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Novella, 2018
A Mix of People
About
A drunken misadventure of the heart.
Alternative title: Cabernet Sauvignon, AsomBroso Añejo, and Yayo..
Author: Ian Quee
Illustrations: Mary Ton
Art used in cover: Klee, Paul. Movement of Vaulted Chambers (1915), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Chapter navigation:
Introduction
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Author: Drinking
I wrote A Mix of People back when drinking still meant something. Saying this, I can’t help but feel a bit embarrassed, not least over sounding like a wholehearted endorsement of that sort of lifestyle, but also because of the irony - that drinking, as a connoisseur’s sport, never really appealed to me.
Back then, drinking was a purely functional way to punctuate the stop of one day and the start of the next. I was already self-conscious then, and I always try to avoid discussing the things I and my friends - invariably drinking buddies - were nursing between our hands. I treated a cocktail like a streetside draft instead of the mark of sophistication people of our age group and social standing often did. We were on a cusp of civilization. We drank like civilized people. But really, it was all swill to me. Fine things were a waste for a glutton. The activity of drinking though, was meaningful.
When one was of a particular youthfulness, passing through a narrow but energetic window of one’s life, drinking could be a very promising thing. Its promises were that of a long night, of strange sights and tantalizing touch, of surprising companionship and poignant moments of silence. The brightest colors were neon. The loudest sounds were the voice of whomever one was enamoured with. Naïveté was the precondition to wonder, and health was the shield against regret (and its cousin, the hangover). It was all an excuse for something I was too ready to do - live.
Being a work of retrospection, Mix was as much a celebration of those hormone-addled years as it was a nervous speculation about my coming adulthood. As I was writing Mix, all of this was already on the way out. Life had changed quite a bit from those wandering days. Much of the colors have drained out from nightlife. The headaches were getting worse, and the heartaches weren’t all that important anymore. I was recording an echo before it went completely stale. I was looking back and wondering, “What was in all those hundreds of glasses that I’ve guzzled over the years?” Vaguely, I recalled the artistry that went into each, or at least the showmanship that was in-demand in places where the staff swapped out the taps for an alchemical kit, and the rent was fast increasing. But I’m not all that interested in the drinks themselves.
Under these roofs, so many strangers became friends. But before long, the old clientele was shuffling out of the bar and out of each others’ lives, having had their fill of other people’s stories. My knowledge of mixology was purely secondhand, assembled post hoc to affect verisimilitude, but the core of Mix - the people and their penchant for intermingling in the most volatile ways - was really a veiled eyewitness account. When they all came together, I realized something strange. A counterintuitive truth. Common wisdom held that light revealed, and darkness concealed. Yet, in daylight, when everything was so stark, people all melted into an anonymous sea of busy-ness. When night fell, lives constricted, and people - often the same faces, often those who would live more peaceful lives had they never met - found themselves staring at each other over a flickering candle and a sweating glass.
I hesitate to credit alcohol; drinking has done much more to keep me from writing than to help me. I don’t think I would ever go back to living like that again. Youth comes but once (I saw, too, those who cling on too desperately, and it was always ugly). It’s a bittersweet feeling knowing that I might never write anything as snappy and exciting and rough as Mix (and make no mistake - this piece would definitely benefit from an editor’s involvement). I’m at once too proud of what I’ve accumulated since then, but I also feel the weight of that. My prose doesn’t dance anymore; it just talks; it hums on and on. Sometimes, I worry if I’ve changed for the worse, that I’ve lost the generous spirit of my sophomoric work. I know that it wasn’t the alcohol that made Mix what it was - drinking only makes me blabber these days. Am I honing my craft, or am I just dulling it with repeated use?
Ah, but envy with one’s self is itself an enviable state to be in. Re-reading Mix, I’m reminded of the joy that this story has brought to me and my friends. That is enough reason to do it all over again, without the heavy drinking this time. I might not endorse functional alcoholism, but I’ll happily recommend a dash of heartbreak, a note of somberness, and a helping of mania for anyone looking to love life a little bit more. And to life, I’ll raise a glass, if only occasionally.
Ian
Hanoi, 2020
Vy: Under Which Influence
A Mix of People, as collected here, was a first draft. And like many of its kind, the writing ceased when the last period was keyed in. It is a relatively fortunate fate. Most drafts never get completed at all. I’ve proofread Mix very lightly, mostly going through all the blue squiggly lines where Google’s software flags as potential grammatical or wording errors (though the software has no doubt improved since the time of writing, it is far more likely that there was no earnest attempt at polishing, to say nothing of structural editing). All of that is to say that I’ve not intervened significantly, though I should have, before uploading the text for archival purposes.
Like many sophomore work, Mix is an exercise in pastiche and praise. Reading Mix, one cannot help but notice the resemblances to Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises. One might easily recognize Gigi to be Lady Brett Ashley in Greek drag. One feels also the looming warplanes and injured soldiery to be ghostly echoes of Hemingway’s Great War. There is also that sprinkle of pessimism over one’s masculinity that goes hand-in-hand with the projection of said masculinity to be something larger and more important than life.
However, it is in the differences that we see Hemingway’s enduring salience, which can be transplanted to a different time or culture without losing much in the process. Bearing a lot of influence from Tom Wolfe’s 1975 book The Painted Word, which the author religiously read at the time of writing Mix, we see the Lost Generation-ers replaced with the sort of cultural elites that one might find in Warhol’s Factory. And still, there is the same urban ennui undergirded by large-scale violence, crumbling social roles, and protests.
But what is this setting? The Great War of 1914-1918? Or is it the America-Vietnam War of the counterculture movement? Many references in Mix serve to obscure the setting; some are anachronistic - e.g. Neil Gaiman - and others are bizarre and otherworldly - e.g. “urbs” and “plaza”. It is more productive to think of Mix as happening in a parallel but wholly different world. Even then, avoidance and retreat-into-the-interpersonal (as well as the cup) are endemic to post-industrial coping, as they are in The Sun Also Rises. Alex traces closely the footsteps of Jake, albeit without the chance to redeem himself through the sincere joy of fishing.
A Mix of People was written on a phone at a bar over the course of three months, spanning from 2017 to 2018.
Other circumstantial notes:
- Relevant music: “I Fall in Love Too Easily” - Chet Baker (Dinh kept insisting, unprompted, that Chet Baker and Chet Faker were different people); “Bésame Mucho” - Cesaria Evora; “Histoire d'un Amour” - French Latino; “If You Leave Me Now” - Chicago; “Forever & One” - Helloween; “(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight” - Cutting Crew; “Riêng Một Góc Trời” - Tuấn Ngọc version; “Hydrogen” - M.O.O.N.
- Relevant poem: "To His Lost Lover" - Simon Armitage.
- Movie watched: The Dreamers (2003).
- Books read: Dance, Dance, Dance (Haruki Murakami, 1988); The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway, 1926); The Painted Word (Tom Wolfe, 1975).
- Game played: Brigador: Up-Armored Edition (2017).
- At the time of writing Mix, the Vietnamese team was playing for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup, and there was a lot of mass joyriding (“đi bão”) out in the Hanoian streets at night. It rained a lot.
- The bookmark used for reading The Sun Also Rises was a business card for Hotel Konstantinoupolis, Corfu.
Vy
Saigon, 2024
The Author
“Ian Quee” is but a name, and like any name, it can and has been retired. However, that doesn’t mean that those same hands won’t be writing other stories in the future.
0.
Thank you for your interest, dear reader.
Really, I thank you with all of my sincerity. It is not an everyday thing that people pay me any mind, much less my stories. I would like to attribute such misfortunes to the unseemly scar running down from the top of my hairline towards the edge of my left eye. But really, what’s more likely to blame is my overly dishonest disposition and my overall unpleasant attitude. Lord knows I’ve made peace with those. Those, and the alcoholism.
There was a time where the scar didn’t dog me so much. Let’s put the pretenses aside: Back in my mid-twenties, when my post was at one swanky bar smack-dab in the middle of the old quarter, I was a fairly good-looking chap, can you believe it? Oh, but that’s just dull to hear, I bet. You want to hear about the scar. Well, since you’re paying attention anyways, here’s that story. Like most of my stories, it begins with one wintry night at that bar.
1.
Joshua Spencer came back that night with another lady by his side. Compared to his usual muse-attaché, this one had a somewhat better sense of weather-consciousness and a bit less ditz. So it looked that Spencer was doing a bit better for himself. He was wearing his blue tweed jacket (instead of his grey or brown one), meaning he must have been feeling fairly confident.
The lady was at least ten years younger than him. She had on a short white fur coat, a red-and-beige scarf, and a pastel pink wool dress that, while offering decent coverage, conveniently betrayed the fact that she was built like fucking Venus fresh from the scallop shell. Mother of pearl! I almost felt proud for her.
“Good evening Mr. Spencer,” I went over to their table and handed the couple our menus with tiny prints not meant to be read by any discerning patron. It was the usual motions, which would have been too usual if it wasn’t for the fact that my peripherals were being absolutely under the heels of his evening companion.
“And you are?” I tripped up my words. She could probably smell the humility.
“This is Beth,” he only seemed too eager. “Beth, this is Alex.”
“Nice to meet you, Alex,” Beth quickly tucked a short strand of blond hair behind her ear and shook my hand timidly. It wasn’t for a few years later that, through a friend, I learned of her last name. It was Laurent.
“So what can we get you, Beth?”
“Oh, can I get a minute?” she said, not looking at the menu and instead at the multi-colored liquor shelf (to be honest, mostly earth-tone bottles and yellow backlight).
“Sure, what about you, Mr. Spencer?” I asked. Joshua Spencer pretended to scratch his chin and adjust his horned-rimmed glasses in contemplation, knowing full well that he would order a Dry Manhattan. He liked to tell his dates that the drink reminded him of himself.
“For tonight, I’ll have a Dry Manhattan,” he was speaking more to Beth and less to me. “It reminds me of myself.”
Beth answered with a faint smile, but her eyes still surveyed the selection idly. A finger twiddled a hair that had strayed from her otherwise sleekly gelled-back short cut.
“I’d like a Hot Toddy. Brandy, please.”
“As befits January,” I answered.
