“Fuck.”
I dropped my bookbag. I heard the bottle of wine clink, buffered by a few worn notebooks. Shook my head. Went down on one reckless knee, trying to bring things into focus. The cat continued to struggle. I held out my arms, plunged them into lukewarm water.
“It’s all right,” I whispered. “Come on. I’ll get you out of here, cat.”
My hands found hold beneath its front legs. Fur matted to its body.
“All right,” I said, and slowly began to lift, a furry infant raised from the tub.
The cat barfed out a screech, thrashed wildly against my arms. Its claws awoke. Crossed my left arm and right hand. Pain shot through me, sharp and perfect.
“Ow, fuck!”
Blood seeped out from beneath fresh scars. I tried to maintain my hold. With another screech, the cat threw what I had to believe was a left hook to my face. Fire spread across my right cheek.
I lost my balance. Saw the darkened house turn sideways for one remote instant before the water closed over my head. Chlorine seeped into my ears, nose, mouth. I felt the sand wash away, as movement slowed. Sounds muted. The world around me left to a void of fluid imagination.
I didn’t think to let go of the cat, and we bobbed to the surface.
Spitting water, violently pawing each other.
“GODDAMIT!” I yelled as the cat swiped again, opening the skin on my temple. “I’M TRYING TO SAVE YOU, YOU DUMB FUCKING CAT!”
The argument didn’t land and down we went. All points of the compass left for dead. Sense of direction lost in an embryonic mess, and somewhere in there I swallowed water. Fluid pathways reaching into my lungs. I rose to the surface, gasping. Blindly reached for salvation. My hand closed around the concrete lip.
Coughing, retching, I hoisted myself on all fours.
Body betraying me. Clothes soaked through.
I gagged, vomited. Tasting the wine, seeing the red spread out in a shapeless birthmark. No food in there. There hadn’t been any food for a while. Leading me to wonder what the fuck I was doing.
From behind me, a voice echoed my very thoughts. “What the fuck are you doing?”
I couldn’t summon the strength to look up. Retched. The taste of chemicals tingled in my mouth. Saltine oxygen flowed into me, and I collapsed, rolled onto my back.
Standing above me was a girl with only one eye.
At least, to the best of my knowledge. The right one was covered with a white pad, held in place by intersecting pieces of medical tape. I locked my bloodshot sights on the bright blue that remained, cold and accusing.
She looked to be around fifteen. In her arms was the cat, calm and content.
“What kind of sick fuck are you?” she asked. “Trying to drown my cat?”
I coughed, tasting bile. “No…”
She didn’t say anything. Body cocooned by an indigo bathrobe.
Nearby, the ocean called me home.
I sat up, and she backed away.
“Don’t you fucking touch me!”
“Touch you?” The world went spinning, a deserted funhouse. “What are you talking about? I’m not going to do anything to you.”
“What were you doing with my cat?”
I stood up, slowly. Water squeezed from of my shoes in arterial spurts.
She backed up some more. “What were you doing to my cat?”
“I was trying to save it,” I said. Clothes soaked, weighing me down. “It fell in the pool, I thought it was going to drown.”
“Sandy likes to swim, asshole. She wasn’t drowning.”
“Is that its name?”
“What?”
“Sandy. Is that your cat’s name?”
“Yeah.”
Blood dripped into my eye. I blinked. “Well, Sandy looked like she could use a little help. I thought cats couldn’t swim.”
“What the fuck do you know about cats?”
She drilled into me, single eye luminous and unforgiving. Her brown hair was held up in a ponytail. One strand had managed to free itself, hanging loosely in front of the DIY patch.
Suddenly, I remembered something:
“I know Charles Bukowski had five of them in his more settled years…”
“Who the fuck is Charles Bukowski?”
“A writer.”
“I don’t read books.”
Sandy remained pressed against her.
Shiny oil slick against her robe.
I ran a hand down my face.
“You should be more careful,” she said.
“I know. I’m not very good at that.”
“I can tell that about you.”
“I know.”
“What can you tell about me?”
For the first time in years, I knew for certain there was a question that had only one possible answer. “I can tell you know a lot about cats.”
The girl gave nothing away.
“Sandy scratched you up pretty good,” she observed.
I looked down at my hands. They were covered with diluted blood. “I guess she did.”
I thought I saw her smile.
Wind swept past us, irritating the scratches on my face and arms.
Her bathrobe caught the breeze, lifted. Up past her knees, thighs, exposing blue panties adorned with white flowers.
She dropped the cat, Sandy, and flattened the robe. Done with what the wind had momentarily revealed. We stood at a distance, her hands pressed between her legs.
“Well, it serves you right,” she said. Bent over and picked up her cat, turning around.
Something wasn’t right. “Hey, wait.”
The girl turned about, staring me down as best she could. She looked sad. Sad and small, standing in the testimony of a collapsing moon, cat pressed close to her breast.
They bore an alarming resemblance to each other.
Nose, mouth, expression; practically identical with one exception…
“What happened to your eye?”
The girl blinked. “Which one?”
A wave crashed nearby. I saw her swallow.
“Never mind,” I said.
The girl bit her lip and walked away.
