and when we ran out of air, our memories ran out of use.
***
My basement apartment. Both of us surfacing for seconds, then back under in black immersion. Bodies wet, slithering along the bed. Misguided heel smashing against a lamp. Head down, my face between her legs. Early morning birds tapping at the window. Neither one of us interested in impressing, as though this were the greatest of all adventures that needed to be gotten over with.
***
I awoke to an infuriated cat, repeatedly collapsing onto my face.
Desperate meows.
Dragged my face across the pillow, over to where Brigid lay sleeping. On her back. Naked from the waist down. Black socks pulled up to her knees.
I sighed. “All that, and I never even got to see your tits.”
“Hmm?”
“Brigid, I have to feed the cat. You working today?”
She turned her head to kiss me. Perfect scent of a sour depth charge. Moved my hand up along her body. “These tits, Lucky?” she whispered into my mouth.
“Hello.”
Then she stiffened.
Shot up, top set of teeth banging against my cheek. “Shit, I do have to work today.” She glanced around. Put a hand absently against her pussy, brief snooze button. “Time, Lucky? Time, please?”
I glanced at the radio. “Ten. Morning, in case you were –”
“Shit!”
She scurried after her pants. It gave me the chance to realize I had been liberated from my own pair at some point. Realized Brigid wasn’t in so much of a hurry, she couldn’t pause, and send my windsock a quick wink and a sly Hello.
She barreled past me, into the bathroom.
The living room was a disaster.
Pants hanging off the back of the couch.
With that mystery solved, I opened a tin of tuna, looking to make amends.
My cat howled in anticipation, then set about wolfing it down.
In all the rush, I forgot to wonder whether I was supposed to be smiling.
***
The custodian had opened shop for Brigid. Gotten her chores started with enough speed to allow us to charge through the door, send her behind the bar, just before the regulars came crying their way from the sun.
We stared at each other ruefully. Back to where twenty-four hours had first found us.
“Amazing,” she said.
“I’m surprised you remember,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Shut your stupid face.”
“Face?”
“It’s as though last night’s madness won’t let go,” Brigid mused, pouring us a pair of waters. “Followed us right back in here. I thought for sure I’d be fired.”
“I won’t tell.”
She reached over and held my hand. Felt nice, comfortable. “Want a drink?”
“Greyhound?”
“Do we not have an arrangement today?”
I smiled through my headache. “Surprise me.”
“Want to help me cut some lemons?”
“I would love to help you cut some lemons.”
She hoisted a mesh bag of yellow stoplights onto the bar, and we began to slice.
***
I spent the morning with Brigid. I spent the afternoon with Rowan and some of the regulars, sipping whiskey outside a bar in the West Village. Back in time to see Brigid off work. She invited me to dinner with her friends. I had a birthday to tend to in the unfortunate bars and Karaoke slums off the L train. She kissed me goodbye. Thanked me for a perfect evening. I told her we would see each other soon, left out the details.
After all, we had an arrangement.
Problem was there were still disco shards in my shoes. They followed me to the party, where the best friend went into Nitrous seizures. They dug into my heels when the thieves came looking for whatever they could steal. The incident on the Upper West Side. The illegal impersonation of Alex in a Red Hook courthouse. Waking up at six in the morning to find my face caked in blood, one inch gash stenciled along my left eyebrow and no memory of where my bookbag had gone. The wounded bird. The magician. The mad rush to write it all down taking me one month past our potential, when I finally synched my schedule to hers and sat down, only to have her ask what I’d like to drink.
“Not sure,” I said, resting my notebook on the bar.
“I’ll come back when you’ve decided,” she said.
I pulled out the crossword and let the regulars distract themselves further.
She came back with the same question.
“I’m sorry,” I told her.
“You could have called,” she said.
“You didn’t get my notes?”
“You can’t just leave notes behind and assume that I’ll assume the best.”
“It never occurred to me to call. You’re right. Cell phones are stupid, but you are right.”
