"We're outa rum." James said wiping the counter. The year was 1948, our place is The Shadows, a favorite restaurant for the bohemian soul searchers on Telegraph Hill.
"What do ya mean we're outa rum?? We just restocked thursday!?!" Larry said carrying a box of bottles to the back corner. A subtle sigh as the bottle clanked together, gin, whiskey, and little rum amongst him.
"How is it your little speakeasy experiment outpaces the bar?" Larry asked, taking the bottles out one by one.
"Its the lure of mystery Larry, we are the Shadows after all..." James said cleaning the refined precision parts of his latest device, an absinthe fountain from the late 1800's. He picked it up at an auction over the summer in Paris, the parts were delicate, and more so illegal. Absinthe had been banned since prohibition and never once did anyone decide to allow it back in states, even after we defeated Hitler.
"Just tell me why we took down the Eagles Nest but we can't allow this elixir of wonder back in town oh Great Atomic One!" James said snickering as he assembled the fountain.
Larry's family was connected to a long line of bureaucrats and scientists, his father worked on mysterious projects, atomic in nature was the rumor. Larry didn't have the chops for science, he excelled at one thing, running restaurants. Years ago he was offered the job to take over and revamp The Shadows. With its iconic history was known to many he jumped at the chance. He knew James from the academy and while they served in the war in difference capacities, they stayed in touch ever since. James returned from the war a medic to some, a great cocktail mixologist to others. Larry begged him to come to The Shadows and head up the main bar, but James had different idea, he wanted to put in a old style speakeasy just behind the bookcase in second floor lobby. It was tight nook, but the flip of switch and you could narrowly pass into a sleek corridor and sit in a round bar area with lit bottles from behind and glorious glass view of the commissioners pool estate just behind the restaurant.
They nearly flooded the restaurant when the put the speakeasy in. Once they realized they damaged the pool by mistake, the offered a fix and Larry provided an ingenious plastic molding material technique he learned in the war that provided a pleasing aesthetic view into the watery glow of the commissioners pool side pleasantry. The commissioner of course found out- but for a take in profits he didn't complain.
The speakeasy was tiny and utterly expensive. There was no menu, only a bartender who would peer into your soul and pull out the cocktail you needed for that moment in time, with your base spirit in mind.
The valley's finest rich and wealthy all pushed into the tiny space on the weekends, some for the cocktails curious to see what James would see in them that night, while others hoped for a view of commissioners daughter, Jessica, a beautiful red head who's bikini curves and wit were well known to all- but in this view, a temptation for few to see.
Absinthe was the new offering, the weekend was coming and soon the green fairy would blur all the edges and the fog itself would consume them.
"Have you ever seen her?" Larry asked piling the bottles on the wall.
"Jessica?" James said. "Maybe once or twice, for as late as this bar goes, we're lucky to see anything..." he said final assembly of the fountain complete.
Jessica was a rare sight but he lied. He'd seen her numerous times and she knew he could see her. She fluttered her long red hair hoping it would be captured by the intense underwater lighting she put in as soon as she realized an audience was present. Her friends were convinced she loved swimming, but only she knew she was gracefully revealing her love for someone to see unsure, yet known to her it would be someone inside the famed Shadows restaurant.
The speakeasy hours ran as long as you were coherent. If you're willing to drink, James was willing to pour. Several of the rich would send a lackey into speakeasy loaded with cash. Their mission was to drink as slow as James would let them and then call their boss if Jessica appeared in view. Seemed like a waste of money and soon James would kick these lackeys out.
Friday night rolled around and James jumped off Telegraph Hill's trolley and waltzed into The Shadows noting the deep musk smell in the air.
"The fog will be calling my name tonight I see." he said to himself as he raced up the steps. It was lucky for the fog to call your name. Some locals swore by it. "If you hear your name in the fog, good fortune for you!!" a fisherman once told him.
Bursting into the lobby he pushed into a trio of ladies. Fancy girls, ones that would never give him direct eye contact. Little did they know, he'd think to himself. He didn't need a girl, he had a mermaid in view, and tonight he'd conjure green fairy to keep him warm as well. Since smuggling absinthe into the speakeasy, he neglected to tell anyone that just after 3am he too dabbled in a glass or two as his last patrons would fade away leaving him alone to stare into the waters behind the glass, looking for a glimpse of Jessica or the green fairy to appear.
"Excuse me" James said sliding between the trio headed into the interior of the restaurant.
"Sorry will suffice..." one of the women said as he peered to look back only to see a wood wall barrier.
Hours into the night the speakeasy was printing cash and pouring the green fairy left and right. Absinthe carried the name "green fairy" which dated back nearly a hundred years when it was crafted as a health promoting elixir like most alcohol formulas. With some use, drinkers would regale tales of seeing hallucinations, visions and soon the famed green fairy was born.
"What is this?" a man said watching the slow trickle drip of cold water splash over an sugar cube into a ornate glass with a green glow slowly turning into a fog like substance he'd seen every night for 20 some years.
"This is the fog!!" another man said holding his absinthe glass high above him. The louche is the final desired effect of the ritual- the slow drip of cold water against the sugar cube dissolving it into the absinthe below forms a louche or clouded effect. It was at this moment the elixir could be drunk, and the fairy soon to follow if you had one too many.
