He should never have
walked through those doors.
He knew better.
Knew better than to
let the rusty smell of whiskey tempt him. It’d been one year four months and
who gives a fuck how many days. Rules are meant to be broken, eh?
The look that slip of
a girl had shot his way (or had he imagined it?) at the rest stop was enough to
set him off. Weak. He hadn’t sold shit in days anyhow. Fuck it. The gaping maw
of drunk awaited him; jaw slack, tongue throbbing, nose twitching.
“Whiskey, two ice
cubes.”
He leveled the last
of these words at the bartender like a threat.
Larry Lynch, you
sad-sack shit of a man. Drink your fill, vomit your guts, keep on laughing. No
one hears, except for the grave, which sports the biggest smile of all – a
broad grin that could swallow the whole world.
A woman walked in,
like an echo of the rest-stop girl. Except quite a bit older, perhaps even
older than him. She sauntered in like she owned the damn place, like she owned
every damn place. Shut up, you idiot, he chided himself, you have no business
even being here. The woman walked around the right-angled bar, exaggerating her
movements almost theatrically. Who’s she trying to impress, Larry thought, it’s
just me, the bartender and that schlub in the corner. The sun was still beating
the blacktop and unless you were some kinda do-nothing hippie, it sure as hell
wasn’t party time yet. But this woman -- with her finely-coiffed medium-length
blonde ‘do, and her hip-hugging high-waisted white slacks, which revealed a
sculpted torso culminating in generous breasts -- was acting like she was
Lauren fuckin’ Bacall, and where’s my Bogart? her pursed lips seemed to be on
the verge of asking, hell, more like demanding. Well, I’m taller than that dead
fuck, toots, is what Larry wanted to not so much as say, but throw at her --
right at her pretty little head.
Larry made a vague
motion towards one of the beer taps and the bored-looking bartender, so used to
this scene as to be hopelessly mundane, poured the cheap suds and shuffled over
to where Larry half-sat at the bar, one leg up and one leg firmly on the
ground, as if he was ready to sprint out of there at a moment’s notice. Mr.
Bartender delicately dropped the pint glass right next to Larry’s now-empty
whiskey. All it took was Larry making eye contact for the bartender to
blindly reach behind him, snag the whiskey bottle, and swing it around in an
arc, coming to rest directly above Larry’s rocks glass. The bartender looked
Larry directly in the eyes as he turned the bottle upside down and expertly
poured the brown liquid. Just as Larry was about to demand two
more ice, the bartender’s other hand seemed to appear out of nowhere with
a small, stainless steel scoop sporting two square cubes. He slid the cubes
into the glass without so much as a fleck of whiskey escaping over the lip of
the glass. Larry picked up the glass, took a long sip of the rich, smoky
poison, quickly followed by a desperate guzzle of the beer, draining half in
one swallow.
A full bladder equals
an occupied mind, as his father used to say. He lifted himself off the stool,
wobbling slightly, legs still weak from the ass-numbing ride of the past few
hours. He practically stumbled away from the bar and the bartender shot him a
warning look. After all, it was only quarter after three in the afternoon, he
wasn’t quite lubed up enough to deal with some shit-heel drunk who came
floating in on a cloud of fumes. But Larry quickly righted himself and made his
way to the restroom in the back, snaking his way through a cluttered maze of
mismatched tables and chairs.
In the bathroom, Larry kept inching into the urinal, the tip of his dick
touching cold linoleum at a steady rhythm; the only steady thing about Larry as
his pants slipped down his weak-kneed chicken legs and his worn-out buster
browns slipped on the dirt-tiled floor, his soles squeaking in his own piss.
It took him a few
minutes to recover any sense of his surroundings. Oh yeah, here I am again,
trapped myself in a bar. Bet the sun is still out there pounding the concrete.
Fucker is merciless. Might as well stay in here and beat the heat, Larry
thought.
“What’s the harm,
hell it’s good for my skin,” Larry said out loud, to no one. Then he realized
he was talking to his own reflection. At first, he hadn’t even recognized the
unkempt vagabond staring back at him. It had been days since he’d shaved; and
last time he shaved he had to use one side of a pair of old scissors, digging
at the stubble in his chin as if he were foraging for root vegetables, or
digging mines out of an old warzone. It hadn’t gone well, especially as
hungover as Larry had been, as Larry was,
in that moment. Both moments. Every moment. At this thought, he felt the vertigo hit him
again and he swayed in place, like an inflatable wind dancer. Those inhuman
advertisements that reminded us all how small and earthbound we truly are.
Larry felt inhuman. Just then the portly schlub came barreling into the cramped
bathroom, shocking Larry out of his fog and nudging him towards the sink. Larry
reached out, suddenly desperate, and managed to secure the lip of the sink in
his clutching hands. He steadied himself as the man pulled up at the lone
urinal like a horse to water.
