“It’s too much…” She shouldered her satchel and walked away.
The door didn’t hit her ass on the way out, and nobody noticed my vacant expression.
I sat down.
Shane approached me, pointed. “You want another one?”
“There’s not another Wanda on this whole fucking planet.”
“I meant a drink, son.”
I nodded.
Shane reached for the gin. “Finley never could stand the sight of an empty glass.”
My eyes overcompensated in wet recollections and tears poured down my face.
Watered the bar.
It was ok, though. I wasn’t alone.
“Cheer up, son.” Shane put a caring hand on my shoulder. “Finley loved you.”
“You’re a liar.”
“I’m a bartender.”
“So was Finley.”
Shane sighed. Withdrew his hand and reached under the bar. “I know.” He served me up a gin and tonic. “We’re going to keep these drinks between you and me tonight, right, son?”
“Thank you.”
Didn’t realize it, but there was a fresh bullet of Jack before me.
Another one for Shane.
“You’re not supposed to drink on the job.”
“This ain’t my job.”
We toasted.
And I started thinking about where the fuck I was going to live now.
Sunset Park some two weeks before a rearview mirror.
God Had Other Plans.
I was halfway through the explanation, when those Latin hips slid close for a swift intervention. Corrected my posture, now dangerously slumped in a booth of dirty, cracked upholstery. Nose dipping into my tequila. She directed my face towards hers. Spanish words pantomimed under the blast of Reggaeton. Whether checking for a pulse or cruising for a kiss, I moved on in, closing my eyes and preparing my lips for the color of blue agave, when suddenly
I opened my eyes.
A pair of black, fuzzy ears were staring back at me.
Cat’s body, curled up against my face.
I couldn’t move just yet. Except for my eyes. Searching from the foot of the couch. Up to the walls. Stilted angles suggesting the floor as my final resting place. Half my mouth pressed against the wood. Mind shattered into derelict fragments.
This wasn’t a hangover.
This was a whole new world of pain.
Felt the feeling return to my legs. Spread to my pelvis, nerve endings like poisoned rose petals.
Rolled onto my back.
Open invitation for the cat to awaken.
She set her paws on my chest and began to lick my face.
“Why?” I croaked, sitting up.
The room took me for a ride. Forced my head down against an awaiting couch. Soft surface insufficient to cushion the pain. Chalkboard arias dragging their nails along my vertebrae.
I was two minutes from pissing my pants, ‘less I could wrangle all my parts.
Get something going.
I stood. Managed to waste a good minute remaining that way.
Checked the windows and recognized a seven a.m. shade of grey.
I was led to the bathroom by a single shoe and a filthy blue sock.
Left leg, right leg.
Still off balance, mistaking the door for the ceiling.
Sat my ass down, tucked and pissed.
Shook it off.
Stood. Worked my way towards the sink.
Washed my hands.
Glanced into the mirror.
Half my face crusted in dried blood.
Glanced down.
Not a trace of red on my hands, beneath my nails. No signs in the sink.
Pretty good chance I hadn’t killed anyone last night.
Good enough reason for a second look.
Yes. I had a superb masquerade going on.
Hard to tell what the source was.
Ran my hands beneath the water and bent low. Began to dab and caress my way towards closure. Watched the rusted colors swirl down the drain, getting a thick cocktail of blood and water along my lips. A taste of what I couldn’t remember. Straightened. Took a closer look at what was still my face.
A searing gash had extended my left eyebrow one good inch further down my temple. Skin split. Fully cauterized, but still gaping in a dark red smile.
That explained the pain. Disorientation. Nausea.
Didn’t explain much else.
Too many questions to put the pieces together.
Or not enough pieces to warrant enough questions.
I stumbled back to the couch.
Actually managed to nail the landing this time.
The cat followed me, zeroed in. Sniffed around.
“You were licking my blood,” I told her. “Never again.”
Closed my eyes.
The cat began to meow in my ear.