Brigid let the honesty ease the anger. Left the pain right where it was. “I think you must know I fancy you. That I always have.” She threw a look back over her shoulder, then continued. “But that night was a mistake. I made a mistake.”
“Nobody made any mistakes.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“See what?”
“Maybe Lincoln was right about you.”
“What’s that?”
“Even with luck on your side, you’ll never stop.” She reached out to grab my hand. Smiled to herself for even trying and withdrew. “And now I’ll always feel like I was just another part of it.”
“Another part of what?”
“Chaos kitten,” she said. Gave me a sympathetic frown. Lips parted. “There’s not a woman alive who’s going to stick around for what you have to offer.”
It was my turn to do something with my hands. Made it about as far as she had. Picked up a pen instead and tapped it on my wrist. “We can rebuild.”
“It’ll take some doing.”
“We can try. Starting now.”
“Ask me for a drink, and I’ll get it for you. That’s generally how it goes.”
“Jack Daniel’s, rocks. Please.”
Our arrangement at an end, she fulfilled her obligation and accepted my tip with a rehearsed smile.
The cubes cut like glass along sore gum lines. And while that may have been our last conversation, I did finally find those disco shards buried deep in my shoes. Put them in a tiny box. Put the box in the closet, where the cat wouldn’t bother to look.
Even still, I lost the box.
And years later, when I went looking for it, I found something else instead.
And I’d say you have to believe me, but I don’t know what time it is where you’re living.
And wherever you’re living, I hope you are able to sleep.
And if you can, finally, sleep
could you tell me what it’s like?
Tobacco Roadhouse.
Just as the oceans rose to cover the last red stretches of southwest desert, I opened my eyes.
Pupils adjusting to coral skies beyond a canopy of tangled trees.
Rolled onto my side, off the picnic table. Landed hard on the adjoining bench. The air rushed from my lungs in ashen emancipation. I drew in whatever I could. Inhaled a rush of pine cone and glittered humidity. Lifted my head just enough to find two children staring down. A pair of hazel-eyed twins awaiting answers.
“Hello,” I said.
They offered the same in disturbing unison.
“Got the time?” I asked.
One of them lifted the other’s wrist. Checked the Hello Kitty timepiece. “Ten-thirty.”
“Fuck,” I mumbled, dropping my head. Heard them gasp. Felt the bench retaliate with wet splinters under my cheek. “Sorry,” I amended. “Shit. I meant to say shit.”
From across Oval park, a mother’s impeccable timing called out.
The twins scattered.
I rolled over once more. Hit the soft sand. Unable to fall any further, I retreated into what felt like a standing position. Strode p
ast the swings and seesaws, and searched my pockets for a phone call.
***
Nick Reckless picked me up in his dusty station wagon.
His savage grin had lost a few pounds over the summer. Almost hard to catch through the windshield.
I slid in and we pulled out.
Bounced along the morning glare of Verona street signs.
AC busted. Windows down. His fine blond strands doing a little fan dance, weightless, as he took a left.
I lit a cigarette.
“How’d you end up on this side of town?” he asked.
“Reliving some old rivalries.”
He reached out. Ruffled my hair. Sand flying from the roots.
We crept up on the downtown loop.
“It’s getting hotter,” I said.
“It’s almost eleven.”
“Not what I meant.”
“It’s almost August.”
“Also, not what I meant.”
“You should have a mint,” he said. “You reek of beer.”
I stuck my head out the window and breathed in.
The radio played a little Prince, the DJ echoing the same vapid sentiment as countless others across the country: the calendar had finally come around to devour its own tail, and this was, at long last, the year to party like it was 1999.
***
Nick pulled into the parking lot.
The two-story, quarter-block behemoth greeted us with a red brick sneer. Some bad shit must have gone down in those early warehouse days. Five businesses had come and gone in the past ten years, cursed, even in the closing months of the twentieth century, a dying monster rejecting every last donor.