I repeated their order and hurried on my way. Given how long I’ve been in this line of work, and as many decent-looking types waltzed in and out of those old oak doors, I couldn’t get used to a woman like Beth. This lack of professionalism can keep a man up at night; God knew why.
Behind the zinc bar, I did my magic as the new apprentice watched on. She only came in today, which left very little time for actual training. We made due with having her shadow me for a few days first. She was in for a show. I was careful to make sure Joshua Spencer had his choice portions: three parts whiskey (instead of two), orange instead of lime twist, a little easy on the bitters, and vermouth Rosso instead of dry. In short, he simply liked his perfection to be called “dry”.
Beth’s Hot Toddy was made with brandy as requested, conservative on honey, but otherwise unremarkable in order to produce the most honest baseline. Simply warm, spiced, and numbing. See how she did, and we would go from there. I was quite the scientist when it came to personal curiosity.
When the drinks were served, Spencer was in the middle of an impassioned lecture about the impact of modern hustle and bustle on the quality of love life. Beth agreed coyly. You know the kind, hiding while not hiding their reservations. She would rub her wrist in circles and tilt her head to one side as though avoiding direct engagement, imparting the protracted “yeeeah, buuut…”. It was a brave kind of stubbornness how Spencer chose to continue anyways.
“Thank you so much,” Beth snapped out of it at my approach.
“Thank you, Alex,” said Spencer quickly “So as I was saying, you do see how it is a modern tragedy, when we metropolitans are crammed tight yet are more distant from each other than ever, right?”
“Perhaps. I get lonely sometimes, but more likely that is because I don’t try to get out enough. Or maybe I’m just saying that because I’m ‘modern’,” answered Beth.
“Oh you’re hilarious,” Spencer chuckled and pulled me over, “do you agree with her, Alex?”
I hesitantly look to Beth for permission to speak, but she smiled and rolled her eyes away from the ordeal.
“I mean, yeah, to some,” I stammered. “Surely we can always go out and talk to a stranger, but when the choice to stay in is overwhelmingly attractive, is it really a choice anymore?”
Joshua Spencer had that way of pursing his lips in polite consideration. He turned again to Beth, “Do you feel like you have a choice?”
She smiled again, aloof avoidance.
“Thanks again, Alex,” said Spencer as he loosened his grip from my arm. I did a brief bow and made away, overhearing him continue, “Beth, dear, for what it’s worth, thank you for choosing to spend your evening with me.”
A plane droned on somewhere from up high.
The upbeat swing music swelled and drowned out the lady’s response - if there was any.
2.
I was sure that they had spent the night together because right on cue, he showed up the next night with a shit-eating grin on his face.
Now, Joshua Spencer was a man who seemed every bit square as the peg he was trying to fit into the round hole that was his occupation. At first glance, you wouldn’t even know that he was in any way the creative type. One could be forgiven if they were surprised to hear that he was a performance artist. I still don’t believe him even to this day.
With his big round glasses, wardrobe stocked with drab, dirty-looking tweed jackets, and a thinning hairline, Spencer simply screamed, “Professor Midlife”, Ph.D. in Aggressive Mediocrity. I mistrust the type. The whole thing must have been a performance for him.
Well, if it was of any consolation, he did have the typifying groupies of interchangeable art school undergraduates. He didn’t seem all that interested in any of them, though. He changed muses more often than he did his outfit, which wouldn’t be saying much, but you know what I mean.
The fellow probably rode off the aesthetics coattail of Neil Gaiman back when he wrote American Gods - same hair and a miserably long face. Gaiman came here once. Spencer came at least thrice a week. I heard he was a name, too. Spencer guest-edited for an art review that circulated among some in the plazas. He would get invited to festivals here and there, did these overblown dances with body paint. I didn’t get it.
So to my surprise, Professor Art-Hoe-Galore found it in his ironically dead heart to really give a damn about this Beth Laurent. I was glad to see said shit-eating grin. Two years of seeing him brood at the bar was getting a bit dull and sad.
Spencer elected to buy the patrons Zapopan Reposado shots (and once the patrons have gone home, a bottle of AsomBroso Añejo to enjoy with the handful of staff members). The circles had their decadent hedonism and too few better things to spend money on. Spencer’s craft was not one of subtlety, but how often could you claim drinking on the job was a good thing? Also, I mean, it was a snowy January night, and the thought of Beth Laurent was making it harder to go home late, alone, and sober. At least, I could cross out “sober”. No complaints there.
I had a good buzz on when it was past closing time. Spencer was slumped over the bar among an audience of empty shot glasses. We talked about the nature of love. Well, he did. At the far end of the bar, Chrissy, the new apprentice, was positively shuffling in place at the prospect of going home. The weather wasn’t going to get better. I rather liked the girl. She was swell alright, and I didn’t have the bile to make her wait. Plus, Spencer was getting onto a confidence streak, which irritated me to no end. The chairs needed to be put up.
“Alex, old buddy. You’ve seen me here for a while,” he said
“Yes I have.”
“What say, you and me, we open a bar? She can come also, the pretty one,” he winked over at Chrissy.
“I’m making a decent living here, Mr. Spencer,” I said.
“Oh don’t be a dolt. We’re always looking for something better.”
“Listen sir, I’ve got all the sights I need here.”
“My, aren’t you cross. You’re a good chap, but don’t be cross with me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Speaking of, Alex. I’ve been dreaming a lot.”
“January makes for good sleep, sir.”
“No, old boy, I’ve been in a dream is what I’m telling you,” he downed his whiskey too fast. A rigorous session at the toilet bowl promised. “Let me tell you, I’ve never been in love.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“Look at me and tell me if I’ve ever lied to you.”
There was no way we would finish his AsomBroso Añejo that night. I told Chrissy to go home to her dying father and that I would put up the chairs for her.
3.
February was unrelenting. The snowstorms were threatening, and the entire cohort of artists and writers preferred to take up lodgings south of the river during this harsh time of the year; it wasn’t a good time to think. That was three-quarters of our patronage, too.
I wondered why I showed up at all.
We were spending our spare time on training. By now, Chrissy had learned to not over-crush the mint for her Mojito. She was trying, but her mind wasn’t entirely there. I guess mine wasn’t either. I’ve also learned to miss the old haunters. Imagine that.
Chrissy entered through a slit between the oak doors and let in a brief gust of chill.
“Looks like I’m spending the night at the bar,” she said, and she smiled because she saw me dumping honey into Beth Laurent’s drink. I guess that I was also grinning, rather stupidly. Chrissy’s windbreaker had flakes of snow littered all over. “I thought we weren’t serving tea after ten?”
“It’s not tea.”
“Oh.”
Beth Laurent was cupping her Hot Toddy for warmth. She showed up in the middle of the storm while Chrissy went out to the gas station for a sandwich.
Beth was just as magnificent as that day a month ago when she first stepped foot into this bar. Yet another variation of the fur-coat-wool-dress one-two knockout. The only difference was that she was alone. It made for a comforting contrast.
“Anywho, I should have stayed home,” Beth repeated.
“Don’t say such nonsense. We have comforters, and you can huddle in with Chrissy to pass the night,” I said, and Chrissy flashed a bright smile from behind the bar and waved.
“So much for Valentine’s,” Beth mused.
“It’s the preferred way to spend any Valentine’s after all.”
“In loneliness?”
“In quiet contemplation.”
“What have you contemplated as of late?”
“Mostly how lonely it can get.”
“Get used to it,” said Beth.
“You’re a cheery one.”
“Why, did you have any false notion when you first saw me?”
“I hold no notion, ma’am.”
“What a terrible thing to call a lady.”
“And what would you prefer?”
“Mon Chéri is good.”
“I wouldn’t do that to Mr. Spencer.”
“Who?”
I laughed. Right there was the cinnamon stick in the lukewarm honey-water, the snowflake in my nose. I could feel myself become addicted.
“You’re not from the urbs, am I wrong?” She asked, half-serious.
“Is my farmboy quality showing so much?”
“I find it charming.”
We continued to exchange thinly veiled invitations until Chrissy finished her sandwich and joined in halfway through, at which point Beth and I limited it to small talks. The girls got along mighty fine. I brought out a skin of country wine that the bar had overstocked, never mind the inventory.
The blizzard was in full swing by one in the morning. Black under blurring white. It was quite a sight. Beth helped Chrissy stoke the brick fireplace. We fed yesterday’s newspaper as tinder. It was just another headline about the warships off the southern coasts, so we weren’t keen on keeping it around. We were sound here, lounging on the rug, reassured in blankets.
A few yawns had come to pass before Chrissy went upstairs to change. Silence hung between Beth and me. She must have hated it because she leaned over and kissed me on the lips ever so tenderly. She smelled of lavender and orchid. Then, Beth Laurent returned her gaze to the fire, leaving me in a daze. An eternity that felt too short later, Chrissy emerged with satin pyjamas that made her look even skinnier than usual. She sat down on the rug and wrapped her arms around Beth under the thick quilt comforter. The winds angrily howled outside. I poured us each another glass of wine. That night, the girls had glowed against the crackling flame.
4.
Dear reader, somewhere down the line, I had written that crying people had that weird greasy sheen to them. It was quite the improvement to Joshua Spencer’s otherwise terrible skin.
I had that sheen, too, but I wasn’t crying. The April blooms gave me a terrible case of the sniffles. I had to go to work, still, for how else was I to surround myself with drinks and beauties without spending nothing short of a damn fortune?
Such were the realities.
We all saw it coming, though. Joshua Spencer has been in a downward spiral for weeks now. He managed side features in the recent plaza fiestas and gained some notoriety at the protests, and that was as far as he got. It all went downhill from there, but that’s another story for another time.
Officially, Spencer was still Beth Laurent’s chief financier, even months after it had become clear that she had already begun looking for other sources to remortgage her commitments. Let me tell you, the horns, they reached the sky. I think the turning point was when she debuted at the Easter extravaganza, where she realized that she had it in her to do so much better. I couldn’t forget that gaudy night on the east bank. On stage, she wore a blinding mail-dress of Spencer’s own design, and her womanly charms provided the bold illustrations for her interpretation of Whitman’s. Yes, she did balk account. Talks were abuzz. Provoked, offended, inspired, jealous, and turned on, the hoity-toities clamored their debates over irresponsible drinking. It was good for our bar’s business in a secondhand succès de scandale kind of sense.
