Savages
I sat down at the bar with not much enthusiasm. I had intended to begin drinking heavily but my heart just wasn't in it. The bartender approached wearily with a half lit cigarette dangling between two red smears for lips.
"What can I get ya hunny?" she asked.
"I'll take a Shocktop with an orange. Thanks."
This was not my usual order. Infact, I slightly resented myself for ordering anything so tame as a beer, however I woke up drunk, and this afternoon was not the time to fuck with science. Liquor would make an appearance later, but first I had to let the rest of my body catch up to my rapidly worsening mental state.
She plunked the cold beer down in front of me and waddled off to attend to another middle aged customer. Fucking bitch. She forgot my orange.
This day just kept getting better and better. I woke up, stark naked in a drunken stupor with the urge to runaway. 'Do yourself a favor and shut the fuck up,' was my brain's immediate response. Instead I panicked. I glanced over at your slumbering silouette and I chose the coward's way out. Like an accused criminal I took flight. Packed a single bag full of posessions and got the fuck out of dodge, as they say.
I had no clear idea in my mind where I was going. Just going. The act of leaving was enough. I kept driving and chain smoking cigarette after cigarette in a mild state of lucidity while panic took hold like a slow moving poison. I could feel it seeping through, permeating my pores. How to make sense of it all? After some time I found myself in a familiar neighborhood. I knew this place. There was a bar over there, just around the corner. A real shithole of an establishment. The kind of dump that was so easily forgettable that it was in the midst of a profound identity crisis. Shithole bar by day, country honkytonk by night. It was located next door to a laundromat. We used to come here sometimes and do loads of clothes. Bicker over who's turn it was to put in the whites. Then go next door and catch a buzz. Comment on all the sad, lonely, phantoms who hung about thicker than than the stagnant cigarette smoke in the air. My luck had finally turned. It was just after two in the afternoon.
So here I was. When I left I had been gripped with an unspeakable feeling of cold. I awoke shivering in the dark. Gasping out, laboured breath, my skin slick with persperiation. Now I finally shook that wicked sleep from my eyes and took stock of my surroundings. The other decaying patrons were dressed in soiled wife beaters and flip flops. I was wearing a hoodie and a cat hat made of felt to stave off the cold. Jesus. It must have been close to 90 degrees outside.
I looked down at my beer and took a sip. 'Okay. Force your brain to work, you moron. You can do this,' I thought removing my hoodie.
A strange figure stood in the corner continuously pushing buttons on the jukebox. He seemed to be acting more out of reflex than any conscious deciscion making process. I watched him, sipping my beer, for close to five minutes. Just swaying back and forth, tapping the flashing screen like some esoteric starship captain hoping to hit warp drive. All the while the jukebox remained eerily silent. This unnatural quiet seemed to disturb noone but me.
I swallowed another swig of beer and took a moral inventory of the bar. Elderly alcoholic sipping vodka. Check. Blonde dyke with thick rimmed glasses slumped over an amstel light. Check. Old degenerate in a cowboy hat eyeing me strangely over a glass of whiskey. Double check.
"Hey Suzy," the cowboy called to the bartender. "Buy the kitty a shot on me. Look's like she could use it."
Suzy sauntered over and looked at me expectantly. "Well? What do ya want?"
"Oh," I said, coming to the realization that he was talking about me.
"I don't know. I guess I'll stick with beer for now if that's alright with him."
"Sure thing. It's your party hunny," she deadpaned.
I chugged the rest of my beer faster than advisable and slid over to an empty barstool by my new friend.
"Thanks. I think I'm going to need this," I said.
"No problem. You was lookin' like a stray cat just got run over by it's owner sittin' all the way over there by your lonesome like that." He tugged on my cat ear affectionately.
"No... Well I guess you could say that. I don't know really," I mutterred. Then abruptly, "Why does everything good in life go to shit, man?"
The Cowboy let out a good natured laugh and took another swig of whiskey.
"Depends on what you mean by shit, kitty cat."
I mulled it over for a few seconds. "Shit. Like, honest to god shit. Why can't anything just be OK for more than two seconds before giving up and imploding in on itself?"
The beer had reignited the vodka from last night and my brain began to feel heavy. His voice was low and measured, and when he spoke each word was given equal weight so that the combined effect was that of a father reading his child's favorite bedtime story.
