fic: You're Not Gonna Die Like Elvis
(note: i think this is the last one with the random cameos, altho this time the cameos actually get names and dialogue and stuff to do, so they're probably supporting characters more than just cameos.)
It's a quiet Tuesday at the bar, so quiet that Lidia has gone home and left Quince by himself. She'll be back before last call so he won't have to close up alone, but until then he's in charge.
There are people sitting in some of the booths and at a couple of tables. A man and a woman anchor one end of the bar, taking turns scribbling in a notebook and discussing something exciting, to judge by the way the woman grabs the pen out of the man's hand and starts covering the notebook page with diagrams. Every so often Quince slides down the bar and pretends to wipe it down in a no doubt completely transparent attempt to see what they're doing. Jack is sitting at the other end with a ginger ale, drawing in his Moleskine. Quince doesn't have to pretend to do something else in order to see whatever's on the page. He can just lean over and look. And in between them is a pretty Indian girl, a regular, who asked Quince to make her a greyhound and then had to remind him what that is. She comes in from time to time, has a drink, reads her book, and goes home after an hour. Their conversation is always limited to her ordering something and him asking what she's reading - tonight it's Stephen King, The Stand - but there's something about her that he likes.
When Quince sidles down to Jack's end of the bar, Jack shows him what he's been drawing, and it looks suspiciously like the girl with the greyhound. In the background is a very sketchy representation of two more people, probably the couple with the exciting diagrams.
"Nice," Quince says.
"Did you put something in my ginger ale?" Jack asks suspiciously.
"Splash of Southern Comfort."
"Why?"
"I thought you'd like it. Do you? I wasn't sure if it was enough to taste."
Before Jack can answer, a tall brunette girl comes up to the bar, practically leans over Jack's shoulder to get Quince's attention, and says "There's someone in your bathroom and I have to pee."
"You could let them finish," Quince suggests.
"He locked himself in. He's been in there for half an hour. My friend is trying to talk him out but he keeps saying he's gonna die like Elvis. I have to pee and you probably don't want a dead guy in your bathroom. Can you get him out?"
Die like Elvis? What does that mean? Too many fried peanutbutter-and-banana sandwiches? Didn't Elvis overdose?
Lidia will kill me if someone ODs in the bathroom, Quince thinks. To the girl he says "I'll see what I can do," and to Jack he says "Stay here and watch the bar." Because this is something Jack would want to get involved in, and he's the only person Quince even remotely trusts with the liquor and the taps and the register.
"Maybe I can help," Jack says.
"No. Stay here."
Quince walks around the counter and follows the girl to the back of the bar, where the bathroom door is indeed locked and another girl, this one with short dirty-blonde hair, is apparently trying to coax Elvis out of the john.
"I got the bartender," the brunette says.
"Good," says her friend. "I'm not getting anywhere. He won't come out," she tells Quince.
"So I've been told," he says. He knocks on the bathroom door. "Hey in there," he says into it. "Are you ok?"
"I'm gonna die like Elvis," moans a male voice from the other side.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm all blocked up. I'm gonna die on the toilet. Fat and bloated, like Elvis."
"No, that was Jim Morrison," muses the blonde girl. "Fat and bloated and full of shit. Died in the tub. I thought Elvis was on drugs."
"So was Jim Morrison," says her friend.
"Did Elvis OD in his bathroom?" Quince asks the two of them. They shrug. "Look," he tells wannabe-Elvis, "you can't die here. My boss will kill me."
"I'm constipated, man!" the guy complains. "I gotta stay on the toilet until I go."
"But you can't stay here. Other people have to pee."
The guy just groans in what Quince can now recognize as blocked-up intestinal pain.
"Jesus," he mutters.
"Do you have a first-aid kit?" the blonde girl asks him. "Is there Ex-Lax in it?"
"Yes, no. Wait. Can one of you run out and get this guy some?" He pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and extracts a five and two singles. He hopes that’s enough. "There's a Duane Reade around the corner."
