There’s this bar up in Michigan called the Dry Dock. There’s karaoke at the Dry Dock on Thursdays, free pool on Sunday and arm wrestling every Monday. The patrons are just the local crazies, like myself, and the rest of the regulars - like Tricycle Guy, this retarded guy who rides a big tricycle around town; Kenny Red with a parted, red wig that sits on his head like a beret; Voice-Box Carla who sounds like she’s talking to the back of a fan when she holds that electric-shaver-looking thing to her throat; and the Northmen, a sort-of-biker gang from the area that call the Dry Dock home.

I ended up at the Dry Dock one Thanksgiving. The karaoke was loud. The cigarette smoke film coated the beer mirrors and carpeted walls. I wobbled on an uneven stool at the end of the bar. Behind me was a collage of photos and pictures of a former regular, named Harold, who once-upon-a-time, was a Marlboro Man. There are framed magazines spots of him leaning on a fence and lighting up, saddling a horse and smoking, and carrying rope with a cigarette hanging off his face. Then there are pictures of Harold at the Dry Dock getting drunk. He is old and his face looks like a pile of rare, shaved roast beef.

I ordered a beer for myself and one for the guy next to me, another regular. It was Tricycle Guy. He was a nice guy; a little weird, but nice.

He leaned on the padded bar and smoked. His features were crammed into the center of his face; wet lips scrunched up under an untrimmed mustache, eyes a little too close together, nose like a doorstop. I wondered if I looked familiar to him, if he knew how familiar he was to everybody else.

The first time I saw Tricycle Guy was years or so ago, at a burger joint. He was alone in a booth with a newspaper and a pile burgers. He stared off at this young girl who worked the register. She was wearing a little headset that curled out around her little mouth the way her hair would have, if it hadn’t been pinned up under her turquoise hat. Her hat read, “Lud’s Home of the BIG LUD.” Tricycle Guy stared. He watched her look for buttons on the register as she punched them slowly. A cigarette smoldered in a thin aluminum ashtray. This was back when you could smoke in fast food places and back when I used to stuff those thin little ash trays in my jacket and take them home. He leaned on the table with his elbows and stared off at the counter girl the same way he was staring at the Dry Dock’s karaoke stage as I found myself sitting next to him, years later.

It was a small set up on the karaoke stage; some speakers, a video monitor, and a couple of microphones. The dance floor was dusty. It was one of those portable, puzzle-piece deals. There wasn’t much to it. The space was small and all the karaoke stuff was crammed in.

At the Dry Dock there was a lot of drug dealing in the back and a lot of karaoke in the front. I’m not sure which was worse. I didn’t know a whole lot about the drug dealing but it was probably the Northmen. Their logo was of a skeleton wearing a Viking helmet and riding a motorcycle. One night, in the county clink, I met a member of the Northmen. I got put in jail for littering; true story. The Northmen’s name was Darryl. I was already locked up when they brought him in. Three cops hauled his ass in and dumped him off on me. It was just the two of us in the cinder-blocked cell with the wire-inlaid glass windows. Darryl screamed for cigarettes. He climbed the walls. He pounded on the ceiling. Darryl kicked the stainless steel toilet with his bare, bloody feet. When I didn’t have anything for him to smoke and that made him angrier. I grabbed the full roll of toilet paper next to the stainless steel toilet, stretched out on the ceramic tile bench, and put the toilet paper roll under my head.

Darryl looked 50, but was probably closer to 40. His face was full of divots and deep creases like the cinder block walls. He had the habit of whipping his around his jean jacket shoulders, like he was modeling. His jean jacket had drawings up and down the arms in black marker of skulls and things. There was a Northmen patch on the back, a skeleton with a Viking helmet riding a motorcycle. Darryl looked like he’d been roughed up pretty good that night. There were open cuts and scrapes all over him. The jail cell was hard and cold.

“You see this?” Darryl sat near me. His raw knuckles opened even more when he made a fist in front of my face. “I beat my old lady with this!” I moved the roll of toilet paper around to get more comfortable. “Do you see this shit?” He asked again.

“Yes!” I put my hands in the air. “Yes! I fucking see your bloody knuckles. I see them!” He smelled like an old lady’s perfume, cigarettes, and whiskey in a denim ball.

“Well what are you in for smart ass?”

“Littering.” I said.

“Littering?” He asked.

“That’s right, littering. Better stay away from me mother fucker. I’m crazy,” I said. “I threw shit away all over the place and I didn’t even think about using a garbage can. A garbage can never even crossed my mind,” I told him.

“That’s some shit, man,” he said. “Do you see this other shit?” Darryl held his arms out like he was being handcuffed. I fluffed out the full roll of toilet paper and yawned. It went on like that for hours.

