***"I will not be silenced," he raised his voice to the pitch of small auditorium speech delivery. Lizabeth glared for long seconds before thinking better of it and instead turning her focus and her body toward cleaning the taps and brass spill trays. He crumbled a little and slouched once again to rest his elbows on the bar top, his hand gently sliding his mug a half inch this way, then a half inch that way. "It wasn't nice was it?"
"I don't know why you do this to yourself, Dave. Don was nice. I thought he was nice. He dressed nice. You two always laugh a lot."
"Here. We laugh a lot here," he corrected her, his eyes momentarily losing focus as he brought the mug to his face a little sharper than he intended, then dropped it back down having succeeded only in smacking his teeth with the hard rim. "Fuck."***
"God damn it," Dave Berry groaned under his breath, resettling his brown leather bomber jacket with a few quick shrugs and a few quick tugs on the chest pockets. The insignia of his dad's squadron fell off back when it was still his mom's jacket. She missed it, he knew, but he had not cared when he took it and did not care now. "God fucking damn it," he rumbled on, slipping a probing finger between his sore cheek and now pink tinted teeth as he moved like a three wheeled car with a stuck parking brake toward the bar.
Satisfied that Donald's fist had not torn up the inside of his left cheek too bad he managed to park himself on the weathered red vinyl before the bank of poorly lit liqueurs and blank beer taps, missing his former perch by only one seat. "Owie," he made an effort at a smile. It came off better than he knew. The bartender, Lizabeth, slid down the length of the largely empty bar and sat her welcoming, round and rosy, face on her cupped hands, letting her elbows rest against the pocked and butt burned bar top inches from Daves.
"Dave, that was not nice," she smiled, her upturned unpainted lips taking on a pout of deep personal disappointment, but her brown eyes smiling all the while from just underneath her short black bangs.
"You're telling me. Punches hard for a fag," he reached his arm down along the bar to his previous location and retrieved his beer mug. "You know why I like this place?" He shot a quick glance to the right and noticed Donald's 3/4s empty mug gathering dust. He scooped it up too. "You know what I really like about this place?" He made a brief attempt to drink from both mugs, gripped in the same hand, at the same time then thought better of it and put them both down. "That was almost a disaster,but what I like about this place is people like that, you know?"
Lizabeth quickly slipped cardboard cigarette ad coasters underneath both, tossed out the two damp coasters, and slid a clean ashtray in front of Dave. "What are you talking about Dave? People like Donald? I thought you and Don were, uhm. You know," she pulled a red pack of long cigarettes out of her tiny back pocket. Dave wished it was his hand fishing around back there, but the thought was fleeting as soap suds in a dive bar bathroom. He realized she was not just pulling them out to smoke. With her small, almost pudgy hand she was moving a single cigarette in and out of the pack.
"Oh like a penis. Right?"
"Dave, you are ridiculous right now. Yes, like a penis. Its called tact. You should try it."
"Actually I think thats called pantomiming," he raised his hand, palm up, in the posture of what he could remember play writes to look like in his text books. "Pantomiming is practically interchangeable with acting, right? Miming?" He dropped his hand back to the bar top.
"Actually I think thats called polishing Gods left nut," she laughed, denting his pride, and rolled one of the orange ended cigarettes across the uneven bar top to rest at his planted elbow. He did not notice. He did not mind her subtle and less subtle barbs at all. She was the one who told him about his ego problem in the first place. "Dave, you got something over here," she scratched her lip lightly before lighting up. Dave tongued his lip and recieved the pungent, metallic taste of more dented pride that swept across his mouth until everything tasted like failure. But he had a sure cure for that taste. In two easy swoops he downed what was left of his mug and the beer and backwash in Donalds.
"And thats called 'I'll have another, thanks for asking.'" Lizabeth rolled her eyes and let her cigarette rest in his ashtray. He helped himself to it while she turned around to grab a clean mug. Another bar sitter's cell phone rang. The man, hunched over his ashtray since Dave saw him when he first came in, seemed all at once to come alive. "Must be his pre-pube girlfriend," he mumbled louder than he meant to in the sullen, but animated man's direction.
"Dave, no. Look how old he is. It's probably his wife, and will you quiet down please?" She dropped a fresh coaster and mug before snatching away the empty ones.
"I will not be silenced," he raised his voice to the pitch of small auditorium speech delivery. Lizabeth glared for long seconds before thinking better of it and instead turning her focus and her body toward cleaning the taps and brass spill trays. He crumbled a little and slouched once again to rest his elbows on the bar top, his hand gently sliding his mug a half inch this way, then a half inch that way. "It wasn't nice was it?"
