Barbara: Short Story

Drink

A guy walks into a bar.  God, I am such a cliché.  My life a bad joke, begun inanely, progressing stupidly.  Much like this date.  She’s thin, at least.  My only unbroken standard.  No ass, but her prosthetic breasts are perky.  She beelines it for the bathroom.  Presumably to fix her extension-enhanced, two-toned hair – like a Yorkie.  Her yapping doesn’t help dispel the image. 

Scott’s working the bar, a veritable virtuoso of his craft, his movements as practiced and coordinated as a pipe organist.  I have great respect for bartenders.  They are the purveyors of my only joy.  He saw us come in.

“What happened to Angela?  This one,” nodding towards the crapper, “looks dumber.”

 

“Went back to Philly.  Get me a whiskey.”  I settle into my stool at the corner of the long bar, its seat buffed to a shine by too many of such settlings.  I feel embraced.

“What’ve you been having so far?”  Scott’s figured me out a long time ago.

“Wine.  I need to get the taste of it off my tongue.”

He turns, pours from the ochre bottle, sets the glass on the counter.  A ceremonial rite, handed down through the ages, providing the huddling masses comfort more certain than an invisible god.

“Philly, huh?  Too bad.  I thought you actually liked her.  She was different.”  He stops wiping the counter to face me, his mien both benevolent and chiding.  “You notice your other women are all the same?  Like blow-up dolls.”

“And just as cheap to replace.”  Scott deflates at that, picks up his rag.  I pick up my whiskey.    

I didn’t want to talk about Angie.  That’s my one complaint about bartenders – they’re all frustrated psychologists.  Thinking that if only they’d had the money, they’d have gone to med school, would have their name on a mammoth desk they’d sit behind, their glasses funhouse mirrors simultaneously shielding their eyes while reflecting their patient’s expression back to them – misery twisting their faces out of recognition.  As if seeing how unhappy we are could cure us, could force us to take measures to change our lives.  They don’t understand the sweetness of despair.  They have never drunk from that forbidden cup, never known the beauty of darkness, never touched the black reaches of the soul.  One can seek refuge in misery, as an old familiar friend, who can comfort and relieve, who knows better than to promise anything, who never spouts new age crap platitudes like “everything happens for a reason.”

“No melt-downs lately, then?”  He asks, dumping stale ashtrays and returning to our safe and equally stale banter.

“Me or the sub?”

“Well, if one goes, the other can’t be far behind.”  It’s an old joke between us.  A guy walks into a bar... 

“So what’s the status?  When’s her maintenance done?”

“Another couple months at least.  Then we take her back to Charleston.  Meanwhile you’re stuck with me.”

“I’ll miss the tips.”  I’d forgotten.  My only friends are the ones I pay for.

“I haven’t seen you for a while.  You change shifts at the base?” he says, hosing a perfectly good gin with tonic for the yuppie down the bar. 

“Yep.  Four to midnight.  It’s quieter, but the ensigns are stupider.”

“Everything’s a trade-off.”

That’s the other thing about bartenders.  They’re philosophers.  Seen it all, done none of it, they’ve soaked up wisdom by observing the sots they serve.  I’d traded my usual crap-taste in women for someone real, and got burned.  Better to stick with the devil you know.

Yorkie returns, speaking of the devil, perching herself onto the stool next to me. 

“Sorry.  Wine goes right through me.  What’re you having?  Hi,” she smiles to Scott, “can I get a cosmo?” At his retreat, she turns to me, her whisper almost a hiss.  “This is the place we had to get to?  It’s a dive.”  She must be more perceptive than I thought.  “Why couldn’t we go to Rigamarole?” 

Because it was loud, crowded, and hot.  I have this thing where I sweat profusely.  Doesn’t matter where I am – I sweat in January, in the frozen aisle of the grocery store.  I’m sweating now.  Plus, the lights there would give a dead man epilepsy.  “Too far.  I hate to drink and drive.”

“You’ll be doing that anyway.  You picked me up, remember?”

Maybe not so perceptive.  “So what do you say about next weekend?”

“Why are you only asking me now,” she whines like a lapdog.  “Shouldn’t you’ve already lined up a date for your brother’s wedding?”

I subdue my reflexive bristling.  “I did.  We broke up.”  She left me.  Strung me high and burned me dry.  “Look, it’s not like you’d have to pay for anything.  I’ll get your ticket, and I’ve already booked the hotel.”  Much better, these purchased relationships.  When I was stationed in Japan I bought hookers.  A life progressing stupidly.  

“I’ll have to check my calendar.”

But I know she’ll say yes.  She’s like me.  Our scruples were discarded long ago. 

“So what’s this brother like?  Who’s the bride?”

“He’s a few years older, she’s about my age.”

“And?”

“And what? “

“Well, what does he do?”

“Last I heard, he works on an oil rig.  Seasonal.  Somewhere in the Gulf.”

“What season?”

Oh, god.  “Doesn’t matter.  Let’s talk about something else.”

“Okay.  What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

“What?”  I almost drop my drink.  I’ve lost my equilibrium.  “What kind of question is that?” 

“I read it in Cosmo.  They listed a bunch of great first date questions.  ‘How To Get To the Meat of the Man Before You Get to His Meat.'  It’s like a dating game.”

Only this isn’t a date, it’s a transaction.  “Want me to list them alphabetically?  Let’s see… Ashley, Breah, Courtney, Daph – ”

“The worst thing, not the worst lay,” she scolds.  “C’mon.” 

 “Look, I just need a date for the wedding.”

“Well, maybe I’ll go if you answer the question.”  She tries for coquettish but comes off pouting. 

“This is a stupid game.”  The worst thing I’ve done.  There’re too many to rifle through, to count, and my moral compass to rank my sins was broken years ago. 

But there’s one I do remember, one I can’t forget.  I turn to her, knowing she’s not worthy of the tale, but that makes it better.  I don’t respect her enough to care about her opinion.  I look down into my glass, swirl the amber liquid, and I tell her.

“It was my first deployment.  Four months at sea to dock in Cairo.  We came across a boat – a raft, really - two days out.  Fifteen people on a plank of wood no more than 5 feet across, maybe twice that long.  They were from somewhere in North Africa – Tunisia, maybe.  On their way to France.  Only they were stranded, already showing signs of delirium.”  I remember their faces.  I didn’t know black skin could burn like that, blisters popping red on swollen, distorted faces.  Their lips especially.  Sores oozing blood.  “But we didn’t take them on board.  The captain had a schedule.  We threw them some bottles of water.  Not enough.  We just prolonged their death.  And I didn’t say anything.  Couldn’t, really.  I was only a petty officer.  That’s what I told myself.  So we left them there.  And made it to port on time.” 

I look back up, into her staring and frightened eyes.  “That’s the worst thing I’ve done.”  And I tilt the whiskey into my parched, dry mouth.