Last Drink Before Winter Ricky Ginsburg - September 2006

The blue bear leaned toward the brunette in the mostly unbuttoned flannel shirt and whispered in her ear, "Hey sweet cakes, wanna spend some cold winter nights in my cave? You know what they say about shared body heat, right?" He tugged her bar stool closer to his and put a well-groomed paw on her shoulder. "Baby, I can toast your buns warm enough to melt butter."
Without turning, she flipped her left hand into his snoot and tapped him twice with the wedding band on her ring finger. The bear took her hand in his paw, brought it close enough to his sparkling incisors to coat it with the mist of exhaled breath, and wrapped his sandy tongue around the gold-encased digit to taste the metallic tinge of her fidelity.
She pulled her hand from his grasp, turned to face him, and chugged the last of her frosty bottle of beer, slamming it hard enough on the liquor-soaked bar to spray a lingering puddle across his chest. "Sugar, if you think I'm gonna let you slip your furry tube into my honey pot, you'd best change the channel before my old man turns you into a hearth rug." The girl pushed the blue bear's paw down into his lap, "Now you hold that thing tight with your wandering hand and imagine what it would be like to spend the winter without it."

In the corner of a scattered array of tables occupied by sullen mill workers, a jukebox crooned a mournful ballad to anyone who cared to listen. The bear spun the revolving stool around to survey the remainder of the patrons in the hope of finding an over-winter guest before the evening came to an end. The dim light of the fading late fall sunset filtered through the smoke-stained windows and mixed with the oscillating glow of cheap bulbs. The only sounds that interrupted the tune were the parched squeals of tired ceiling fans, doing their best to circulate the stale, dry air. He stretched his paw behind him and hefted the martini glass to his lips to let the pungent aroma of vermouth tweak his velvet snout.

"Jake," he called over his shoulder to the bartender. "Damn it, Jake, can I get a few more olives in this drink, or are we under rationing again?"
The barkeep, the only male in the building equal in girth to the bear, waddled over with a wooden skewer of stuffed green olives and slipped it into the glass. "Papa, are you here to eat or drink? One more load of these and I'm gonna have to charge you for a double."
The blue bear shifted his gaze back to the pale bowling ball who leaned against the business side of the bar behind him. "Listen you cheap bastard, if you filled this glass to the rim like you're supposed to, I wouldn't mind paying for doubles. But when I can finish a martini in one gulp, I have to think someone is saving their liquor for the next attempt at prohibition." He sucked the olives from the swizzle and dumped the empty stick onto the floor.

A gust of crisp, frigid air rolled through the oak doors ahead of a new arrival who stomped the dusting of snow from her beige work shoes, before she pushed the door closed with a hip. A cascade of golden tresses flowed down the stranger's wool coat as she flipped the hood open and let it flop languidly onto her back.
"Ah, fresh meat," the blue bear muttered out one side of his mouth to the snoring lumberjack to his right. "Jake, hit me again, and all the way to the top this time." He pushed the sleeping man along with his barstool out of the way and replaced him with an empty seat. "Here you go darlin'," he called to the woman. "I've saved you the best seat in the house." With his drink held chin high, the bear toasted the smiling blonde, "There may be a midnight sun, but it sits in the shadow of your radiant glow my dear. Please, come join me and let us talk of long winter nights warmed by the fires that glow deep inside you."

She peeled the leather gloves from her hands and stuffed them in the pocket of her coat, before slipping the buttons free of their loops. The blue bear sighed impatiently as her rough-hewn fingers tipped in coarse rounded nails tugged the coat from her shoulders and hung it over the back of the stool. She took the seat he offered, and stared across at his cobalt visage.
"Thanks...?"
The bear finished his drink and placed the glass on the bar extending his free paw to her. "My friends call me Papa."
The woman shrugged off the last of the cold and shook his paw. "Glad to meet you...Papa. I'm Glenda Lox and my friends call me Goldie."