The brunette girl pulls the money out of his hand. "I'll do it," she says, heading towards the front of the bar and ideally outside.
"Hey - what's your name?" Quince calls through the bathroom door.
"Lowry," the guy says.
"Ok, Lowry, you can't monopolize the bathroom. I get that you're all... plugged up, but you're not gonna die. You're especially not gonna die like Elvis - he had other problems. There's a Duane Reade nearby and - what's your friend's name?" he asks the blonde girl.
"Thursday," she says.
"Thursday? Does that make you Wednesday?"
She rolls her eyes.
"There's a girl who really needs to pee," Quince continues through the door, "her name's Thursday, I sent her to get you some Ex-Lax. When she comes back, you're gonna take it and then you're gonna go home. You'll be fine. I promise." He turns to Thursday's friend, suddenly aware that he gave a total stranger his own money and trusted her to buy what he needs with it. "She's coming back, right?"
"She won't leave me here," the friend tells him. "We're trustworthy. Besides, I have the camper keys."
There's silence from the other side of the door. Quince thinks he can hear noise from the front of the bar, something that sounds like an argument. Probably the couple with the notebook, arguing about their diagrams and chicken-scratch notes. Right now he's more concerned with getting Lowry out of the bathroom.
"You ok in there?" he calls.
"What do you think?" Lowry calls back, sounding strained and annoyed at the same time.
"Just making sure you're not dead yet."
"I bet you think you’re funny."
"Do you mind staying here with him?" Quince asks Thursday’s friend. "I need to get back to work."
"Sure," she says. She knocks on the bathroom door and calls "Lowry? My name's Kirstin. I'm gonna keep you company until Thursday gets your Ex-Lax. Make sure you don't keel over."
Quince is about to turn and head back to the front when someone grabs his arm from behind and tells him "There's a fight, you have to come break it up".
Great. A guy who thinks he's dying, and now a fight. He really hopes it's just the couple with the notebook letting their excitement get the better of them.
It's not. Quince takes one look and knows exactly what happened - a guy who was sitting at a table before moved up to the bar to put the moves on greyhound girl, she wasn't interested, he insisted, Jack told him to back off, he got offended, he threw a punch.
And because this is how it always happens, Jack's face got in the way of his fist.
Quince is stepping in when greyhound girl slams her book closed and whacks the guy on the back of the head. It's a library hardback and Quince flinches with sympathetic pain.
The guy stumbles into Jack, who manages to shove him off. Quince stops the inevitable escalation by grabbing the guy's arm before he's completely upright.
"You're done," Quince tells him, propelling him towards the door. "You throw a punch, I throw you out."
"I was just trying to talk to her!" the guy protests. "She fucking hit me!"
"Last time I checked, 'just talking to her' didn't mean 'punch someone in the face'."
A trick he learned from Lidia - they can talk, you can talk, but don't stop walking them to the door. The guy is still protesting angrily and offensively, and his friends have left their table to join in, when Quince pushes him through the doorway.
"You can't kick us out!" one of the friends insists.
"Like hell I can't," is Quince’s answer. "When you learn to play nice and listen when girls tell you 'No', then you can come back." He shuts the door. The couple sitting at the end of the bar applauds.
"What an asshole," greyhound girl mutters. "Thank you," she says to Jack, who has pressed a wad of napkins to his nose. She finishes her drink - Quince can guess that what little is left is mostly melted ice anyway - collects her stuff, and leaves.
"My hero," Jack says in Quince’s direction. His voice is a little muffled by the napkins. He sounds sarcastic.
"Jesus, Jack," Quince says, shaking his head and pulling Jack's hand away from his face to see the damage. His nose is bleeding a little but it doesn't look broken. "You have to stop that."
"Stop what?"
"Head back."
Jack obediently tilts his head back to help stop the bleeding. Quince fishes a couple of ice cubes out of Jack's glass of ginger ale, wraps them in a clean napkin, and holds it against Jack's nose. "What did you want me to do? Let the guy harass her?"
