The bartender hands me my refill and continues to wipe down the counter with a rag that looks like it�s been used continuously since the bar opened twenty years ago. It doesn�t bother me, though, this obvious lack of cleanliness. I�m not planning on licking the bar anytime soon.
The rag actually matches the d�cor in this place anyway, if it can be called that. It�s a dark room underneath a small shop� I think they sell candles or something, I�ve never actually gone in� with a few scattered tables, and haphazardly placed chairs nearby. A couple of broken tables and chairs are leaning against the back door, remnants from rowdier nights and larger crowds that the owner hasn�t bothered to replace. Mirrors make up most of the wall behind the bartender, probably for guys like me to check out the beautiful women we would never have a chance with. Women don�t come here much anymore; I use the mirror now to watch myself get drunk. There are tiny windows near the ceiling that face Market St. so thick with city grime and pollution that they have long since been retired as sources of light. A few hanging lamps with low-watt light bulbs cast angular and solitary shadows on the floor, making the room look as though the dimmer on the light switch was frozen on �low.�
I touch my forehead to the bar top. I would love to be able to turn to the guy next to me and tell him everything that I hate about my life, but I don�t want to be the one who breaks the unspoken agreement. No Heavy Subjects. I can almost see a sign about the doorway with this rule prominently displayed next to the red and white neon of Budweiser. Besides, he�s probably here to try and drown his sorrows in alcohol too. I�ve seen him here before. Actually, I�ve seen them all here, night after night, alternately nursing their drinks and gulping them down, their eyes tearing with strong alcohol and too much life. I don�t think anyone new has stepped through that door in months.
_______________
The streetlights on Market St. flickered on as the sun delved behind the horizon and darkness prevailed. The flickering orange neon of Jiminy�s was prominent against the bricks above the stairwell, and I focused on it like it was a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. My salvation. I nodded at the bartender and took my usual seat, glancing at the motion in the mirror before turning to stare at my reflection.
My dark brown hair was stiff and shiny with too much hair gel, brushed forward on top and cut short in the back with the beloved style of celebrities today. A few wrinkles etched into my forehead belied my thirty-one years. The rest of my face was smooth, despite the hint of hair growth on my cheeks and chin. My cheeks were indented with the look models vie for and which I would gladly give them. Hazel eyes, the kind that changed to green and brown with the weather or my mood or the color of the clothes I wore, continued raking across my body and examining everything. The gray suit I wore looked as though I had lifted it from a week on my bedroom floor and tossed it on; the maroon tie was loosened and thrown over my shoulder. I released a short huff of laughter as I remembered the conversation I had had with my boss the day before.
�We have certain protocols involving the way we dress, Mr. Varron. I have told you repeatedly that you must look presentable when you come into work in the morning. Perhaps you should be getting up extra early so that you can make sure you have time to prepare yourself for work. I can�t have you looking like, well, like you do when important clients might be walking through the building. Sloan & Benning Law is a well-known firm, and we are expected to be professional. Not only in the work we do, but also in the means by which we present it to our clients. How can we expect a client to take our work seriously if we are dressed as though we don�t care? Why��
I tuned him out at that point. He was right, I had heard it all before. I nodded every now and then as he continued his diatribe on physical presentation, his slate blue eyes gazing off behind my right shoulder. Silver hair bounced as he emphasized certain points, and I could almost see the fat of his stomach jiggle with each gesture.
I became entranced, watching the small spray of spittle as it flecked his lips as he spoke, and the way the thick skin of his cheek and neck and chin connected to form heavy jowls that bounced in time with his stomach and hair. I snapped my eyes to his as I felt his fat, puffy fingers rest on my forearm.
�Peter, listen to me. I really need you to make an effort here.� His head tilted to the side before he continued. �If you don�t, I will have no other choice but to let you go.� His hand withdrew, and he gave me a small smile before walking back to his office. I stood still in the maze of cubicles, people brushing past me and nudging me aside in their haste to accomplish their task, and watched his wide back disappear behind the door.