"Everything goes to shit eventually. You're too young to really get that yet, but just wait. The longer ya stick around ya come to find out that ya gotta take the good with the bad. Sometimes ya think you're ridin' high and nuthin can touch ya, and BAM life'll come around and kick your sorry ass right back down again." He paused contemplatively. "Ain't life just a bitch sometimes?"
"No shit." I agreed.
I decided that if I was going to sulk in a bar I might as well sulk with someone else.
"Ever been in love?" I asked genuinely curious.
He offered me a cigarette and I obliged. Great. Marlboro Reds. These fucking cowboy killers were only ever effective against people who weren't actually cowboys.
"Sure," he said sucking the smoke through his yellowed teeth. "But then again, ain't everybody?"
I nodded.
"Somethin' tells me what you're really asking is have I ever had my heart broken?"
"Okay. Have you ever had your heart broken?" I echoed.
"Course I have," he said. "But bear in mind I've also broken a few hearts along the way." he laughed. It was a slow sort of refrain and before I knew it I had joined in. The sound of us two sad fucks chuckling in that near empty bar made me queasy. I felt like an accesory after the fact.
The dejected lesbian across the bar suddenly sat up and sneered at us through hazy frames. "Fuckers," she muttered and took another gulp of beer before slumping down again.
"Well... Which was worse?" I asked.
He let out a snort and two thick plumes of smoke bellowed from his nostrils. For one grotesque moment his face seemed to morph into that of a weathered Chinese dragon.
"Which do ya think? Gettin' my heart broke. Always is," he said.
"But why?" I pressed.
"Why the hell do ya think? Breakin' hearts is easy. Maybe the most natural thing there is in this world. Ya get close to someone. They want somethin' from ya but ya can't give it to 'em so ya leave. Shit. Been doin that with people my whole life. Reckon we all have. It's when ya finally meet someone that's s'posed to be different, when ya finally say 'Fuck it. I'm all in,' and they up and bail. That's the real fuckin' kick in the balls."
The ease of his narrative astounded me. He compartmentalized life into neatly labeled boxes. Matter of fact like. Black and white. And I, just an endless smear of grey across the bar. I didn't know what to say. He was right. But I didn't want him to be. I took another swig and continued this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion.
"But why? Isn't it the same?" I asked. "I mean objectively speaking hurting someone is just as bad as them hurting you. Shouldn't it all feel equally as shitty?"
"There's lots of things don't make sense in this world, kitty cat. Love's one of 'em," he said.
He seemed to reflect on this for a moment and we caught eyes. His face was creased like hastily contructed origami. A wilting swan. Folded over on itself until the creases were the only things left to notice. Forget the constuction beneath. The pale blue of his eyes were clouded with a kind of singular regret. Some kind of alcoholic wisdom or sun damage for all I knew. He leaned close so I could smell the whiskey on his breath.
"Ya want that shot now?" he asked, eyes twinkling.
I nodded sympathetically. Sure. Fuck it. Let's commiserate. He ordered two whiskeys neat and we slammed them back without so much as a cheers. The potion was vile, as whiskey always is, and it burned a hot trail all the way from my throat to my groin. I had decided to take the leap.
"I'm running away and I don't think I can go back." I confessed.
"Sure ya can. Ya can always go back so long as there's still somethin' left to go back to." He held his empty whiskey glass up to the light and turned it back and forth between two calloused fingers. "Whatever's got you so torn up inside that you're sittin at a dark bar on a sunny day with the likes of me must be somethin' worth fightin' for," he concluded.
"It is," I implored. "It is, and yet I think I am about to make the stupidest deciscion of my entire life." My head felt fuzzy and when I glanced down I detected a slight tremor in my right hand. The half lit cigarette felt clumsy and wrong. I watched the neon ember zig zag through the darkness. How to explain? "Ever turn the corner on a busy street and suddenly realize that you're utterly lost and have no fucking clue how to get back to where you started? I think i just made a wrong turn and now I'm fucked. Totally and unequivaclly fucked."
"That depends on how fast ya turned the corner and what you're leavin behind," he replied.