We walked up the ramp. A refurbished loading bay for trucks and tobacco pallets, now replaced by cramped outdoor seating. Empty stage resting, resigned to an approaching evening of cover bands. Birds feasting on what was left of yesterday’s crusts and chicken bones.
Large bay windows led us into the first floor. Main bar. Scant tables, a few tall ones reserved for the regulars. Saw Jonny taking inventory. Manager number one and investor number three. His one good eye looked up. Lazy left keeping track of his clipboard.
“Fellas.”
We managed a good morning. Cut through a back door, into the back passageway.
White cinderblock, no coat of paint that could possibly cover the stale smell of back end. Damp vegetation, sweat, and yeasty composites, the molted skin of processed grease. We stopped by the lockers. I opened mine, peeled off my white tee.
Dino slid around the corner, prepping for his shift. His perfectly parted black hair matched a glistening smile, perfect for weaning tips from unsuspecting five tops. To have him tell it, waiting was the one profession where it paid to be playing for the other team. Women adored homosexuals, and even the staunchest good ol’ boys managed to over tip, as though taking pity on a retarded employee. Twenty percent and up in hopes that he might someday afford the cure.
He glanced at my scarecrow torso. “You sure you two ain’t gay?”
Nick lit a cigarette, shrugged.
“Yeah,” I said. “Pretty sure.”
“You do make quite a couple.”
“We are quite a couple,” I said. “Just not a couple of queers.”
He laughed. “I’m gonna let you get away with that one, just on points.”
“Don’t start nothin’, there won’t be nothin’.”
“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
“Bench,” Nick corrected.
“Never mind,” I said. Slipped on my work shirt, green with stenciled letters promising that DOWNTOWN ROADHOUSE was THE PLACE TO BE. “Let’s get this over with.”
Dino laughed and smacked my head.
I closed my eyes and sighed, drew it in, same air as the rest of us and got to work.
***
Rudy was waddling his way past the fryers. Hulking frame of a high-school linebacker, now a catalogue of fat rolls. Thinning afro, patchy beard, spectacles buried between paunchy cheeks. Waving his spatula above his head to the salvos of the Gospel station.
“Salads done?” I asked.
He nodded, wheezing with the effort.
Nick and I went past the ovens, racks of pots, pans, ladles and sharpened knives.
Heavy hiss of a stainless steel door.
The freezer greeted us with permafrost and the lingering wishes of rotten milk. Condiments trapped in oversized tubs. Last week’s desserts covered in saran biodomes.
We diligently went about removing two trays of pre-made house salads. Wilted lettuce, shaved carrot, tomato wedges like swollen gum lines.
“This place is a shit hole,” I said.
“Keep it under your hat,” Nick said, hoisting a tray. “Otherwise everyone’s gonna be gunning for our jobs.”
“Let’s get to work.”
We set up our space next to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the kitchen’s east wing. Said our hellos to the Mexicans cradled close to the pizza station. Welcomed the rest of the line cooks and waited for Louis to make his appearance.
***
Louis was late.
I ran expo for a few orders. Helped Nick dress the salads. Ran what food I could. Got some flack for a plate of stuffed peppers that I was told, quite plainly, smelled wrong. Hard to argue with empirical evidence. The kitchen answered with a fresh slather of canned marinara and sent it off on its second maiden voyage.
Louis rolled in and took charge. He was a grotesque six-foot-four teddy bear. White crown of hair that was once a soft bed of what difference does it make. Pot belly in full bloom. Legs hanging on, still sinewy from his days in the service. Navy Seal, he would like us to think. Supposed to have come close to assassinating Saddam Hussein, as far as the story went. With the Gulf War now a footnote in our nation’s conscience, Louis made do with barking orders for mozzarella sticks, overdone burgers, lukewarm New England, and living paycheck to paycheck.
We all did what we had to.
***
It was order up, runner-runner, serve, move, move, thank you and have a nice day.
Nick and I would prop a tray’s worth of seven or so entrees onto our shoulders. Take a left. Sharp right.
“CORNER!”
