I’m not a violent person, but I want to pummel Taber. I thought there was only enough room for two varieties of hate within me: the hate for my mom and the hate for myself. They fill me to capacity. It seems I was wrong. There’s room for Taber too.
I listen to his door open and shut again, followed by hurried footsteps to pick up Alice.
Maybe hate isn’t a strong enough word for what I’m feeling.
I need to get out of here. Thank God it’s Friday. Dan’s. Escape.
There’s only one message on the answering machine when I return to apartment 3A. It’s Mrs. Bennett. There was a raccoon in the dumpster outside when Chantal took the trash out today. I weigh the call for a second and decide to ignore it. It’s likely untrue since raccoons are nocturnal. Even if it did happen, there’s nothing I can do about it now.
I pull the T-shirt I wore yesterday out of my laundry bag and swap it out for the one I’m wearing now—a ketchup stain is better than snot—and zip up my sweatshirt over the top of it to hide the red splotch. The stain is over my heart, which seems appropriate since it feels like I’ve been stabbed there.
Locking up both doors behind me, I’m out of the house and on pace for a record arrival at Dan’s, the adrenaline still coursing, driving me into a frenzy.
Johnny is sitting on his stool surrounded by cigarette smoke, a cranky Joe Cocker tune, and the touchstone degeneration that only Dan’s Tavern can provide and somehow bask in. His eyes look haunted and hollow, dark and sunken, like rest has been evasive. His entire life.
Normally, I would ask for my money so I can sink into inebriation like the sea of lost and forgotten humanity around me, but I wait him out and we wallow in our shitty moods in unison.
Johnny slides the bills across the bar in front of me without prompting. “You should go home, Toby,” accompanies it. When he calls me Toby instead ofAsshole, I know he’s serious.
Stunned, my reply is paused, but when I find my bearings, it’s an inquiry more than a challenge. “Why?”
He shakes his head, his intense gaze drifting out across the bar but choosing not to zero in on anything in particular because the thoughts filling his mind won’t allow it. “You shouldn’t be here. I told Dan you’re only seventeen and asked him not to serve you anymore.” He doesn’t sound happy to say it, but he does sound resolved. Like he’s sad, sorry, and resolute all at once. He slides his pack of cigarettes and Zippo in my direction and adds, “You can have one. When it’s done, you go home.”
A cigarette between my lips, I ask, “Why would you do that?” while I bring the flame to life and inhale.
“You should go home, Toby,” he repeats like it’s the only explanation I need. Like he has the authority to make the command.
“Youshould go home,” I volley back. That brings his eyes, underscored with weariness, to mine, and I lift my eyebrows in response and hold him in a stare. It’s not something I usually do. Eye contact like this makes me squirm, but I’m pissed and if he’s going to call me out then I’m going to call him out too. “You were blackout drunk; you could’ve died the other night.”
When the dark truth hits, the connection severs and his eyes drop to his lap. I think it’s because he’s mad, but when he asks, “Did you get me into bed?” I know it’s subdued humiliation.
I nod. “Taber came home late and found you downstairs by the front door. He knocked on our door and told me and we carried you up together.”
His big, calloused hands scrub over his face like he’s trying to erase the past…or maybe he’s trying to erase the present. “Did Cliff see any of it?”
I flick ash into the ashtray in front of me and take another drag before I answer. “No. He was sleeping.”
Running his hands through his hair, he rests his head against the wall behind him and shakes it in disgust. “I figured he didn’t, he would’ve rubbed it in my face until the irony was tattooed. Hypocrites make horrible disciplinarians. I’m not cut out for this,” he mutters, scolding himself.
I finish my cigarette and as soon as I snub it out, I want another one. I throw Dan a look to make sure Johnny wasn’t bluffing about snitching on me, but when he gives his head a single, irrefutable, hard shake, I know he wasn’t. I sigh, because tonight of all nights I need this. I need to dive headfirst into diversion. To feint reality. Toforgetreality.
Which Johnny brings front and center when he asks, “Any calls today?”
I huff, and it almost sounds like a humorless laugh. Except I don’t laugh. “That son of a bitch Taber needs a new flapper for his toilet.”
“Son of a bitch? Those are fighting words.” Johnny sounds mildly intrigued.
I give him nothing but a shrug and swivel on my stool. Crossing my arms, I wait out tonight’s redemption.
Ten minutes later, a group of three women walks in. When they immediately stop and a trio of discerning eyes travel a loop around the room, I know they’ve stumbled in here by mistake and they’re two seconds away from deciding this was a bad idea. Or maybe not such a bad idea, when they take a seat at the nearest table and order a round of beers. They look out of place, like a full color rainbow in a sepia photo. They’re dressed for a night out and it makes me wonder if they’re tourists who ended up in the wrong part of town, or maybe they’re waiting on the music venue a few blocks away to open and are having a drink or two beforehand.
I’m watching the two guys playing pool and replaying the sounds of Taber cheating on Alice in my mind, until it turns into an insane, tortuous soundtrack that’s competing for my attention with The Rolling Stone’s “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” playing on the jukebox. The song wins because it’s an accurate synopsis of the past, near and far, as well as prophetic of the future. That, and it’s less depressing than Taber’s betrayal.
I’m lost in thought, my anger, and the song, when Johnny’s voice brings me back to the present. He’s leaning forward on his stool and he’s talking low. “Don’t do it. You need to go home.”
I turn my head, but not my body, to look at him. He’s leaning back into the wall, and I’m about to ask him what that’s supposed to mean when his eyes jump pointedly over my shoulder. When my head swivels back around, the blonde from the pack of three is standing in front of me. Her smile is a striptease. “We’re getting out of here, do you wanna come party with us?”
The offer of escape.