James smiled. The louche effect did look like the fog, the green fairy's fog of wonder he thought to himself.
The evening carried on as the spirits were consumed, fairy's appeared for few he was sure, but no sign of Jessica, no lure or tempting tease for the many to view.
3am arrived as he prepared his own ritual with the absinthe fountain. By now most of The Shadows employees had gone home, his routine well known to him, he'd clean up and go- but tonight he stayed, embracing a new routine, a ritual, he'd welcome to the fairy and attempt to conjure Jessica in view.
In quick succession he spun forward time and on his third absinthe he felt thick and sleepy. The effects of this spirit were strong. The louche forming in his absinthe began to talk to him. He was hearing her name, Jessica a voice said to him as he stared into the louche like fog. With full hallucinations on stand by, James began seeing and hearing things. A louche like fog rolled into the bar area around the copper and brass fittings of the round bar, across the counters and pooled over the area where he stood staring at the fountain. Behind him a pulsating glow stared faintly but soon came on in rage filling the bar with a blue glow.
A splash was heard in his head as he lifted his glass and turned around looking up and into the pool view watching a pair of legs glide by. His fairy was here. She was graceful and beautiful. Her flowing red hair caught his eye as her skin was caught in the splinters of light from above. Air bubbles latched on to her skin as if to stay as close as possible.
James pressed his face against the glass, not realizing he had climbed the back counter wall, knocking off most of the gin and vodka bottles. He had to get as close as possible to her, to his fairy, the girl he'd seen only here, only in this place.
"What do you see in her?" a voice said at the far end of the bar.
James whirled around not realizing he wasn't alone after all. In his fury to compress time and realize his green fairy, the fog of moments before confused him, he was drunk, and there was still someone here.
He tried to compose himself.
"Oh sorry.. thats embarrassing.." he said stepping down from the glass viewing area. "I see what every man probably sees.. a beautiful woman... a girl, i'll never meet..." James said lining up another shot of absinthe.
He was beyond repair. His military training taking over keeping him cognizant of the moment but a blur to the pain of seeing one too many young boys die in heat of battle. Except he wasn't on the battlefield, but in his mind it didn't matter. The blur, the fog of the louche of the absinthe would call his name, he was merely accepting his fate at that moment. Like the many kids he tried to save.
"You've been there, haven't you..." the voice said seeing the complexity coming over James as he relived a moment of the war on his face, longing to separate himself from reality, to escape.
"She is a wonder!" James exclaimed pushing past the darkness in his mind, he refused to let the fog pull him closer.
"Her skin is beautiful ya know... and I have no idea who she is really..." James said attempting to climb over the bar to sit like one of his patrons. He forgot he could walk around obviously, and picked the fastest way he thought.
"You're cute when your drunk.." the woman's voice said to him. "And I'm average at best..." Jessica revealed herself.
She had come in early that evening, part of the trio of ladies and recognized him as the man who bumped into her. This man she thought to herself was confident but complex and that attracted her. Later as the evening would go on she looked for what she heard was the nook, finding it on the second floor. She waited for a bit and dashed in accompanying another man into the small speakeasy interior. She played mysterious watching this other man get nearly drunk only to leave her behind. She was intrigued to know more about James as she now knew his name, and now could see the view he'd have on her looking at the glass view into her pool.
The reveal was missed by James who carried on.
"The fog is calling my name.. I gotta get to the trolley..." he said attempting to stand up, losing balance and finding the floor with a thud.
"You're a bit late for that..." Jessica said pulling him up from the floor. Moments later she was guiding him thru the nook, thru the restaurant interior and soon crashed out on the stairs to the front door.
"Wait wait..." James said,.."Can we just sit? I gotta see this view, the fog." He said sitting down. By now it was nearly morning.
"Hey hey.. you're cold!!" James said recognizing a shiver coming across Jessica's face as she sat with him at the top of the stairs. He took off his coat and wrapped his arms around her pulling her close, tucking the jacket in around her. His strong grip eased her mind, bringing her close, feeling safe, her average self worth fears fading like the fog beginning to burn off as the sun began to appear.
A unlikely pair she thought to herself. Her lone audience member, likely her biggest fan, consumed by the green fairy or whatever that thing was he rambled about. But a nice guy.
Light began to fill the area around them as joggers ran by the front of the restaurant.
"I think the fog has lifted... its not talking to me any more.. " he said looking at the woman in his arms, her red hair and smooth skin.
With the last of the louche burning up in view and the woman in his grasp fast asleep James recalled the night in blur of moments ending on a simpler notion that the absinthe worked, everyone had a good time, and this gal, she was sweet.
"You don't mind if I just call ya Jessica.. will ya?" he said twirling her red hair in his finger tips as the distant waves crashed upon the shoreline in view. He wondered, would he ever meet her, or should he bother chasing another phantom like green fairy- that fantasy girl was gonna leave a mark, his hang over was pending.
"Just sleep you idiot..." Jessica said closing her eyes again, snugged in tight.
James shut his eyes and leaned against the post, together the two of them dozed off as Telegraph Hill woke from its slumber with the last of the fog like louche burned off and bells of the trolley would sound making their presence known.