So there we were, my red nose ran, and Spencer cried on his in-all-but-name Perfect Manhattan. He was wearing a brown tweed jacket over a t-shirt today.
“Is it too late for retrospectives?” He sobbed through the words. “Is regret not too passé for me, old boy?”
For a man in his early forties, he sure fancied himself some antiquated ways of address. I wasn’t annoyed, though. Not entirely. Mostly, I just pitied him.
“I think it’s too passé for I-told-you-soes,” I lazily dried the jigger. “But I hate to get into others’ business.”
“I detest it.”
“Then I won’t say it, Mr. Spencer.”
“Oh Alex, I’ve been so miserable.”
“I can tell from your sunny disposition, sir.”
“It's rotten luck, I’m telling you. It’s getting punished for doing the right thing.”
“How could fate be so cruel, right, sir?”
“You’ve been mocking me,” he wailed through the music.
“I’m only saying what is right to me.”
“These are the urbs, Alex. It’s not whatever farm you came from.”
“Maybe not, but you don’t need to be so tight with me.”
“Maybe you need a real man to be tight with you. Look at you! Your peers are out there getting killed, and you’re just here ogling their wives.”
“Mr. Spencer, my vocation is just as honorable as any. Yours even!” I felt like tequila.
“Why, I’ve got scars when you were still sucking on your mom’s tits.”
“All scars and no wisdom. That’s years of waste.”
“And what have you got for your years, as few as those are? You think now that you handle expensive glass, suddenly all those years of wrangling cattles are just going to go away?”
“Gentlemen, stop it,” shouted Chrissy over the loudly running sink. Her tired eyes demanded.
“The gentlemen will stop when they please, won’t they?” Joshua Spencer slurred as he drank up his abominable Manhattan. It was always one too many with him.
I swallowed my pride in a phlegm and, in a forced apology, called him another drink on the house. Chrissy complied. She walked by and squeezed my hand under the bar in empathy. I squeezed back. The girl perched on the balls of her feet and reached upward for a bottle of George Dickel; through the lifted white uniform blouse, a belly-button stud teased through. My mind danced its little dance. She gave me a knowing pinch and bit her lower lips. I smiled.
Beth Laurent hasn’t been back for months now, and her absence was palpable.
5.
Spring rain came ponderously and stayed an uncomfortably long time. All the cheap plywood panelings would turn into a spongy mush if we weren't careful. The river would overflow also, which, naturally, gave us plenty of chores. And all good chores were meant to be shared.
Chrissy was working the mop, sweating through her flannel. She looked so pink that day. I brought out another bucket of fresh soap water for her. Some of it jostled and splashed on her, so she threw a wet rag at my face. We screamed and hooted. It was a pretty mess.
After some more manual labour, we went into the staff room to wash up. The rain droned on outside in harmony with our shared shower head. We changed into our uniforms and said farewells to the afternoon shift people, promising to get coffee with them one of these days.
“Alex,” Chrissy said. “When we’re done, can’t we sit somewhere else like the Tête by the river?”
“Getting tired of this place?”
“No, it’s not that. It would be nice if we had a proper date for once. It’s a thinking, talking kind of place, you know. Plus, I want to eat too, and the Tête serves these platters that I hear are decent,” she sounded dreamy.
“The Tête doesn’t serve anything decent after midnight. I can order take-in if you want food.”
“No, Alex, I want to watch the wet piers and the streetlights with you,” she pouted.
“Well, alright, if we get to close early,” I half-promised. Haunting the quays after hours was not my idea of romance, but it made Chrissy happy enough. Of course, dramatic irony took no prisoners, because we didn’t get to close early that night at all.
Beth Laurent came in an hour from closing. She had this simple black dress on that made me feel anything but simple. A new bloke came along, hand on her waist. I thought I had seen him before. Chrissy went over, menus in hand, but I stopped her and took them for myself. Morbid curiosity worked in funny ways.
“Good evening, what can I get for you?”
“Whiskey sour,” the man didn’t hesitate. He beamed through the white of his teeth, which stood out from the dark stubbles that lined a stone jawline. A scar crossed his chin. His arms were so hairy that one could even hear fur ruffling as he moved, even when the music drowned all else. Yes, I knew him. Beth rested her cheek on a hand, eyes trained on me.
“What about you, ma’am?” I asked.
“I don’t know. What about me?”
“The usual?”
“Don’t be so familiar.”
“Maybe a change would be nice tonight?” I replied.
“It’s not that different, I assure you,” she intoned.
“Have you tried our Old Fashioned, then?”
“You know I haven’t.”
“Brandy or whiskey?”
“Henny.”
“Good.”
“Have you met Jon? Jon, this is Alex,” she introduced, so we shook hands. Jon seemed lost, and his smile had turned strained. I knew him before by a different name. It was Yohann or something along those lines. Yohann Bernard, a writer of pulpy, porny, paperback potboilers. I never knew him personally, mind you. Back in the days, when he was still with Gigi Eliopoulos, she made a big show about how they were going to have their dream wedding in Corfu, right in her grandmother’s tomato garden. Then, they made a few (very public) scenes at some plaza cafés. Some priceless vases were dashed against the wallpaper of their townhouse flat. That was the last we saw of him. Gigi entered her most prolific phase, published several heart-wrenchers, debuted at the Easter extravaganza three years ago, and got married to her editor in Corfu. He got called for a tour soon after. She hasn’t been back in town ever since. She left me a handwritten letter, promising to bring back kumquat liqueur for my repertoire. I haven’t seen or talked to her since. Gigi was damn fun to dance with, but I haven’t thought about that manic nymph with the hair like black willow for a long time. Suppose I was busy thinking about Beth.
And creeping from the forgotten woodwork came Jon, reincarnated, taken on a new nom-de-plume and basking in the glory of his newly-chic date. Beth wore it chic, too, making obvious that my social duties were done. Then there was Chrissy peeking out from behind the zinc bar, impatiently.
I repeated their order and wandered off into the furious jazz. We didn’t go to either the Tête nor the quay that night.
6.
I was squatting in front of the dead fireplace, diligently scrubbing our shoes with paper napkins. The steady slicing sound of Chrissy prepping lemon slices for service provided the rhythm to my labour. When the drizzle had let up, there was not much more than mud, which had a penchant of ruining suede shoes like mine. I would occasionally look up to catch her sad, questioning eyes looking at me, and she would only smile a tired smile and look down to the cutting board. I would sigh. Chrissy seemed as much part of the bar as her having grown from the very wood and metal. How did it come to this?
We were trying to find different places during the day to go with each other, and even that was getting hard in this dead city. Well, I’m being melodramatic, of course. New places sprung up all the time, but the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Really, things didn’t change that much. Just this morning, when Chrissy and I were strolling down the cobbled alleys wrapping behind the ancient French-built opera house, we saw that a new bar had just opened and was hiring. Café Coda. Lo, it was our dear old friend, the Esteemed Joshua Spencer. The wretch really did open a bar, but that was the extent of the novelty. It was just another modern art deco-themed sinkhole. Same story, though. The bohemian tout le monde, bored and rich off of war bonds, jumping from one sinking ship to another. I heard a few of our patrols down south got sunk by subs just yesternight, and that was hardly news.
All this fighting didn’t affect me much other than the promise that the bar would be packed that night. People came to celebrate, to drown their sorrows, or to ritualize a habit. For most, tonight would be a bit of the latter two. For my part, I had my reasons to be here also (current employment notwithstanding). I was still sore about Beth Laurent, about Yohann Bernard.
It was time to stop scrubbing. Our shoes weren’t getting any cleaner. Chrissy brought over two wine glasses to get us started. We scrubbed dirt together. She talked about us getting a cat, then about the Café Coda, then about finding a job closer to her apartment, then about joining the protest.
“Alex, are you even listening?”
“Yeap,”
“Alex, can you please take me a bit more seriously?”
“Oh come on, when did I ever not?”
“Look, I don’t feel like you’re really considering what I want all that much.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Where did you get that idea?”
“I don’t know, Alex.”
“Then why did you say it?”
“Gee, maybe because I’ve seen you attentive, Alex. I’ve seen what you look like when you’re interested.”
“Oh yeah? Like when?”
“You know what I’m talking about. You know the way you look when some floozy walks up to this bar.”
I placed my wine glass back on the floor and returned to scrubbing in silence. Chrissy gulped her wine and then finished mine in a single flourish.
Of course, the shoes weren’t getting any cleaner.
7.
The hills garnished itself with blinding greenery every midsummer, this one also. Honeysuckles permeated. The air cooked. At night, cicadas climbed out from the ground and formed their choirs. We played morna in response.
The uniform clung to my skin, much to my chagrin. Dear reader, you would be forgiven for mistaking that this was the best time to work in the bar, as thirsty customers were what we had plenty of. Well, I wish to make clear that this had very little to do with me. Business was bustling as a fresh batch of eager freshmen spilled out from their respective schools. As always, I would never see a dime of it. I wasn’t doing magic anymore. Something was missing.
“Hey brother, can you get me two Margaritas?”
“Certainly.”
“Bartender, a Singapore Sling for me and a Mai Tai for her.”
“Right away.”
“Hey come on, when is my Sex on the Beach going to happen?”
“After this one, sir.”
Sure, I was neck-deep in a tropical monotone, but that got my mind off a few other things. That June, Chrissy had taken her father across the ocean so he could pass away among loved ones. I hardly kept in touch, if at all. The distance was getting quite tough.
“Bartender!”
“Yes, what can I get you?” I handed the kid in the blazer his menu, but he waved it away.
“Just make me whatever.”
I made him Rum and Coke, with very little rum and a lot of muttered curses.
I didn’t feel particularly sad. It was a freeing sense of relief, really. Chrissy and I had fought again right before she left.