"No, but - "
"I should've hit him first?"
"Maybe. Here." He grabs Jack's hand and guides it to the napkin-wrapped ice cubes. "Hold that." Jack pulls the napkin away and squints at it. Quince sighs and goes back behind the bar to wet another bunch of napkins and hand them across the bartop so Jack can clean himself up. (There's no point in sending him to the bathroom, since Lowry is no doubt still locked in.) At least he didn't bleed on his shirt.
"I distracted him so she could smack him with her book," Jack goes on, wiping the dribbles of blood off his face.
"I don't care. When did a bar fight ever - "
The door slams open, interrupting him, and someone cries "Relief is here!" Quince turns to see Thursday, the brunette who had to pee, waving a plastic bag that he assumes contains Lowry's Ex-Lax. He just points in the general direction of the bathroom and she practically runs through the bar.
"What was that?" Jack asks.
"The guy who locked himself in the bathroom did it because he's constipated," Quince says. Jack hands him the wad of wet, blood-streaked napkins. "Yuck."
"What if I bled on my art?" Jack muses, apparently to himself. Quince doesn't bother answering. "Nah, that's too conceptual for me."
A girl slides out of one of the booths and comes up to the bar to order a couple of beers and a whiskey sour, and as Quince is pouring the second beer, a guy flops across the bar right by the taps, extends a hand, and breathes "Thank you, man, thank you."
"Uh... you're welcome?" Quince says. "Oh, wait, you must be Lowry."
He doesn't look anything like Elvis, other than being kind of chubby. The girl who ordered the drinks is looking at him sideways. He catches her look and grins sheepishly.
"That girl - Thursday? - she got me a bottle of water so I could take the pills right there. I feel better but I think it's psychosomatic. I kinda panicked. Sorry about that."
"It's ok. It happens."
"Yeah, I'm gonna go home," Lowry says. "Thanks again." And he leaves.
"Locked himself in the bathroom," Quince explains to the girl, handing full glasses over the counter. "Six, six, and nine. That's twenty-one."
"Shit," she says, then turns and yells "Zoe! You didn't give me enough!"
A tall, skinny girl who must be Zoe comes over with more money. They pay, they tip, they take their drinks and leave.
"Can I get another ginger ale?" Jack calls. "Since you stuck your fingers in this one. Don't put anything in it this time."
"How about a nice shot of Self-Defense?" Quince suggests.
"A nice shot of what?"
"If you're gonna keep aggravating douchebags, you should at least know how to fight back when they hit you. Marna's roommate did kickboxing. Maybe she can hook you up." He fills a glass with ice and then ginger ale and slides it down to Jack.
"Kickboxing," Jack repeats. "I think I'm more a martial arts guy. I mean, can you see me kicking someone?"
"You kick me in your sleep."
"And it doesn't stop you from giving me shit." But his voice is teasing. Quince rolls his eyes.
Thursday and Kirstin come back from the bathroom and Quince waves at them to get their attention, because it looks as if they're going to waltz right by him on their way out.
"Hey, thanks," he says. "You were a big help."
"Told you we were trustworthy," Kirstin tells him, grinning in a way that might be smug if her tone wasn't so friendly.
"Oh, I have your change," Thursday says. She digs into her pocket and comes up with a dollar and some coins, which she puts on the bar. "Your bathroom's really clean for a bar bathroom. You should be proud."
"I didn't clean it," Quince says, "but thanks." Something to add when Lidia comes back and he fills her in, after "A guy locked himself in the bathroom and I had to buy him Ex-Lax to get him out" and "There was a fight and this asshole punched Jack in the face".
As the girls leave, he hears Kirstin ask "You really didn't get anything?" and Thursday answer "Maybe we have the wrong place", neither of which make any sense.
Fortunately those are the two most exciting things that happen all night. Quince wonders if they should buy some Ex-Lax or similar to put in the first-aid kit, in case someone else plans to lock themselves in the bathroom to expire from a blocked colon. Just because it happened once doesn't mean it won’t ever happen again, and even though Quince kind of likes Elvis, one is enough.
