I first saw Dorothy at Pancho & Lefty’s bar when Scott Mohoric owned it and it was the most popular bar in town. It was country or rock n’ roll with blues nights pretty regularly. It had a small dance floor. It was a good place for people to meet. One of those rare bars full of people fun to talk to who had little in common, and everyone got along, except during the occasional fights. I remember I told Scott he should put a boxing ring in the back room, I thought it would discourage fights, and on occasion provide some good entertainment. So Pancho & Lefty’s had a little of everything and tonight it had Dorothy.

Dorothy looked maybe in her late 40’s, it was hard to say. I don’t remember her being of a particular age. She wore cowboy boots, black jeans and a red and white striped sweater tucked in, which accentuated her full form. She was standing at the bar drinking and there was a space between her and two drunks. I decided to do the obvious and fill that space. I had barely taken a sip of my beer when the two drunks seemed to be leaning on me a little, perhaps irritated that I was cock-blocking. Drunk or not, I could see my block being an almost reasonable source of irritation for the two drunks, in the musky, macho haze of Pancho & Lefty’s Bar.

I decided to move, but asked Dorothy if she would like to move with me. I knew there was a weak spot in this plan if Dorothy said yes, and the two drunks should take issue, but I couldn’t come up with anything better. As I started to invite Dorothy to move to a table, she came up with an alternative idea. This was how she explained it: “I have a good right, straight from the shoulder. I can take out the little one, they never expect it from a woman. You can take the big guy, I can see it in you, don’t be a wimp.”

I thought this was a worse plan than mine and I said “Goodbye, I got to get something to eat, real hungry.” She came along. She invited her friend Cybil to join us. To be completely honest, I wasn’t enthusiastic about Cybil joining us, you know, being a guy and all. But, that is, until they started talking. They had not seen each other in a long time. They had some reminiscing to do and catching up. By some bizarre stroke of luck, I was there to hear their stories.

They talked mostly about things they had done together and about Dorothy. For example they had lived in the same neighborhood in Chicago, both their husbands were involved in shady goings on, and both were shot and killed in the same week.

After her husband died Dorothy joined the Salvation Army. I never heard what Cybil did after her husband got shot.

Dorthy joined the Salvation Army because she felt her life had gone astray. She said something to the effect that some sort of atonement was called for, and she hoped joining the Salvation Army would lead her down a path of righteousness and make her fit to raise her two children.

One afternoon Dorothy found herself on a particularly breezy winter corner of Chicago, in front of a bar, ringing a bell with an iron bucket, into which people occasionally dropped change. She was there sometime when she noticed a man at the cash register in the bar was watching her through a window. It was getting colder.

So finally the man who had been watching her all afternoon came out onto the street and said one of the most important things anyone had ever said to her, he said, “Is this the best gig you can get?” He invited her into the bar to warm up. She turned her bucket upside down over the bar and shouted “Drinks are on me.” The coins jingled to the bar’s wet surface and she counted two dollars and forty-three cents.

Hours later, she awoke after having fallen asleep in a snowdrift, under her Salvation Army cape. She probably would have frozen to death if a homeless person hadn’t rubbed snow on her face to wake her up. She decided she needed to move south.

Somewhere in North Carolina her stash had dwindled and she hadn’t come up with a plan yet. Driving along a major highway she saw a dilapidated barn that was for rent. She decided to stop and see if she could make some money. In the next town she bought ice for her cooler, two six packs of beer, a can of red paint and a brush. She then drove back to the barn. She painted big red letters taller than herself over the old posters and peeling paint that said “Cold Beer $2.00”. She took a folding card table out of her van, set it up in front of the barn, and put on a cute outfit. She hadn’t yet rented the barn but it suited her needs.

The first trucker that stopped wanted to buy her a beer. She said no, she only had 8 more to sell, and she was trying to build up a clientele. The trucker thought this was so funny he got on his C.B. radio and told all the truckers in the state about Dorothy’s card table and beer. Then he went to town and came back with a few cases of Budweiser to fatten up her inventory. Dorothy rented the barn, got a liquor license and had a thriving go-go bar for two years until the town shut her down.

I wondered if Dorothy had a boyfriend, so I asked her. She said she had a boyfriend in Ajijic, where she spent six months a year. The other six she lived in Hawaii. “I don’t speak much Spanish,” she said. “He only knows how to say two things in English. The first one he says the first three months I’m there, the second thing he says the last three months I’m there. The first is, ‘I love you too much.’ The second thing he says is, ‘Get out of my country gringa bitch.’ He gets real excited about stuff, like men do.” I should have asked her what she meant. I’ve always wondered.

Years later, after the kids grew up, Dorothy treated herself to a trip to Hawaii. She liked it and let her ticket home expire. She was making money teaching English to Japanese students.

On the beach one day she met two funny drunk guys and they hit it off. One of them asked her if she knew anything about bookkeeping. She said she had learned a long time ago that if someone asks you if you know something about something, and the something is something you get paid for, say yes.
They asked her what kind of salary she would require to work in Alaska. Without hesitation she said $1,000 a week, an apartment, and a per diem food budget.

The next day a two-way ticket to Alaska arrived at her hotel.

“I spent seven years slipping and sliding and falling and sweating because I had to wear so many layers of clothes and couldn’t take off my parka because I was always in bars full of Japanese and Eskimo fishermen who maybe hadn’t seen a woman in a long time.”

The first day Dorothy arrived in Alaska her two friends met her, gave her the keys to her apartment and brought her to a shed next to a private airstrip. They were sorry she was going to have to go straight to work. There was a man in the shed who didn’t talk, the two guys from the beach who talked at the same time, and a pilot who kept saying it was time to go. Dorothy was given an attaché case with a lot of money in it and a receipt book. She was told to count the crates of fish, and if the right number of crates where there, to give the money to the captains. She was also given three small packages, one for each of the captains whose fish she would be counting. She was then introduced to the man who didn’t say anything. He was there to guard the money and had an Uzi machine gun. She said it was cold wet work. She never figured out what was in the small packages.

Every once in a while she would be asked to bring large amounts of cash to Hawaii. On each visit she would revel in the warm Hawaiian sun, and know this was where she wanted to live one day.

She eventually realized her goal, and is now a fish broker in Hawaii. She did it six months a year. The other six she spent in a Ajijic, and occasionally would come to San Miguel, to give her boyfriend in Ajijic a break. I never saw Dorothy again, but I’m sure she has more stories by now.