I was thinking about getting away for a week to the beaches, a change of scenery, and maybe - just maybe - something or someone to touch up the soul. Perhaps I would take the boat, drop by and see Gigi Eliopoulos. Perhaps I would tell her about my run-in with Yohann Bernard. That ought to squeeze another volume of poetry out of her. Perhaps. I wasn’t even sure if her husband was around that summer. Gigi would have liked that. The poor sod was probably off contracting dysentery in Cuba, where all his lot was. Gigi’s husband, shitting blood while she trompered with Europe. These were some of the thoughts on my mind that hot evening at the bar. To be honest, most of those thoughts were that of the night in the blizzard, in front of the fireplace, and the kiss.
The sky roared with heavy bombers bound for distant seas, and the drunken students hollered and cheered. I mindlessly salted-dipped yet another margarita glass. The new apprentice looked on. I wanted to quit, cry, and jump in the river (not necessarily in that order).
8.
“You could have let me know beforehand,” I said.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Gigi screamed and laughed over the music. The night was thick with moisture.
“I could have prepared something with kumquat, especially.”
“You’re always so fucking thoughtful that it’s cheesy.”
“Oh yeah? Because I was just going to suggest a Bloody Mary.”
“Don’t,” she waved a hand at me. “My Giagia wouldn’t have liked alcohol anywhere near her damn tomatoes.”
“And yet, here you are.”
“She would have died a second time knowing how much of a bloody degenerate I turned out to be.”
“Let’s drink to that, then,” I said, sliding over to her my Jack on the rocks.
Gigi Eliopoulos made the liquor disappear. I watched her destroy herself with morbid pleasure. There was always something so wonderfully off about her. She was this tall and dark thing whose skin from neck to ankle provided the canvas for a hundred ill-advised tattoos, but they still managed to fit each other so well. I could point out yet another hundred ways Gigi Eliopoulos was imperfect: neck too long, overbite too prominent, strange scars too frequent, poetry too blunt, smoked too much, swore just as often, but it was undeniable that all heads turned wherever she walked. Yes, she was beautiful in a macro sense of things. You had to see her on the dance floor to really understand this strangest elegance. “Intoxicating” was underselling it. How about “submission to the divine”, not unlike how one might feel standing before the sculpted curves of a great cathedral. She could have anyone she wanted, man or woman. Needless to say, it flattered me greatly that I was the primary victim to her charms tonight.
Gigi promptly ordered two more Jacks for us. She downed her second drink just as quick, lit a cigarette, and invited me to dance at the Ísland. I hesitated, citing the fact that service was still on. She cited the youth of the night, and ours also. It was enticing, the way she looked at me, smirking, eyes deranged with anticipation. My god, she was back, in full form.
“What do you say, for old times’ sake?” With that, Gigi sealed the coffin of my doubts.
Small wonders.
At four in the morning, we barely made it back to the bar for my belongings. We had shoved our way through a river of protesters and a few streams of opportunistic rioters. By impulse and not ideological standings, we joined the latter. I was sure that Gigi took a molotov and threw it at a jewelry store somewhere while we were on the other side of the river. There was a great inferno and a lot of laughter. She and I were drenched in sweat and hardly ourselves; the drums and chanting still lived in our ears. I reached for some wine, but Gigi stopped me and pointed to our selection of tequila. She always knew me best. I took out Joshua Spencer’s bottle of AsomBroso Añejo that I had saved for him that January night when he still had someone. Last I heard, his bar was doing fairly decently, recruiting left and right. That should take his mind off women. It felt appropriate to drink to him.
When I measured our two shots, Gigi wrapped her arms around me and pressed herself onto my back. Somewhere in the distance, through the thick oak doors, protesters made their muffled voices heard. Gigi chuckled into the sweat of my shirt.
“When did the Ísland get so shit?” Gigi said.
“It has always been shit.”
“I remember it differently back in the days.”
“We were young.”
“Alex, what the fuck are you talking about? We’re still young.”
“Hard to tell. I don’t go out that much anymore.”
“What happened to you?”
“Modernity.”
“Oh don’t be a buzzkill. Seriously, what changed? You got a girlfriend now or something?” She hoarshed and lit a cigarette.
“Now you bother to ask?”
“Hey, you didn’t ask about my husband. Qid-pro-bloody-quo, I don’t ask about your girls. Well, until you’re a buzzkill, that is.”
“How considerate of you.”
“Question still stands. Thinking about your girlfriend, Alex?”
I stayed silent. Gigi squinted, searching me for the truth. Of course, I didn’t let slip that I had struggled to sleep last night and the night before because I was busying with troubled thoughts. I imagined confronting Beth and Chrissy, confessing to one and apologizing to the other.
“I’m not sure.”
“Wow. Lucky girl indeed,” she said flatly, breathing out a cloud of tobacco smoke.
“You don’t get to judge me. You out of all people understand how complicated things can get.”
“What thing?”
“Love.”
“There’s nothing complicated about love,” she spoke without breaking eye contact. I watched the way the luster on her face reflected the street lights outside, feeling my chest grow light. My fingers reached out and brushed a sweat-drenched lock of hair from her lips, then I took the cigarette from her lips and put it to mine. She smirked in victory, saying,
“Nothing complicated at all.”
Gazing into her eyes, then her lips, I snuffed out the cigarette butt and pulled her head in.
We kissed a long, filthy kiss. She finally broke off an eternity later and panted,
“My husband will beat the shit out of you.”
“Then he has a lot of men to go through.”
“Go to hell,” Gigi said, hand gripping the crotch of my pants, and we kissed again.
Dear reader, I neglected to mention Yohann Bernard to her for the entire night. Next morning, on the carpet in front of the fireplace, I neglected once again, and again, and again.
9.
August called out to us from the distance. The stormhead has hung low in reaches afar, a black aerial fortress that boomed thunderous volleys and terrible flashes, a violent portent yet to be true. Our bar has built sandbag bulwarks in anticipation of the monsoon, but the dread had already seeped through the cracks. The trees were shedding a drab brown color. There was a clamor swelling up from the center plaza. A convoy of the returning troops rolled in earlier this morning. A crowd greeted them. From over here, it was hard to tell if it was fanfare or a riot.
There was no silence before the storm. Still, the planes hurried to their turbulent fates. I looked up to their disappearing blinkers through the windows, and I instinctively reached for someone for reassurance. My hand grasped the empty air.
“Alex, do you do special requests?”
“What?” I broke off from my absent-mindedness.
“I said, would you make a special drink for me?” The roughed-up soldier scratched the bandage around his face. Spots of blood showed through. He was the only one tonight, save for me and the busboy. Even the apprentice was on leave, screaming his life out at the quay-side protests.
“Depends. How special is it?”
“Nothing out of sorts, trust me,” he said, flashing a warm and familiar smile through the great moustache of his and the white patch over his eye. “Just tequila and rum in a short glass, plus a bottle of hot sauce.”
“Sure thing, sir.”
The man wore green airborne fatigues so weathered that you would be inclined to think that a shell had just gone next to him just now. Not sure if I had imagined the smell of gunpowder and death, too. Straight from the frontline to the bar. I liked that kind of fighting spirit.
“Here you go sir,” I placed the little bottle of chilli sauce next to his glass of fire, salt, and lime. He grinned,
“You don’t need to be so polite.”
“I actually do.”
“Why, because it’s the city, right?”
“It’s because of the job, sir.”
“The job is in the city,” he insisted. I clicked my tongue and shifted my weight.
“Manner counts everywhere. Especially where we’re from.”
“Ha! Is my accent that obvious?”
“No worries, sir. I’ve worked on mine for five years but people still hassle me about it.”
“Forget them. They like to pretend that they’re made out of different stuff. They scrape their knees on the pavement, and we on our earth.”
“Looks like you’ve done your share of scraping,” I motioned at the ever sneakily expanding blood spots on his wrappings.
“Haha, forgive me for being so indecent,” he pressed a palm against it and winced. I offered to pour him his hot sauce, to which he nodded. The orange-colored blob dissolved into the golden liquid. He took the glass and knocked back his head so far that it seemed so sure for a moment that he was going to tip over. He didn’t, and the drink was gone. The soldier exhaled some invisible flame.
“So, Alex,” he burped and shuddered. “You’ve got a girl somewhere waiting for you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Curious phrasing.”
“I don’t think she’s waiting for anything,” I mused. Gigi came by to take us clubbing yesterday. She left my place in the middle of the night while I was sleeping. It was a good arrangement.
“Damn, that’s harsh.”
“This time, I would rather it stay that way.”
“Why, don’t like commitment?” He probed.
“Don’t like the guilt, sir.”
“Oh god, are you going to show me your battle scar where your heart used to be?” We laughed. He dipped a finger in the little salt tray, stirred, and continued, “So tell me, who’s the poor victim?”
“It doesn’t matter; that one’s gone to God knows where now. I don’t think about it that often,” I lied, recalling the image of a glittering belly button stud. “Haven’t had much luck in the love department as of late.”
"That’s because they can sense it from a mile away.”
“Sense what?”
“The fact that you would hurt them.”
“With the current one, I’m unlikely to, even if I tried.”
“Heh, you do you,” the soldier muttered as he flicks at the edge of his empty glass, bemused. “I wonder, how did this hurt-immune girl come into your life?”
“Through those doors,” I said and pointed. “Same as any before. We’ve got all types coming in and out,” I answered. The soldier pointed a thumb to his chest smugly. I chuckled.
“Your customers are in good hands.”
“I do hope so.”
“Don’t play humble, now. The way you work, you're like a soldier in your own way. Ever done a tour?”
“No offense, sir, but the outlook isn’t inviting for me,” I looked at his bandages.
“Ha, it’s alright, I understand. I’m not in my eveningwear. But you’re in your uniform, soldier.”
“That honor should be reserved to enlisted men like yourself.”
“You’re quick to dispense gratitude,” he scratched the corner of his moustache. “I didn’t mean ‘honor’. There’s little enough of that anywhere. I meant the other stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“The, um, let’s say ‘mania’.”
“That’s an interesting way to put it. I mean, I have a passion for pouring liquids out of their packaging.”
“And yet, you’ve got this look in your eye. It’s this manic kind of violence. Yeah, that’s it. Violence.”
“Huh. And that makes me a soldier?”
“We’re men of violence.”
“I wouldn’t hurt a fly,” I retorted.