Sharp left down the corridor.
“CORNER!”
Sharp right. Out onto the deck, now filled with rowdy kingpins and working class fractures, howling along to a bare-knuckled band. Bad riffs, bitten from four-bar blues. All the easiest listening of the worst rock ’n’ roll had to offer.
More than a feeling.
Fielding requests for steak sauce as a pizza pan slid across the tray, stuck to my face, sizzling against my cheek. Making mozzarella of my skin.
The clouds were pink with the final curtain call of another Carolina sunset.
Wet sounds of fried appetizers and ribs between carnivorous mandibles as the band played on.
***
Halfway through the chaos, Martin Nestle put in his obligatory appearance. Manager number two by way of shareholder. The equivalent to an associate producer. Something to put on a vanity plate. He had once been a bench warmer for the Pantheon Devil Dogs. At this late date in life, nothing more than a seven-foot saline bag of dinosaur bones. A career-shortening injury had him limping on the sidelines, along rows of cooks and burners, under the auspices of a toucan nose, damaged mustache. Taking the time to dip a chicken wing into a vat of sauce. Sucking the meat right off the bone, before loping towards another station of deep-fried goodies and having his fill. Never quite knew what he was doing past those moments. Even at the toughest of times, slammed with orders left and right, we would catch him staring at a stove top. Enraptured by the flames. Breathing through an open mouth, lips puckered, a pair of failing kidneys.
***
“How does this soup taste?” a customer asked me.
“Like homegrown NC white bean,” I said, not entirely sure what I meant by that. Comforted by the inanity, certain it wou
ld makes sense to anyone not willing to listen.
“But how does it taste?” he asked. “How does this bowl of soup taste?”
From across the table, his dinner companion stifled a grin beneath his meaty palm.
I kept my eyes from rolling, familiar with this particular gem. “I don’t know.”
“Want to taste it?”
“Oh, no,” I telegraphed. “I can’t taste it. I can’t taste it because you don’t have any silverware.”
Our comedic impresario leaned back and crossed his arms. Pleased as can be. Winked at his friend, who was finally able to let go with a simpering, post-nasal laugh.
I strode across the main dining room, past several thirty foot tall brewing tanks, each one watching me from beyond enourmous glass walls.
Reaching beneath the hostess desk, I snatched two settings of silverware. Unfolded the napkin, removed the spoons. Rolled the knife and fork back into their white cocoons. Dropped them off with Flywheel and Ravelli, and hustled my way back the kitchen, now three minutes behind schedule.
Tapped Dean on the shoulder as I walked by. “Might want to check in on seventeen,” I told him. “One of them seems to think you’re kind of cute.”
Dean made tracks towards the trap I had set for him.
Acquiesce was our trade. Pettiness was our currency. Payback was always just around the corner, and my prank would have me looking over my shoulder for the rest of the night.
***
Coriander and Micki were working the front end. Mother and daughter team. Blonde curls, bodies echoing the same slender genes, blue eyes, and crooked smiles.
Had a moment between the dinner rush and late-night madness where Coriander had me cornered to one side of an industrial coffee maker.
“You’ve never been to Burning Man?” she asked.
The way she put it took me back to being a seventeen-year-old virgin. “No.”
“Mom, stop,” Micki said, swooping past and marrying a pair of ketchup bottles. “Nobody cares about Burning Man.”
“Oh, honey…” Back to me, as I snubbed a cigarette. “There’s this festival in the desert. They just kind of go crazy and let loose. They burn a giant man made of sticks.”
“Where do they get the sticks?” I asked. “Where do they get the desert?”
“It’s everyone,” she said.
“Are you stoned?”
Her reply was buried under a commotion in the kitchen. All it took for me was one step back to listen in. Check the scene.
Marco was our commander in chief. Like most restaurateurs, he was in over his head. Over the hill, loans over-drafted. A rat-faced imposter, yet one more mustache with no notion what his enterprise was up to, so it was anyone’s guess what hadn’t gone wrong that night.