*

I never saw Darryl again until Thanksgiving at the Dry Dock. He was on the karaoke stage gargling beer with a microphone in his hand. Darryl did his best to keep up with the song. Darryl’s old lady was up there on the puzzle-piece floor, dancing along. I just held onto my glass and took in the smell of beer, cigarettes, and the complimentary Thanksgiving dinner that sat in hotel pans and crock pots on a banquet table shoved up against the wall. I put my head down on the bar. Tricycle Guy patted me on the back. I thought of him again, years ago at the burger joint.

*

He smoked and stared at the young counter girl while I ate a fried fish dinner. I dipped my fries in tartar sauce and squirted the fish with lemon wedges. The counter girl took off her headset and hat. There was some guy standing there, waiting for her. He held the door open as she slipped into a vinyl jacket that shined, “Luds Home of the BIG LUD,” on the back in turquoise. Tricycle Guy smoked and stared. He turned red and his face crammed up even more. The guy kissed her cheek as she straightened the black vinyl jacket over her shoulders as they headed out of the burger joint.

I lifted my head from the bar. Tricycle guy had stopped patting my back. “How’s it going?” I wobbled on an uneven stool as I asked him.

“Good,” he said.

“Happy Thanksgiving, or whatever it is you’re supposed to say,” I said. Smoke floated around, lit up by the cheap strings of holiday lights nailed into the carpeted walls of the Dry Dock. Darryl was on the puzzle-piece dance floor singing to his old lady. I tried to imagine him doing karaoke while we were in the county clink and couldn’t.

*

“Do you see my fucking elbow?” Darryl plugged a thumb into his armpit and stuck out his elbow like a bird wing. We both looked at the dried blood crusted to his forearm. “See that? Know what happened?”

“Yes,” I said. “I have an idea.”

“I smashed my old lady’s windshield with this.”

“You broke it with your elbow?” I asked.

“Yes, when she hit me with the car.”

I put my head back down on the full roll of toilet paper. When I woke up, he was gone.

*

“That guy up there singing looks familiar,” I said to Tricycle Guy.

“Big Lud,” he said. He stared at the karaoke stage with an empty beer glass in his hand and a cigarette between his thick fingers.

“We did a night together at the county clink,” I told Tricycle Guy. “I thought his name was Darryl.”

*

That day at the burger joint, after the counter girl left with her boyfriend, Tricycle Guy didn’t just sit there and finish his burgers. He put his cigarette out and focused his attention on the metal napkin dispenser that sat on his table. He wiped his burger to the floor and grabbed the napkin dispenser in his hand. He held onto it with two hands, like a big grapefruit. His face jammed up tight and turned into a red blur of stubble and flesh. Spit flung out of his face and he squeezed the napkin dispenser. It crunched and crumbled in his hands. When I finished my fish dinner I walked by him on my way out. “People arm wrestle for money at the Dry Dock on Monday’s,” I said. “Bring twenty bucks.”

*

“Did you have a good Thanksgiving?” I looked at Tricycle Guy, then to my beer glass. There was a paper plate on the bar full of pickled bologna skins, cracker crumbs and cranberry stains. I pulled a napkin from the dispenser in front of him and slipped it under my beer. We both stared at the karaoke stage.

Darryl sang and made up lyrics about the fortitude of his genitalia. His old lady danced. Darryl screamed, “I see them runnin’ just as fast as they can...every girl’s crazy for a well hung man!” Darryl waved his fist in the air.

“So, did you have a good Thanksgiving?” I asked Tricycle Guy.

“Sort of.” He stared at Darryl’s old lady, in her blue jeans, dipping and swinging along. I stared too. I imagined the old lady running Darryl over with her car. I looked for bloodstains on her blue jeans, but there weren’t any. Darryl smiled at his old lady. The song was over. The two of them embraced. They were coming down from karaoke. They kissed each other on the mouth as smoke floated around the cheap holiday lights that hung from the carpeted walls.

I bought Tricycle Guy another beer and slid a tip across the bar. “Well, I’m taking off,” I told him. I held my hand out for a shake. He stared through me. Darryl had his tongue down his old lady’s throat. “What was your name?” I wobbled off my stool. “I’m Kevin,” I said.

“Big Lud,” he said. Tricycle Guy shook my hand. He squeezed hard and crushed it like a napkin dispenser.

“Alright then, I’ll see you around,” I said. “Happy Thanksgiving.” I walked out past Darryl and his old lady. They started arguing in the middle of making out. Darryl didn’t recognize me.

Outside, it smelled worse than inside. The paper manufacturing plant seeped its run-off into the river and puffed the burn-off into the air. The river seeped into Lake Huron and seemed to go on forever. I opened up a pack of cigarettes and threw the cellophane and foil onto the sidewalk. Across the street, at the State Theater, the light bulbs that hadn’t burned out flashed around the marquee. There was a fancy movie playing about dinosaurs and a remote island. I wanted to see it, but I had spent all my money at the Dry Dock. I got on my bike and took my usual ride around town. I headed to Cash’s Corner for their free pool on Thursdays and another Thanksgiving dinner spread.