The bear lifted her hand to his snoot and took a deep breath of her scents. He turned the hand over and followed the lines of three deep scars that etched a jagged meridian across her palm. There were odors of fresh cut maple and sweet gum that lingered on her wrist, mixed with a hard steel tint and the residue of machine oil even diligent scrubbing couldn't remove completely. With just the tip of his rough tongue, he tasted the linseed oil and butcher's wax imbedded deep into the tips of her fingers where only the faintest of fingerprints still remained.
"You are a carpenter, a woodworker, your face is soft and glowing, yet your deep brown eyes have been ringed with years of hardened concentration on the perfection of a seamless joint."
The bear took another sip of his drink and called to the bartender, "Jake, if you're still conscious, the lady will have a white Russian, but with an extra shot of Kahlua and don't crush the ice." He grinned at Goldie. "Half and half, with a mint leaf floating on top." She slapped her hand on the bar, "Almost perfect." Turning to the bartender, "two extra shots of Kahlua, one in the drink, one on the bar." She rotated the seat back around to face the bear. "That's a pretty good trick. Are you always so accurate?"
"Only when I need to be," he smirked. "The mint leaf was a lucky guess."

The bartender placed her drink on a cocktail napkin and the extra shot alongside it. "You ready for another load of vegetables and vermouth, Papa?"
The bear nodded to the man and waved him off to continue his play for the girl. He tapped her raised shot glass with the lip of his long-stemmed vessel and finished the last drops of his drink.
"So, what do you build from the timbers of our bountiful forests?" The bear asked as he slid his chair close to her. He placed one azure elbow on the curved edge of the bar and rested his head on his paw. "If I had smelled pine, I would say houses or buildings, but heavy construction is not in your face, nor in the creases of your skin. And in these deep woods surrounded by mountains, shipbuilding isn't even a remote possibility. So I'll rest my money on furniture."
Goldie rolled the empty shot glass in her fingers and plopped it on the bar. "You must be a relative of Sherlock Holmes, Papa." She took a long drink of her white Russian, sucked a single ice cube into her mouth, and bounced it around on her molars before cracking it into tiny chunks that she swallowed. "I build beds - cribs, four-poster, bunk-style, even waterbeds. Twin, queen, or king size depending on the length and breadth of my clients. Mitered corners, dovetail joints, extra planks when the load requires them. I carve butterflies and flowers for little girls, rockets and shooting stars for young men, and dragons with lashing tails for children who've never grown out of their fairy tales."

She paused while Jake served another round of drinks for both of them. Papa tossed his down in a single gulp and pointed to the glass. "Come on Jake, this is bullshit, I need to load up for the long winter, fill it this time." He put a paw on Goldie's faded jeans just above the knee and winked, "Tell me gorgeous, do you test each bed before you deliver it?"
"Are you asking if I sleep in each bed to make sure it's comfortable?" she asked raising a single eyebrow while she lifted his paw and placed it back on the bar.
"Well, how else can you know if the bed will hold the weight?"
"Papa, I've been building beds for more than a dozen years and never had a complaint. Both my parents were master carpenters and they taught me skills only a lifetime of experience could properly hone. One night in a bed I've created will end an insomniac's suffering."
The bear looked into her eyes and let a sly grin drift across his face. "I'm not talking about sleep, sweet cheeks."
She placed her empty glass on the cocktail napkin and pointed at it. "Jake, enough of this breakfast drink. Let me have a double Scotch, neat in a chilled martini glass." Goldie put her hand on the bear's knee and stroked his fur. "Yeah, Papa, I've tested my beds plenty of times, with a pack of young, wild males. But never with an old smooth talking character like you."

The bartender wiped the bar dry in front of her and dropped a fresh cocktail napkin on the polished surface. Papa pulled the peaty fragrance of single malt deep into his nostrils as Jake carefully filled the frosted glass to the brim. Goldie lifted the glass to her lips and, in a single motion, tilted it back and let the amber liquid flow over her lips and down her throat. The blue bear looked at his glass and blinked several times. "Damn! Jake, let me try that one too."
She smiled at the bear, "Fill us both, Jake. Winter's coming and I need to teach this old furball how to keep warm!"