It's a quiet Tuesday at the bar, so quiet that Lidia has gone home and left Quince by himself. She'll be back before last call so he won't have to close up alone, but until then he's in charge.
There are people sitting in some of the booths and at a couple of tables. A man and a woman anchor one end of the bar, taking turns scribbling in a notebook and discussing something exciting, to judge by the way the woman grabs the pen out of the man's hand and starts covering the notebook page with diagrams. Every so often Quince slides down the bar and pretends to wipe it down in a no doubt completely transparent attempt to see what they're doing. Jack is sitting at the other end with a ginger ale, drawing in his Moleskine. Quince doesn't have to pretend to do something else in order to see whatever's on the page. He can just lean over and look. And in between them is a pretty Indian girl, a regular, who asked Quince to make her a greyhound and then had to remind him what that is. She comes in from time to time, has a drink, reads her book, and goes home after an hour. Their conversation is always limited to her ordering something and him asking what she's reading - tonight it's Stephen King, The Stand - but there's something about her that he likes.
When Quince sidles down to Jack's end of the bar, Jack shows him what he's been drawing, and it looks suspiciously like the girl with the greyhound. In the background is a very sketchy representation of two more people, probably the couple with the exciting diagrams.
"Nice," Quince says.
"Did you put something in my ginger ale?" Jack asks suspiciously.
"Splash of Southern Comfort."
"Why?"
"I thought you'd like it. Do you? I wasn't sure if it was enough to taste."
Before Jack can answer, a tall brunette girl comes up to the bar, practically leans over Jack's shoulder to get Quince's attention, and says "There's someone in your bathroom and I have to pee."
"You could let them finish," Quince suggests.
"He locked himself in. He's been in there for half an hour. My friend is trying to talk him out but he keeps saying he's gonna die like Elvis. I have to pee and you probably don't want a dead guy in your bathroom. Can you get him out?"
Die like Elvis? What does that mean? Too many fried peanutbutter-and-banana sandwiches? Didn't Elvis overdose?
Lidia will kill me if someone ODs in the bathroom, Quince thinks. To the girl he says "I'll see what I can do," and to Jack he says "Stay here and watch the bar." Because this is something Jack would want to get involved in, and he's the only person Quince even remotely trusts with the liquor and the taps and the register.
"Maybe I can help," Jack says.
"No. Stay here."
Quince walks around the counter and follows the girl to the back of the bar, where the bathroom door is indeed locked and another girl, this one with short dirty-blonde hair, is apparently trying to coax Elvis out of the john.
"I got the bartender," the brunette says.
"Good," says her friend. "I'm not getting anywhere. He won't come out," she tells Quince.
"So I've been told," he says. He knocks on the bathroom door. "Hey in there," he says into it. "Are you ok?"
"I'm gonna die like Elvis," moans a male voice from the other side.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm all blocked up. I'm gonna die on the toilet. Fat and bloated, like Elvis."
"No, that was Jim Morrison," muses the blonde girl. "Fat and bloated and full of shit. Died in the tub. I thought Elvis was on drugs."
"So was Jim Morrison," says her friend.
"Did Elvis OD in his bathroom?" Quince asks the two of them. They shrug. "Look," he tells wannabe-Elvis, "you can't die here. My boss will kill me."
"I'm constipated, man!" the guy complains. "I gotta stay on the toilet until I go."
"But you can't stay here. Other people have to pee."
The guy just groans in what Quince can now recognize as blocked-up intestinal pain.
"Jesus," he mutters.
"Do you have a first-aid kit?" the blonde girl asks him. "Is there Ex-Lax in it?"
"Yes, no. Wait. Can one of you run out and get this guy some?" He pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and extracts a five and two singles. He hopes that’s enough. "There's a Duane Reade around the corner."
The brunette girl pulls the money out of his hand. "I'll do it," she says, heading towards the front of the bar and ideally outside.