“No you won’t. I wouldn’t either. A fly hasn’t done anything to me. A fly is nowhere near as contemptuous as the men who walk the earth. Yet, I wouldn’t even hurt a man, be as nasty as he is to me.”
“Are you a conscientious objector?”
“What a funny thing to ask a man in uniform.”
“I just like clarity.”
“Let’s discuss it over drinks. I find that drinks help with clarity. I’ll have the same, but you should make yourself something, too. On me. ”
And so, I whipped us both up two glasses, twirling the bottles and poured in a stream from way up high. Of course, I overpoured. We produced our respective globs of hot sauce, clinked our drinks, and swallowed them up in one deep breath. A few seconds later, my eyes started to water, and we laughed heartily. The soldier blew his nose into a paper napkin and began,
“How’s this for clarity: I’ve held a gun, and I’ve shot at men with it. They were always far away in the bushes, so I couldn’t tell if I’ve hurt them or not.”
“Do you wish that you hadn’t hurt them?”
“I wish they wouldn’t shoot back at me.”
“Then why enlist, then, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Oh Alex, I can sit here and write an autobiography, but I guess that wouldn’t interest you much. Let’s just say that you and I were very similar once, but things happened in such a way that now, you happen to be behind the bar, and I’m in front of it.”
“I think I understand. Still, there were decisions leading up to now, right?”
“Sure, there were decisions. But when some options are just overwhelmingly attractive, is it really a choice? My father gambled poorly, and I was shoveling gravel to afford dinner, Alex. Violence found us. It paid. We’re men of violence. We all are. Rarely do we ever go and do it with intention. They call it ‘premeditation’. Save for the real psychoes, of course. But most of us don’t wake up wanting to hurt, you see? Violence finds me, just as passion finds you.”
“Yeah, but I don’t see the comparison. Passion is one thing, but violence is quite another. I don’t think either of us love violence.”
“The very notion of ‘passion’ or ‘love’ is just modernity trying to make you feel comfortable with the monkey part of your brain. The part that knows we’re jealous, territorial, competitive, alone, and vulnerable, so we turn all that into hobbies, obsessions, what-have-yous. Get stronger, more capable, happier, more bananas and mates, and most of all, better than the other monkeys. Behind the bar, you watch over us monkeys, determining a whole domain of our senses for the next fifteen to thirty minutes. With a gun and a cause, I get to determine some poor sod’s many senses for a very long time. It’s a difference in scale, but in the end, the solution to life’s problems is there, and monkey-see-monkey-do.”
“How macabre. I’m not sure what to say.”
“Don’t worry. It’s the tequila talking,” he brushed off with a grin.
“And what does the rum say?”
“It says, ‘One more round for us, on me,’” he said, so I obliged. We cheered, then drank, and he stared out the windows, watching dead leaves blow by. The music crooned. His off-kilter musings kept strumming at the wirings of my neurons like an overstressed jazz musician on a double-bass. Or was it the booze? For a long time, we didn’t say another word to each other.
“Alright, Alex, I’ve gotta get going,” the soldier broke the silence. “I’m not officially discharged yet, so as much as I would like to stay here and catch up with everything, I’ve gotta save some fight in me. I’m expecting to be shipped off within the week.”
The soldier placed a few bills more than our drinks’ worth on the bar.
“Of course, sir. And thank you for your service,” I clicked my heels and did a salute. He answered likewise,
“And thank you for yours.”
With that, he shuffled off into the thick air of that pre-rain night. Through the windows I heard the sky echoing its distant quarrels. The afterimage of his worn uniform, his bloodied face, and his warm smile hung in space. I wondered how many lives he had taken or how angry and, God forbid, orgasmic he had felt while he did it. It was hard to imagine those words had indeed come out of his mouth so comfortably. Hell, I was very fond of the man and his comfortable ways.
I was so fond that I had forgotten to ask him his name. Or how he knew mine.
10.
Gigi Eliopoulos was shrieking curses. Lightning painted her harsh features a wicked white. I remember little else.
Forgive me, but my memory of that point in the night is a bit fuzzy. I’ll try my best for you, dear reader. Head injuries can really mess with you. I don’t think it’s brain damage. Generally speaking, when you’re in a lot of pain, all of your attention tends to focus on that pain, so it’s hard to form proper impressions. That night, the sutures of my cranium felt like they were coming loose. I remember perfectly the wine bottle, though: One of the finer samples of 15-year-old Cabernet Sauvignon, with mild oak overtones, and some family’s heraldry shaped onto the glass, bas-relief. Said bottle was shattered over my head.
That August night, a tempest rampaged through the city. The monsoon promise finally came true. Like an overfilled water balloon, it all came tumbling down at once. Rain blew by so fast that a single drop was liable to bruise. Nearby, the cobblestone streets leading up to the plazas were punished heavily by galeforce. The stoic opera house turned into grey, bleary shadows under sheets upon sheets of rain. The quays became completely inaccessible due to the ridiculous water level and the equally ridiculous chance of drowning. Due to flooding, the Tête wouldn’t open again for another four months. Our bar, on the other hand, was on high ground and nestled deep in the cracks of an old quarter alley, which made it an ideal respite for many a wet wretch. We hid from the madness. A steady stream of clatter-platter filled our ears.
Perched on a tall bar stool, Gigi Eliopoulos flirted with me through a haze of tobacco smoke. Well, to be fair, she was being generally flirtatious. I simply got caught in the storm. She was making the best out of her remaining freedom, knowing her editor-cum-colonel-cum-husband would be in town very soon. He and a few thousand others have been withdrawing from their efforts in Cuba. Back then, they didn’t think that they would soon be recalled a year later. They thought this was it. When they reached home, they would pick up their beloved wives and gallop off to their own respective Corfus once again. Gigi had expressed her wish for the fighting to continue.
She came by to get me to dance more and more often. Poor girl was overcompensating, trying too hard while having too little fun. She trifled every which way. It was raw, undirected libido blooming across the bar’s cramped space. Her body language was inviting. Her eyes stayed distracted and annoyed. Most telling of all, she was on her third Long Island Iced Tea. It was a drink of multitudes. Each of its formidable ingredients fought a continuous war, and the drinker’s wits and liver were the collateral casualty. The many little voices inside Gigi’s head must have made for quite a discordant acapella because, in regular intervals, she would quiet them down with yet more sips and upped the boldness of her teasing. It was tough for her, being trapped under one roof for the night.
Near the end of her third highball, she froze. Gigi Eliopoulos was as a doe moments before death. The doors to the bar swung open to reveal two patrons struggling out from their yellow raincoats. The tall one pulled his coat over his head to reveal the architecture of his famous jawline. He helped his companion out of the other raincoat. A full-figured being in a tiny red dress appeared under the yellow vinyl coat like the product of a magician’s trick. Voila.
Yohann Bernard handed the busboy the raincoats and pulled Beth Laurent in by the hips, smugly, as was his wont. She giggled wildly. From the uncontrollably handsy way they handled each other, my bet was that the two had a line of yayo each before coming here. It was either that or they were madly in love. So, the star-couple headed to a booth, unaware of the two meerkats agape at their presence. My heart raced, but Gigi’s probably stopped.
I found myself stammering in front of Beth Laurent, trembling hands extending the menus with the tiny prints. They looked at me as though I was a guest who made himself too welcome on their couch. They had good reasons. I was very aware of the fact that I was shaking but could not do anything to stop it. Her wet, blond hair was wild. The front of Beth’s tight red dress was a dark streak of rain that ran down from her shining wet collarbones and cleavage. I didn’t look, of course. I only knew, because of course she would appear in the most torturous form imaginable.
Yohann reached over and brushed a drop of water that was snaking down her white neck. Without looking away from me, Beth slightly tilted her head, extending her neck in open approval of her man’s touch. Yohann took the hint and squeezed her nude shoulders with equal parts affection and ownership. She smirked and asked me,
“Yes, how can I help you?”
“Uh w-would you like something to drink?”
“What else would I be looking for in a place like this? You?” As she teased, the huge, hairy hand on her shoulders caressed up her neck and cupped her murderously alluring face. My ribcage was on the verge of exploding. Yohann Bernard chuckled, self-satisfied and high out of his mind. His hand left her face, trailed past her throat, and went deeper down south. Pleasure quaked across her face, and her smirk grew much wider, “Nah.”
I was working the shaker with a white-hot temper. The ice rattled irregularly. Yohann Bernard’s Whiskey Sour slowly formed beneath the strain, each millimeter an ill wish. Professional dignity stopped me from spitting in the creamy foam of the egg white, so I had to make due with choler squeezed from my own seething spleen.
In either a statement of romance or an insult to my injuries, Beth Laurent ordered a White Lady. So tonight, they would share the same shaken egg white. Now, it would have been ideal to be making her drinks out of a different sort of egg white, but that was too crude of a thought for me to entertain. It was alright. They were together. I honored their union by putting in hers the same spleen-borne bodily humour that I had added in his. A personal touch, as any passionate man would. I was surprised that I didn’t turn an absinthe-green.
Gigi Eliopoulos’s absence wasn’t noticed until I went to the restroom to vent and realized that the mirror was full of lipstick scrawlings. It wasn’t the first time that she did this. Although incoherent, they formed the first lines of what was shaping up to be yet another publishing deal and many a talk show. It twisted the flesh to read. The man in the white uniform in the mirror didn’t look like me, but the maroon web of unedited loathings did. It was a reminder of whom Gigi was, outside the sheets. Alright, where was she?
“Who’s the bimbo?”
Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Gigi curled up, hugging her knees on the cold and damp concrete floor. I answered,
“Some girl. Recent debutanté. Used to come here often.”
“How did they meet?” She incanted her inquiry.
“It doesn’t matter. Forget her. Forget him. Shouldn’t spend your life worrying about people who don’t give a flying fuck about you. We’ve got each other.”
“Really? You mean it?” Gigi sounded like a child being told that the dentist appointment was cancelled. I sighed and nodded. “You’re right. We’ve got each other. Who needs them? We’ll always have each other, won’t we, Alex?”
“Yes, Gigi,” I went over, helped her up, and tasted the sweet alcohol and salty tears from her lips. We held our kiss in desperate indignation. When we had let go, Gigi whispered,
“Marry me.”
