Redwood tables, cedar walls, leaded windows, oil lamps: the Captain Cook Taproom even offered a book exchange, dog-eared paperbacks and roach-eaten hardbacks, stacked in a bookcase varnished the color of cypress bark. Hank and Maxine's first date.
A golden late afternoon.
The bartender had recommended a special porter. He proudly uncapped the dark bottles and left two frosty mugs on the blue and white paiseley oil cloth. His patrons took first sips and smiled.
"Ah yes," Hank said to him. "We will need more of this."
Maxine smacked her lips. Fingerwiped her foamy moustache away. "Yup."
Hank grinned grandly. Life, he had decided, was the perfect game.
*
In a conspiratal voice, with a blush in her cheeks Maxine leaned close, looked right and left, then said: "Daddy knows about you, Greendozer. Don't worry. He knows the difference between an eco-terrorist and a fucking terrorist. He has friends, two men who helped dynamite the King David Hotel in Palestine. Before there was a State of Israel."
"Wow. I read about that in 'Thieves In The Night' by Arthur Koestler."
"Koestler. Daddy knows him. I met him once. Oh, God, Daddy knows everybody!"
"That makes me anxious to meet him."
"You will," Maxine said with a glint in her eye.
*
"So tell me about this protest," Maxine said after another porter.
Hank gave her his standard thumbnail sketch. In 1778 vast timberlands were noted by Captain James Cook. During his stopover he cut down a giant tree for masts, spars, and wood to burn in his stoves. "The rest," he said. "Is History."
"Meares Island is about wiped-out."
"And that gauls me!"
"I'm with you. One hundred percent." She squeezed his hand, was reminded of chokes on a baseball bat.
He burped frothy.
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