"I don't know why you do this to yourself, Dave. Don was nice. I thought he was nice. He dressed nice. You two always laugh a lot."
"Here. We laugh a lot here," he corrected her, his eyes momentarily losing focus as he brought the mug to his face a little sharper than he intended, then dropped it back down having succeeded only in smacking his teeth with the hard rim. "Fuck."
"What happened outside?" Lizabeth pulled closer to the bar to station herself once again like a Cardinal beside a Tabby that was far too exhausted to give chase to anything faster than a patch of afternoon sunlight. "What happened in the alley? You can tell me. I'm your Beth and your my regular." Farther down the bar a conversation ended. Dave could feel the abruptness of the ending, could almost hear the man's crisply pressed shirt wrinkling as he sagged back down to his elbows, hovering over the pool of his probably urine warm beer.
In the alley, Donald socked him one that he would not easily forget for another hour or, perhaps, a double stiff shot. Dave cheated on him. Three times in as many weeks. Donald had no idea, so he told him what he did. He got away scott free and then went straight to the police commissioner and confessed everything in details that would make a rape counselor blush. It was supposed to be the thing that cemented them. He went out there and looked and did not find anything better than Don and now he was back to stay as long Don wanted him to. "Why couldn't he get that? Why couldn't he understand. I mean, I was just trying to show him that I could be just as honest and nice as him." By most of his friend's accounts Don was 'the man'. He wasn't filthy rich, but he lived well and if anyone had a problem with him it almost always turned out they were the problem in his life, not the other way around. He moved through every day with an ease that made ballet look like football. Dave was not weepy, or teary, or even quavering. He was in the one place he almost never visited. He was at a loss.
"Dave," she knew what he alluded to. His Wednesday bar visits, when not made with Don, usually ended around 1.30 am with him confiding in her whether she was up for his tangled, freshly exposed, often soggy confessions or not. She knew she was his patron saint and over the years she decided that she did not like it, but that she was okay with it. "Dave, look at me. You told him about..." she trailed off as he nodded vigorously. "And..." his nodding continued. "And even..." he concluded with a single weary nod. Yes. "Why, man? He didn't need to know any of that."
"I know."
"You didn't have to say anything. At all," she bit off the last two words with more than a little disappointment.
"I know."
Lizabeth raised up for a quick glance to make sure the few bar sitters were all still nursing their little pots of gold, before leaning back in. Usually she only leaned this close to tighten up a drunk's frame of vision when she really needed to get through to them and get them to focus on her, but now she was close simply for intimacy's sake. "Why do you keep punishing yourself?" She picked her cigarette from the ashtray and slipped it between his ashen lips, "why, Dave? I've known you for how many years and every year its something else." He peered hard into his glass to avoid the frankness in her eyes. "Are you going to promise me you'll take care of that when you get home?" she poked his cheek lightly. It was beginning to swell.
"Yeah, of course."
"Dave, this isn't a 24/7 party. You can't be that guy who jumps out of the second floor window and misses the mattresses in the backyard every year. I swear to fucking god, every time you even think you're getting comfortable or happy you pull some ridiculous garbage and ruin everything for yourself and everyone else."
Dave tongued Don's backwash a moment more. It covered the taste of blood better than he expected it too. "Yeah. Bad habits right?" He shifted himself to point his sneakers toward the front door and his back toward Lizabeth and the bar.
"Are you going to at least promise you'll make it this Saturday?" she didn't need to see his face to know he was probably confused. "Wednesday isn't the only day I work, remember? I've told you like 40 times now. Come by Saturday. I'll be on the other side of the bar Saturday night, but if you don't want to talk to me unless there's a wall between us, I'll be serving in the afternoon." He shrugged. He honestly did not know what he was doing Saturday. "I swear sometimes, Dave, you are hopeless. Here," she yanked his jacket arm backward over the bar and shoved the pack of long smokes into the crook of his elbow.
"Thank you?" he turned the red pack over in his hands as he let himself slide off the stool.
"Come drink with the rest of the world, okay? And buy me a couple drinks, too! I'll top off your tab tonight." Her voice trailed off as he shuffled outside into the damp night air. It was beginning to drizzle.
"God damn it," he groaned, rubbing his cheek. It really was getting sore. He flipped open the red box top. Written in the quick licks of a black grease pencil were ten digits. With a few short jerks he tightened the bomber jacket round his shoulders and threw up the big brass zipper fob. He focused with new determination on putting one foot in front of the other. "No more stunts." He shoved his hands in his pockets, a cigarette enjoying a firm grasp between his lips. "Maybe this time," he mumbled to himself, "maybe this time we'll just focus on enjoying it, okay?" The walk was long and quiet at 1.45 in the morning, but he did not care. There was only one thing, it dawned on him as he neared home, that was of particular importance. He needed to find out what his plans were for Saturday.