#
So there I was, finacée-of-fifteen-minutes clutching my arm, tittering away with Yohann and Beth like she was on top of the world (never mind the mascara stains). She had introduced herself as an old acquaintance of Yohann, who went by Jon these days. She had also introduced us as engaged, even though Gigi’s marital status was well publicized to le monde. Now, did I mean it when I accepted her hand in marriage in that dark and dank restroom? The answer hardly mattered. Some subcutaneous ache was thumping dully in my chest, and I felt my head in a daze. I ran my hand along Gigi’s back, looking for belongingness. All I needed to know was that this deal suited me well. We sinners all needed salvation.
Yohann Bernard had this crazed, spacey look on his drugged-out face. He must have thought that he was imagining the whole thing up. If only his writing had that kind of imagination. Beth Laurent, on the other hand, was positively fond of Gigi. The women slurred half-insulting compliments at each other for what felt like a century. I stood there, invisible, aching to get back to the bar to help out the apprentice, away from this bizarre charade, and help myself to a shot. Mostly the shot.
I politely excused myself and made over to the bar and my waiting customers. Gigi followed after, which I wish she hadn’t. Sensing my discomfort, she kept tucking at the sleeve of my shirt and launched into a barrage of asking what was wrong. After a few tries, it dawned upon her drunken head, and she said,
“Oh my god, she’s not just ‘some girl’, right?”
“What are you talking about- hi, how can I help you?”
“I’m talking about her. You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”
“Yes, a Martini, coming right up - No! Where did you get that idea?”
“Do you think I was born yesterday? Don’t you fucking lie to me. I have a sense for these things, you know. You’re acting exactly like Yohann back then when he had his eyes for that stupid copywriter. You, I can see it in your eyes.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, we’re all out of Glenkinchie. I’ll get you something better- Shove off, Gigi. Let me work.”
The customers looked at each other and shifted uncomfortably on their stools.
“I can’t believe this. Him. And now, you? For her? You all leave in the end, and for what?”
“Gigi, calm down, alright? It’s complicated. How about this, I’ll fix you a drink for now. After service, I’ll take you to the Tête, and we’ll talk about it. Alright?”
“The Tête is underwater, you dumbfuck.”
And with that, she flicked alight a cigarette, puffed out a heavy cloud, and buried her face in her hands. I went and made her a G&T so embarrassingly gin-heavy that the bar was likely to fire me over it alone. It didn’t matter. Anything to keep her in a stupor while I figured my way out of mine.
I was kept beyond busy. Service did not relent, and rain-soaked soldiers poured through the doors in droves. They drunkenly sang to their comradeship. Even in their battered state, the servicemen still looked better than the soldier who came in alone the other day. His words looped somewhere in the jukebox of my brain. I sighed for the umpteenth time.
This night barely got started, and the end was nowhere insight. Of course, typical of the cruel ways nights like these tended to work, it would only grow longer. The oak doors groaned open again, and in stepped yet more yellow raincoats.
Joshua Spencer wormed out from under the wet, gaudy plastic and puffed up his chest towards the ceiling, nostalgia in his eyes as a trooper who has come home. It was as though he never left. He was wearing a burgundy tweed coat, which meant that, currently, he was stricken with a serious case of elated self-concern. The symptoms were so severe that he deserted his companion behind him to her own devices, fighting out of her own raincoat while taking the utmost care not to harm the wine bottle in her clutch. I watched her, seeking some distraction in the comedy of it all. But then, I saw her face. If seeing Beth Laurent had made my head light, seeing Chrissy that night made my heart drop with a ten-tonne anchor tied to it, straight to the dark depths of the ocean. It felt like lifetimes ago that I knew her.
Even though she had a big pair of glasses on, which made her look a few libraries older, it didn’t take much to recognize that somber loveliness anywhere. The white sheath dress on her slender form added that much more maturity - albeit with an uncharacteristic (of her) deep cut that raised yet more questions than this situation had already warranted. It wasn’t a sight that I got to see much before, if at all. What was unmistakably hers were the sorrowful eyes, which caught mine as soon as she took off her raincoat. Chrissy stood still, as did time. “Dumbstruck” wasn’t even the word. The apprentice bumped past me, menus at the ready.
I returned to my mixing apparati, occasionally stealing glances at Joshua Spencer and Chrissy at their booth, positioned dangerously close to each other. They ordered an ice bucket for their wine, celebrating who-gives-a-fuck. Why didn’t they do it at his bar? Oh right, the rain. I scooped up the ice with great resentment for the fact that we charged too little for outside drinks. For what this was, we should have charged Spencer a fortune and more. I handed the bucket to the apprentice and saw the performance artist perform a lecture, a guffaw, and a kiss. Yeah, we should have charged an arm and a leg.
I didn’t have to wish vengeance for long. It wasn’t three minutes into his wine glass that Joshua Spencer’s irritating chatter fell upon a glum silence. This was the first time I saw him quiet while sober. It was expected. Who could help but ignore the sunrise when the light has warmed your cheeks? Beth Laurent and her red dress seemed a flame from where I stood. I couldn’t at all imagine Spencer resisting blindness either, looking at her from where he sat. Chrissy glared out to me from between the nook of his arm around her.
The music jiggled into a degenerate cha-cha, where the dancers would twirl and switch partners. Gigi Eliopoulos jolted upward from her drunken slumber, snatched her G&T with surprising speed and precision, and drained every last bit, ice included. Before I could say a word, she was already zig-zagging her way towards the rear exit (with the tab fortunately still open). Just as a howl heard in the night, the other animals answered the call. Yohann Bernard jerked his rock-hewned face up from Beth’s lips and monitored Gigi as she navigated a sea of inebriated patrons. When she reached the steel door, Yohann sprung up and launched himself towards her, letting Beth slump down to the soft of the couch, laughing out of lust and life. I poured myself a shot of tequila and amused myself at the scene of Yohann grabbing Gigi’s arm, and her pulling away, face obscured under wispy black hair. The moment they disappeared behind the metal door, Joshua Spencer planted Chrissy a hurried kiss and stood up, adjusted his burgundy jacket, and made hesitant steps towards a still giggling Beth Laurent.
Spencer’s time alone with Beth was probably not shaping up to what he expected it to be. All talks disappeared into disappointing ambivalence; she wasn’t having it. He was leaning in closer. His hands expressed a wild desperation. To this, Beth was firm, if a little bemused. She grinned and rubbed her marble-white shoulders. She was looking at me the whole time.
Righteous vexation seized me. I let a drop of liquor drop from the mixing spoon onto my forehand, tasted it, and looked up. Chrissy was slouched over. In my mouth, the sweet, syrupy taste from my hand turned tart. She was nursing her wine glass, trying her best to hypnotize herself with the round and round swirling black-red liquid. She knew well the nature of Joshua Spencer’s love. A great unrest cursed my legs. Waves of doubt crashed against my chest, then washed away to reveal the impetus underneath. A pit got caught in my throat. It grew unbearable, seeing her play the second fiddle to that one Beth Laurent once again. Chrissy needed something, bad. On the other hand, I pictured myself coming over to Spencer and socking him in his putrid face, saving Beth from the unwanted company. In the process, I would be doing Chrissy some measure of justice, a measure of justice that I haven’t been able to before. Then, I would walk away in cool resolve without asking for anything in return. My fist would still sting from the impact with Spencer’s deserving nose. Yes, I was likely to be overcome with misguided, childish heroics. Job security didn’t matter if I had wanted to quit anyways. I had only drive (and intoxication, to be frank) to correct this wrong, to undo the errors of my slumber.
So, for the first time in my history with Chrissy, I acted.
#
At the front of our bar, the light from the neon red sign flooded the rain, making them appear as bloody precious rubies falling out from the blackness above. It provided for a dreamy quality to an already surreal state of my being. An unfamiliar pain radiated throughout my bones. No, I haven’t beaten Joshua Spencer to a pulp. No, I haven't had any wine bottle dashed against my head yet, though I felt like I was deserving of one when I stood there, outside of the bar, completely powerless to stop Chrissy Dinh from crying.
Her body shook with each hiccup. A teardrop traced her cheeks. Chrissy watched the blood drip from the awning, adjusted Spencer’s tweed jacket draped over her shoulders, wiped away the tears, and took a drag from her cigarette. She wasn’t looking at me.
“Why him?” I begged for her attention.
“Why anyone?” She spoke into the void.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you were back in town?”
“Why, were you waiting for me?”
“I was,” my voice broke.
She didn’t answer. Chrissy sobbed into her hand, a bit harder this time.
“Please don’t do this to me, Alex. Please don’t, not again, please.”
“I tell you true. I’ve never once forgotten about you.”
“Please, I beg you. Can’t you see that I’m happy now?”
“I can’t. Not with him. You know what he’s like.”
“What is he like, Alex? What is Joshua like? You?”
“Now wait a minute -”
“Good god, I’ve tried so hard. Really, it’s been so goddamn hard. But with him, things were simpler. I knew I wasn’t his only one, but I was someone to him, Alex, even just for a little bit. That’s the difference, don’t you understand?”
It was my turn to play dead silent.
“No, I don’t understand,” I lied for who knew how many times. Chrissy sniffed, leaned against the cold brick wall, and stayed as unmoving as a statue.
“There’s nothing to understand,” she finally croaked.
“I want to,” I said thoughtlessly. “Look, I’m sorry. I know I can’t make up for how I’ve been, but, you know, I’m sorry.”
I was sorry.
Chrissy didn’t say a word. Really, I was sorry. I was sorry that I had decided to confront her at all. What could I have given her, given what I hadn’t? There wasn’t much to be said now, save for the compulsion to puke out apologies as though somehow that could save either of us from this. Even that grew old quick after a few tries. Only the constant rattling of heavy rain remained. The winds bawled a tune so appropriately sorrowful that it was nearing mockery. Normally, Chrissy Dinh wore her regal paleness that hinted at a rosy blush that made cosmetics obsolete. But, in that stormy night, she glowed a harsh crimson under the electric front sign. Yet, for all the bubbling rage that the color had suggested, her face only featured faint resignation, and her eyes stared continents away through the red curtains of rain. I thought back to mopping the bar with her, when she smiled. I thought back to the afterhour embraces. I thought back to having her.
