I couldn’t believe my own audacity. Maybe the part of me that wanted to get the hell out of California was the part that had spoken right there. Or maybe I was calling Phoenix on his bullshit.
“Fair enough,” he said. “I just wanted to call. Thanks for hearing me out.”
“Of course.”
It felt like our call ended rather abruptly, if not rudely. It had only lasted about a minute and a half.
But as I put the phone down, as I turned my attention back to theFriendsrerun, I began to have an idea of which way Phoenix would go.
* * *
Tuesday Evening
It was about an hour before my shift ended, and Phoenix was nowhere to be seen.
Not that I could fault him, really. No one was anywhere to be seen.
It was the first shift I’d had in which no one had bothered to show up the entire time. I was reduced to just watching the TV and checking the internet on my phone to kill time. Although I would never say I wanted to go back to Brewskis, that bar never lacked for people, even if those people were criminals, thugs, and God knew what else.
I actually didn’t spend as much time as I had thought I would thinking about Phoenix. For the most part, I had told him he could show up tonight, and that was that. There was nothing to think about.
The door swung open.
My head tilted up. A large figure entered.
And a small smile crept over my face as Phoenix headed over to the bar, hands in his pockets, a cautious smirk on his face, his eyes probing me, and a slow stroll to his feet. He sat down, took a deep breath, and nodded to me.
“Bartender,” he said with a hint of playfulness. “Can you give this thirsty man a drink?”
If my intent had been to be anything other than to laugh as I usually did with customers, I would have failed mightily. Of course, I laughed because it was Phoenix, but I was generally pretty gregarious with my customers anyway.
“That depends on what it is that will quench his thirst,” I said. “Would he like some spirits? Some wine? Or perhaps some beer of the darker or lighter kind?”
“Well, you know me; when I’m feeling kind of blue and the moon is up above...”
He sighed.
“OK, while I can play jokes, I know that’s not what you want to hear, so just let me get down to it,” he said.
I nodded as I grabbed him a Blue Moon.
“I recently learned some things about my father that I’m not happy about,” he said. “I... it’s too painful for me to discuss with you right now. Not even because I’m trying to hide them from you, but because I don’t want to face them myself. I learned of them at the end of last week. If I had been a man or if I had owned up to the fact that that shit was bothering me... well, fuck, I wouldn’t have acted like such an ass.”
It’s a start.
“Truth be told, I shouldn’t have been such a bitch,” he said. “I should have manned up and not acted like such a glum motherfucker, but—”
“Stop it,” I said. “You come to the bartender to let off steam, not to hide it.”
Phoenix gave a half-hearted grunt. I smiled to try to lighten him up a bit.
“Besides, you admitted that you were wrong. Doesn’t matter how or why you were wrong. OK? It just matters that you said you were.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re forgiving me, because I don’t forgive myself so easily.”
He said it with a laugh, but it didn’t seem like he was actually joking.
“Well, if it makes you feel better, I feel like I need to say something,” I said, thinking about my own father. “I said my father’s not around. And that’s true in the technical sense. I don’t talk to him much. But he’s alive.”