"I want to escape him. I wan't to escape myself. I love him and I wish he would leave. I don't know what to do." I felt forced, under an obscense and invisible pressure. A doomed defendent taking the stand for his own pitiful defence.
"Did he fuck around on ya?"
"No."
"Did he beat ya?"
"No."
"He got a job?"
"Sometimes."
"You ever caught him in a lie?"
"Only the minor variety."
"He a good man?"
"Yes."
"Well," he said solemnly proclaming his verdict, "Sounds like a good fella. Maybe it's you's the one with the screw loose."
"Fuck, that's what I was afraid of." I was quiet. Sad even.
Suddenly he began to talk in that low soothing voice of his.
"I had a girl once. She was a real knock out. Long blonde hair and 'bout the bluest eyes I ever seen. Man, and that laugh. It was like music, I shit you not. Sometimes she'd get to laughing so hard she gave herself a belly ache! She'd make me rub it till it felt better. Loved her since the first second I laid eyes on her. Used to drink whiskey some nights and read her stories. Cowboys and indians. That kind of shit. She liked to lay there, quiet at night. Real peaceful like. We was together five wonderful years. Rebecca was her name. Never really wanted to love her. Was kind of just one of those things you fall into. Once she stepped into my life I was fucked. Couldn't live with her, or without her. Finally started to accept that maybe lovin somethin' back wasn't such a bad thing after all. Unless of course they end up leavin'. That's right around the time she got sick." He flicked his ash on the bar and took a ragged breath.
"You know I used to try to make deals with god?" he laughed as if this point struck him as particularly humorous. "Imagine that. Drunk old slob like me tryin' to talk to some big man up in the sky and shit," He looked up at the ceiling and pressed his palms together in a mock prayer. "Pleadin my case and such," he shook his head. :What a crock of shit. But at the time I had so much love left to give her ya gotta understand." He put on a effected whiny high pitched tone, "'Please god. Please. I know I ain't nuthin but a dumb inbred sack o' shit. Please. Just let her live another year.' Honest to god. That's the line 'o shit I'd ask him. Then it started bein, 'Please just gimme another month.' Towards the end I'd ask for days, hours, minutes even."
He swigged the remainer of his whiskey and sparked another cigarette.
"But ya know, everyday same old story. Just kept gettin' worse. I knew she wasn't long for this earth so I stayed by her side every second I wasn't workin'. Fucking hospitals. Smell like death and feel worse then prison. Used to get pissed off at the doctors, the nurses, the whole lot of 'em. It was just too ugly a place for her to die, ya know? Someone so young and beautiful has no business diein' in a place like that. Bunch of sick old people coughin' and wheezin'. And her covered in all them wires and tubes. Makes me sick to even think about it," he spat reflexively on the floor of the bar. "But she did. Die that is. Yeah. And it was just the two of us there. Poor thing was too weak to even hold my hand. Just laid there like some kinda used to be spook. Used to be Rebecca. Used to be full of kisses. Used to be my little girl."
He paused and I inhaled sharply through my nose. My nostrils felt too small, like someone had sucked all of the air from the room.
"She was your daughter?" I asked.
"Yeah. Well you asked if I ever had my heart broken. She's the one who broke it. Not the kind of breakin' you meant huh? S'pose not... s'pose not. But I reckon it don't really matter who's doin' the breakin' cause after it's broke it hurts all the god damn same." He seemed to be looking through a hazy glass at something very far away. "What I mean to say is she's gone now for good. I ain't got nothin' left to go back to. Look around you kitty cat," he made a sweeping gesture across the bar, "most of these sad folk ain't got nothin' left to go home to either. Least you gotta choice in the matter. Seems to me that that makes you one leg up on us already, if ya catch my drift," he said.
And I did. He was poetry in motion. He was understanding and form and function to my wandering abyss. I felt better for having known him.
"Say, you want another shot?" he asked with a playful wink.
And I did. We continued in much the same fashion until late afternoon.
By the end of it I felt as though I was in stupor. One moment we were laughing, taking shots, and the next I turned to ask him for a cigarette and the cowboy was gone. I stumbled outside into the stark daylight, eyes half shut waiting for some kind of absolution. I spread my arms wide and looked up into the wild blush red sky. "Well?" I said, my voice soaked with accusation. "Well..?" I repeated.