Not enough to keep me from spiraling.
Not enough to make me wonder if sleeping was really the best idea with a possible concussion.
Never mind.
***
Didn’t dream.
Woke up around noon.
A quarter pressed against my cheek.
Sent an arm out towards the bridge table. Got myself a cigarette. Couldn’t find a lighter. Remembered a pink one stashed in my book bag.
But I couldn’t find my book bag.
Gone.
Had I been jumped on the way home?
Taken for all I had?
I checked my pockets.
There was my driver’s license. Credit card. Business card belonging to an alcoholic magician. A couple of coupons from the local Gristedes. A pair of nearly identical receipts. My vision blurred. Now four receipts. Went to the kitchen. Turned on the electric stove. Opened the fridge. Pulled a 22 of Corona, too early for wine or rum. Popped the top. Had a few tugs. Caught the burners turning red. Bent low, lit my cigarette.
Back to the living room. Sat and gave the receipts a second look, now sticking to their story.
Both from El Mercurio.
One for fifty-eight dollars.
Time stamped at 5:18 a.m.
The second for twelve-fifty.
Clocking in at 6:20.
I took a swig of Corona.
Let a trail of smoke into my lungs.
Noticed a trail of blood leading from the door to my point of impact.
“What the fuck happened after midnight?” I whispered.
The cat jumped off the table and replied with a request for more food.
***
Northwest corner of 5th Avenue and 34th Street.
El Mercurio was closed.
At least since six-twenty that morning, anyway...
I walked along 5th. Searching for any signs of my busted forehead.
Said my hellos to a couple of Dominicans waiting for the bus, just outside the Tap Room.
Figured a subway ride and a few drinks might just jog my memory…
***
The early afternoon drunks told me to get stitches.
Rowan served me a Corona and knocked on the counter. “Think you got rolled, then, Lucky?”
“Maybe.”
“Didn’t take your money?”
“Didn’t have no money.”
“ID? Credit cards?”
I smacked my ass. “Right where I left ‘em.”
“Just your bookbag?”
“Just my bookbag.”
“Anything important in there?”
“Notebooks.”
“Anything important in those?”
“Don’t remember.”
Reilly laughed. Moved in from two seats away. Blue eyes bloodshot and half dead, deep implants along a five-o-clock babyface. “The writer doesn’t remember what he’s written down!”
“I write it down so I don’t have to remember.”
He slapped my back.
DayGlo amoebas went spinning before my eyes.
Cleared the way for a p
air of Yeager shots.
“You all right there?” Rowan asked.
I tossed back my shot. “Fine.”
“Really.”
“Fine.”
“You call the cops?”
“They’ll probably just blame me,” I said. “Can’t, even if I wanted to.”
“How’s that.”
“Can’t afford to get my name run. Not after impersonating Alex in that Red Hook courthouse.”
Reilly laughed again. “I remember that! How about it, Lucky? I remember that day!”
I gave him due appreciation.
Rowan paused. “Brigid was asking about you the other day.”
I pointed towards my eye. “Been busy.”
“Sure.”
“What do you want from me?”
Reilly swayed in his seat, into my orbit. “How’d you remember most of it?”
“I told you, I don’t. That’s why I write the shit down –”
“I mean last night, dummy. How do you remember last night?”
I brought the bottle to my forehead and did my best to remember.
Took a running start.
Ok. Walked into Castlebar yesterday. New guy was there. Asked me what I wanted. Corner of my eye, ears, whatever, a voice pipes up, Double of Jack on the rocks. I turn to find a chick with nubby hair, black frames, and dark, shiny skin. It’s Anika. Who I haven’t seen since the day after we slept together back in early ’99. We met at Creole Nights. Helena wasn’t too wild about it. This was before we were together, but that’s no excuse, really. I had told her I would go to her place after leaving the bar, and instead –
“Focus, Lucky.”
