Green Beer and Shenanigans

This short story appears in Tiny Treats 2: A Saint Patrick’s Day Collection. This story stars Beulah Land as the narrator and takes place before The Happy Hour Choir.

“I bet you five dollars you can’t make Greg Gates smile,” Bill said. He had leaned over the scarred counter as best he could to whisper to me. The Fountain had more visitors than usual because it was Saint Patrick’s Day, otherwise known as a new and novel excuse to get out and drink. After all, a person could get green beer only one day a year, right?

“I’ll take that bet,” I said as I studied Greg. 

“Sucker,” muttered Bill. He didn’t like any part of this day except the extra revenue. Saint Patrick’s Day meant using plastic cups instead of handing over long necks. It also meant he had to take the time to put a few drops of green food coloring at the bottom of the cup before he poured in the beer. Since they were red Solo cups, it almost felt more like Christmas than Saint Patty’s.

Thanks to an unintentional heart-to-heart with Goat Cheese last year, I knew Greg’s story. His father had been part of a freak drag racing accident on Saint Patrick’s Day five years ago. He’d lost his favorite aunt that same day the next year. Last year it had been his prize coonhound. Poor Greg had a lot of reasons to hate Saint Patrick’s Day, and he’d taken to sitting it out in The Fountain while surrounded by people too drunk to see how sad he was.

And this year his brother Pete wasn’t with him.

Maybe it was time to make Saint Patrick’s Day a happier one for Greg. I looked around the bar for someone, anyone to help me in my endeavor. My eyes stopped on Yolanda DeWitt and something just clicked. She was the opposite of Greg in every way and that had to make her perfect, right? Where Greg was blond and prone to freckles and sunburns, Yolanda was a brunette with olive skin. He was rail thin. She was voluptuous and not afraid to show it. While Greg was hard pressed to say fifty words a day, Yolanda could talk your ear off.

Well, in the past she’d been chatty and not afraid to show her curves. At the moment she was wearing a tee shirt and sweat pants, slumped in the corner and sniffling. She did this every other weekend when she had to let her kids stay with her ex. Randall DeWitt was a first class son of a bitch, and Yolanda needed someone like Greg just as much as Greg needed someone like her. 

The cogs and the wheels in my brain started turning, but it was time for me to play piano for a while. I played a little U2 then had to liven things up with something not so Irish. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I had precisely five Irish songs in my repertoire—and they were all pretty slow. I did a little “Whiskey in the Jar” and launched into “Friends in Low Places” to get everyone’s attention again.

By that time I had formulated a plan.

At my next break I sidled up to the bar despite the crowd. “Bill, I need two green beers. Put it on my tab.”

I took both beers to Yolanda. “Come with me. I think you and Greg Gates need to drown your sorrows together.”

“Not a good idea, Beulah,” she said.

“It’s not a good idea. It’s an awesome idea.” I nodded my head in Greg’s direction and she took one of the beers and headed in that direction. Now here was going to be the tricky part.

“Beer on the house,” I said as I set the other beer in front of Greg. I gauged the distance between the pool table and the table where Greg sat. Yolanda stood there, still not knowing why. Chad Bettis had rounded the table to take a shot. Oh, this would be perfect.

I dropped my phone.

“How clumsy of me,” I said in a loud voice and bent to pick it up. As I made a production of bending over, Chad turned around to see my cleavage just as I’d known he would. As he turned, the pool cue smacked into Yolanda and spilled Green beer down her white shirt.

She shrieked, and the whole place went quiet, waiting to see if she would smack Chad.

“I’m so sorry, Yolanda, it was an accident. Promise.”

“Greg, loan poor Yolanda your shirt. I can see you have on an undershirt.”

He unbuttoned his flannel shirt and handed it to Yolanda who only paused a minute before disappearing to the tiny bathroom in the back. 

And that should take care of that. She’d left what was left of her beer at his table and would have to see him another time in the future to return his shirt. They would chat and eventually coax a smile out of each other. 

So what if I’d cracked the screen on my phone? It was all for a good cause.

Back to the piano I went to make up an Irish drinking song Whose Line Is It Anyway? style. My song detailed many of The Fountain patrons. They were getting rowdier by the moment—except for Yolanda and Greg who were sitting side by side looking straight ahead nervously. As I finished crooning “Danny Boy,” Yolanda stood and grabbed her purse.

Oh, no. I wasn’t going to crack my phone and lose a five-dollar bet. Desperate times called for desperate measures. 

So I launched into “Red Solo Cup.” That ridiculous song helped me in three ways. One, everyone sang along raucously and they were drunk enough they kept singing the chorus when they ran out of verses. Two, I got to leave the piano for this one. Three, Yolanda wouldn’t be able to find her way out yet thanks to the crowd.

I crossed the stage and squeezed out the door. No one even realized I was gone because they were so busy singing a love song to their red Solo cups full of green beer. Outside, I quickly spotted Yolanda’s car. She was the only one in town who had a pink PT Cruiser.

“I hope Yolanda forgives me for this one,” I muttered.

Thanks to an ill-advised relationship with a delinquent who would not be named, I knew how to break into a car. I didn’t need to, though, because Yolanda had forgotten to lock her door. I popped the trunk, hoping “Red Solo Cup” would continue to hold the crowd’s attention. With a little help from the tweezers in my Swiss Army knife, I liberated a certain fuse from the fuse box. Quickly, I put everything back in order and sneaked back into the bar. 

Man, I hoped I nabbed the right fuse. It was had to see with only the security light on.

From an ode to plastic cups to “Dwelling in Beulah Land,” and everyone settled down enough for Yolanda to leave. By the time I hit the fourth verse, I was beginning to think I’d pulled the wrong fuse. At least Greg was staring at the door, his face more pensive than sad or angry now.

And Yolanda reappeared just as I finished singing. While she was on the old rotary phone by the door, I slipped off the stage and pressed the fuse into Greg Gates’ hand. “She’s going to need this.”

His eyes jerked to mine.

I shrugged. “Go on.”

For a minute, I thought he was angry with me, but then his face broke into a beautiful grin. “Beulah Land, you are no good.”

I held a finger to my lips and backed away as he crossed the room to talk to Yolanda, slipping the fuse into his pocket as he went. If he were a smart man, he’d see if he could take her home tonight and be the hero who fixed her car tomorrow. I walked to the bar just as much to get a drink as to see what happened between my potential lovebirds.

Bill lay a crumpled five in front of me.

“Keep it. I think I owe you that for the two beers.”

“Put it in your tip jar,” he said as he went through his ritual of food coloring and beer. 

“Kinda looks like Christmas,” I said as I looked down at the green beer in the red cup.

“Yeah, but you’re playing Cupid,” he said.

I took a swig of beer. It tasted funny even though it shouldn’t. My next beer would not be green. “I’m more of a leprechaun,” I said.

He pulled on his suspenders. “You do like your shenanigans.”

I couldn’t help but grin. “Shenanigans” was just a fun word to say.

“When are you going to find yourself someone special?” Bill asked.

That took my grin away in a hurry. I thought back to Christmas when John the Baptist had come through and shot me down. “Bill, I don’t have time for that kind of mess.”

“Well, love tends to sneak up on you when you least expect it.”

“Yeah, but I’m a matchmaking leprechaun,” I said. “Love can’t get the jump on me.”

“Oh, you’ll have your day, Beulah Land. You just wait and see.”

I raised my glass to Bill and took my cup back to the piano. I told myself that girls like me didn’t find a love like that, but a flutter of hope sat in the pit of my belly nonetheless.