Tobias Weiss.

Chapter 32

© 2014 by tore56789 (GOS) All rights reserved.

Music registered as he approached the DIRTY PIGLET tavern. Even in the lonely North Pennsylvania countryside, it looked like, people still liked to get together and have fun.  Just like anywhere you might wonder to on the planet.  This was after all Daniel Boon territory.  And a part of that same heritage you couldn’t help catching onto, still held a permanent hold of the place. 

Hicks stood around the entrance, chatting.  Two big country lads in casual clothes, jeans, shirt sleeves wound back over large bulging muscles, sat arm wrestling on a wooden table, as others watched on.  You couldn’t help thinking, if Daniel Boon was there, he too would have been doing more or less the same thing.      

Tobias after embarking from the car, observed them for a moment, then ordered the woman to push her way through the gathering stuck by the entrance.

Amazingly, he soon found the place was split.  There was a back section where teens, and twenty or so year olds, were going, and coming from.  Where some crazy wild sounding band was performing on stage?  But the DIRTY PIGLET even with all the racket in the back had a quieter section reserved in an extension to its main bar –just as the couple had informed him.

The extension had a cosy feel.  He even saw a few couples sitting down at tables eating –so he wasn’t alone, which made it even more inviting.  The tables even had laminated menus placed on them.  It was like the tavern had to cater for everything.  The only other life, call it competition, was a more rowdier bar next door to it; where he guessed some of the boys and girls were off to, as he entered. 

“What can I get you,” a young bright blond girl asked, after about ten minutes, in a bouncy voice, a bouncy skirt, her hair back in a bun, her mind elsewhere.

“Is it always this wild here?”

“Pretty much,” she sighed.  “Can get a patch crazier at times?  Owner tries to get good local talent performing. MOONSHINE & APPLE PIE, you hear in the back, were just local boys taking what they could three year or so ago.  Now you can’t turn on the radio, without hearing one of their songs being spun out by some disk-jockey, or other.  So more folks came here tonight, I guess, for that reason.To see them in person, now that they are so famous.”

“I see.”  Jillian replied.  Tobias thinking, how they were right too about the table service.  He knew well, in the cities, staff didn’t like to waste time at tables, because time was money.  But here, in the country, still some respect flourished for fellow human beings.

The girl gave a look, to show she was waiting.

Even though, chicken and pork was popular.  There were a few more favourable looking dishes at the bottom of the menu.  He chose one of these, which consisted of a wide assortment of vegetables, as he sensed Jillian was okay about the choice.  He realised even if she was barfing her guts up afterwards, he would deal with that when the time came.

He chose a root beer to drink.  Thinking, any more orange juice for that night, and he was sure it was going to eat its way right through the girl’s stomach like acid.  He sensed here too, Jillian was acceptable about his choice.  Even though, he wasn’t able to physical sense the food his hosts ate.  He was able to perceive a metal awareness of it, from somewhere in the chemistry of their brains –which made life in each host more acceptable.  As different foods, they tasted, made him recapture past memories he associated with food in his own life –going from when he was a boy to a man.          

MOONSHINE & APPLE PIE, weren’t a group he would personally enjoy.  They were loud, sounding like a typically heavy rock group.  Even the name they chose for their band, said everything about their talent, as far as he was concerned.  Amps turned to max –even though it wasn’t terribly loud where he sat, as it was being carried from the back of the building.  But still audible to the extent he could hear everything they were saying, without concentrating on it, like he might have done if it was fainter.     

He heard girls screaming, egged on by the singer: “I want some of the sexiest ladies bred in this here county, to go out there and get Bobby Jim Tarleton’s attention.  Tell him, old Jessie here got a score to settle with him.  Tell him, that tonight, he’s going down real hard, oh yah.  So ladies, let’s see some tits and ass, so Jessie can be the judge who’s up for the task.  If you succeed, you win a pass to a great private hoedown later on with the band.  So who’s in to win, might see more of old Jessie... ”

Tobias smiled at what he was listening to, the crazy yelling coming from the girls, driven into a total frenzy by the singer’s words.  He guessed if his musical career faded.  He could easily move on to been a successful televangelist.  He seemed to have that magnetism as a performer, if not with a slight hick-vile psychotic touch thrown in.                    

When the girl returned, and laid down the plate, she enquired, “You’re not from around here?”

“No, passing through.  Staying the night out a way at Trevor’s Motel?”

“So how is the old fellow?”

“From what I gather from,” Jillian said offering a girl smile, as girls throw in each other’s company, “he seems to like keeping to himself.  Not the friendliest type.”

The girl laughed, standing by the table, “He still got that old Irish Wolfhound,” her words sang.

“Yes,” she smiled back, “And from what I can tell, that dog is as unsociable as the owner.”