I thought back to the things we’ve never done with each other. How I’ve never gotten her that tabby that she would end up naming “Squirrel”. And how we would take Squirrel for inoculation while the enlisted men did themselves.
How I’ve never brushed her hair after a warm bath. A warm bath where we played with the foam, where we built our castles.
How I’ve never taken her hand and spoke of how little other things mattered, even though they did.
Or how we never walked the quays at daybreak.
Or how the Beth Laurents of this world wouldn’t have worthed a dime. But it wasn’t like that. It was like this, with Chrissy behind a glass cage, hurting, and my fingers never touching. She lit another cigarette.
In lonesome strolls through autumns more peaceful, I would still mutter her name like a monk his mantra, as though that could make up for lost time. Chrissy Dinh. Chrissy Dinh.
Chrissy Dinh.
What could I have given her?
#
A Negroni was disgusting. A Negroni was what Gigi Eliopoulos ordered when she emerged from the bar’s backdoor, tearful and angry, with a somehow angrier Yohann Bernard at her heels, trying his best to explain himself. It would also be the last cocktail I ever made professionally. I didn’t think much of its significance that night, to be sure, when I was pouring the ireful red liquid out from the shaker. Its color mirrored the thousands of Negronis spilling outside in the neon-tinted rain. What set it apart was the fact that it was ordered with rosemary garnish. The herb upped the drink’s already sinister pungency. Gigi’s frustrations had turned masochistic.
Yohann Bernard bickered with Gigi Eliopoulos, a kind of music that really brought me back. To this tune, I preoccupied myself with washing glasses and peering out of the windows to the scarlet shapes haunting the bar front. Chrissy Dinh stood in the same place as I’ve left her. She was hugging Joshua Spencer, who strode out to her side after he had given up on harassing Beth Laurent. He performed the shoulders-to-cry-on. My upper lip couldn’t help but curl itself all the way up. The angry ex-couple wasn’t done shouting unkindness at each other, and Beth Laurent was slipping in and out of consciousness, for some reason still managing to be the most elegant and composed of all the patrons. Keen readers would remember that the fighting never touched our dear city, but that night, I wished a bomb would drop on top of this bar and take us pathetic lot to better lands.
“Get the hell away from me! My fiancé is standing right there.”
“Love, why are you doing this to us?”
“There is no ‘us’, Yohann. There was never any ‘us’.”
“Think! Is this how you are going to live the rest of your life?”
“Ha! Should have done all of that thinking before you knocked up that ugly whore!”
“Stop calling her that! She has a name, you witch, and it’s -”
“People, please!” Joshua Spencer loudly bellowed with his arms messianically outstretched. He had snuck back inside while I was distracted. Yohann and Gigi mercifully ceased. For the first time, I was grateful for that rat. Everyone was looking at him, except for me. I was looking at Chrissy, who was attached meekly to his side. Her eyes were puffy from weeping. The burgundy jacket draped her svelte frame, even then.
“Please, let us put aside our troubles. The night is troubled enough as it is,” he announced the obvious. I rolled my eyes and drank from a leftover glass. “The troops are coming home tonight, and that’s cause for celebration. And, on top of that, we’re getting married!”
That bomb never came. The whole bar erupted in cheers and applause. The world zoomed out and space stretched all around me. North seemed to have switched places with south. The alcohol was attempting to make its way up my esophagus like a vile but determined salmon. I steadied against the tin and wood bar, weakly clapping along, trying my best not to keel over and die right at that moment. No, of course I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction, which was something that they didn’t need any more of.
“Alex, old boy, do you still have my special bottle of tequila?” Spencer stated, not asked.
“Y-yes I do, Mr. Spencer.”
“Well, don’t let it collect dust, man. Bring it out and make everyone a shot!”
The crowd gave a hurrah; some dickhead at the back whistled. I brought out the bottle of AsomBroso Añejo, mildly pleased to see that the coveted drink was only a sixth of how Spencer had left it months. There was an audible “aw” from the patrons. Most of the missing liquor was to blame on Gigi and me. Spencer wasn’t the least foiled, though. He simply called for another one. The bar was filled with hoots once again. The apprentice produced trays upon trays of shot glasses. Even Beth Laurent woke up just to contribute her own “woo”.
Moments later, we found ourselves in a circle, us serendipitous gladiators in this most tragically entangled battle royale. In place of weapons, we held up shots of liquid courage. Mine was poisoned with a dash of chilli sauce. It was a recently acquired taste. Deadly was this dance, where the performers gathered round for the great crescendo.
“To my gorgeous Christina!” Spencer toasted.
“To my dear Joshua, and our Café Coda,” Chrissy mumbled.
“To the handsome couple,” Beth slurred. Residue cocaine still powdered her welcoming cleavage.
“To good times,” Yohann joined, wiping freshly snorted coke from his nose.
“To love,” I gritted my teeth, resisting the urge to fulfill my fantasy of cuffing Spencer right there and then.
“And to my beautiful fiancé: Alex.” Gigi punctuated shrilly, and we guzzled our tequila.
My eyes hadn't even finished watering before Gigi hopped up onto me like a koala and devoured my eucalyptus face. I only had the impression of our teeth making clumsy contact before I felt a shove, pushing me against the bar. Gigi tumbled to the ground. Yohann Bernard was huffing and puffing like an unhinged silverback. The coke has kicked in, evidently. In some vicarious high, my heart pounded with warnings of fight or flight, and I was made blind by flashes of rage. The bar pulsed along to my heartbeats. Yohann was shouting something, but I didn’t get to hear the end of it before I lunged myself against him.
He was a head taller than I was, and I would have had better luck hitting my head against a rocky cliff. Still, I managed. My left arm locked around his neck, and my right one jabbed him repeatedly like a sculptor chipping away at stock to reveal a disturbing artwork. The Despair of Yohann, 78 x 27 x 11 inches, marble. He swung wildly, trying to shake me off, but I held on to dear life, having no idea how many blows had landed on me, or how I was ruining his shirt with my blood. It was a blurring whirlwind of pain sharp and dull; the only discernible sensation was the metallic pang in my mouth to remind me that I was still alive. The crowd gathered. I could hear Chrissy and a few shouting for us to stop, but most cheered the same cheer they had minutes before. It was a rodeo to die for.
“Hey, break it off, you idiots!” Joshua Spencer squealed out and launched himself into the fray, prying me away from Yohann Bernard, dragging me back with an unexpectedly strong hold. It took two burly soldiers to restrain Yohann, and even then he was kicking the air, red-faced and ready to pop a vein. I tried to catch a breath, but it seemed that my air duct was knotted tight. I was drowning on dry land. The walls and ceilings bore down on me, and my entire body bloomed with throbbing agony. Great fear overtook me. I had to get out of the bar before I died, so I tried to squirm free from the hold of a much more sober Joshua Spencer. However, he must have mistaken my panic for eagerness to return to the tussle, so he tightened his arms around me yet more and pinned me to the bar. “I told you to stop it!” He commanded, so I screamed and headbutted him.
Spencer reeled back. His grip loosened, which presented the opportunity to free my arms and deliver an undercut strong enough to knock away his glasses. All the joints in my fists had felt like they were broken, but I continued to club the scumbag with those limp sacks of flesh and bones of mine. Spencer may have lost his glasses, but he hasn’t lost his cunning. With a swift punt to my groin, he halted the assault. Let me tell you, I had immense gratitude for having gone through life till then not knowing this kind of hurt. Well, that night, I felt it well, and it spreaded all the way up to my throat. Thusly, I ejected a column of projectile vomit which splattered all over Spencer, drenching him in that most wonderful cocktail. He wailed.
I crawled like a dog. One hand in front of the other, I made it across hard concrete towards the door-end of the bar, only driven by the same instinctual energy that was found in death throes. Gigi rushed over to help me up and gave me a glass of water. I took a sip and threw up some more. Her face was wracked with concern. I couldn’t feel mine. It was then that her eyes bulged open in horror. I twisted around to spot Spencer stalking over, rapidly closing in, hand clenching the neck of his expensive wine bottle, vengeful lunacy in his eyes. Weak and powerless, I resigned myself before what was to come.
“No!” Chrissy stepped in between us, using her little body to block Spencer’s approach. Her voice broke, crying with desperation. She implored to him, and he relented in frustration. “Sweetheart, don’t.”
“Alright, alright. I’m calm,” Spencer breathed in ease, as did I.
“Here, give me that,” Chrissy wrenched the wine bottle from his hand. She held it in thought, one hand rubbing her lover’s shoulder, face directing stern contempt my way. I made an audible gulp. The crowd was helping the busboy fix up the stools and gather broken glass shards. Yohann Bernard was confined to the far end of the room. He spoke angrily to Beth Laurent, occasionally leering my way. In response, Beth bent over the table to snort up another line. I was so busy watching the way her full thighs shuddered with ecstasy that it startled me to find Chrissy next to me, wine bottle in hand.
“Have fun with your girls,” she spat. “Good luck with everything, Alex Novak, and fuck you.”
That was the last thing she ever said to me. With that, Chrissy placed the heavy bottle on the bar and walked Spencer away to fetch their raincoats. Lightning was streaking outside. Not long after, when I had moved away from this place, their wedding took place. Then, about a decade later, I visited the city but couldn’t bring myself to contact Chrissy. As expected, I was unable to savor this odd goodbye of ours on account of the dull ache between my legs. It’s a wonder that I remember things this clearly. Anyways, Gigi didn’t take kindly to Chrissy’s comment at all, so she shouted after them,
“Yeah fuck you too, you skinny bitch.”
“Let them be, Gigi.”
“I don’t know why you get involved with these types.”
“Nevermind, who needs them.”
“You’re right, that’s because we’ve got each other, right?”
“Right,” I groaned.
“Baby, I’m so sorry for giving you grief. Will you ever forgive me?”
“Gigi, don’t worry about it.”
“You’re right, I worry too much. Let me make it up to you,” she said, hand pressing on my crotch, unmindful of the damage it has sustained. I recoiled. A new wave of nausea threatened.
“That’s sweet, but please, I need to go home. Now. I need to close down the bar and be home by yesterday.”