“Sorry, chief, gotta
drain this weasel something fierce, boy I tell you!”
Back at the bar,
Larry’s head swiveled around like a broken-necked doll, unsteady on his
badly-shaven throat. He felt like a forgotten toy at the bottom of a child’s
closet. For how long would he remain neglected? Perhaps not as long as he
thought, as the bartender decided to take pity and poured him a double, this
time catching his eyes with a slightly sympathetic look. We’ve all been there,
he seemed to say. Larry raised his glass in salute and the man said, “No
problem, bud, this one’s on me.”
Larry asked for
another beer on top of his full rocks glass (he somehow forgot to ask for ice
and the man had not offered). As the delicious warmth began to spread over his
body – is this what heroin addicts feel like? Larry thought – he managed to
take a little more control over his upper spine and found himself gazing
fixedly at the lone woman. She was sitting catty-corner from him and she
matched his stare, her face betraying no emotion whatsoever. Not so much as
dismissive, but impassive. Stone-faced. Larry imagined her elegant features
supplanting one of those fuckers at Mount Rushmore, might even class that
craggy rock up a bit. She was certainly making this shitty bar more inviting by
the minute.
“I like the way you
look at me,” she said. “Like a problem you are trying to parse.”
A dim recollection of
grade school pushed its way to the front of Larry’s brain.
“Don’t you ‘parse’
sentences?”
“Oh I am a sentence,
baby. Some would say ‘life,’ some would say ‘death.’ I say let the chips fall
where they may.”
“Easy to say, hard to
follow through.”
“Oh sugar, don’t make
it too easy for me now, would you? It’s still early yet.”
Larry waved this
comment away with a floppy hand, accidentally rapping his knuckles hard on the
bar counter. Somewhere, nerves screamed in pain, but they failed to penetrate
the spreading warmth.
“Leave that poor, old
bar alone,” the woman mock-scolded him. “What’s it ever done to you?”
“Plenty. More than
plenty. It’s done it all, and then some, and then one more time for good
measure.”
“Yet here you are,
sucked back in.”
“Goddamn black hole.”
“We’ve all got holes,
honey, just depends on if you want to turn the light on or not,” she smiled.
And all Larry could think was, There, that smile, that’s my light. Turn me on,
baby. Hit that switch.
Instead, Larry
grunted a response, in an attempt to show that he was above it all.
The woman wasn’t
fooled. “Come on, stranger, come closer. Let’s co…..mmiserate.”
Larry let the comment
float in the air for an extra beat. Then, feigning reluctance, he gradually
lifted his sore ass off his stool and slow-walked down the bar, trying his best
to appear as nonchalant as possible. But secretly, desperately, his heart was
taking a drum solo and he felt something like electricity shooting through his
veins. Aha, now this is what junkies
feel.
Larry led with his whiskey, placing the rocks glass close to her cocktail, and parking himself next to her.
“You got a name,
sugar?”
“Larry.”
“That’s a strong
name, Larry. Larry of Arabia,” she giggled to herself. “Desert warrior. I’m
Annabelle, pleased to make your acquaintance, sir. Are you coming in from a
long journey through sandstorms and the like?”
“Something like that.
I sell, I travel. It feels like war sometimes.”
“And what do you
sell, Sir Larry?”
“Vacuum cleaners,
cleaning products, peace of mind.”
“Do they still do
that? I had no idea.”
“I still do it. It’s
all I know. My brother got me into it fresh outta high school, and I guess I’m
just too dumb or too stubborn to figure out how to do anything else.”
“I think it’s
charming.”
“Feh, don’t bullshit
me, Annabelle. It’s the pits and you should be laughing at me. God knows I do.
Sometimes I turn off the AM and just laugh myself silly.”
“Oh Larry, that’s
sad. Please don’t do that.”
“Looks like your
drink’s empty. What’s your poison?”
“Today, I’m feeling
tropical. I can almost smell that Caribbean air, the salt and the sand and the
sun.”
“Going on a trip?”
“Perhaps.”
“Hey buddy,” Larry
jerked his chin at the bartender. “Can the lady get a pina colada?
The bartender rolled
his eyes and began to prepare the cocktail. The entire time, he shook his head
imperceptibly, not knowing whether to laugh or be annoyed at this putz.
Larry was oblivious,
trying to appear in charge, in control – to not let on that his head was
swimming and his thoughts were growing more primitive by the second. He took a
sip of whiskey, figuring that would level him out.
