Meet At Joe's

1 A Mysterious Stranger Part 1 John Galt

POV: Joe (owner of Joe's bar and Grill near the shores of Lake Tahoe.)

"Who is John Galt?"

Julie did not recognize the handsome young stranger who approached the bar with this strange query.

Julie had only been working at our bar for a couple of weeks. In fact, she had only just moved here but she already knew most of the regulars. We are a rather family friendly neighborhood bar and grill tucked into a corner of a small shopping center that butts up against the Tahoe national forest and caters to the tourist at the neighboring campgrounds. More diner than bar and more community gathering place than anything else. You can eat inside or at the several outdoor tables where you can enjoy the natural surroundings.

The stranger acted like he might be a regular from whom such odd greetings would not be unusual — our regulars are rather quirky and fairly well read. They might at least recognize the famous opening line from Atlas Shrugged, "who is John Galt."

However, this stranger seemed different from our typical clientele. Not to say we have a typical clientele. We have a wide diversity of customers. But before the pandemic most of them fell into one of two categories, locals or tourists. I did not recognize him as a local and he wasn't really dressed like a tourist. He was dressed like a young professional from the bay area.

Since the pandemic and with the new work from home culture, more and more of these tech types from Silicon Valley have been moving up here. Who could blame them? If you can work from anywhere why not work in one of the most beautiful places in the country — the surrounds of Lake Tahoe.

"John Galt?" Julie paused as if trying to recollect the significance of the name, but I suspected she was just giving herself time to check out the stranger. Julie is usually rather shy, but I could tell she was definitely attracted to the young man and it appeared the attraction was mutual. I just smiled and continued to wipe down the other end of the bar.

Satisfied with her assessment of the stranger, Julie answered, "Isn't he the character in that story about the secret society of engineers, artists, entrepreneurs, and other innovators who in the book constitute the allegorical Atlas supporting the world on their shoulders."

The young man smiled at her answer. "So, you've read Atlas Shrugged?"

She returned his smile and answered with a coquettish grin, "Of course not. No one has." She let him puzzle over that answer for a moment and then explained, "I just recently read about it in another book."

"Really?" The young man's puzzled look only increased.

Julie took a moment to enjoy his puzzlement then she explained, "I learned about Atlas Shrugged from the book Sharing Afflictions by Charles Farley. The characters in Sharing Affliction mentioned the book. They briefly described it, and that it had a great opening line – 'Who is John Galt?' And that is all I know about Atlas Shrugged."

As so often happens in conversations with young women, their answers raise more questions than they resolve. And so, it was here also. The young man explored further, "I've never heard of Sharing Afflictions. What kind of book would discuss opening lines from other books? What was it about?"

"According to the author it was about 95,000 words," She teased. "You probably haven't heard of it because as far as I know, it is only on Wattpad."

"I'm almost afraid to ask, but what is Wattpad and why would you know the word count?" Their conversation had clearly gone off track, but both of them seemed to be having fun with the derailment.

"Wattpad is a website and app for writers and avid readers. It aims to create social communities around stories for both amateur and established writers. It is a great place to discover new writers, for those writers to establish a following, and for established writers to try out new material. I just happened to remember the word count because the author had mentioned it in his profile and the length was more than I usually take on. Of course, it is nowhere near the 677,000 words of Atlas Shrugged."

"And you know that word count because..." He paused trying to come up with an answer himself. Then he suggested, "are you a writer? Only writers keep track of such things."

Julie tilts her head slightly and gives him her incredible smile before continuing, "I'm mostly a reader. But, yes, I admit I have put some stuff online."

I had never heard Julie admit to this before. Julie has been rather closed mouth about her personal life as well as her past. This stranger was the first to get her to open up.

As Julie was waiting for the stranger to ask her more about her writing, Lupin one of our regulars signaled her for a refill. She nodded to the stranger to put him on hold, filled Lupin's mug with his usual lager, and when she came back, she picked up the conversation asking, "So, did you come here to talk literature or is there something else I can help you with?"

"Actually, I wanted to talk to someone about reserving your extra room for a group I belong to. We need a place to meet once a week for a while."

"So naturally, you begin by asking, 'Who is John Galt?'"

"I just always wanted to start a conversation that way," the stranger chuckled.

Julie cocked her head, shook it slightly, and simply concluded, "Weird."

The stranger defended his approach, "It worked. Didn't it? I started a conversation with a charming young lady and found out she's a writer as well as a waitress." He finished with a hopeful smile.

Julie turned away as if annoyed at his rather clumsy come-on. Actually, I could tell she had turned for two other reasons, ostensibly to call me over and covertly to keep the stranger from seeing she was flattered by his attention. She then turned back to him to explain, "Joe is the owner. You can ask him about reserving the room."

"What can I do for you?" I asked as I came over. By the way, dear reader I'm Joe and I will be telling most of this story except for the things that happen when I'm not around. In those cases, we will let someone else tell the story as we did with Chuck in the prologue. I'll indicate a change in perspectives at the start of the chapter with "POV:" followed by the name of whose point of view the story is now being told.

The stranger extended his hand to me and said, "Call me Ishmael."