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NYX
All too effortlessly, my vision fades from one blink to the next, and my mind slips into the fantasy that only exists behind my tired eyes, desperate to escape this dim, colorless world in favor of the dreams I surrender to every night.
In the darkness of my empty apartment, in the shadows of my empty bedroom, the secrets I’ve buried under the light of the sun are laid bare under the light of the moon. Whispered truths shared between my empty heart and empty bed. My fears, longings, and fluttering wisps of hope—that somehow manage to survive from one day to the next—hold me hostage, haunted by their ghosts when the sun rises the next day.
Even in the waking hours, they sing to me. Sweet promises made in the haze between worlds echo in my heart, even as they fade from memory. They tempt me with glimpses of lives I might have lived, once upon another time, another place. And just when I begin to believe that maybe this time, just this once, it might be real—the fantasy is ripped from me. The world pays for its next breath by stealing my last, and I’m left to suffocate on the overwhelming truth.
The seductive dream haunting me lately feels more real than the air I breathe, the world beneath my fingertips. I stand on the shore of a churning sea, staring into the screaming winds of an approaching storm, shards of icy rain pelting my skin. Black clouds that snake across the sky like grasping claws swallow the dying light, while flashes of lightning reveal a dark heart lying in wait to devour everything in its path. Booming thunder rolls across the dark waves and shakes my bones, warning of the devastation to come.
Yet I remain, frozen in the sand, daring it, pleading for it to come closer. Wondering if I welcome it, let it wrap me in its violent embrace until the world falls silent in the wake of its power, maybe then I might finally know peace.Just as the black clouds reach for me, teasing me with the promise of oblivion, the sharp ring of the call bell rips me away from salvation.
“Order up, mijita. Table six,” Carlos grunts out from behind the kitchen partition.
“Gracias, Jefe,” I respond with a strained smile. My body remembers we’re at work, cutting lemons and restocking the bar, only halfway through tonight's shift at the only place that passes for nightlife in Lynden, Daly’s Bar and Grill.
Tucked in the corner of a derelict strip mall off Main Street, Daly’s would probably be condemned for health and building code violations, if not for being the only means of escaping the dismal reality of living in Lynden within a hundred miles. Thankfully, Eileen O’Connor, the owner, bribes the inspectors when they come out every few months. Without Daly’s providing a steady supply of alcohol for folks to drown their sorrows, I doubt Lynden would last even a week before devolving into aLord of the Fliessituation. After working here for nearly two years, I maintain that Daly’s—much like a cockroach or the rising sun—will continue to persevere, long after the world forgets Lynden and leaves us behind.
Eileen’s sudden, rasping laugh reminds me that even if I never get out of here, I’m in good company, surrounded by my fellow degenerates and deadbeats. Eileen, for example, swept into town about fifteen years ago with all the subtlety of a hurricane and made the previous owner an offer he couldn’t refuse. She never talks about her life B.D.: Before Daly’s, but if fictional mysteries have taught me anything, it’s that strangers coming to town are always hiding something.
When I asked Carlos—the mid-fifties ex-convict who’s been Daly’s head cook for the last eight months after spending seven years in prison—why in the ever-loving fuck he chose Lynden of all places, he told me it was the farthest he could get with the $50 and one-way bus ticket they gave him. He claims that living here is still better than being locked up, but admits it’s not by much.
Chloe, another bartender five years my senior who’s survived working here even longer than I have, was the “it” girl of Lynden High until she got knocked up after a graduation party orgy. With four potential fathers—one of which was the mayor’s son, the other being the mayor’s brother—she’s lived out Lynden’s version of The Scarlet Letter ever since.
Maddie—the only other employee under the age of twenty-five to work here—streams on the side to save up for leaving the trailer park where she grew up in the rearview mirror. Her best customers are the men and women living in the gleaming houses on the other side of the tracks, praying over Sunday dinner with their families like some Norman Rockwell painting.
Nyx Byrke. Me. The abandoned newborn found by a motel maid and subsequently shuffled between foster and group homes for eighteen years. I’m told tried to find whoever left me in a pay-by-the-hour motel, but no one claimed me. No one raised their hand. No one cared—not when I was a nameless baby, and not when I was kicked out at eighteen with a GED and a hundred dollars to my name.
“Table eight is asking for another round, honey,” Chloe says, loading the next round of drinks on her tray. The familiar motions and patterns of my cloying, oppressive reality bring me back to the present. Sticky, squeaky floors bow under the weight of customers and servers walking between tables. The smell of watered-down beer mingling with cigarette smoke, kitchen grease, and body odor. Low murmurs of conversation between regulars and passers-through alike, broken only by the staticky TV, clinking glasses, and billiard balls clacking against one another on the worn felt top of the pool table.