Annabelle smacked at
her lips, the sound drawing Larry’s eyes to her mouth, and in that instant, he
felt like he could disappear into her mouth, that between those lips and those
pretty white teeth, he could dwell forever, safe from harm, content in that
moist cave. It had been too long since Larry had been with a woman, and this
broad was a step-up from the usual floozies he took to second-run movies and
then dingy bars to patiently wait for them to get drunk enough to fuck him.
Now, he was the drunk one, and it felt good, and she was going to be his, he
could just feel it.
The bartender frisbee’d
a cocktail napkin onto the bar-top and placed the garish drink in front of
Annabelle. A miniature umbrella poked out of the comically large glass. Larry
raised his own drink, “Here’s to you, toots.”
Annabelle clinked his
glass and took a long sip from the double-strawed cocktail.
“Thanks, hon. I’ve
got to visit the little girls’ room and make a quick phone call. I’ll be back
in two shakes, don’t you go anywhere,” she winked at him.
Larry just nodded
dumbly. He watched her as she navigated the furniture maze with grace, plump
derriere moving in slow motion. As she closed the bathroom door behind her, he
turned his head and noticed the corner schlub licking his lips and giving him a
curious look. Then the schlub raised his glass as a sort of salute, or perhaps
it was a congratulations. Truth be told, Larry was just as surprised as he was.
But the whiskey provided bravado, so he gave the guy a pitying look and
half-raised his glass in acknowledgment. Sucker, he thought as he turned back
around.
As the minutes ticked
by, Larry seemed to be frozen in time. He felt like a relic from another age. A
traveling salesman. A drunk. A failure. Goddamn, was he sick of all this
self-pity. He just needed one good night. One night to feel the caress of a
woman, to feel alive again. He deserved that much, didn’t he? Look at all these
bastards running the world, starting wars in unpronounceable countries,
shitting on the common man. They should be strung up and beaten to death. Give
‘em the ol’ Mussolini headkick.
Larry glanced over to
the dimly lit hallway in the back, which housed the cigarette machine and some
novelty toy-grabbing doohickey. He saw Annabelle on the payphone, laughing at
someone’s words, sure as hell not his. He felt a pang of jealousy, but eased it
with a long pull on his whiskey. While she yammered on, probably with some girlfriend
or perhaps a family member, Larry ordered another beer. It had been awhile
since Larry had drank, but he hadn’t forgotten that he preferred to have a chaser
for the brown stuff. Double-fist. A real man.
Annabelle sashayed
back to her stool and seemed even perkier than before. She wriggled her perfectly-round
ass on the stool, finding her comfort zone. She looked as at home as a lioness
on the plains of Africa. There was something slightly exotic about her; not the
way she looked necessarily -- although she was a fine specimen no doubt – but
in the way her eyes played over Larry’s face, seeming to read all the hurt and
bullshit he had been through. If she could see it, maybe she could heal it. Or
at least soothe it. This wild beast needs soothing, Larry thought. Before I go
extinct.
“Now, where were we?”
Annabelle said, tracing the outline of her glass with her forefinger.
Larry snapped himself
out his hypnotic trance. “I think you mentioned going somewhere more private,”
he gambled. Fuck it, she wants it.
“Oh, did I?”
Annabelle chuckled, tossing her head back slightly, revealing her long, pale
neck. Larry longed to kiss and bite at that fleshy column.
“Yep. And gentleman
that I am, I suggested my car. It’s parked right outside and it’s a Lincoln, so
there’s plenty of room.”
Annabelle looked
amused. “You brave and dirty man. You are asking for a world of hurt,” she
teased, as her hand seemed to drop accidentally onto his knee and slowly moved
up his thigh, stopping just as it was entering the no-fly zone, so to speak.
Something stirred deep in Larry. A voice way back in the cheap seats of his
brain wondered what he had done to stumble upon such luck. Well, a million
drunks drinking in a million bars, someone’s gotta get laid eventually…
“It’s like that
monkey typewriter thing,” he said out loud.
“What’s that, hon?”
“Nothin’. Wanna get
out of here?”
“Not quite yet, I
still have my drink to finish! you impatient scoundrel,” she squeezed his thigh
good-naturedly. “Don’t forget, it’s still early yet. This bar is dark, but
outside, well, there’s a whole wide world, bright and shiny as a new penny.”
“Whatever you say,
babe,” Larry said as he slipped his hand behind her and placed it on the small
of her back. She didn’t flinch. He needed to possess her. Larry forgot about
everything else in his life; it was all a joke anyway, all that seemed to
matter was making this flirty broad his, if only for a few hours. Sometimes
that’s all a man needs to recharge his batteries. Larry was running low, but he
could feel the electricity radiating off of Annabelle. The current ran up his
arm and juiced his brain.
Just then, the front
door swung open and daylight burst into the dark bar. Everyone jumped slightly,
except Annabelle, who continued to smile her enigmatic grin. Even the bartender
had appeared to be lost in some sort of reverie, perhaps recalling a time when
he didn’t spend his afternoons in this shit-hole.