I get my double of Jack. Sit down beside her. We catch up. Turns out she has no qualms about our one-night stand. Even throws me a couple of sly compliments. Can’t say they had any basis in reality, but can’t say they didn’t do their part to make me smile. Just a bit. Remember thinking what this coincidence might mean. Why now? Maybe I read too much into it. Maybe I think I deserved more than I do. Either way, five doubles later and I move in for a kiss. Manage to land one on her cheek. Boyfriend, it turns out. She gives me her business card in lieu of meaning. I stay and watch the changing of the guard.
“Shit,” Rowan laughed, offered up another beer. Twin engines of Yeager for Reilly and me. “That was you.”
It was enough to get me mixing my tenses.
Not sure. Seventy-five percent chance? I was pretty well buzzed. Confused. Not sure. You have to understand, it was pretty awful what I did to Helena. But what Anika and I did, no regrets. So what was I left with? I caught the first N train down to Sunset Park. Up 34th. Along Fifth Ave. Knew most of those beer joints along that way. Never enough to get too familiar with anyone. Noticed the bar.
“He noticed the bar,” Reilly laughed. “The one with the receipts.”
Complicated system. Walk in through the doors. A ratty store front with a counter full of wedding cakes. Cup cakes. Paddy Cakes. Have to go to the end of the room. Turn right through a set of double doors and then you end up in a ramshackle canteen. Arena for pool tables on the left. Poorly constructed bar all down the right side. I sat down. Mexican beauty behind the bar automatically talks to me in Spanish. Doesn’t ask for ID. Serves up a Corona. Leans forward, bangs hanging. Intertwining with her mascara. Asks me what brought me in there. I tell her, in Spanish, best I could, that I wanted an experience. Wanted the night to mean something... Then she was next to me. We drank a few beers before hitting the pool table. She brought a friend of hers into the mix. I kept missing my pockets, nothing but cushion. Not my best game. Possibly my worst. Every time I went down behind the cue, they’d draw close. Whisper. Run their hands along their bodies and wink. Smile. Lick their lips.
The barflies all knew my name. Barked it out with solid approval. Forgetting that I had been knocked off my axis, crash landed back in their bar with a massive headache and a gash along my face.
Problem with you assholes is I agree. Felt so close to something. A reward. Wild night of threesomes and moresomes. On the fucking floorsomes. Goddammit, that need for a fucking story to tell. What the hell does God want from me?
Rowan tilted his head. “Lucky?”
I don’t even know if Anika, or Helena, or anything resembling regret was there. Backing up my drinks. All of us, we were seated in that booth. Torn booth, brown vinyl. Table on an erratic wobble. Clubbed feet. Half our drinks spilling over the top. Leaving accelerant trails. Rancid fingertips sticky with the smell of well. Downing shots. I remember being happy, thinking there was still some life left in this city. Still some stories to tell. That was when my lady asked me to explain myself. What a mongrel like me was doing divvying up my time between Spanish, English. Killing his liver in a Sunset Park dive, and I swear she asked me if she would ever see me again, like all the others.
“Like all who?” Rowan asked.
I was halfway through the explanation, when those Latin hips slid close for a swift intervention. Corrected my posture, now dangerously slumped in a booth of dirty, cracked upholstery. Nose dipping into my tequila. She directed my face towards hers. Spanish words pantomimed under the blast of Reggaeton. Whether checking for a pulse or cruising for a kiss, I moved on in, closing my eyes and preparing my lips for the color of blue agave, when suddenly
For a moment, I caught a glimpse of what lay beyond my last known moments. I saw a pale and frightening figure, clad in wild red tattoos and nothing else, flames leaping from open wounds, burning so bright that the darkness turned to light, bright and blinding, sending my mind into a sharp up-tempo seizure.
Eradicating Castlebar and all its lonely inhabitants from my broken little mind.