No answer came. I stood there dumbfounded. I was stumbling to my car. There I slept. Who knows how long. Hours? Days? When I awoke and it was night. The faint sound of country music permeated the air.
I wandered back into the bar and found Suzy hunched over, rinsing out a dirty pint glass.
"Hey," I said brushing a wisp of sweaty hair beneath my cat hat, "Do you remember me? I was sitting with that cowboy. Yesterday I think. I didn't catch his name. We were drinking beer and whiskeys."
"Who Johnny?" she snorted. "That old drunk? Yeah, you was with him," she said.
"Have you seen him tonight?" I asked.
"No and I hope I don't. He ain't nothin' but a loney old SOB and a shitty tipper at that. Always tellin' his same old stories," she put down the still dirty pint and gestured at me with the soiled rag. "Billy said he once told him he was a gunner in Vietnam. Said he got his leg clean blown off," she snorted. "Seems to be walkin' just fine to me."
The conviction in her voice had me reeling. "What are you saying?"
"Just that he's full of stories. Same as the rest of 'em. Listen, you want a drink?"
"You don't understand. He told me something. He had a daughter and she got sick. Her name was Rebecca. She died," I said.
"Rebecca? Only Rebecca I know is sittin' right over there," she pointed at a used up looking woman with thick glasses in the darkened corner. The one I had orignally pegged as a lesbian. She was still sitting on the same stool. Slumped over a glass of beer, gently humming to herself.
I swallowed hard.
"Yeah they come in here together from time to time," she said. "Drink beer and sometimes whiskey. She takes what she can get, you know what i mean? Usually they're alright but sometimes they get to fightin' and I have to kick em out. Happens bout once or twice a week."
I nodded dumbly.
"Thanks Suzy," I mumbled. "I'll take a gin and tonic. Double." I motioned towards the slumped over mass that was Rebecca, "and freshen her drink, would you? Whatever she's having tonight is on me."
"You sure you wanna do that hunny? That one can run up a hell of a tab. Pretty sure she's got a death wish or somethin'."
"What are we savages?" I asked. "Pour the lady a goddamn drink."
I turned to the the old drunk beside me. "Got an extra cowboy killer?" He did.
The rest of that night was pure blackness.
"What can I get ya hunny?" she asked.
"I'll take a Shocktop with an orange. Thanks."
This was not my usual order. Infact, I slightly resented myself for ordering anything so tame as a beer, however I woke up drunk, and this afternoon was not the time to fuck with science. Liquor would make an appearance later, but first I had to let the rest of my body catch up to my rapidly worsening mental state.
She plunked the cold beer down in front of me and waddled off to attend to another middle aged customer. Fucking bitch. She forgot my orange.
This day just kept getting better and better. I woke up, stark naked in a drunken stupor with the urge to runaway. 'Do yourself a favor and shut the fuck up,' was my brain's immediate response. Instead I panicked. I glanced over at your slumbering silouette and I chose the coward's way out. Like an accused criminal I took flight. Packed a single bag full of posessions and got the fuck out of dodge, as they say.
I had no clear idea in my mind where I was going. Just going. The act of leaving was enough. I kept driving and chain smoking cigarette after cigarette in a mild state of lucidity while panic took hold like a slow moving poison. I could feel it seeping through, permeating my pores. How to make sense of it all? After some time I found myself in a familiar neighborhood. I knew this place. There was a bar over there, just around the corner. A real shithole of an establishment. The kind of dump that was so easily forgettable that it was in the midst of a profound identity crisis. Shithole bar by day, country honkytonk by night. It was located next door to a laundromat. We used to come here sometimes and do loads of clothes. Bicker over who's turn it was to put in the whites. Then go next door and catch a buzz. Comment on all the sad, lonely, phantoms who hung about thicker than than the stagnant cigarette smoke in the air. My luck had finally turned. It was just after two in the afternoon.
So here I was. When I left I had been gripped with an unspeakable feeling of cold. I awoke shivering in the dark. Gasping out, laboured breath, my skin slick with persperiation. Now I finally shook that wicked sleep from my eyes and took stock of my surroundings. The other decaying patrons were dressed in soiled wife beaters and flip flops. I was wearing a hoodie and a cat hat made of felt to stave off the cold. Jesus. It must have been close to 90 degrees outside.
