Break to New Mutiny
It's Saturday night, and all is right with the world, because I'm tending bar.
It's good to be back, at least so far. After the events of the last couple of weeks, I can't help feeling a little bit like I'm waiting for another shoe to drop, but there's comfort in the familiar. The clink of bottle against glass, the splash of tap overflow onto rubber floor mats, the drink orders shouted out amid white noise, the pickup lines and the return volleys, the sweat on the small of my back, the dodge and bump with Jocelyn and Kira and Vince - it all feels like home.
It's a good Saturday night, probably because the weather has improved; highs have been in the low teens here in New York for the last week, but now we're back into the far more reasonable territory of thirties and forties, with some forecasts of fifties and even sixties for early next week. The crowd is deep and demanding, and Jocelyn and Kira and I are hard at work. But right now all I want to do is get through my shift, get home, and get some sleep, so that tomorrow I can enjoy myself having brunch and playing poker with my friends and roommates, and maybe get some more work done on my novel.
The novel is starting to take on a life of its own, which I've never really experienced before, but it's a wonderful feeling. One of the movies I watched while I was on walkabout from my job the last couple of weeks was "Stranger Than Fiction," which was surprisingly deep and charming for a Will Ferrell movie. Emma Thompson plays a novelist with writer's block - and when she finally realizes what has to happen next to her protagonist, she comments to her assistant (Queen Latifah) that "like anything worth writing, it came inexplicably and without method."
This is a fairly apt description of what's now happening to the narrator of my novel, who's based on my mother. As long as I tried to restrict her actions and even her thoughts to what I knew about my actual mother when she left in 1994, I got nowhere. I felt like I was writing a trip to the laundromat. A couple of weeks ago I finally managed to let go of her as a fictional character - and since then she hasn't disappointed me once. I don't know how long our journey together is going to be, but I'm determined to enjoy it for as long as it lasts. And if someone someday thinks it's worth selling in book form, well, so much the better.
Samantha and Will walk into the Bar as it's getting close to midnight. After what Maya said the other day, I'm not sure I want to deal with her friend, but Samantha's also a customer. She also happens to be - dating? using? verbing? - Will, a good guy and a regular, so I fight off my instinct not to give her the benefit of the doubt. I serve Will an Anchor Steam right away, then ask Samantha what she's in the mood for tonight.
"I'm in the mood for a number one seed, baby! Plus a cosmo, please."
"What, Ohio State's in the basketball tournament, too?"
"Oh, honey, we're not just in the dance, we were Big Ten champions - regular season and tournament, as of a few hours ago! We haven't lost a game since early January! If they don't give us a one seed, they're smoking crack!!"
"And Michigan?" I ask Will, but Samantha's the one who answers first, with cackling laughter.
He shrugs, and sips from his beer. "Not so much this year, I'm afraid. But then I was never that big a basketball fan."
As I finish mixing Samantha's drink, she pokes Will in the side. "You're gonna be for the rest of the month, mister!" He nods and grins at me, and I get the sense he's not making out too badly on his end of this deal.
I hand off the cosmo. "So when's the opening game? Have you picked out a place to watch yet?" Hint, hint.
Samantha downs a good third of her drink, then sets it down. "Keep your fingers crossed, Debra" - I can't help smiling that she finally seems to have gotten my name right - "after they announce the brackets tomorrow, my father's going to try to get us all some game tickets and plane tickets for as long as the Buckeyes stay alive. God knows who he's gonna have to blow, but I have faith in him."
"Will, you're really going along for this ride?"
He shrugs. "I've got some vacation time saved up. Besides, it might be fun to meet Sam's folks."
She pokes him in the side again. "You will not mention where you went to college when you meet them, do you hear??"
"If they ask, Sam, I'm not gonna lie. And if they're not complete idiots, they might even guess that I played football."
Sam's shoulders slump. "I really don't know what the hell I'm doing with you sometimes."
Will turns to me and winks, then faces Sam again. "You're falling in love with me."
She stomps once, then twice, then a third time. "No, no, no!! It's not fair!! I was supposed to find some nice boy from Ohio State and settle down to raise a bunch of little Buckeyes with him!" She chugs the rest of her drink - to the extent you can really chug from a wide martini glass, anyway - then sets down the glass hard enough that I'm surprised it doesn't shatter.
Then she hits him. Right in the stomach, with barely a backswing as warning. She storms off out the front door of the Bar, leaving him grimacing and clutching his midsection with one hand - miraculously, still holding his beer with the other.
I manage not to laugh. "Will, are you okay?"