I stood for a while longer, face awash with blood and water. The wind carried with it a scent of curious shores. Time being, the water had taken care of the sand and I would have to find a place to sleep. I wandered out to the beach. Searching for God only knew. Up and down the coast, only houses and apartments with redacted windows. In quiet bedrooms, children slept, chased by dolls and paper demons.
I was only twenty and the only thing I knew about cats was that Charles Bukowski had owned five of them.
In his more settled years.
The bottle of wine dug against my back, reminding me.
Net wt. 26 oz.
The Sight of An Empty Glass.
I was running out the last few weeks of my lease, down in Verona town, when I heard the news.
Inside a bottle when the phone rang.
Hadn’t heard from Wanda since the morning my train went missing.
Didn’t even know she had the landline number.
“So all of a sudden, we’re friends again,” I said.
“Finley died,” she replied.
“What?”
“Finley died.”
It was 2002. Two-thirty in the am. Just two weeks shy of moving back to New York. A few months past the psychopath who tore down my kitchen door looking for a man by the name of Julian Applebee. With one cigarette nearly done, I lit another. Chain reaction. Took a hit of Kentucky Gentleman. “What?”
“Finley died.”
“Francis, Finley?”
“Bartender Finley, yes.”
“Train? Mugger? Cop?”
“Heart attack.”
“He was thirty-one.”
“Yeah.”
“How the fuck does a thirty-one year old in peak physical condition…” I waited for her to fill in the blanks. Gave up. “What now?”
“I don’t know
.”
I reached for the fifth of Gentleman.
Popped the cap, watched it spin circles on the floor.
Took a hit.
Remembered who I was talking to.
“So how are you?”
“Nevermind me,” she said. “Are you ok?”
I absently adjusted my crotch. “Fine.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Same old Lucky, then.”
“How are Janet and Remy?”
“Getting divorced.”
I sighed. “Yeah, seems about where it’s all headed.”
“Focus, Lucky.”
“Finley died?”
“The services are this weekend.”
“I don’t get back to New York until March.”
“I heard.”
“Me too… Guess I’ll have to stop by The Bishop and pay my respects.”
“Want to give me a call when you get there?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re a liar.”
“So are you.”
“You’re better at it.”
“Finley is dead?”
“He’s dead, Lucky. Have an emotion, why don’t you?”
I tapped the ash. Had another hit. “Ok. Thanks for calling.”
“You’re welcome, I guess.”
I didn’t know what else to do with her.
Hung up. Drank up. Had another cigarette and watched the shadows turn.
Forgot to cry that night, though I can’t say I remembered to write anything either.
***
I wandered into the Bishop.
Shane didn’t bat an eye. Tossed a coaster with a cautious Welcome back.
“Good to see you, Shane.”
“Yeah.”
He went about sidestepping. “What’s your drink these days?”
“Could stand a gin and tonic, if you’re headed that way.”
He nodded. Bypassed the usual chalices reserved for mixed drinks and served it up in a decent rocks glass.
“Thank you.”
He lit my cigarette, eyebrows twitching. Pair of caterpillars finding their way, any way to broach the subject. “You heard about Finley, then?”
I had a drink. Nodded.
“Yeah…” Shane put his hands in his pockets. “Service was beautiful, though.”
“Sorry I missed it.”
He leaned into the bar. “Come on. Don’t think you can hide in here. This is where we are.”
“How the fuck does a man his age die of a heart attack?” I asked.
“No secret. Fond of the white stuff, son. Got his ticker going too much, I’m afraid.”
“Goddammit.”
“Look who’s here, though.”
I glanced askance.
It was never too hard to spot Wanda. In a crowd, across a room, from seven blocks away. Blonde curls, blue eyes that shone like transparent dimes in dark hammocks, resting on her behalf. Soft features, pale lips like pink carnations.
And there she was. Striding in with the force of a category five. White shirt and blue jeans. Hips displacing entire galaxies. Green satchel thrown on the bar as she stood, waiting.
I stared.
“At least a hug,” Wanda said.
I stood. We fell into each other. Ran our hands along aching backs.
I closed my eyes and breathed in her neck.
But these things never ended well, and we split the difference.
“So you thought you’d give New York a second chance,” she said.
“Found a Post-it note on a stray dog… kind of had to come back.”
“I suppose you think I want to hear that story now.”
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“Because I don’t,” she said. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“I missed you.”
“Want me to say the same?”
“Wanda. Can I buy you a drink?”
She nodded.
Sat down.
We drank, smoked for a good few minutes.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked.
“I wasn’t smiling.”
“You were.”
“Is that what that was?”
“Tell me.”
I hesitated.
Wanda took that moment to shanghai my thoughts. Stepped in with her own brand of courage. “I’m not saying I didn’t want to go home with Finley,” she said. Smokey voice, Kentucky accent never straying too far from the campfire. “He was a beautiful looking man. Or maybe he was just how he was, I ain’t never been one to tell the difference… But the last time I saw him, I just wasn’t in the mood. He was closing up, house lights up and all that. I told him no. He agreed. But as we rounded the bar, he met me at the door...” She took back her Jack Daniel's. “He reached out, grabbed my hand, and pressed it against his jeans, against his cock, said, Sister, you’re going to say NO to THIS?” She smiled sadly.“Of course, I’m not doing the accent right.”