The sleeping man Papa had replaced with this intriguing woman, shifted his head from his left arm to his right with a snort. The bear stood and pushed the man's stool further down the bar, taking the small collection of quarters resting on the brim of his tattered cap to refill the jukebox. "Anything special you'd like to hear, chicklet?"
Goldie pivoted in the seat. "Nothing so sad it makes me cry and nothing so loud it wakes your friend."
Papa tapped several buttons and let the twang of a soulful guitar waft through the haze. He lifted the slats of the front window blinds and looked out across the almost empty parking lot, now dusted with snow and the orange glow of the bar's neon sign.

A fresh pair of crystalline glasses filled with Scotch was waiting on the bar as he took his seat and swiveled to face the bedmaker. "A toast to the rarest of combinations - skill, beauty, and wit."
Goldie raised her glass and returned the compliment. "To a savage heart, a suave tongue, and a furry touch; what else could a woman ask for?"
Together they gulped the fiery alcohol and thumped their empty glasses on the bar.

The blue bear lifted his right leg and swung it casually over his left, leaning as far back as the bar stool would allow before gravity let its presence be felt. The single malt roared down his throat and began a soft knocking on the back of his skull. She looked at his bewildered expression and poked him softly in the ribs. "Good stuff, eh?"
Papa grunted and sniffed the empty glass. "Yeah, a few bottles of this shit and I could make it through the dead of winter without a layer of fat or a fur coat."
She arched her eyebrows and asked, "Alone?"
The bear reached over and lifted her chin with his paw. "Never, baby doll."
"Ah, that's what I wanted to hear. Jake, another round for me and my shaggy blue friend."

Papa spun around in the seat several times, as he waited anxiously for their refill, and watched the last of the patrons head out into the night. Each time he passed the sleeping woodsman's stool, he nudged it a little further down the bar and the man's head ever closer to the open bar sink at the end.

When the next two drinks were placed in front of them, the bear and the carpenter interlocked their arms at the elbow and drank together, two pair of brown eyes focused only on each other. Goldie dragged her seat closer to the bear and reached over to tousle the fur on top of his head before she kissed him on the side of his snout. Papa took a deep breath of her sweat mixed together with sawdust and glue, shivering slightly as she let her fingers tingle the fur on the sides of his cheeks. He took his paw and let the soft fur on the back glide over her neck and down the soft skin of her forearm to her wrist.
"You know that my night in the winter lasts three months," he grinned. "So if we spend the night together we're not talking about a single sunset."
She took his paw in her hand and smiled. "I never spend just one sunset with anyone."

Jake refilled their glasses, not even bothering to chill them, and tossed the empty bottle in the recycle bin under the bar. "Should I open another?" he asked the girl.
"At least one more, honey. If this is our last drink before winter, let's make it a long one."
The bear agreed. "Do you think you could sleep on a bed of straw and dry leaves?"
She threw her long hair back as she laughed, "What makes you think we're going to sleep?"
Papa shook his head. "You're right. What was I thinking?"

The liquor went from the bottle to their lips as fast as the bartender could pour it. The bear swished the molten gold in his mouth and swallowed the portion in great heaving gulps. However, each glass was becoming harder to lift off the bar; twice he reached for his drink and missed. Goldie kept touching and caressing his fur while Jake ensured their glasses were never empty for more than a few moments. Papa filled his mouth and rotated in the chair, smacking the bar each time he faced it to make himself spin faster. The liquor dulled his senses and squeezed his consciousness into an acorn. Soon the alcohol made it difficult for the blue bear to focus his eyes on anything further than the tip of his snoot.
"Are you having a problem there, Papa?" he heard her whisper in the distance.
"No. Nothing I can't handle, my little wood nymph. The blue bear can drink with the best. He's the king of the forest, the mogul of the mountains, the...the...the..."

As the bear toppled out of the bar stool and crashed, face first into the wooden floor, his chair was propelled out from under him and into the slumbering forester's seat, jarring the man awake. Goldie looked down at the unconscious creature on the floor and pushed the glass of Scotch over toward the lumberjack. "Here, no sense wasting the good stuff."
Jake wiped the counter and pointed at the bear, "Are you going to spend the winter with him?"
She finished her drink and pulled a hundred dollar bill from her wallet. "Nah, what good is a guy who can't hold his liquor?"