He nods, then grunts out a sentence. "This is going to be a very. long. month."
It's good to be back, at least so far. After the events of the last couple of weeks, I can't help feeling a little bit like I'm waiting for another shoe to drop, but there's comfort in the familiar. The clink of bottle against glass, the splash of tap overflow onto rubber floor mats, the drink orders shouted out amid white noise, the pickup lines and the return volleys, the sweat on the small of my back, the dodge and bump with Jocelyn and Kira and Vince - it all feels like home.
It's a good Saturday night, probably because the weather has improved; highs have been in the low teens here in New York for the last week, but now we're back into the far more reasonable territory of thirties and forties, with some forecasts of fifties and even sixties for early next week. The crowd is deep and demanding, and Jocelyn and Kira and I are hard at work. But right now all I want to do is get through my shift, get home, and get some sleep, so that tomorrow I can enjoy myself having brunch and playing poker with my friends and roommates, and maybe get some more work done on my novel.
The novel is starting to take on a life of its own, which I've never really experienced before, but it's a wonderful feeling. One of the movies I watched while I was on walkabout from my job the last couple of weeks was "Stranger Than Fiction," which was surprisingly deep and charming for a Will Ferrell movie. Emma Thompson plays a novelist with writer's block - and when she finally realizes what has to happen next to her protagonist, she comments to her assistant (Queen Latifah) that "like anything worth writing, it came inexplicably and without method."
This is a fairly apt description of what's now happening to the narrator of my novel, who's based on my mother. As long as I tried to restrict her actions and even her thoughts to what I knew about my actual mother when she left in 1994, I got nowhere. I felt like I was writing a trip to the laundromat. A couple of weeks ago I finally managed to let go of her as a fictional character - and since then she hasn't disappointed me once. I don't know how long our journey together is going to be, but I'm determined to enjoy it for as long as it lasts. And if someone someday thinks it's worth selling in book form, well, so much the better.
Samantha and Will walk into the Bar as it's getting close to midnight. After what Maya said the other day, I'm not sure I want to deal with her friend, but Samantha's also a customer. She also happens to be - dating? using? verbing? - Will, a good guy and a regular, so I fight off my instinct not to give her the benefit of the doubt. I serve Will an Anchor Steam right away, then ask Samantha what she's in the mood for tonight.
"I'm in the mood for a number one seed, baby! Plus a cosmo, please."
"What, Ohio State's in the basketball tournament, too?"
"Oh, honey, we're not just in the dance, we were Big Ten champions - regular season and tournament, as of a few hours ago! We haven't lost a game since early January! If they don't give us a one seed, they're smoking crack!!"
"And Michigan?" I ask Will, but Samantha's the one who answers first, with cackling laughter.
He shrugs, and sips from his beer. "Not so much this year, I'm afraid. But then I was never that big a basketball fan."
As I finish mixing Samantha's drink, she pokes Will in the side. "You're gonna be for the rest of the month, mister!" He nods and grins at me, and I get the sense he's not making out too badly on his end of this deal.
I hand off the cosmo. "So when's the opening game? Have you picked out a place to watch yet?" Hint, hint.
Samantha downs a good third of her drink, then sets it down. "Keep your fingers crossed, Debra" - I can't help smiling that she finally seems to have gotten my name right - "after they announce the brackets tomorrow, my father's going to try to get us all some game tickets and plane tickets for as long as the Buckeyes stay alive. God knows who he's gonna have to blow, but I have faith in him."
"Will, you're really going along for this ride?"
He shrugs. "I've got some vacation time saved up. Besides, it might be fun to meet Sam's folks."
She pokes him in the side again. "You will not mention where you went to college when you meet them, do you hear??"
"If they ask, Sam, I'm not gonna lie. And if they're not complete idiots, they might even guess that I played football."
Sam's shoulders slump. "I really don't know what the hell I'm doing with you sometimes."
Will turns to me and winks, then faces Sam again. "You're falling in love with me."
She stomps once, then twice, then a third time. "No, no, no!! It's not fair!! I was supposed to find some nice boy from Ohio State and settle down to raise a bunch of little Buckeyes with him!" She chugs the rest of her drink - to the extent you can really chug from a wide martini glass, anyway - then sets down the glass hard enough that I'm surprised it doesn't shatter.
Then she hits him. Right in the stomach, with barely a backswing as warning. She storms off out the front door of the Bar, leaving him grimacing and clutching his midsection with one hand - miraculously, still holding his beer with the other.
I manage not to laugh. "Will, are you okay?"
He nods, then grunts out a sentence. "This is going to be a very. long. month."