"I don't know why you do this to yourself, Dave. Don was nice. I thought he was nice. He dressed nice. You two always laugh a lot."
"Here. We laugh a lot here," he corrected her, his eyes momentarily losing focus as he brought the mug to his face a little sharper than he intended, then dropped it back down having succeeded only in smacking his teeth with the hard rim. "Fuck."***
"God damn it," Dave Berry groaned under his breath, resettling his brown leather bomber jacket with a few quick shrugs and a few quick tugs on the chest pockets. The insignia of his dad's squadron fell off back when it was still his mom's jacket. She missed it, he knew, but he had not cared when he took it and did not care now. "God fucking damn it," he rumbled on, slipping a probing finger between his sore cheek and now pink tinted teeth as he moved like a three wheeled car with a stuck parking brake toward the bar.
Satisfied that Donald's fist had not torn up the inside of his left cheek too bad he managed to park himself on the weathered red vinyl before the bank of poorly lit liqueurs and blank beer taps, missing his former perch by only one seat. "Owie," he made an effort at a smile. It came off better than he knew. The bartender, Lizabeth, slid down the length of the largely empty bar and sat her welcoming, round and rosy, face on her cupped hands, letting her elbows rest against the pocked and butt burned bar top inches from Daves.
"Dave, that was not nice," she smiled, her upturned unpainted lips taking on a pout of deep personal disappointment, but her brown eyes smiling all the while from just underneath her short black bangs.
"You're telling me. Punches hard for a fag," he reached his arm down along the bar to his previous location and retrieved his beer mug. "You know why I like this place?" He shot a quick glance to the right and noticed Donald's 3/4s empty mug gathering dust. He scooped it up too. "You know what I really like about this place?" He made a brief attempt to drink from both mugs, gripped in the same hand, at the same time then thought better of it and put them both down. "That was almost a disaster,but what I like about this place is people like that, you know?"
Lizabeth quickly slipped cardboard cigarette ad coasters underneath both, tossed out the two damp coasters, and slid a clean ashtray in front of Dave. "What are you talking about Dave? People like Donald? I thought you and Don were, uhm. You know," she pulled a red pack of long cigarettes out of her tiny back pocket. Dave wished it was his hand fishing around back there, but the thought was fleeting as soap suds in a dive bar bathroom. He realized she was not just pulling them out to smoke. With her small, almost pudgy hand she was moving a single cigarette in and out of the pack.
"Oh like a penis. Right?"
"Dave, you are ridiculous right now. Yes, like a penis. Its called tact. You should try it."
"Actually I think thats called pantomiming," he raised his hand, palm up, in the posture of what he could remember play writes to look like in his text books. "Pantomiming is practically interchangeable with acting, right? Miming?" He dropped his hand back to the bar top.
"Actually I think thats called polishing Gods left nut," she laughed, denting his pride, and rolled one of the orange ended cigarettes across the uneven bar top to rest at his planted elbow. He did not notice. He did not mind her subtle and less subtle barbs at all. She was the one who told him about his ego problem in the first place. "Dave, you got something over here," she scratched her lip lightly before lighting up. Dave tongued his lip and recieved the pungent, metallic taste of more dented pride that swept across his mouth until everything tasted like failure. But he had a sure cure for that taste. In two easy swoops he downed what was left of his mug and the beer and backwash in Donalds.
"And thats called 'I'll have another, thanks for asking.'" Lizabeth rolled her eyes and let her cigarette rest in his ashtray. He helped himself to it while she turned around to grab a clean mug. Another bar sitter's cell phone rang. The man, hunched over his ashtray since Dave saw him when he first came in, seemed all at once to come alive. "Must be his pre-pube girlfriend," he mumbled louder than he meant to in the sullen, but animated man's direction.
"Dave, no. Look how old he is. It's probably his wife, and will you quiet down please?" She dropped a fresh coaster and mug before snatching away the empty ones.
"I will not be silenced," he raised his voice to the pitch of small auditorium speech delivery. Lizabeth glared for long seconds before thinking better of it and instead turning her focus and her body toward cleaning the taps and brass spill trays. He crumbled a little and slouched once again to rest his elbows on the bar top, his hand gently sliding his mug a half inch this way, then a half inch that way. "It wasn't nice was it?"
"I don't know why you do this to yourself, Dave. Don was nice. I thought he was nice. He dressed nice. You two always laugh a lot."
