Radio Tavern by Jan Darrow

No one knew how the tavern got its name.  Perhaps during the war people went there to listen to swing music – Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and Cab Calloway.  Maybe some went to forget, but it now stood crumbling, decrepit, and utterly desolate on an abandoned road high above Lake Michigan.  The only new thing there was a tower - and people said the cell phone service was great.

  

Someone said they saw John Makati’s cows near the abandoned road.

Maude, who always had a sweeping hairdo, asked Howard not to go up there, but he didn’t listen.  He never listened, and John Makati’s cows were always missing.

“John Makati needs to learn how to fix his fences,” she said to Howard a little while later.

 

Howard was up on that steep hill watching the lake.

 

“There’s a big freighter on the water Maudie. Probably going to Mackinaw!”

 

“What about the cows?”

Howard didn’t really care about the cows.

  

“No cows.  I’m coming home,” he said disgusted and hung up. Maude never could recognize a magical moment unless it was in a beauty shop.

At home Maude waited and waited, but Howard never arrived.

She tried calling him back and when there was no answer, she took their Labrador in her SUV and headed up the steep dead road. 

When she got to the top, she saw Howard’s empty truck. Great, she thought, now we’re going to miss the fish fry.

By the time the sun was getting low in the sky she was sufficiently irritated and called the police.

The sheriff and his men searched the hillside that night and into the next day.  They searched the surrounding area for the next couple of weeks, but Howard was never found.

Maude was grief stricken.  She couldn’t believe that her Howard was dead.

 

A few months later she took her dog and drove up the overgrown road and sat by the old lodge which for some reason gave her comfort.  She counted herself lucky to have had twenty-five happy years with Howard. 

 

Then, to her surprise, her phone rang.  It was Howard.

 

Maude could hardly contain herself. The cell phone service on the hill really was great. 

Jan Darrow is a poet from Michigan who connected with the natural world at an early age.  She has been published online and in print and finds abandoned places utterly beautiful.  You can see more of her work at jandarrow.blogspot.com.