***
There was a minute there, where the train came to life. I woke up and the ceiling started breathing. Advertisements for laser eye surgery and shady class action lawyers worming inward. Walls like tin foil. Puffing back out in munificent distortion. In again. Out again. I took a swig of an inexplicably fresh bottle of rum. Absently touched the scar on my forehead and found the pain too much for my vision to agree with.
***
I opened my eyes.
A pair of black, fuzzy ears were staring back at me.
Cat’s body, curled up against my face.
I couldn’t move just yet. Except for my eyes. Searching from the foot of the couch. Up to the walls. Stilted angles suggesting the floor as my final resting place. Half my mouth pressed against the wood. Mind shattered into derelict fragments.
I sat up. “No. Not again.”
Went to the mirror in the bathroom.
Not happy with what I saw, but pleased enough to find no traces of blood.
No temporal loop.
No reset button.
It was good enough for me, peachy keen.
I let it slide, made up for unaccounted hours with another face plant into blue cushions.
This time, the cat ignored me.
***
Woke up.
Had myself a beer, cigarette.
All aches and pains subsiding. The worst over and done with, I had to hope.
Tried to peer past another set of lost memories.
It was Monday. Noon in Sunset Park.
Maybe I could finally pay El Mercurio a long overdue visit.
***
I walked past the pastry bar. Caught the eyes of a wary baker with bright tattoos. Behind him, one of the ovens gaped angrily, red hot irons from within. Kept moving.
Turned and went into the bar.
The daylight hours gave colors new meaning.
What was once a collage of jealous greens, purple and mellow yellows had now turned to a sandy tone of monochromatic pastels. Not a single patron to be seen. Barman I didn’t recognize. Locked in rapid fire conversation with a mustached man in a white tank top, seated at a nearby table, thumbing through stacks of flattened presidents.
From the doorway, I cleared my throat.
They stopped. Tu
rned. Stared.
I heard the oven slam shut.
Glanced down and noticed my shoelace was untied.
Cleared my throat again.
Decided on English as a first language. “I’m looking for my bookbag.”
Their stares hardened.
I tried again. “I was here two nights ago. Saturday night. I think I might have left –”
“Get out,” the bartender said.
I shifted the weight from my left to my right. “I think I might have left my bookbag here.”
“We told you last night,” the bartender insisted. “There ain’t nothing here.”
“It was Saturday,” I told them. “It was Saturday I was here.”
“We took care of this last night, little man.”
A forgotten cigarette sent a smokescreen across the bar. Nearby fan creaking in a slow shake of its head.
Didn’t know why, but the bartender hated me. Eyes contemplating murderous scenarios.
I asked again, this time, in Spanish.
And this really pissed the bartender off.
Got him moving around the bar.
I remembered my brother. That bar in Tijuana. The Mexican who sent his nose halfway into his face with one solid kiss from a meaty fist.
Prepared myself.
Saw the man in charge of their bankroll hold up a hand.
Giving me what couldn’t have been more than a thirty-second lease on the situation.
“Better do what he says, friend.” He stood up. Maybe hoping I’d see the nickel-plated piece sticking out of his pants. Maybe just looking to make it plain as day he was only seven or so steps away from where I stood. “Just keep your mouth shut and don’t come around no more.”
Whatever it was I didn’t remember, it was clearly the only reason I was still alive.
I nodded. “Just wanted to make sure.”
Turned, invisible bullets shattering my spine with every step I took.
They never bothered to take it that far.
***
I walked out of that makeshift bar with no bookbag and less answers.
Everyone on the street a potential enemy.
Stopped wondering what it was God wanted from me, and tied my shoelace.
Both of them. Just in case the other decided to come undone.
I made my way up 41st street, waiting for the next domino to fall.
Psychopath.
Aces was halfway through a glass of water when the doorbell rang.
He undid the deadbolt. Removed the chain. Opened the door.
Tarquin was hovering near the entrance, jeans and a black cap.
“You’re late,” Aces told him.
“Game didn’t break up ‘til one.”