"Here. We laugh a lot here," he corrected her, his eyes momentarily losing focus as he brought the mug to his face a little sharper than he intended, then dropped it back down having succeeded only in smacking his teeth with the hard rim. "Fuck."
"What happened outside?" Lizabeth pulled closer to the bar to station herself once again like a Cardinal beside a Tabby that was far too exhausted to give chase to anything faster than a patch of afternoon sunlight. "What happened in the alley? You can tell me. I'm your Beth and your my regular." Farther down the bar a conversation ended. Dave could feel the abruptness of the ending, could almost hear the man's crisply pressed shirt wrinkling as he sagged back down to his elbows, hovering over the pool of his probably urine warm beer.
In the alley, Donald socked him one that he would not easily forget for another hour or, perhaps, a double stiff shot. Dave cheated on him. Three times in as many weeks. Donald had no idea, so he told him what he did. He got away scott free and then went straight to the police commissioner and confessed everything in details that would make a rape counselor blush. It was supposed to be the thing that cemented them. He went out there and looked and did not find anything better than Don and now he was back to stay as long Don wanted him to. "Why couldn't he get that? Why couldn't he understand. I mean, I was just trying to show him that I could be just as honest and nice as him." By most of his friend's accounts Don was 'the man'. He wasn't filthy rich, but he lived well and if anyone had a problem with him it almost always turned out they were the problem in his life, not the other way around. He moved through every day with an ease that made ballet look like football. Dave was not weepy, or teary, or even quavering. He was in the one place he almost never visited. He was at a loss.
"Dave," she knew what he alluded to. His Wednesday bar visits, when not made with Don, usually ended around 1.30 am with him confiding in her whether she was up for his tangled, freshly exposed, often soggy confessions or not. She knew she was his patron saint and over the years she decided that she did not like it, but that she was okay with it. "Dave, look at me. You told him about..." she trailed off as he nodded vigorously. "And..." his nodding continued. "And even..." he concluded with a single weary nod. Yes. "Why, man? He didn't need to know any of that."
"I know."
"You didn't have to say anything. At all," she bit off the last two words with more than a little disappointment.
"I know."
Lizabeth raised up for a quick glance to make sure the few bar sitters were all still nursing their little pots of gold, before leaning back in. Usually she only leaned this close to tighten up a drunk's frame of vision when she really needed to get through to them and get them to focus on her, but now she was close simply for intimacy's sake. "Why do you keep punishing yourself?" She picked her cigarette from the ashtray and slipped it between his ashen lips, "why, Dave? I've known you for how many years and every year its something else." He peered hard into his glass to avoid the frankness in her eyes. "Are you going to promise me you'll take care of that when you get home?" she poked his cheek lightly. It was beginning to swell.
"Yeah, of course."
"Dave, this isn't a 24/7 party. You can't be that guy who jumps out of the second floor window and misses the mattresses in the backyard every year. I swear to fucking god, every time you even think you're getting comfortable or happy you pull some ridiculous garbage and ruin everything for yourself and everyone else."
Dave tongued Don's backwash a moment more. It covered the taste of blood better than he expected it too. "Yeah. Bad habits right?" He shifted himself to point his sneakers toward the front door and his back toward Lizabeth and the bar.
"Are you going to at least promise you'll make it this Saturday?" she didn't need to see his face to know he was probably confused. "Wednesday isn't the only day I work, remember? I've told you like 40 times now. Come by Saturday. I'll be on the other side of the bar Saturday night, but if you don't want to talk to me unless there's a wall between us, I'll be serving in the afternoon." He shrugged. He honestly did not know what he was doing Saturday. "I swear sometimes, Dave, you are hopeless. Here," she yanked his jacket arm backward over the bar and shoved the pack of long smokes into the crook of his elbow.
"Thank you?" he turned the red pack over in his hands as he let himself slide off the stool.
"Come drink with the rest of the world, okay? And buy me a couple drinks, too! I'll top off your tab tonight." Her voice trailed off as he shuffled outside into the damp night air. It was beginning to drizzle.
"God damn it," he groaned, rubbing his cheek. It really was getting sore. He flipped open the red box top. Written in the quick licks of a black grease pencil were ten digits. With a few short jerks he tightened the bomber jacket round his shoulders and threw up the big brass zipper fob. He focused with new determination on putting one foot in front of the other. "No more stunts." He shoved his hands in his pockets, a cigarette enjoying a firm grasp between his lips. "Maybe this time," he mumbled to himself, "maybe this time we'll just focus on enjoying it, okay?" The walk was long and quiet at 1.45 in the morning, but he did not care. There was only one thing, it dawned on him as he neared home, that was of particular importance. He needed to find out what his plans were for Saturday.
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