A Night at the Landmark

In Paragould, Arkansas there is a bar called the Landmark Lounge. It’s a little out of the way place. A dingy, dimly lite dive where cold beer and lousy food is proudly served and where crappy local bands play really, really loud. When you are young, this seems like a good place to be. Cold beer and music, what more could you ask for.

Many years ago, I was dating a girl from Paragould. Let’s call her Janet. Janet’s family was very prominent in Paragould. Though she had graduated from Arkansas State, she still lived at home with her parents. She and I were introduced by a mutual friend and we started dating. Her parents seemed oddly happy to meet me. Janet was a fun girl, though reserved on some things and over the top on others. As a kid she had studied ballet and in high school she had been a gymnast. I like gymnasts.

So one night I suggested that we go to a local Paragould place called the Landmark. We usually went to Memphis, or some where in Jonesboro. Janet wasn’t thrilled, but said it would ‘probably be ok’. That’s an interesting choice of words, I thought.

We got there early enough to get our choice of tables. I don’t like to be right by the dance floor because it’s just too loud and congested. Janet was very happy with a table toward the back.

The lights went down, and the band started. It was every bit as good as any stoned Lynyrd Skynyrd knock off band in Greene County, Arkansas could be expected to be. They were loud, enthusiastic and very nearly in tune. The later the night got, the more wild they got. Janet and I danced several times. She seemed a little nervous about dancing the first couple of times, but seemed to get more comfortable as the night wore on. I didn’t really understand why she was nervous. She was a very good dancer. She seemed to know everyone there. The few friends she introduced me to eyed my warily. I was ‘Bill, Janet’s date’.

Following the band’s prophetic, and somewhat courageous attempt at ‘Gimme Three Steps’, we were danced out. We sat down winded. Just as I poured each of us another luke warm beer from our pitcher of Bud, a very drunk and very huge guy wearing a sleevless plaid shirt and faded levis jeans and sporting a really impressive mullet slammed his fist down on our table spilling beer and cigarette ashes everywhere. He stared at me and shouted “I’M READY!” The band was between songs and the room went absolutely quiet. It was like that EF Hutton commercial from many years ago. Everyone froze and looked at us.

I looked this mountain of a man dead in the eye and said in a loud and confident voice, “Hoss, I will meet you out by the dumpster”. The large drunk spun on his heel and headed out the door. He was a man on a mission. I was pretty sure the doorman would not let him back in being that drunk, and I had no intention of going out there. Problem solved.

“Janet”, I said, “Who was that?”

“That was my husband.”, came the reply.

Her husband.

It is the utmost of understatements to say I was surprised. I really didn’t know what to do. I had no idea she was married and everybody in the place was ‘his’ friend.

I wasn’t ‘Bill, Janet’s date’. I was the ‘guy from Jonesboro who was with Terry’s wife’. This was not a good thing.

At the end of the night, when the lights came up and the bar was closing, a stranger passing in the crowd as we left the bar whispered in my ear. ‘Terry and his friends’ were waiting to jump me outside. At that moment I understood a very basic level how General Custer felt when the Scouts came back and said they had found some Indians. I I understood the thoughts that must have gone through the Captain of the Titanic’s brain when the engineer said ‘Boss, the hole in the boat is really big’. I knew in my heart of hearts how the Christians must have felt when they entered the Coliseum in Rome to play with the lions.

We walked out of the bar, and I expected the worst. Terry and his merry band of buddies emerged menacingly from the shadows. Oh, this was going to be ugly, I thought. Just when I thought there is no good ending in sight, for the first and perhaps only time in my life I was thankful to see a police car. It turned into the parking lot slowly prowled as Janet and I walked unmolested to my car. I took her home and said goodbye.

We never dated again, and I have not been back to Paragould since.

Not once.

Yeah, a night at the Landmine was like a night nowhere else.

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