“I see you two laughing, eh?” Sanders slurred. He slumped into a bar stool next to them and motioned for Angie. “Bartender, Angie, Northwoods nymph . . . a whiskey on the rocks, eh?”

Angie frowned. “You’re crazy if you think I’m serving you in that condition.”

“What are you talking bout, eh? I’m as sober as the day I came outta my momma.”

Ron burst out laughing and beer spurted through his nose. John almost did the same.

Sanders eyed them with curious disdain and pointed a wobbly finger. “See, these are the drunkards, eh? They can’t even hold their liquor! Look at ’em, like two school girls.”

“Come on,” John said. “You’re out of your mind. Just admit it.”

Sanders swayed in his seat and narrowed his eyes. “Alright, I admit I’ve had a few, but I’m not drunk. Only schoolgirls get drunk, eh?”

“Then where are your pigtails?” Ron asked.

“Ah, a real wise ass eh? You know what wiseasses are good for? They good for a placeholder for my boot!”

John laughed so hard his face reddened. “Alright, alright. We believe you. You’re not drunk, okay?”

Sanders crossed his arms and puffed out his chest, then almost teetered off the stool. “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Angie handed Sanders a glass of clear liquid with a lemon squeezed onto the rim. “House special,” she said.

Sanders took a drink and arched one eyebrow at Angie. “Vodka,” he said.

“You bet,” she said. “From Russia.”

Angie winked at John and he smiled.

A ballad came on the jukebox, but John couldn’t place the artist. He found the melody mesmerizing. It was one of those old-time acts, maybe from the early 50s.

“Alright, time to get serious,” Sanders said, adjusting on his bar stool and shouting over the ballad. “What the he-all you two doing up here so late, ans what made you come up here t’all? Shit-cago is a long way from the Yooper. Or should I say FIB-CAGO?”

Ron set his beer on the counter and met Sanders’ bloodshot eyes. “I came here for the same reason you did,” he said. “To get away to the woods. To enjoy mother nature and escape the congestion. That’s why I bought land up here. You know this, Bob.”

Sanders looked at him, shocked. “But, in the end you have to go back, eh?” he said. “That’s no good. You don’t never really escape.”

“Yes I do,” Ron said, looking at John and waggling his finger. “I mean, we do.”

Sanders looked around the room for a jury to help him convict his peers. But the room had emptied except for Angie.

Sanders shrugged. “Then here’s to the U.P.,” he said, raising his glass to Ron and John’s beers. “Here’s to the good times, fook the bad times, eh?”