"Hey - what's your name?" Quince calls through the bathroom door.
"Lowry," the guy says.
"Ok, Lowry, you can't monopolize the bathroom. I get that you're all... plugged up, but you're not gonna die. You're especially not gonna die like Elvis - he had other problems. There's a Duane Reade nearby and - what's your friend's name?" he asks the blonde girl.
"Thursday," she says.
"Thursday? Does that make you Wednesday?"
She rolls her eyes.
"There's a girl who really needs to pee," Quince continues through the door, "her name's Thursday, I sent her to get you some Ex-Lax. When she comes back, you're gonna take it and then you're gonna go home. You'll be fine. I promise." He turns to Thursday's friend, suddenly aware that he gave a total stranger his own money and trusted her to buy what he needs with it. "She's coming back, right?"
"She won't leave me here," the friend tells him. "We're trustworthy. Besides, I have the camper keys."
There's silence from the other side of the door. Quince thinks he can hear noise from the front of the bar, something that sounds like an argument. Probably the couple with the notebook, arguing about their diagrams and chicken-scratch notes. Right now he's more concerned with getting Lowry out of the bathroom.
"You ok in there?" he calls.
"What do you think?" Lowry calls back, sounding strained and annoyed at the same time.
"Just making sure you're not dead yet."
"I bet you think you’re funny."
"Do you mind staying here with him?" Quince asks Thursday’s friend. "I need to get back to work."
"Sure," she says. She knocks on the bathroom door and calls "Lowry? My name's Kirstin. I'm gonna keep you company until Thursday gets your Ex-Lax. Make sure you don't keel over."
Quince is about to turn and head back to the front when someone grabs his arm from behind and tells him "There's a fight, you have to come break it up".
Great. A guy who thinks he's dying, and now a fight. He really hopes it's just the couple with the notebook letting their excitement get the better of them.
It's not. Quince takes one look and knows exactly what happened - a guy who was sitting at a table before moved up to the bar to put the moves on greyhound girl, she wasn't interested, he insisted, Jack told him to back off, he got offended, he threw a punch.
And because this is how it always happens, Jack's face got in the way of his fist.
Quince is stepping in when greyhound girl slams her book closed and whacks the guy on the back of the head. It's a library hardback and Quince flinches with sympathetic pain.
The guy stumbles into Jack, who manages to shove him off. Quince stops the inevitable escalation by grabbing the guy's arm before he's completely upright.
"You're done," Quince tells him, propelling him towards the door. "You throw a punch, I throw you out."
"I was just trying to talk to her!" the guy protests. "She fucking hit me!"
"Last time I checked, 'just talking to her' didn't mean 'punch someone in the face'."
A trick he learned from Lidia - they can talk, you can talk, but don't stop walking them to the door. The guy is still protesting angrily and offensively, and his friends have left their table to join in, when Quince pushes him through the doorway.
"You can't kick us out!" one of the friends insists.
"Like hell I can't," is Quince’s answer. "When you learn to play nice and listen when girls tell you 'No', then you can come back." He shuts the door. The couple sitting at the end of the bar applauds.
"What an asshole," greyhound girl mutters. "Thank you," she says to Jack, who has pressed a wad of napkins to his nose. She finishes her drink - Quince can guess that what little is left is mostly melted ice anyway - collects her stuff, and leaves.
"My hero," Jack says in Quince’s direction. His voice is a little muffled by the napkins. He sounds sarcastic.
"Jesus, Jack," Quince says, shaking his head and pulling Jack's hand away from his face to see the damage. His nose is bleeding a little but it doesn't look broken. "You have to stop that."
"Stop what?"
"Head back."
Jack obediently tilts his head back to help stop the bleeding. Quince fishes a couple of ice cubes out of Jack's glass of ginger ale, wraps them in a clean napkin, and holds it against Jack's nose. "What did you want me to do? Let the guy harass her?"
"No, but - "
"I should've hit him first?"