�Hey.� A deep voice on my left brought me back to reality. I hadn�t realized anyone had sat next to me, although it occurred to me he could have been there for awhile. He had an empty beer bottle on the counter in front of him and another grasped loosely in his hand, beads of sweat gathering above his thumb and threatening to run over. I glanced at my watch and realized I had been oblivious to my surroundings for close to thirty minutes. I swiveled on the stool to face him.
�Hey,� I responded. He was pink, as if he had been sunburned at the beach that day, and a few strands of bright red hair fell across one blue eye. He was wearing a denim shirt neatly tucked into khaki pants and looked like he fell out of a catalog instead of the typical rumpled professional who frequented Jiminy�s all week. I had never seen him before.
�So, uh, is there anything going on here tonight? A band or something?� He took a long pull of his beer and wiped his lips. I stared at him for a few seconds before replying.
�Nah, nothing really goes on here.�
His brow wrinkled, and he cocked his head to one side
.
�Then why do you come here?� Why indeed. I pretended to mull it over, my fingers stroking my chin and rubbing through the stubble.
�You mean as opposed to somewhere else?� At his nod, I continued. �Because Jimmy serves me alcohol. Are there other reasons to go to a bar?�
�Oh, well�� he started, but I interrupted him.
�Why? Does this look like the type of place that would have a band on a Friday night, much less a Tuesday?� I gestured to the room behind us. �Nah, you can�t find that stuff here.� My earlier musings did nothing to help my already dour mood, and this guy was the unwitting recipient. It didn�t help that he looked barely old enough to drink, much less have a job.
�Sorry,� he mumbled. He looked at the bar, his finger playing in the ring of water left by his first beer.
I sighed. It made no difference to me whether we talked about sports or music, he wouldn�t be back again anyway.
�So, uh, do you watch sports or something? There�s a game on tonight. Yanks are playing. You a Yankee fan?� He smiled at the counter when I began to talk, then lifted his head to answer me.
�Well, I just moved here from a town just outside Chicago, so I grew up rooting for the Cubbies. I�m sure I can be persuaded in another direction, though. I wasn�t really die-hard, and I figure now that I live in New York, it would be best to go with the home team rather than risk my neck to Yankee fanatics.� He grinned then, the smile illuminating his features, the corners of his eyes crinkling. I looked at him sitting there with a grin on his face, the half-empty beer bottle in his hand, his head cocked to the side like a dog listening intently near the door for possible intruders. Well, since he wasn�t going to be here tomorrow anyway, I justified, I might as well talk to him. Besides, what else did I have to do that night? Get drunk? It could wait.
I gave a short nod and a rueful laugh.
�Eh, no one here is that bad. You get used to it, but the city�s nothing like what you read in the papers. They just have nothing more newsworthy than the murder of some punk in the South Bronx, so that�s all anyone gets to read about. Death, Sex, and God, the front-page trilogy. That�s what makes the headlines here.�
We talked for the next few hours, where I continued to learn useless information about him. He was twenty-four, lived by himself two apartment buildings over from mine in Greenwich Village, and had broken up with his girlfriend prior to leaving Joliet, Illinois. He was a web designer at Salomon Smith Barney Investment Co. in Manhattan and an artist in his off-hours.
After he left that night, I proceeded to get drunk on alternate glasses of Glenlivet and Jack Daniels, the alcohol requiring more time to take effect than usual. I stepped out into the cool night air and took a deep breath. Sometimes the closeness of the bar was stifling, and my only relief was in the open air of the street, where the sounds and tastes of New York at night could comfort me like no other. But the need to forget was always there, nagging at the edge of my brain, playing with the corner of my mind. And I always went back, if only to get drunk.
I took a few steps down the street, my body swaying with some internal melody. I did not hear the voices until they were behind me, grabbing my wrists, and heaving me face-first into the pavement. I struggled against their strength, and they yelled at me.