“Gosh, can I stay with you?”
“It’s OK, just let me be for now.”
“I can’t let you go home alone tonight, not like this. You’ll be my husband one day, you understand? I’ll file the divorce papers with Nathaniel, and we’ll be together like you promised, right?” She was growing more distressed.
“For heaven’s sake, Gigi, now is really not the time for this. We’ll talk about it whe-”
Gigi clasped me into her chest and forced herself to kiss me. I felt bad for her. I didn’t know how she could endure the taste of blood and barf in my mouth, but she did. She moaned and muttered sweet promises. Perhaps the kiss wasn’t near as terrible as forcing yourself to be in love. That, she did also. I wondered if it was the same way with Yohann Bernard years ago. Well, this train of thought wouldn’t last for too long, as it was at that very split second that the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon Chrissy had left on the bar was picked up and brought down upon my head with hateful might.
The glass might have shattered, but the bottle continued its downward trajectory from my temple towards my left eye. Jagged edges tore open the skin. The sensation was that of an intense burn. I could hear the blunt thump echoing between the walls of my skull long after initial impact. It was a short trip to the cold floor. With me on the ground, my assailant continued to stomp at my body with wet, earth-crusted boots. Indistinct yelling called out from somewhere remote; it was all so far away when your head just got split in two.
How the scene was later constructed back for me by others was the closest thing I have to recollection. Apparently, while we were deep in that horrid kiss, a new patron had stumbled into the bar. Although different people disagreed on the exact rank and medals, or how much the lightning had made him look like the Boogeyman, or how completely, face-plantingly drunk he was, all could agree that he had donned an officer’s uniform, which was completely drenched from the rain. You can already guess whom this was. When he spotted Gigi Eliopoulos kissing me, Nathaniel roared a blood-curdling roar and sprinted over, wielded the closest thing to a weapon, which was Spencer’s wine bottle, and the rest is ancient history.
I’m not sure how he found his way to the bar that stormy night. The reasonable explanation was probably that he had heard of Gigi’s whereabouts (and howabouts) from one of his men who came by a few days earlier. It was believable, as the troops tended to talk, and Gigi had practically moved in the bar anyways. He came by to confirm the things he had suspected. Personally, I would like to imagine it being the product of some chicken coming home to roost, in a dark, deserving predestination kind of deal. No matter the precise nature of this chain of events, what really mattered was me on the ground, bleeding, and Gigi’s husband trampling me to a puddle while she screamed. Flashes from the window captured her frightful expression in stark white. This and the acceptance of annihilation, I remember.
~
Dear reader, September came and went so fast that year. We closed our eyes and opened to find that the leaves had all but gone a bright, dead yellow. The sight was beautiful while it lasted, but after it left, there was little more than an empty longing. With said emptiness, we marched into the grey fog of an early winter.
This was the view outside the windows of my rusty, mud-caked bus out of town, leaving its dilapidated station at the very hour before daybreak. The long, metal beast lumbered past the serpentine roads. In contrast to the festivities the night before, the city seemed positively abandoned. The buildings loomed as a ghost in this misty porridge. Only banners, flags, and confetti provided any semblance of feature, and even the nature of their hues were assumed because of the familiarity of their colors. It was a complete white-out. Last night and the night before that, an unseasonable fiesta was held in celebration of the war coming to a close. I didn’t get to serve any drink, as my employment at the bar was promptly terminated a month earlier in light of the violence I had involuntarily caused to the establishment. I haven't returned to professional mixology ever since being kicked out. Call it risk management. Call it shame or cowardice. Call it whatever you may, it would still be the overdue opportunity that I had sought to get out of town and start taking writing seriously. To be fair, it took me three years of wandering from one odd job to another spurned love to finally put words onto pages. But that’s a story for another time - a story that twenty five year-old me didn’t have any way of knowing. I was yet another youth with a visible injury jostling to the sways of that bus as it drove over potholes as old as the pavement itself.
The bus dinned with the chatter of ex-servicemen headed back to their respective places of belonging. Their hubbub filled the air. Profanities peppered only too frequently. A lot of it sounded of eagerness to come home, but mostly it was exasperated mourning. In place of rifles, crutches were commonplace. Stumps swayed at the air of their phantom limbs, where they once held function and therefore, significance. As I sat there curled up on the bus, I pressed a hand against the recovering wound over my head and flinched. The pain made me feel like an honorary member of the men. The only missing appendage on me was dignity.
Even though only a pink, indented streak remained of what was a multi-stitch laceration, my face still hurt. It was a real inconvenience when travelling. Fortunately, I travelled light. I didn’t have much in terms of possession, so I made due with a rucksack of spare clothes, toothbrush, razors, my savings from those years working at the bar, a few books and notebooks, and what remained of Joshua Spencer’s expensive tequila bottle.
In casual conversations, I would hear mentions of his name, his famously final muse, and his Café Coda. Story was, he helped fund the cleanup effort at the flooded quay area. Instead of charitable motivations, I suspect it was so that he could host the wedding with Chrissy there. They said their vows on a moonlit pier. I also suspect that it was an art performance for him. In her thirties, Chrissy took over Spencer’s ventures in the city while he bought a cabin upcountry and went recluse. I heard that she even tried to acquire the bar where we worked and loved, but it was demolished when the municipal board decided to “modernize” the old quarter. Can you believe it? These days, the place is a busy asphalt intersection, and yet the idea still seems as ridiculous as it had before. Once on a good day, I would entertain the thought of patronizing one of Chrissy’s joints, just out of sentiments.
So things do change, after all. Give it enough time. For a while, Beth Laurent and Yohann Bernard, the beautiful couple, became the talk of the town. She used her fame to secure Jon a spot in the plaza’s annual anthology. Panelists deemed his work to be challenging, particularly at how offensively trite it was (so they took to thinking of Jon as a rebel against the highbrow avant-garde, a champion of transgressive outsider art). If le monde had spoken, it was law. For a year or two, his writing would be seen on every table at plaza cafés and on the hands of every nubile art undergrads. Content with the monster she had created, Beth Laurent announced the opening of her and Jon’s gallery downriver. I suppose it was her version of commitment. It so happened that a lawyer friend of mine handled their papers, which was how I found out about Beth’s last name. One trivial discovery that struck me as particularly hilarious (though my sense of humor isn’t exactly something to bet on) was Jon’s real, on-paper name being “Bernie Johnson”. I know, right? Well, it doesn’t matter; his name wouldn’t hold any stock for long anyways. True of all fads, Jon/Yohann/Bernie’s popularity waned. Navel-gazing analysis was no match for the demand for an honest-to-god good read. Before you knew it, he was just another bar haunter. The gallery also failed to stand out and went the way of Spencer’s art career. Although le monde’s words were law, their justice was a fickle sort. These days, Beth is barely a footnote in the plazas’ canon.
The same couldn’t be said of Gigi Eliopoulos, though. A few years after I left the city, Gigi enjoyed an extremely public divorce, one even more spectacularly brutal than that with Yohann Bernard. A third-party involver suffered a gunshot wound to his abdomen, full credits to her (now ex-) husband’s explosive jealousy and impressive wartime Ruger collection. Since he was nothing short of a hero in the public eye, his wrongdoings never went beyond that of a tale amongst the circles. Needless to say, no terrain could impede a wild horse. Post-divorce Gigi obtained a permanent place in the fiesta rotations. It was a short way to being a panelist, then a stakeholder, and finally, a legacy. Savvier readers might have picked up on the fact that this was the same author who, later in her career, was much better known as “GIA” (yes, that GIA), the grandmother to the now-ubiquitous Pomodoro Movement. Gigi would vehemently deny this honor. She decried key Pomodorists like Adèle Morisot and Nadia Lech as cheap imitators who missed the point. I think, whatever that point was, it must have something to do with the fact that Gigi Eliopoulos once again went radio-silent on me, never writing to or about me after that night at the bar when we had drunkenly promised ourselves a life of thoughtless matrimony.
I wasn’t bitter about this, of course. It suited me better to watch Gigi from a distance, the same way you would never want to be on stage while the dancers are performing. The proximity would be a very unpleasant experience for both parties. It was one of the reasons why I rode with the soldiers on that bus and left it all behind. Later in life, when people asked me if I had a girl waiting for me somewhere, I wouldn’t think of Gigi Eliopoulos, who didn’t wait for anyone. Instead, it was the sly smile of Beth Laurent or the wistful hugs with Chrissy Dinh that compelled me to answer “yes”. These were the things that didn’t have any real-life counterpart, existing only in the realm of memories. And memories, especially the painful kind, had a way of attaching themselves to the locale. Like arthritic joints, these memories tended to blossom their agonies in spring when soft rain fell. So before the seasons changed once more, I had to get out of this city.
As the bus climbed onto a highway that strapped the rims of the city proper, the distant skyline emerged as ominous silhouettes in the fog, a medley of ghosts came to bid farewell. They seemed groggy. I looked for the landmark contours of the opera house, aware that the bar that I had called home was slumbering not too far away. As much as I had wanted to quit, knowing that it wasn’t a choice to stay filled me with a deep restlessness - panic, even. While I thought these thoughts, I pulled my rucksack to my laps and hugged it tight as a child seeking his parents’ embrace. It was a poor substitution because the tequila bottle inside kept poking at my ribs. I hugged my humble belongings yet tighter, quietly going hysterical at what was to come, which was nothing. I buried my face into the worn leather. Obviously, twenty five year-old me didn’t account for the fact that life would go on, and he would survive (and even if he didn’t, then he would not be around to mourn his passing). Lord knows he would make peace with all this within five years. Give it time.
The rumbling eased out - the bus was cruising comfortably. No turning back now. I was slumped over, in a very private crisis, and submerged completely in the nervous clamorings from a whole generation of young men hardened too quickly by fighting. When I finally heaved my head up, I noticed that twilight hours have ended. The sun was showing through. Its weak rays dyed the thick, dewy haze a sickly yellow monochrome. We couldn’t see more than twenty feet in front of us. The vehicle propelled forward regardless.
So, dear reader, on that rickety intercounty bus, us collection of broken youths were shipped head-long into the mustard-gas-like mist of the rest of our lives.
■