I looked down at my beer and took a sip. 'Okay. Force your brain to work, you moron. You can do this,' I thought removing my hoodie.
A strange figure stood in the corner continuously pushing buttons on the jukebox. He seemed to be acting more out of reflex than any conscious deciscion making process. I watched him, sipping my beer, for close to five minutes. Just swaying back and forth, tapping the flashing screen like some esoteric starship captain hoping to hit warp drive. All the while the jukebox remained eerily silent. This unnatural quiet seemed to disturb noone but me.
I swallowed another swig of beer and took a moral inventory of the bar. Elderly alcoholic sipping vodka. Check. Blonde dyke with thick rimmed glasses slumped over an amstel light. Check. Old degenerate in a cowboy hat eyeing me strangely over a glass of whiskey. Double check.
"Hey Suzy," the cowboy called to the bartender. "Buy the kitty a shot on me. Look's like she could use it."
Suzy sauntered over and looked at me expectantly. "Well? What do ya want?"
"Oh," I said, coming to the realization that he was talking about me.
"I don't know. I guess I'll stick with beer for now if that's alright with him."
"Sure thing. It's your party hunny," she deadpaned.
I chugged the rest of my beer faster than advisable and slid over to an empty barstool by my new friend.
"Thanks. I think I'm going to need this," I said.
"No problem. You was lookin' like a stray cat just got run over by it's owner sittin' all the way over there by your lonesome like that." He tugged on my cat ear affectionately.
"No... Well I guess you could say that. I don't know really," I mutterred. Then abruptly, "Why does everything good in life go to shit, man?"
The Cowboy let out a good natured laugh and took another swig of whiskey.
"Depends on what you mean by shit, kitty cat."
I mulled it over for a few seconds. "Shit. Like, honest to god shit. Why can't anything just be OK for more than two seconds before giving up and imploding in on itself?"
The beer had reignited the vodka from last night and my brain began to feel heavy. His voice was low and measured, and when he spoke each word was given equal weight so that the combined effect was that of a father reading his child's favorite bedtime story.
"Everything goes to shit eventually. You're too young to really get that yet, but just wait. The longer ya stick around ya come to find out that ya gotta take the good with the bad. Sometimes ya think you're ridin' high and nuthin can touch ya, and BAM life'll come around and kick your sorry ass right back down again." He paused contemplatively. "Ain't life just a bitch sometimes?"
"No shit." I agreed.
I decided that if I was going to sulk in a bar I might as well sulk with someone else.
"Ever been in love?" I asked genuinely curious.
He offered me a cigarette and I obliged. Great. Marlboro Reds. These fucking cowboy killers were only ever effective against people who weren't actually cowboys.
"Sure," he said sucking the smoke through his yellowed teeth. "But then again, ain't everybody?"
I nodded.
"Somethin' tells me what you're really asking is have I ever had my heart broken?"
"Okay. Have you ever had your heart broken?" I echoed.
"Course I have," he said. "But bear in mind I've also broken a few hearts along the way." he laughed. It was a slow sort of refrain and before I knew it I had joined in. The sound of us two sad fucks chuckling in that near empty bar made me queasy. I felt like an accesory after the fact.
The dejected lesbian across the bar suddenly sat up and sneered at us through hazy frames. "Fuckers," she muttered and took another gulp of beer before slumping down again.
"Well... Which was worse?" I asked.
He let out a snort and two thick plumes of smoke bellowed from his nostrils. For one grotesque moment his face seemed to morph into that of a weathered Chinese dragon.
"Which do ya think? Gettin' my heart broke. Always is," he said.
"But why?" I pressed.
"Why the hell do ya think? Breakin' hearts is easy. Maybe the most natural thing there is in this world. Ya get close to someone. They want somethin' from ya but ya can't give it to 'em so ya leave. Shit. Been doin that with people my whole life. Reckon we all have. It's when ya finally meet someone that's s'posed to be different, when ya finally say 'Fuck it. I'm all in,' and they up and bail. That's the real fuckin' kick in the balls."
The ease of his narrative astounded me. He compartmentalized life into neatly labeled boxes. Matter of fact like. Black and white. And I, just an endless smear of grey across the bar. I didn't know what to say. He was right. But I didn't want him to be. I took another swig and continued this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion.