�Stay down, you son of a bitch. Give us your money an� we won�t have to kill you.� I ignored their words, more intent on preserving my wallet than my life. One arm breaks free from their grasp, and I swing without looking, my hand curled into a tight fist, my thumb outside the grasp of my fingers. I learned that lesson the hard way; I tried to punch a kid in gym class in 7th grade for making fun of my sister, and hit a wall instead. My sister has� no� had Down�s syndrome, and I was constantly forced to resort to violence to defend her from cruel children. My thumb was in my fist that time, and I broke it upon impact, the class howling with laughter as I sobbed on the floor in pain.
My fist swung sideways into the ear of one of the men, and I heard him curse at me before he and his partner kicked me in the ribs, heat and pain spreading through my body like a flower unfurling its splendor.
After that, all I knew was pain.
I woke up with my body under a black garbage bag, just as the sky was turning a hazy rose color, the tiny arc of sunlight over the horizon hitting the glass of the surrounding buildings and reflecting into my face. I squinted into the glare, sucking in a breath with pain at the action. My nose was tender, most likely broken, and my face burned where I had slid along the pavement. I was having trouble breathing, and the left side of my chest was throbbing through sharp pains of broken ribs. I managed to half-walk and half-drag my battered body to the emergency room of St. Vincent�s hospital, each step an agonizing ordeal. After three hours of arguing with insurance companies over payment and the loss of my card, I was treated; my ribs and nose bandaged in white gauze and hospital tape and Band-Aids decorating my body like honorable medals for a war well fought. A candy striper wheeled me to the sidewalk and sat down next to me, pulling a pack of Camel Lights from the front pocket of her pink and white smock. I glanced at her every now and then, when I was sure she could not see me. She couldn�t have been more than thirteen, with long brown hair and bright blue eyes, a sullen look hardened on her face. The nametag above her right breast read: �Jaime, Volunteer,� white letters stamped onto maroon plastic. Her fingers lit the cigarette with practiced ease as she waited with me for the cab.
�So, uh, Jaime, how old are you?� I asked her. She looked at me, her thumb flicking the end of her cigarette.
�Sixteen. Why? How old do I look?�
�Oh, uh, I was thinking about that age,� I lied. She snorted softly and flung her hair over her shoulder to rest between her shoulder blades.
�Yeah, whatever.�
She turned away from me then to talk to a tall Hispanic boy with an easy smile in mint green scrubs and a navy jacket with St. Vincent�s Volunteer stenciled on the back. He had a nametag that read: �Josue, Volunteer.� I was able to look at her without caution, since she had turned. I noted the sway of her hair down her back as she laughed, the way she bounced on the balls of her feet while she spoke, the casual touches on Josue�s arm as she smiled and nodded and stared into his eyes. Why couldn�t she look at me that way? I had almost touched the glossy brown hair when the cab pulled up beside the curb. I watched her back and swinging hair through the dust-coated window of the cab as the driver pulled away.
The next few days and nights were filled with indescribable agony, my face caked in salt residue from tears of pain too numerous to wipe off. The hospital refused to give me medications; they said they were low on supplies, and there were too many other people who needed them more than I did. As a result, I finished all the alcohol in my apartment� a decision I came to regret by the second night. I could not motivate myself to go out and buy more, and many searches through all three cabinets in my apartment had proved fruitless.
It wasn�t like there was a lot to look through in the apartment anyway. The walls were all cream-colored and bare, the floors wooden and uncovered by rugs. My bedroom had one simple wooden dresser, on top of which sat an alarm clock and a tiny lamp, a queen-sized bed� the one amenity I allowed myself, wherever I lived-� and a closet which housed nine identical charcoal gray suits and two pairs of shiny black dress shoes. My living room and kitchen were separated by a small bar with two stools, and these too were unadorned by baubles and trinkets. Inside the living room were a couch and a tiny cabinet that held a 13� TV and a VCR. Inside the cabinet was where I kept a few movies and the liquor I didn�t want anyone to see that I drank.
No one visited here anymore.