“Thanks.” I give her the same tired smile that I’ve worn for the last five hours and grab the too-hot plates of food that have been sitting under the warming lights far longer than Carlos would approve of. I see to my tables, nodding at familiar, haggard faces and ignoring unfamiliar, overly-friendly smiles. Daly’s is many things—a rest stop for those needing a piss after twelve hours of hauling, a watering hole for those with a fondness for warm beer—but it is most certainly not a place where you can touch the staff. The last one who tried ended up with a baseball bat up his ass, eighteen slashed tires and twenty grand of missing cargo. The people of Lynden may be raging assholes on a good day, but there’s something to be said about how they look out for their own.
Despite the chill in the evening air as the shades of autumn slowly consume the sunshine of summer, Lynden has this ever-present, sickly sweet scent of decay and rotting things. Dreams and hopes that have withered on the vine as time crawls ever onward, while fleeting futures blink out of existence with every passing year. There’s a sick joke among the locals that if you’re born here, you’ll be buried here; the unspoken punchline being that it’s only after a lifetime of wasted days spent toiling for the last seeds of hope that manage to bloom.
Those of us who bear the scars of disappointment, who know better than to keep bleeding on the thorns, reaching for the last blooms of hope in search of a better life, always find their way to Daly’s. Night after night, year after year, misery longs for company. I’m grateful for every moment. When Eileen hired me after a riveting, drunken discussion on the versatility of the word “fuck”, she became the closest thing to a fairy godmother I’ve ever had—if that fairy godmother smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, said “fuck” every third word, and told you to hike your tits up for better tips.
“Nyxie!” the woman in question shouts from across the room. I wave my hand to acknowledge that I’m moving and hike up my tits before loading my tray and bringing drinks to my tables. God knows I’m not getting any tips based on quality of service. The familiar pattern of orders, drinks, ringing out customers, and bussing tables makes the time pass quickly, a blessing on slow nights like tonight. Our regulars begin to filter in and claim their favorite tables just in time for our nightly viewing of Wheel of Fortune. It’s become a tradition for our customers to wage a one-sided war against the contestants, screaming semi-coherent guesses at the TV. Every correct answer gets a free shot, which makes the episode of Jeopardy that immediately follows even more entertaining.
Bert claims his corner table underneath the ancient TV that hangs precariously off the wall. No one objects, seeing as how he’s the only one tall enough to hit it from the bottom when it shorts out without leaving his seat. Maureen takes her seat opposite Bert and is soon followed by her nemesis, Tammy. Their ongoing feud is an endless source of drama and intrigue, which comes in handy when Bert can’t get the TV working. I personally think that after nearly forty years of animosity, they should just fuck it out already.
My favorite regular, Montrell, strolls in shortly after Maureen and Tammy begin arguing over who was more wrong about the final Daily Double. Wearing his perpetual resting bitch face—truly, I’ve never seen him break—signals for his usual when he slides into a table in my section. Tammy tries to rope him into their argument but he, being an intelligent sort of man, lets the women argue amongst themselves. Bert, gossipmonger and shit-stirrer that he is, only adds fuel to the fire.
I like to think I’m Montrell’s favorite bartender, too. One night, after using a particularly creative and vulgar insult to tell off a handsy trucker, he almost smiled. When the other bartenders confirmed they’d never seen even a twitch of his lips, I gave him a free drink to show my appreciation. After that night, he started tipping me twenty percent—twenty-five if I wore a red bra. I’ve tried to make him actually smile ever since with increasingly debauched jokes, but he only crooks his eyebrow as if to say “is that all you got?”
When I mentioned the increase in tips to Chloe and Maddie, we conducted an experiment to see if bra color made a difference with anyone else. Eileen demanded a cut of the wager when she found out and tried to convince us to participate in a wet t-shirt contest. Maddie won first place and still has the “Lynden’s Best Tits” sash made out of toilet paper hanging from her cubby in the back bar. Eileen got second place. Carlos got third.
I’m restocking the back bar with refills from the cellar when Maddie bumps my shoulder. “Heads up, babe. Colt just walked in,” she says with a wink and laughs as I groan, rolling my eyes. My on-and-off-again fuck buddy and I don’t actually like each other. When we’re not “on”, I try to put as much distance between us as possible. Desperate times call for desperate measures, however, and ever since junior year of high school, we’ve been circling each other like sharks.
Wearing his signature crooked grin and shooting me “the eyes”, he gives Eileen a tight hug and peck on the cheek, startling when she grabs his ass before picking out a seat next to Bert.
“Hey darlin’,” he greets me in that deep, delicious drawl that sends a thrum of awareness through my body when I set his usual drink down a few minutes later. We’re currently “off” again because he’s been dating some girl on the rich side of town for the last few months. Last I heard, it was going well, but Bert has occasionally been known to be wrong.
“What’s this ‘darlin’’ nonsense, hmm?” He laughs, holding my gaze and brushing my fingers when he takes the glass out of my hand. His Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows the first sip, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of breaking eye contact. The man knows precisely how charismatic he is. It’s a shame his personality is shit.
“You know me, Nyx. Nothing keeps me away for long.”
“What’s your girlfriend have to say about that?”
