The Barkeep

by William Lashner

  Justin Chase lived in a nineteenth-century “trinity” he rented on the cheap. The real estate agent, before she showed Justin the little tiny town house, described it as cozy. What he discovered when he toured the place was that each of the three floors was about the size of a prison cell. But the agent needn’t have worried her perfectly coiffed head of hair about it; Justin thought the place perfect. The first level now held a couch, a small dining table, and a galley kitchen. The second level was taken up by a futon on the floor, a bureau, and the bathroom. The third level was completely empty, the floor covered with light-green tatami mats Justin had picked up off Craigslist.

  He showered on the second floor to get the stench of the bar off his skin and then, with his long dark hair loose about his shoulders and clad only in a blue silk robe, he slowly climbed the stairs. Without haste he took his position on one of the tatami mats.

  A Zen master was once visited by an acclaimed scholar who intended to make a study of the master’s religious practices. As they sat for the tea ceremony, the master poured tea into the scholar’s cup until it overflowed and then kept on pouring. “Stop,” said the scholar. “No more will go in.” “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and emotions,” said the master as he kept pouring. “How can I teach you anything until you first empty your cup?”

  In the wake of his mother’s murder six years before, Justin had zipped through the first three stages of grief—shock, denial and bargaining—got hung up a bit on the guilt and the anger, and then crashed headfirst into depression, where he moldered without relief, as if locked within a dark, damp cage. It was in the midst of this breakdown that he stumbled onto an answer for how to get out of his prison. He found it in a book, of all places, pressed upon him by the shaking hands of a fellow patient at the mental hospital where his brother had sent him. The volume was small, black, bound in frayed, moth-eaten cloth, old and musty, Eastern and mystical. The first time he opened it, he found it filled with the most ridiculous of gibberish. It fit his mood perfectly.

  The book was a methodology for allowing his mind, as the text described, to rest undistractedly in the nothing-to-do, nothing-to-hold condition of the primordial void state. Easier said than done, and not so easily said. But Justin, at the time, intuitively saw in it a route out of his pain. Whatever horrors he faced in this world, whatever demons approached, the answer was not to flee in terror. Instead the book taught him to face the horror of the world with a calm courage. Fear it not, read the book. Be not terrified. Be not awed. Know it to be the embodiment of thine own intellect.

  There was a rational side to our thinking, and there was an emotional side, and the book gave him a clue how to separate one from the other. He gave the book’s methods a try and, shockingly, they seemed to work. He saw clearly the futility of trying to leave a mark on the shifting planes of reality, like trying to write his name in the foam of an ocean wave. He learned to discard his dreams of worldly success and let his entire existence float on the winds of chance. As he quieted his hopes, his emotions dimmed; as he made fewer and fewer choices, he became more and more content to let his life come to him. And slowly, from the words of the book and through his practice, he found for himself an equilibrium outside his pain. That was how he finally left the cage of his depression, and then left the institution, and then flitted across the surface of the country with the perfect mindlessness of a moth. That was how he ended in this house, in this life, that was how he became a barkeep.

  But now that old bastard Birdie Grackle had done the one impermissible thing: he had threatened to breach the floodgates of Justin’s emotions. Justin had no doubts where that would lead if he let it continue: with Justin lying curled on the floor, unable to stand, unable to breathe, unable to see anything but the darkness. That way led to the asylum. He had been there and back already, he wouldn’t go again. But by hard experience Justin had learned how to deal with rogue emotions that pierced his placid surface. He sat cross-legged on the tatami mat, closed his eyes, evened out his breathing, and began to empty his cup.

  Slowly and carefully, he called forth his emotions and let them rise within him. He didn’t now try to stifle them or dim their force. Instead he thought of his mother and her lovely face. And he remembered lugging the great fusty bundle of his laundry, like the great burden of his youthful ambitions, along the dark path from the street to the large stone house with bold white pillars. And he remembered slipping on something and almost losing his balance, figuring it to be a smear of mud left over from the rain. And he remembered reaching the front door, which was slightly ajar. And the wedge of light that leaked out of the narrow opening. And the slick of red he could now see on the sole of his running shoe. And, even as the inkling that something was deadly wrong blossomed monstrous in his heart, the way he called out “Mom?” as he pushed the door open. “Mom?”

