Doom Bar

Abstract

Doom Bar Katherine Robinson (bio) When George leaves for the hotel, fog emulsifies the hills and feathers down grassy cliffs. As he walks up the single-track road, he hears the waves but can't see the water. On nights like this, the island contracts, and he notices russet grass, beaded with rain, arcing towards the road. Sphagnum moss lines the ditches, neon green and buoyant, expanding in damp fog. The smell of wet peat rises from the fields. Blue tarps cover piles of cut peats, waiting to be carried home. George has stopped fishing now, but he hasn't yet acclimated to this new consistency. For years, he only rested on foggy days and during storms. Wind and rain meant quiet and sleep. On clear days, he was out on the water before dawn. Now, weather no longer dictates his schedule. He walks to the hotel pub almost every evening, whether the night is clear, or foggy, or stormy. On wet nights, he wears his fishing oilskin. Rain jackets in mainland shops are flimsy and thin, designed, he thinks, for people who don't have to go out in rain. He trusts clothes from the fishing supply store: heavy orange oilskins, neon yellow parkas, green wellington boots. When he arrives at the hotel, he shoulders the heavy door open and hangs his oilskin on a peg. The general store closed ten years ago, and now the hotel is the only business on the island. He orders his shopping from the mainland on the Thursday mailboat. Jeanette, his niece, has run the hotel the past five years. She does a good job. When storms force the oil men off rigs, the men stay here. When weather delays their flights, they stay for days, sometimes a week, and the island's population doubles. The hotel is nearly empty tonight. Three birders sit in a booth, studying an island map. They're here looking for migrating birds, but it's late September, and birds arriving now are alone, sparrows and warblers blown off course. Exhausted, they land on the first solid ground they've found in days. When they arrive this late, they're too disoriented and exhausted to leave. George doesn't like birders who come this late in the season. He thinks they're cynical, making a cynical bid to add dying birds to their "life lists." It's not the same, he thinks, as following birds in their own habitat, catching a glimpse of a creature on its own terms. The birders always complain. They need the internet, which goes offline [End Page 59] in foggy weather, to look at bird websites. Bored by everything that isn't birds, they complain, too, about the rain and wind through which they traipse to find birds. It's an odd sort of self-imposed misery, George thinks. Jeanette knows his order, a pint of Doom Bar, but he asks for it anyway. She pours it. Her easy command of tap handles and faucets reminds him of the control he felt on the boat. She hands him his pint and twists her hair, dyed red, up into a bun. She's focused, but restless, adjusting her hair, drumming her nails, painted black, on the bar. She wants a cigarette, he can tell. She hands him his pint. A parrot cage, arced like a lobster trap, stands in an alcove, and George walks over to Lucy, a gray parrot. "Doom Bar!" Lucy says as he approaches, hopping onto her perch. She's heard his drink order for years now, and she greets him like this most nights. George is impressed. He holds up his pint. "Doom Bar," he says. "Doom Bar," she repeats. He wonders if she knows that Doom Bar refers to the drink, or if she thinks it means hello in his particular language. He wonders what he could say back. He's not sure how another parrot would say hello. "Doom Bar," he says again, approvingly. When Jeanette took over managing the hotel, Lucy came with it. Parrots live a long time, Jeanette told him, especially the gray ones. "Doom Bar," Lucy repeats. Some nights, other men from the island...