“I think it’s fine.”
“You’re the only person I know who wouldn’t get angry he did that.”
“I just like a good story.”
“Not going to fuck it up by saying he molested me?”
“Did he?”
She put out her Camel. Lit another. “Got chased up a set of stairs once by a boyfriend who carried a .38.”
“I know.”
“So he was bold. He was brash. He was uncalled for. But he was also some kind of wonderful.”
“Yes.”
“When people die, the rest of us get to agree on things.” She drank deep. Did everything deep, that was Wanda.
She kicked the duffle bag by my chair. “Now that I’ve done the heavy lifting, it’s your turn.”
“Want to take a belt of Jack with me?”
“Yes.”
Shane served it up.
I looked down the bar. Saw a couple crying into their Guinnesses.
I toyed with my gin and tonic. “Long as you’re trying to make me jealous,” I lit a cigarette, “and I suspect you are not,” took a drag. Sent smoke into the air, remembering. “Was drinking here one night, and struck up a conversation with a girl. She was a nurse, it turns out. Dark skin. Italian in origin, some one or two generations past Ellis, but a New Yorker, through and through. We made out at the bar. This bar, how about that?” I did that smiling thing, whatever that was supposed to look like. “On the cab ride back to her apartment she stopped to pick up a six pack of Red Stripe. We drank and smoked at her place. Got it on. She fell asleep while we were having sex. I came right about as I noticed this, and left myself with a sky of empty thoughts.”
“Mm.” She signaled for another Jack, rocks. Our shots remained untouched. “I love the feeling of a man coming inside me. Strange sensation, but it’s a specific touch.”
“We should have,” I said.
“I’m not happy about how it ended.”
“The part where it ended, or the part where we got into a screaming match over who got to give the other oral sex?”
“We should have taken our predilections for what they were, 69ed for a bit, then fucked.”
“And now we’ll never know.”
“Yes.”
“Missed my train, thanks to you.”
“Go on with your story about Finley that’s somehow about you.”
“Huh.” I signaled for another gin and tonic. Got what I needed. “We woke up, got dressed. Turns out we were on the West Side, across from the UN. She took me to a bar. Bought me four Bloody Mary’s, two shrimp cocktails. Guess that’s what I liked best about that afternoon, was that someone, for once, actually wanted to take care of me. We sat, smoked. She gave me her number. I wanted to call her, but I was so fucked up in those days…”
“Yes. Sure. Those days.”
“Yes…” I had a drink. Struggled against the glare of the television screens. “One month later, she was back in the bar. We talked. Did some shots. Tequila. Started making out. I walked her outs
ide. She hailed a cab. Wanted us to go home together, but she kind of stopped short. Told me, said, You never called. I didn’t have any defense, and I don’t think it mattered. She was seeing someone now. And she got in the cab and disappeared.”
I cleared my throat. Wanda took it as a sign and offered me a Camel.
Sparked the match and everything.
“Well… ” I sighed, “Walked back into this old place and sat my ass down. Finley came on over and asked what happened, how the fuck had I managed to screw that one up? Told him she told me I never called. He walked away. Popped the register. Came back at me and slapped his hand on the counter. Here’s a fucking quarter, Lucky, he said. Got a payphone in the back and everything, you fucking idiot. Next time ask me for one, it’s just twenty-five fucking cents.”
“Ha.”
“Yes.”
“Finley.”
“And now he’s dead.”
Wanda reached out to rub my back.
I brushed some hair that had found its way between her lips.
Found the time to run my thumb along her mouth.
She turned back to her drink. “I am seeing someone now, Lucky.”
I gave my drink its own due. “Yeah.”
“Same old.”
“Yeah.”
“Same deal though?”
I nodded. “You die first, I take all your stories and get them published.”
“Same goes for you…” She smiled. “Though you seem to be on your way up. Soon to be published, and all that.”
“There’s nothing I can’t fuck up.”
She agreed.
We remembered Finley and drank, hours growing heavy.
“Didn’t we almost have it all though?” I asked. “You and I?”
“Almost.”
“Or at the very least, most of it.”
“Almost.”
I nodded.
She reached for her shot.
I did the same.
“Well, I broke down in East St. Louis,” she recited.
“On a Kansas City line,” I replied.
“And I drunk up all my money,”
“That I borrowed every time.”
We toasted. Took the shots down.
“I’m going to leave before I fall in love with you again,” she said.
I doubled over, silently. “You could stay and do the same.”
“Or we could both stay and fall in love with Finley… but he’s dead.”
I nodded. Polished off my gin and tonic. “You should have gone home with him that night.”
“You should have called that girl.”
“Either one would’ve made a hell of a good story.”
“Race you,” she said.
And the distance between us swelled.
Could swear I heard the ocean in my glass.
“I do love you,” I told her.
“One of these days, I’ll believe you,” she said. “I promise.”
“One last kiss?”
“No.”
“Hug, then.”
Stories From a Bar With No Doorknobs Page 23