Once Larry’s eyes
adjusted to the burst of light, and the door swung shut, he saw a tall,
dusk-skinned man stride in purposefully. A few steps in and he took stock of
the bar and its patrons. He gave the schlub in the corner a perfunctory glance
and the man nodded his head. He shot the bartender a look and the bartender
seemed to shrug, almost invisibly. Or perhaps Larry imagined it. The room was
teetering and he was having trouble staying on his stool. Finally, the man
fixed his gaze towards the couple at the bar. He lingered momentarily on
Annabelle’s visage, but he fixed his gaze right on Larry. Larry felt like lab
rat, or a zoo animal. He didn’t appreciate the attention. He only wanted
attention from one of these people and this big fella sure as shit wasn’t the
one.
To Larry’s surprise,
Annabelle waved at the man and motioned for him to walk around the bar. With
his gaze still locked on Larry, he cleared the corner, came up on the other
side of Annabelle, and planted a kiss on her cheek, which she offered
willingly. Larry’s heart hit the floor and the back of his neck tingled.
“Larry, this is
Ramon. Ramon, meet Larry. He sells vacuum cleaners. He’s a real sucker!”
Annabelle erupted in hysterical laughter at this last sentence, cackling like
some idiot hyena.
“Pleased to meet you,
Larry,” Ramon said with the trace of an accent, “Now get your fucking hand off
my girl.”
Larry realized that
his left hand was still perched on the small of Annabelle’s back. He almost
drew it back, but then the whiskey re-asserted itself and Larry thought, This
is it. This is my moment. I can get it all back, here, now, in this bar. My
self-respect is within reach. Fuckin’ grab it, Larry!
“Sorry, bud, I don’t
think so. Me and the lady were having a nice conversation, and we ain’t
finished with it yet. Ain’t that right, darlin’?”
Annabelle just looked
straight ahead with that smile playing on her lips.
“Oh, I don’t know,
Larry, I was just thinking how my flight was soon. That trip, remember? To the
tropics? Well, here he is.”
As Larry’s
whiskey-soaked brain tried to piece together what was exactly happening, Ramon
grabbed his wrist in a tight grip and flung it off of Annabelle’s back. That
seemed to spark the adrenaline Larry needed and he immediately stood up,
knocking his stool over. The beast was loose.
“Touch me again, and you take a trip to the hospital.”
“Oooooo,” Annabelle
cooed, her smile widening.
Ramon, a good six
inches taller than Larry, stepped forward and pushed him hard in the chest.
Larry went flying backwards into a mass of tables and chairs. He hit his head,
but barely felt it. He was barely feeling anything. The schlub jumped up and
Larry could have sworn he saw him rub his hands together. Larry looked at the
bartender, and once again, he shrugged so faintly, Larry couldn’t tell if it
was just a weird tic he had. Guess I’m on my own, he thought, as he made his
way to stand up. He felt like he was moving through molasses. The room was
still spinning, but it had slowed down enough for him to focus on Ramon. He was
a big motherfucker, that was for sure. But Larry grew up with two older
brothers, and they were merciless in their youth. He suffered beatings on a
daily basis until he was big enough to swing back.
Larry took a step
forward, and so did Ramon. They were almost in each other’s radius. The bigger
they are, Larry thought, as he rushed at Ramon. He threw a punch at the man’s chin,
but ended up hitting him in the arm -- like he was kidding, like this was all
just a joke. Ramon pushed him hard again, but Larry came back for another try.
This time, Ramon blocked the punch, covered Larry’s face with his hand and
threw him back onto the floor.
The schlub was
roaring with laughter, “You swing like a rusty hinge!”
Larry had picked a
fight with the wrong man, but it was too late to back down. He charged at Ramon
with all of the desperate strength he could muster. Ramon side-stepped Larry’s
clumsy attack and grabbed him by the collar of his cheap suit. There was a
split-second where everything in the room stopped moving, the scene became as
tranquil as a deserted street during first snow -- pure calm and peace reigned.
“A rusty hinge!”
Ramon pulled Larry
towards him and everything went red as Ramon’s fist detonated on Larry’s nose,
blood and cartilage flying everywhere. His only satisfaction was seeing a few
flecks land on Annabelle’s white slacks as Larry hit the floor for the third time
in less than a minute. This time, he wasn’t getting up. He was beat. The beast
was dead.
The couple towered
over his prostrate body, his muscles limp and defeated.
All Larry could
manage was a squeak.
"Why?"
“Just needed
something to kill the time, sugar.”
They walked out into
the heat and light and Larry just lay there.
He wasn’t going
anywhere.