  And as he remembered, he let the emotions flow, as if he were an urn being filled with a never-ending stream. They poured into him, dark and roiling, and he tasted each of them, the silvery bitterness, the shock and the hurt, the pain of betrayal, the despair, the fury, the sadness, such sadness, the sense of loss, the sense of being lost, loneliness, anger, fury, guilt. Yes, guilt. Despite his even breaths and quiet body, his heart raced as the emotions rose to choke him. They filled him with their trial and turmoil, and for a moment he had the panicky sensation that he was drowning.

  He wanted to escape, to flee, to swim to the surface and cast everything aside, but he maintained his posture. The emotions kept rising, one pushing up the next, each pushing out the other. He became a deep pool of these dark and swirling emotions, the bottom unfathomable, the emotions themselves rising so quickly a stream fell out of one low edge of the pool and plunged down a craggy slope until emptying into some great sea. And each of these emotions, after they filled him with their power and pain, followed one after the other down that fall and away.

  After a long period of turmoil, Justin’s heart slowed, and the pool cleared, and he felt overcome with calm. A perfect stillness, a moment of absolute tranquility. It wasn’t an easy place to get to, and he struggled to stay there once he found it, but it felt like home when he was there. And he was there now.

  Have you ever seen the road shimmer before you on a hot summer’s day, the way it looks more like a dream than a hard piece of reality? When Justin’s mind was clean of cant and emotion, when both past and future fell away, the whole world shimmered like that for him.

  Shimmered like the harmless illusion that it was. And what kind of barkeep would he be if he could be spooked by an illusion?

  3.

  SOMETHING HARD

  There are two types of the mentally deficient in this world. The first type mistake their lack of understanding for bold perception. This type of deficiency is often found in urologists and presidential candidates and is as dangerous as the plague. The second type are acutely aware of their own limitations and embrace the narrow range of their capacities. Think of the idiot savant with a rare genius, who gives the world a great artistic gift that can be both stunning and transformative.

  Derek belongs to this second class, being himself a bit of an idiot and a bit of a savant.

  Derek knows all that he does not know. Plots and plans fly in the air about him, conspiracies flourish. He can sense the purposes and cross-purposes battling around him, but he is unable to appreciate their true import and so he has left off trying to understand. Schemes are hatched and thrive and die ugly deaths while Derek goes about his business blissfully unaware.

  He lets Vern take care of the plotting now. He trusts Vern because he has no choice but to trust Vern. He cannot find the jobs, negotiate the fees, avoid the double cross, count the money. He knows how hard it is to keep the business end of things straight because Vern constantly tells him how hard it is to keep the business end of things straight. And after that job went sour with Tree, and Derek was left holding the bag in Harrisburg, he is grateful that Vern has stepped into
the void. Vern counseled him on how to make his mark in prison so that everyone would leave him alone. Vern counseled him on how to play the parole board when his time was up. Vern counseled him on how to get back into the business. Vern stepped up when Derek needed someone to step up for him.

  And so now he trusts Vern. As he had trusted Tree before Vern. And had trusted Rodney before Tree. And had trusted Sammy D before Rodney. They were the smart guys, they were the ones who understood the world. And that they all are dead, except for Vern, only reinforces Derek’s satisfaction with his place in the world. Let the others scheme their way through life, using him as a tool; Derek just goes about his business. Coolly, efficiently, brutally. He might not be an artistic savant, but he is not without talents. And in their strange way, his abilities put a song in his heart.

