“Well, let’s just say when you spend every day wondering if the Fallen Saints are going to take your head off for a beer not being cold enough, you need a stress outlet of some kind. Mine just happened to be hair color.”
Phoenix pulled his lips back into a grimace. I would have killed to know what he was reacting to and thinking about.
“You know,” he said, but then he paused. I leaned back, trying to give him the space he needed. He looked like he was afraid to ask the question that danced on his tongue, but eventually, looking down at the bar top and not at me, he spoke. “Is your father still around?”
Wow, really asking the hard questions today, huh?There was no way Phoenix could have known about my relationship—or lack thereof for much for the last few years—with my father. I knew he was probably just wanting to commiserate or tell me to call my father, to tell him I loved him because we only had a short time left in this life. But...
“No,” I said.
I almost said “not really,” but I felt like that would have opened a whole new can of worms that I just didn’t want to deal with. Better to be curt and answer a question like this with as little room for interpretation as possible.
“I’m sorry,” Phoenix said. “I just... it’s fucking hard when you know you’ll never see your father again. You know?”
“Yeah,” I said empathetically, though I couldn’t say I really understood. If I never saw my father again, I would regret losing the chance to see him become the man I thought he could be. But I would not regret losing the man that he was.
“I knew he was an old man and in the second half of his life, and I knew he wasn’t going to be around forever, especially the way he smoked and drank,” he said. “But shit... I didn’t think that it would end like this.”
He took a sip of his beer, his eyes still failing to meet mine.
“How do you do it? How do you cope knowing your father isn’t around anymore?”
I was glad that Phoenix phrased it like he did, giving me the leeway and the freedom to elaborate within the boundaries of his phrasing.
“I just do my job and try not to think about it, honestly,” I said. “I’m sure some psychoanalyst would tell you that that’s not the healthiest approach, but I don’t care. I think the most important thing is to show up and to do your job.”
“I guess so,” Phoenix said. “Do you still try to remember him?”
Boy, talk about a hard question.
“The good parts,” I said, which was true.
“Makes sense.”
A brief pause came, and I thought that would be that. But to my surprise, he kept going. And to my surprise, I found myself equally engaged in the conversation.
It was a good thing that there was no one else in the bar, because I wasn’t sure I would have paid them a lick of attention given the way Phoenix had my eyes and ears. At one point, one of the Gray Reapers came to grab Phoenix, but he shooed them away, saying he needed alone time. It was unexpected, but at this point, it was not exactly unwelcome.
The conversation wound up going for what felt like another full hour. It was less a bartender and a customer talking and more just two curious, lonely, and wounded people opening up to each other. I never revealed that my father was still alive, but for the purposes of the conversation, considering that my father was so absent from my life as to basically be dead, it didn’t matter.
“You know, Jess,” Phoenix said when he finally finished his beer. “I’m damn glad you’re in this town now. I’m not going to say that I’m happy Brewskis burned down, considering you were in it when it went down and you could have died... but I sure am glad that you’ve made the most of the circumstances and that it has brought you here.”
“I don’t know about making the most of my circumstances,” I said with a wry smile. “I mean, I needed work. It was more like ‘I just need a place before my bank account burns down too.’”
Phoenix chuckled a little harder than I would have expected for a minor joke.
“I’m glad you’re in this town too. If I’m going to serve bikers, I’m glad that I’m serving the ones that aren’t going to burn my bar down for show.”
“Hah! Yeah, as if I’d ever be a Fallen Saint. Or go back...”
He didn’t finish his words.
“In any case, Jess, I really appreciate the conversation on a day like this,” he said, shoving not one, but two twenties forward. It was almost too much, like he was somehow thanking me for the conversation with cash instead of with just more conversation. “I am sure that we will talk again soon. Your words have helped me enormously.”
“I could say the same back to you,” I said, and I wasn’t speaking as a charming bartender. I was speaking as a vulnerable human who didn’t know how to relate to her family. “I hope you come back soon.”
Phoenix gave a coy smile my way, like he figured that there was a little more to the hope than just wanting some more tip money. He nodded, stood up, and walked out the door without another word. A few moments later, I heard his bike roaring to life, and he kicked out of the lot.
I knew I had to tread very carefully with Phoenix. I knew that I was feeling things in that conversation I shouldn’t have been feeling with any customer. I knew that engaging him like this was a risky affair.
But you know what?
It was kind of meaningful.
And, on a simpler level, it was kind of fun.
And if I was going to stick to my promise to myself to move out of California within the next two months to go someplace else, why not have a little fun? Why not break some unspoken rules?
Why not talk to someone who understood me better than he ever realized?
