The bar was empty when he arrived. He ordered a Gin and Tonic, finished it quickly and had another. His mind was blank and he hoped to keep it that way and the gin helped or felt like it would. He didn't like the bar very much because it didn't feel like enough of a bar to him; The lights were too bright, the floor was too clean and the music was thick and sugary in his ears. Still, he was happy for it, because it meant his attention was focused on the surroundings and not the other thing. It also occurred to him that only the best bars could be dark and dirty and inviting especially so early in the day. Any fool could run a bar at night or sell a beer but very few could ever run the real kind of bar where important things happened or were discussed. Most wouldn't even know what that meant.
It didn't matter much though; the kind of place he visualized didn't really exist in this part of the city and wasn't an option anyway. He wasn't really sure what was going to happen and he wanted a safe neutral place that he wouldn't mind never seeing again if things went bad quickly. He wasn't exactly sure why the two were meeting or what they were going to discuss. He only knew they had to talk and figure out a way to resolve the situation so it wasn't messy anymore. Or at least AS messy.
The waitress, unseen before now, swept to the table from the back. She was a young girl, 25 at the very most, but with a hangdog, withdrawn expression. Her eyes assesed him with a bored listlessness that suggested she had seen it all before; a look all people in service industry get after awhile that says I've Been Doing This Too Long. She asked
-Ki Help you?
drearily, as though she were Sisyphus rolling the boulder. She indicated with the slightest of gestures to the drink in front of him. Where the drink had been. He absentmindedly finished it off with realizing.
- Sure. Gin and tonic.
A flash of a nod and she glided off for the drink. His reverie was broken and he glanced at his watch. 2:13. They had arranged to meet here at 2. She was late. He hated that about her; hated whenever anyone was late. He was and had always been habitually punctual, never arriving more than a few minutes before or after an appointment. It wasn't timeliness he valued; he was never the precise type. Rather, he hated waiting for anything or anybody. There was something he found exceptionally lonely about it. In fact, it was when he was forced to wait that he was loneliest of all. He supposed it had to do with being an only child and a latchkey kid. Frozen dinners or no dinners at all until someone came home to feed him. Bussed in and out to school and in a suburb, there was nowhere to go and nothing to do except wait. It always drove her crazy when he did that. Stormed out of a restaurant or a movie theatre rather than simply wait. A small half-smile crossed his lips and he told himself sternly Let's Not Confuse The Issue.
His new drink had arrived and been set in front of him in a lackadaisical manner. The waitress seemed neither interested nor disinterested in her job, merely functional.
- To your health, she said, as she set it down.
- Not sure I need it just now, he responded, distantly.
- Suit yourself, she said, a bit frostier now, before returning to her perch near the end of the bar and gazing out into the street.
He regretted what he had said. For a flash of a moment, the shield was down and she seemed to be really looking at him, instead of through. That just went to show he was more distracted than usual by her imminent but untimely arrival. Why did she want to meet? Usually, there was some issue of getting away from the house but he managed that without trouble. Maybe she was intercepted on the way? Maybe one of them had not been careful enough? He felt a start of panic and quashed it instantly. No. There were, if anything, too careful. Too precise. Though maybe that was the issue. That was the trouble with this kind of thing; you could never be natural enough. You always ended up too blase or not blase enough. He sighed a heavy sigh.
- Listen, would you mind settling? I'm finishing up.
The waitress had returned, check in hand, and he was surprised to find the drink half empty again. I better slow down, he thought. As though I really need things more muddled.
To the waitress he said
- Have you ever had a moment in your life where you feel like you've just stepped outside yourself and can see your whole life from a top down view and you wonder how the hell it came to this?
The waitress raised an eyebrow.
- You're drunk.
- I'm crisp and clear. Have you ever felt that? That sharp realization that This Isn't How Things Should Be?
The waitress shot him a look that said, Humor The Crank, before replying
-I'm a waitress.
The waitress said this as though it should be self explanatory. He didn't agree, and looked at her with askance. To which she repeated and replied
- I'm a waitress. I wonder that all the time. You tell yourself you're only here until so and so happens, or until a better deal comes along. And most of the time you really mean it. There are times when this is a great job and it's a lot of fun and you get to interact with people of all walks of life. But sometimes. Sometimes you've been working a 12 hour shift or for 6 days straight with only enough time off in between to collapse at home and head straight back and you've had to return 3 salads because 'there was something off about the taste, just something,' and you've got a big fake smile plastered on your lips so you don't lose out on tips you need to pay off an ever growing student loan and your face hurts from smiling so much and you catch a glimpse of yourself in a window as you rush on past and you swear you see a wrinkle or a gray hair come clearly into focus and suddenly you wonder to yourself 'what am I doing here?' and 'is this it?'. So yeah, I get where you're coming from.
He sat stock still as he listened to her describe her situation and couldn't believe how closely he related to it. Not so much the words but the intent behind them. It was as if she were gazing at the exact internal monologue going on inside his own head and spitting it out as she read. He said, strained and with a rueful smile,
- Yeah, that's it, alright. Only it doesn't end there. Next thing you know, you're doing something you know you shouldn't be doing in order to feel like you still control your own destiny. If you're lucky, you can keep it bottled up and not sound off at your boss or anybody else and get good and wasted or high or fuck or anything else so you don't feel a damn thing as the creeping horror comes over you. for the moment, you've escaped and try to forget it ever happened but when you're not lying to yourself you know it's there still and always, on the edge of the quietest and darkest part of you.
Now it was her turn to gape slightly.
- I don't...follow.
This was said with a tremor.
- Sure you do. It all goes together. You can't feel like that and just wallow. You need some kind of release. if you didn't, you wouldn't feel it in the place. I don't care if it's cheeseburgers, pot or reality tv. You, or I guess I, need to be thrown into something to try and mask it.
The waitress' eyes narrowed now. Her voice had resumed a coldness now.
- I don't know what you're talking about. I may step outside of myself in a moment of lucidity, but then you snap yourself out of it and move on. You move have time to sit back and feel sorry for yourself, but I don't. I certainly am not about to be strangled by foreboding every second of the day. If you are, you really need help.
- I didn't say it was constant...I just said tha-
- Can you pay your bill now?
The tab, long forgotten in their discussion, was in her hands the whole time, in one of those cheap faux-leather notebooks some places have to lend an air of respectability. The waitress had been gripping it so hard it had deep handprints on it.
-Yes...of course. Keep it.
He peeled two twenties out of his pocket and handed them to her; the waitress snapped them out of his fingers and stormed off to some unknown back area of the bar. He sighed again, rubbed his eyes blearily and downed what was left of the drink. It was exactly then that She walked into the bar, and he realized it didn't really matter to him anymore.
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