  It is still light when Derek slips along the alleyway to the back door of the Kensington row house north of Center City Philadelphia. He examines the lock, a simple Yale with a rusted cylinder, before taking the proper torque wrench and a half-diamond pick from the vinyl envelope he always keeps in his pocket. A lock like this Derek can scrub open as quick as a breath.

  Sammy D taught Derek how to open locks. Sammy D knew everything about lock-picking, but by the time Derek was through with his lessons he was better at it than Sammy D. Rodney could do locks too, but he was a squirrelly little guy, always worried about who was coming up behind him or what was waiting for him inside or how long the job was taking or how much noise was being made. It was the powder that made him nervous. Sometimes Rodney, under pressure, would fail repeatedly, throwing all the timing out of whack. But Derek never has such problems. He trusts his handler to worry about everything else but the step-by-step of the job. So when he is working a lock, all he cares about is raising the pins and manipulating the cylinder. It is just him and the lock and after a moment—click, plock, click—the pins align as if on their own.

  Once inside the row house, with the door closed behind him, Derek takes out his flashlight and begins to navigate his way. He knows he has enough time to get in position because Vern has told him he has enough time. The rear door opens into a basement filled with boxes and junk and smelling slightly of crap. A cockroach scurries away from the light, and Derek follows it with his beam until it slips beneath a sagging carton. Derek leans down and sees the slight antennae wave at him. He waves back.

  Derek is fascinated with animals of all kinds—bugs, rabbits, muscular mastiffs—and they all seem just as fascinated with him. But of all the animals, Derek is most fascinated with horses. He loves their coats, their smell, the way they lift their front hooves, the way they feel between his legs when he rides them. And Vernon has promised Derek his own horse if all works out right. He has always wanted his own horse and has been promised one many times before, but as of yet he is still waiting. Derek is tired of waiting. Derek is going to hold Vern to that promise.

  A set of rough wooden stairs climbs to a doorway that leads into a large eat-in kitchen, with bare counters, an old rusted stove, yellow linoleum flooring. Derek passes through the kitchen like a shadow, through an arched passageway to a dining alcove, and then to a living room with the front door on its far wall. A sagging sofa, an old television, a telephone set by a greasy green easy chair in the corner. The room smells of mold and body odor.

  Derek walks over to the phone and picks up the handset. He dials the number Vern told him to dial. He has instructions for what to do if the phone is answered and what to do if it is not answered. There is no answer now, so he waits for the voice-mail message and then stays on the line, humming to keep it from shutting off. Vern told him to hum something, but Derek needed more specific instructions, so Vern told Derek to just hum his favorite song. Derek had to choose between “God Bless America” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and he worried about that decision for the longest time until he decided to sort of mix them together. When he is done humming, he hangs up the phone, sits in the green chair, and waits.

  And here is another advantage of Derek’s mental deficiency in his unique line of work. This could be a difficult moment, the waiting, when doubts start sprouting like weeds. Rodney could never bear these moments. He could not stop himself from nervously talking when they were in it together. Yap-yap-yammering about plans and angles and things that Derek never could follow. Rodney had never learned the trick that seems to come naturally to Derek. As the outside darkens into night, Derek’s mind goes just as dark; in the quiet of the room, Derek’s mind is just as quiet. His pulse remains low, his breathing even. And it stays that way, until he hears the scuffing at the front door.

  When the front door finally opens, a man slouches in, shuts the door behind him, and flicks the light switch by the door. The room is bathed with a dull yellow from an overhead fixture, but the man is so preoccupied with emptying his pockets onto a side table and examining the contents, including a small packet with white powder inside, that it takes a moment for him to realize that someone else is in the room.

  “What the hell—” says the man. He is old and skinny, wearing a pair of dirty jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. His shoulder-length gray hair is stringy with grease, his face is bathed in sweat, and he smells bad, as if he has not showered in weeks. When he opens his mouth, Derek can see a set of rotting teeth behind his thin, scabby lips.

  “Are you Flynn?” says Derek. His voice is slow and deliberate, and every syllable is equally accented.