"But why? Isn't it the same?" I asked. "I mean objectively speaking hurting someone is just as bad as them hurting you. Shouldn't it all feel equally as shitty?"
"There's lots of things don't make sense in this world, kitty cat. Love's one of 'em," he said.
He seemed to reflect on this for a moment and we caught eyes. His face was creased like hastily contructed origami. A wilting swan. Folded over on itself until the creases were the only things left to notice. Forget the constuction beneath. The pale blue of his eyes were clouded with a kind of singular regret. Some kind of alcoholic wisdom or sun damage for all I knew. He leaned close so I could smell the whiskey on his breath.
"Ya want that shot now?" he asked, eyes twinkling.
I nodded sympathetically. Sure. Fuck it. Let's commiserate. He ordered two whiskeys neat and we slammed them back without so much as a cheers. The potion was vile, as whiskey always is, and it burned a hot trail all the way from my throat to my groin. I had decided to take the leap.
"I'm running away and I don't think I can go back." I confessed.
"Sure ya can. Ya can always go back so long as there's still somethin' left to go back to." He held his empty whiskey glass up to the light and turned it back and forth between two calloused fingers. "Whatever's got you so torn up inside that you're sittin at a dark bar on a sunny day with the likes of me must be somethin' worth fightin' for," he concluded.
"It is," I implored. "It is, and yet I think I am about to make the stupidest deciscion of my entire life." My head felt fuzzy and when I glanced down I detected a slight tremor in my right hand. The half lit cigarette felt clumsy and wrong. I watched the neon ember zig zag through the darkness. How to explain? "Ever turn the corner on a busy street and suddenly realize that you're utterly lost and have no fucking clue how to get back to where you started? I think i just made a wrong turn and now I'm fucked. Totally and unequivaclly fucked."
"That depends on how fast ya turned the corner and what you're leavin behind," he replied.
"I want to escape him. I wan't to escape myself. I love him and I wish he would leave. I don't know what to do." I felt forced, under an obscense and invisible pressure. A doomed defendent taking the stand for his own pitiful defence.
"Did he fuck around on ya?"
"No."
"Did he beat ya?"
"No."
"He got a job?"
"Sometimes."
"You ever caught him in a lie?"
"Only the minor variety."
"He a good man?"
"Yes."
"Well," he said solemnly proclaming his verdict, "Sounds like a good fella. Maybe it's you's the one with the screw loose."
"Fuck, that's what I was afraid of." I was quiet. Sad even.
Suddenly he began to talk in that low soothing voice of his.
"I had a girl once. She was a real knock out. Long blonde hair and 'bout the bluest eyes I ever seen. Man, and that laugh. It was like music, I shit you not. Sometimes she'd get to laughing so hard she gave herself a belly ache! She'd make me rub it till it felt better. Loved her since the first second I laid eyes on her. Used to drink whiskey some nights and read her stories. Cowboys and indians. That kind of shit. She liked to lay there, quiet at night. Real peaceful like. We was together five wonderful years. Rebecca was her name. Never really wanted to love her. Was kind of just one of those things you fall into. Once she stepped into my life I was fucked. Couldn't live with her, or without her. Finally started to accept that maybe lovin somethin' back wasn't such a bad thing after all. Unless of course they end up leavin'. That's right around the time she got sick." He flicked his ash on the bar and took a ragged breath.
"You know I used to try to make deals with god?" he laughed as if this point struck him as particularly humorous. "Imagine that. Drunk old slob like me tryin' to talk to some big man up in the sky and shit," He looked up at the ceiling and pressed his palms together in a mock prayer. "Pleadin my case and such," he shook his head. :What a crock of shit. But at the time I had so much love left to give her ya gotta understand." He put on a effected whiny high pitched tone, "'Please god. Please. I know I ain't nuthin but a dumb inbred sack o' shit. Please. Just let her live another year.' Honest to god. That's the line 'o shit I'd ask him. Then it started bein, 'Please just gimme another month.' Towards the end I'd ask for days, hours, minutes even."
He swigged the remainer of his whiskey and sparked another cigarette.