"Maybe. Here." He grabs Jack's hand and guides it to the napkin-wrapped ice cubes. "Hold that." Jack pulls the napkin away and squints at it. Quince sighs and goes back behind the bar to wet another bunch of napkins and hand them across the bartop so Jack can clean himself up. (There's no point in sending him to the bathroom, since Lowry is no doubt still locked in.) At least he didn't bleed on his shirt.
"I distracted him so she could smack him with her book," Jack goes on, wiping the dribbles of blood off his face.
"I don't care. When did a bar fight ever - "
The door slams open, interrupting him, and someone cries "Relief is here!" Quince turns to see Thursday, the brunette who had to pee, waving a plastic bag that he assumes contains Lowry's Ex-Lax. He just points in the general direction of the bathroom and she practically runs through the bar.
"What was that?" Jack asks.
"The guy who locked himself in the bathroom did it because he's constipated," Quince says. Jack hands him the wad of wet, blood-streaked napkins. "Yuck."
"What if I bled on my art?" Jack muses, apparently to himself. Quince doesn't bother answering. "Nah, that's too conceptual for me."
A girl slides out of one of the booths and comes up to the bar to order a couple of beers and a whiskey sour, and as Quince is pouring the second beer, a guy flops across the bar right by the taps, extends a hand, and breathes "Thank you, man, thank you."
"Uh... you're welcome?" Quince says. "Oh, wait, you must be Lowry."
He doesn't look anything like Elvis, other than being kind of chubby. The girl who ordered the drinks is looking at him sideways. He catches her look and grins sheepishly.
"That girl - Thursday? - she got me a bottle of water so I could take the pills right there. I feel better but I think it's psychosomatic. I kinda panicked. Sorry about that."
"It's ok. It happens."
"Yeah, I'm gonna go home," Lowry says. "Thanks again." And he leaves.
"Locked himself in the bathroom," Quince explains to the girl, handing full glasses over the counter. "Six, six, and nine. That's twenty-one."
"Shit," she says, then turns and yells "Zoe! You didn't give me enough!"
A tall, skinny girl who must be Zoe comes over with more money. They pay, they tip, they take their drinks and leave.
"Can I get another ginger ale?" Jack calls. "Since you stuck your fingers in this one. Don't put anything in it this time."
"How about a nice shot of Self-Defense?" Quince suggests.
"A nice shot of what?"
"If you're gonna keep aggravating douchebags, you should at least know how to fight back when they hit you. Marna's roommate did kickboxing. Maybe she can hook you up." He fills a glass with ice and then ginger ale and slides it down to Jack.
"Kickboxing," Jack repeats. "I think I'm more a martial arts guy. I mean, can you see me kicking someone?"
"You kick me in your sleep."
"And it doesn't stop you from giving me shit." But his voice is teasing. Quince rolls his eyes.
Thursday and Kirstin come back from the bathroom and Quince waves at them to get their attention, because it looks as if they're going to waltz right by him on their way out.
"Hey, thanks," he says. "You were a big help."
"Told you we were trustworthy," Kirstin tells him, grinning in a way that might be smug if her tone wasn't so friendly.
"Oh, I have your change," Thursday says. She digs into her pocket and comes up with a dollar and some coins, which she puts on the bar. "Your bathroom's really clean for a bar bathroom. You should be proud."
"I didn't clean it," Quince says, "but thanks." Something to add when Lidia comes back and he fills her in, after "A guy locked himself in the bathroom and I had to buy him Ex-Lax to get him out" and "There was a fight and this asshole punched Jack in the face".
As the girls leave, he hears Kirstin ask "You really didn't get anything?" and Thursday answer "Maybe we have the wrong place", neither of which make any sense.
Fortunately those are the two most exciting things that happen all night. Quince wonders if they should buy some Ex-Lax or similar to put in the first-aid kit, in case someone else plans to lock themselves in the bathroom to expire from a blocked colon. Just because it happened once doesn't mean it won’t ever happen again, and even though Quince kind of likes Elvis, one is enough.