  The old man examines Derek for a moment, and then a smile emerges. He is calmed by Derek’s voice. Everyone seems to be calmed by Derek’s voice. “Yeah,” says the old man. “I’m Flynn. What, did Mac send you?”

  “Who did you talk to?” says Derek, only asking what he has been instructed to ask.

  “No one. Why?”

  “The DA?”

  “She called. No biggie. I just repeated what was in the thing I signed. She insisted that I come to the office to talk to her. I’m going tomorrow. If I had a choice, I’d say no. But, you know, I’m still on probation and so—”

  “Who else did you talk to?”

  “No one.”

  “The son?” says Derek.

  “Frank? No, of course not. The son of a bitch almost killed me last time I saw him.”

  “And the other son?”

  “Who, the kid? No, jeez, I told Mac I’d seen him in the street, but he passed me by like he didn’t know me. I haven’t talked to him since the whole thing happened.” Flynn bounces his weight nervously from one leg to the other. “You tell Mac it’s all clean. I knows I owe him. I was jammed up before, but this I can handle. Tell him he can count on me.”

  “Where were you?” says Derek.

  “Out. Getting some provisions.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Food and stuff.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Okay, yeah, if you can call them that,” says the old man with a derisive snort. “There’s so much talcum in each bag, it would be more worthwhile to dust my dick with it than to put it in my arm. But it’s tough staying here, waiting, like I’m supposed to, and I got this thing tomorrow. I just needed something to take the edge off, that’s all. You tell Mac not to worry.”

  “I have something for you,” says Derek. He rises from the chair, walks over to the table where the old man has dumped the contents from his pocket, and drops a small box on top of the pile.

  It is covered with a bright-blue paper, a red ribbon wrapped around it and tied into a bow. It is pretty.

  “What’s that?” says the old man.

  “A present,” says Derek. He backs away and sits again in the chair.

  Flynn looks at the box, raises his head to look at Derek in the corner, and turns his attention back to the box. He waits for a moment before attacking the box like a kid on Christmas morning with a real family to take care of him, sliding off the ribbon, ripping the paper, opening the lid. He pulls out a small plastic bag filled with a few large chunks of dark-red powder.

  “What’s
this?” says Flynn.

  “A present.”

  “From Mac? I don’t understand.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Flynn opens the bag, takes a sniff. His eyes flutter.

  “Go ahead,” says Derek.

  “Oh, I see. Something to keep me busy, to make sure I play my part and don’t talk to anybody. I told you he doesn’t have to worry, but you tell him I appreciate the gesture. You want a taste?”

  Derek simply shakes his head. He tried heroin once, Derek has tried everything once, including sex, but like sex, heroin did not take. Derek does not need drug-fueled flights of fantasy or an escape from the hard truths of reality. Because Derek does not pretend to understand the hard truths of reality. He lives in the simplicity of the moment, and there is beauty there, even in this crumbling Kensington row house. So, content in the limitations of his own mind, he watches as the old man sits down on the couch by the table and makes his preparations.

  Sammy D, Derek’s first partner, was an addict. Derek watched Sammy D shoot up hundreds of times in the worst kinds of shooting galleries in Baltimore, watched Sammy D follow the step-by-step path to oblivion, with the spoon and the candle and the cotton and the needle. Sammy D was the first to promise Derek a horse, when Derek was just starting out in the business and Sammy was hustling for jobs. “Horse” was also what Sammy D called the powder he threw away their money on, and so Derek watched the horse slip needleful by needleful up Sammy’s arm. When Sammy finally expired, all Derek could think was that if he had gotten the animal, they both would have been better off.

  Now Flynn has the needle prepared. Derek watches as he rolls up his sleeve and ties the rubber strap around his biceps, grabbing it with his teeth. The old man flicks his forearm, like Sammy used to flick his forearm, and then sticks the needle in, drawing blood into the syringe before releasing the dark-brown fluid. The last thing Derek sees is a dreamy smile before the old man nods off.