"But ya know, everyday same old story. Just kept gettin' worse. I knew she wasn't long for this earth so I stayed by her side every second I wasn't workin'. Fucking hospitals. Smell like death and feel worse then prison. Used to get pissed off at the doctors, the nurses, the whole lot of 'em. It was just too ugly a place for her to die, ya know? Someone so young and beautiful has no business diein' in a place like that. Bunch of sick old people coughin' and wheezin'. And her covered in all them wires and tubes. Makes me sick to even think about it," he spat reflexively on the floor of the bar. "But she did. Die that is. Yeah. And it was just the two of us there. Poor thing was too weak to even hold my hand. Just laid there like some kinda used to be spook. Used to be Rebecca. Used to be full of kisses. Used to be my little girl."
He paused and I inhaled sharply through my nose. My nostrils felt too small, like someone had sucked all of the air from the room.
"She was your daughter?" I asked.
"Yeah. Well you asked if I ever had my heart broken. She's the one who broke it. Not the kind of breakin' you meant huh? S'pose not... s'pose not. But I reckon it don't really matter who's doin' the breakin' cause after it's broke it hurts all the god damn same." He seemed to be looking through a hazy glass at something very far away. "What I mean to say is she's gone now for good. I ain't got nothin' left to go back to. Look around you kitty cat," he made a sweeping gesture across the bar, "most of these sad folk ain't got nothin' left to go home to either. Least you gotta choice in the matter. Seems to me that that makes you one leg up on us already, if ya catch my drift," he said.
And I did. He was poetry in motion. He was understanding and form and function to my wandering abyss. I felt better for having known him.
"Say, you want another shot?" he asked with a playful wink.
And I did. We continued in much the same fashion until late afternoon.
By the end of it I felt as though I was in stupor. One moment we were laughing, taking shots, and the next I turned to ask him for a cigarette and the cowboy was gone. I stumbled outside into the stark daylight, eyes half shut waiting for some kind of absolution. I spread my arms wide and looked up into the wild blush red sky. "Well?" I said, my voice soaked with accusation. "Well..?" I repeated.
No answer came. I stood there dumbfounded. I was stumbling to my car. There I slept. Who knows how long. Hours? Days? When I awoke and it was night. The faint sound of country music permeated the air.
I wandered back into the bar and found Suzy hunched over, rinsing out a dirty pint glass.
"Hey," I said brushing a wisp of sweaty hair beneath my cat hat, "Do you remember me? I was sitting with that cowboy. Yesterday I think. I didn't catch his name. We were drinking beer and whiskeys."
"Who Johnny?" she snorted. "That old drunk? Yeah, you was with him," she said.
"Have you seen him tonight?" I asked.
"No and I hope I don't. He ain't nothin' but a loney old SOB and a shitty tipper at that. Always tellin' his same old stories," she put down the still dirty pint and gestured at me with the soiled rag. "Billy said he once told him he was a gunner in Vietnam. Said he got his leg clean blown off," she snorted. "Seems to be walkin' just fine to me."
The conviction in her voice had me reeling. "What are you saying?"
"Just that he's full of stories. Same as the rest of 'em. Listen, you want a drink?"
"You don't understand. He told me something. He had a daughter and she got sick. Her name was Rebecca. She died," I said.
"Rebecca? Only Rebecca I know is sittin' right over there," she pointed at a used up looking woman with thick glasses in the darkened corner. The one I had orignally pegged as a lesbian. She was still sitting on the same stool. Slumped over a glass of beer, gently humming to herself.
I swallowed hard.
"Yeah they come in here together from time to time," she said. "Drink beer and sometimes whiskey. She takes what she can get, you know what i mean? Usually they're alright but sometimes they get to fightin' and I have to kick em out. Happens bout once or twice a week."
I nodded dumbly.
"Thanks Suzy," I mumbled. "I'll take a gin and tonic. Double." I motioned towards the slumped over mass that was Rebecca, "and freshen her drink, would you? Whatever she's having tonight is on me."
"You sure you wanna do that hunny? That one can run up a hell of a tab. Pretty sure she's got a death wish or somethin'."
"What are we savages?" I asked. "Pour the lady a goddamn drink."
I turned to the the old drunk beside me. "Got an extra cowboy killer?" He did.
The rest of that night was pure blackness.