had been stuffed in the entry box. I finished my form quickly and gave the pen back to Anne. Anne practically ran out of the restaurant, and then through the entrance of the retail store. With the front doors closing quickly behind her, the lights in the store shut off. As her shadow walked through the parking lot, one at a time, each streetlamp would go dark, as she passed them.

Timing was Anne’s trademark. You could bet when she started her car out front, no traffic would be in her way as she entered the street. The lights leading onto the east parkway entrance would be green and she would not even have to yield to get into the turning lane, which would lead to her next exit. She made her way through life as if she had just been briefed on what was coming up next, in perfect symmetry with everything around her.

There was barely enough light to see my way out of the store. I ripped my form off the pamphlet and put it into the entry box, only because it was closer than the trash can. I stuffed the other half of the pamphlet into my pants and stumbled out the front doors.

Walking to my car, I noticed the store manager was stringing together these clangy, metal, shopping carts. After he made a line of about eighty carts, he started pushing them on a downward slant toward the front doors. Some of the front carts were slowly coming off the chain and veering into the building. He didn’t seem to care. He had an ear to ear smile and as he passed by me, he looked over and asked, Did you sign up for the trip to Fog Post Rest?

I nodded, Yes.

I took the wife and kids there about ten years ago, he said.

He kept looking back at me. He seemed to forget he was pushing eighty shopping carts downhill, which at one time were all chained together. I gave him a wave goodbye, started my car and spent what felt like twenty minutes at the red light leading onto the east parkway entrance.

My apartment condo-plex is a fatuous suburban retreat, made to look like a reclusive Hawaiian village. There is a strip mall four blocks away, so it can’t be too reclusive. Rent is, like, one hundred dollars higher than a normal complex, and like, five hundred to one thousand dollars less than the really nice apartments in town. Like I told you earlier, you do have the option to buy some of these places. I pulled into my assigned parking spot and started toward my apartment, 29a. 29b has a real jerk inside. Some asshole who has spent his entire life chasing around pop culture. He grew a goat-tee this week that he can’t seem to keep his hands off. He owns his place.

I have never lived around neighbors I totally liked. There are always one or two jerks around. I suppose if I did like everyone I lived around it would be like a big fraternity house. You could just hang out anywhere in the building.

Candlestick lived in the building next to mine, right by the parking lot. As I passed under his third story villa, lights were blazing; people were on his deck drinking beers and smoking cigarettes. Candlestick was inside, but his voice still carried, rambling on about some sports on TV he was watching.

Mrs. Candlestick, or, as I like to call her, Mrs. Candledick, was on the deck drinking and smoking. She saw me out of the corner of her eye as I tried to scamper by in innocence.

You coming over? We’re making more electric margaritas.

She was a little drunk from alcohol and buzzed from cigarettes. I tripped up as I stared at her on the balcony. She had a smile and presence that kind of took you out of your thing and brought you into her thing. She carried home field advantage around with her when entering any kind of social interaction. Have you ever been around somebody like that? I can’t be myself around some people. She’s one of them. You know those funny comments and interesting points you can usually make in conversation with family and good friends that you’re comfortable around? Too bad we can’t take that around with us into any situation we walk into.

I stuttered at first, and then said, I may stop by.

You better, she said as if really meaning it.

Before I could go anywhere, I had to do laundry. When I got home, I divided my clothes between whites, colors and pants. As I was going through my