The kitchen had all the necessities for making dinner, although I usually just had peanut butter and jelly sandwich or take-out. I normally kept a case of Molson�s in the fridge and a few bottles of hard liquor in the cabinet next to it, but I was lower than I expected and it didn�t take long to polish off.
About a week after my �accident,� I gathered my broken body and headed to the bar. The pain of thinking far outweighed my physical pain at that point, so it wasn�t a hard decision. The familiarity enveloped my senses when I entered� sight, sound, taste� I felt like I had returned to my homeland after months at sea. The bartender caught my eye and bobbed his head in recognition before sliding a scotch rocks in front of me. The other guys nodded to me in recognition of my decision; they understood the draw of Jiminy�s just like I did. I sat down and started on my first drink of the week. I felt a presence at my side, but rather than look next to me, I covertly placed my hand to the side and looked into the mirror. Red hair. I looked at him directly then, my eyes widening slightly.
�Peter, glad to see you back. How are you doing?� He asked. I stared at him and did not respond. He smiled and continued. �Yeah, I heard about what happened to you. A few people saw what happened and ran in here to tell Jimmy to call the police. By the time they got here a few minutes later, you were nowhere to be found. They caught the robbers, though. I think they have your stuff down at the station. What happened to you? Where�d you go?�
�I don�t know. All I know is that I woke up on a sidewalk, underneath a garbage bag, and I got myself to the hospital as fast as I could.� My voice was raspy from lack of use all week, so I cleared my throat. I wasn�t going to tell him the amount of pain I was in, or the way I blubbered like an idiot in the hospital as they wrapped my chest.
�Wow, what an ordeal,� was all he could say.
As we spoke of my injuries and the amount of pain I was in� he got me to talk about it, somehow� one question continued to annoy me, repeating itself in my head every few seconds. Finally I just blurted it out, interrupting his commentary on the many injuries he had during his childhood.
�What are you doing here? I thought you wanted to find a bar that had bands on Fridays and wing night on Tuesdays that were packed with people and music. What happened to that?�
He cocked his head to the side, the corners of his mouth curling slightly.
�I don�t really know. I think I just enjoyed our conversation last week; you were so nice to me, because I knew no one else.� Me, nice? I snickered. That�s a word I hadn�t heard used in conjunction with my name in a long time. �So I thought I would come back and talk to you, you know, but you weren�t there the next night. I was just leaving when I heard Jimmy talking about someone getting robbed nearby� that�s where I learned your name� so I came back to make sure you were ok, and to thank you.� He shrugged his thin shoulders and looked at my bandaged nose. �I guess that�s why.�
I looked at him as though he had grown a second head. Nobody spoke like he did, in this day an age; he had to have an ulterior motive. I wasn�t all that nice to him last week, at least in the beginning, so I needed to determine what he wanted from me. So I asked.
�What is it you want from me? I don�t have a lot of money on me, I look old, and I have no friends or people to introduce you to. What could you possibly get out of talking to me?� �There�s no such thing as a free lunch,� my father�s old adage popped into consciousness. I stopped myself from saying that in time.
�Shit, I don�t know.� He ran his hands through his hair, slicking it back with the sweat from his palm. �I needed to talk to someone, and you were just sitting there. Don�t you ever just want to have a conversation with someone, a random stranger that you see in a bar?� I grunted. I did want that. He continued, �Aren�t there things you just want to blurt to some guy nearby without wondering whether you are going to say the wrong thing or ruin some friendship? I�m sorry if I bothered you, Peter. I assumed you wanted to talk as much as I did.� He got off the stool and slipped into his brown leather jacket before taking a few steps toward the door. I stared into my drink, the ice melting and swirling with the amber liquid, and called to him.
�Wait!�
He stopped a few feet from the exit, his back still to me. He turned so that his ear was facing me, and his eyes were fixed on the wall to my left.
�What�s your name?�
His cheeks rose in a smile, and he turned completely towards me.
�Howard,� he said.
I had never asked that of anyone, and he knew it.