Faking Life (22 page)

“So how's it feel to be stuck working with us common folk?” Stacy asked, taking a plastic swizzle stick from the tray and placing it between her teeth.

“So you knew about this?” he said.

Stacy nodded as the swizzle stick spun around in a sultry arc.

“The topless part too?”

“Hey, I'm just glad it wasn't me.”

“Damn. I was hoping this would be a pleasant surprise.”

“Don't kid yourself. And a word of advice? There are no surprises from noon to seven. If you're lucky you'll get an old couple that can't hear straight and just nod when you ask if you can refill their Gin and Tonics. It'll save you the aggravation of listening to them blather on about the weather.”

“So what keeps you going?” John asked. Stacy laughed and leaned over the bar, the neck of her shirt drifting appealingly downward as John caught a glimpse of her tanned sternum. She took a pint glass and ran it under the Sam Adams tap. After a long gulp, she licked her lips.

“What keeps me going…let's see,” she said, thumbing her front teeth in mock pensiveness. “Well bills for one thing. Yeah, and food. That's another. Rent, that's pretty important…” She stopped when she saw the look on his face. “What, you thought I was doing this for fun?”

“No,” he said solemnly. “I guess at night you don't really think of it as work. I mean it is work and I need the money as much as anybody, but there's always so much going
on
.” Without realizing it he took a glass and filled it with the light brown ale.

She sipped. “You have more time to think when there's nothing to do. I know you're not happy about this, but,” she took on a thoughtful look and smiled warmly. “It'll be nice to have you around, to have some company. The down time drives me insane.”

Down Time.

That got to John too. He didn't get much of it at night, and when he did he was happy to take five to breathe without worrying about someone tossing a soggy ten in his face. He'd never really thought of it as down time. To him it had been just a brief interlude, the calm before the storm that allowed him to feel like a normal person, living by his own rules.

As Stacy left to fetch a customer more napkins, John sat alone listening to the whirring of the ceiling fan, and nothing else.

At 4:00, his sneakers warm from pacing the bar, John saw Sal Marvio poke his head out of the kitchen. After observing that Artie was nowhere in sight, Sal waddled up and took a stool. John noticed burnt ashes on the brim of his cap and a fresh tobacco stain on his sweater.

“Vodka, straight,” he said, glancing around the bar, trying not to make eye contact. John had no desire to serve the man. Sal's food wouldn't win any culinary competitions to begin with, and it surely wouldn't taste much better once he had liquor in him. Back when Seamus was alive, John would bring the old man a pint every so often. But that was different. That was friendship. Somehow back then, it all made sense. Reluctantly, he poured Sal the drink.

Sal took a sip and grimaced. “You're not holdin' out the good stuff on me, are you?” John shook his head and held up his hands in a
what, me worry?
pose. Sal shrugged, as though he may have been mistaken about the quality of his drink, and finished the rest in one gulp. He reached across the bar and took a handful of cocktail napkins. He used the whole wad, maybe twenty or so, to wipe a trace of spittle from his mouth. He then placed the crumpled mess on top of the bar.

“Thanks, kid.” He stood up and meandered back to the kitchen, knocking another pile of napkins onto the floor. John withheld an urge to storm the grill and throw them in his acne-scarred face, but instead he took a fresh stack and replaced the stack.

Giving Sal drinks wasn't so much of an ethical problem as it was a moral one. Ethics dictated that the bartender (John) should treat every fellow employee equally, hence the free booze. Morally, he was disgusted to give Sal Marvio free liquor when Seamus Hallahan had had the benevolence to tip despite earning a salary that probably topped out below thirty grand. John didn't expect a tip, but was a little conversation too much to ask? If Sal was going to drag his rancid carcass out from the kitchen, the least he could do was be friendly.

By six, John had drunk five pints of beer and doled out four shots to Sal. Time dragged on like an endless unfiltered cigarette. He could hardly breathe without suffocating. If he was going to last on this shift, he'd need something to occupy his time. He wondered how difficult knitting was.

“Whiskey and soda, if it's not too much trouble.” John snapped back to attention to see a tired-looking man in a gray suitcoat with fogged glasses sitting at the bar. What caught his eye wasn't the man's age or attire, but the look of utter defeat on his face, as though he'd just realized today was the worst of his life—and the hours would only grow longer in the future. He ran a hand through his thinning hair and looked despondently at John. His eyes were pained and faded like dry grass. When John served him, the man took his drink in both hands, rubbing the sides against his palms, then closed his eyes and took a slow sip. When he finished he looked up, his sorrow melting something inside of John.

“God this tastes good,” he said in a hoarse whisper, rubbing his hands up and down the glass. He hadn't bothered to take off his coat. “Do you mind if I ask your name?”

“John,” he replied without hesitation.

“John,” the man said thoughtfully. “I've never been in your bar before, John. With that name outside I didn't know what to expect, but you've got a pretty decent place in here.”

“Thanks. It's actually not
my
bar, but…”

“Mind if I ask why you don't have a shirt on?” John sighed.

“Long story, not worth telling.” The man seemed to accept the answer.

“Can I tell you something John? You don't mind if I call you that, do you?” He shook his head. The man smiled, the corners of his lips vibrating as though attached to rubber bands, afraid to pull themselves up as far as they could go.

“Enjoy this job John. Young kid like you, got your whole life to live. When I was your age,” he said, “I grilled burgers fourteen hours a day so I could afford a place for me and Marnie—that's my wife. We lived in Bensonhurst, nice place, I pay a little more now for the one in Yorkville but I'll tell you, there's no better feeling in this world, with God as my witness, than taking in an honest paycheck and using it to pay for your own four walls.” He sipped his drink. “You have your own place, son?” John nodded.

“A hard day's work and coming home to a cool drink. Put on a smoking jacket, put your feet up, I don't care what anyone says,
that's
the way to end a day.” His voice suddenly gained a hard, bitter edge. He looked at his drink as though he wasn't sure how it had gotten there. The man scrunched his eyebrows and leaned forward. “You married, John?”

“No, not yet.”

“Hmm,” he replied, leaning back on the stool.

“Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” he said. “It's just…it's beautiful is what it is. My wife, bless her soul made every day feel like a new beginning. I'd wake up in the morning and look at her face, that pretty brown hair and sometimes wonder why God granted me such a blessing.” He looked down at his drink, nearly empty, and asked for a refill. “Then she left me, seven years ago. Ran off with the big man.” He pointed straight up, his eyes brimming with tears. When John refreshed his drink, he took half of it down with one trembling swig. His hands were shaking and his fists balled up involuntarily, squeezing out a rage that must have been building for years. It was a futile exercise, because when he was done squeezing, his hands looked limp and pale, bloodless. He laid them on the bar like cold slabs of meat. “Sometimes,” he said, “this life is more than I can bear.”

W
hen I was in grade school, I looked forward to gym class like most children do Saturday morning cartoons. By the time I hit seventh grade, I was a blue chip athlete—as far as 13-year olds went. And I took every opportunity to show off.

Our gym was separated by gender—boys on one end, girls on the other—which enabled me to grandstand to both. While the girls were bumping and setting, I was hurling dodgeballs at light speed. Many at the receiving end of my quick, precise throws later visited the nurse with a busted lip or bloody nose. One thing about dodgeball, we didn't mess around. Those games were a symbol of our burgeoning masculinity, and if you had the arm then you'd sure as hell show it off.

The ones who couldn't throw would give kids like me their balls and migrate to the sides. They wanted to see how hard we could peg the slow, fat, or bespectacled boys who hadn't been blessed with the coordination to evade our blue projectiles.

I was a fucking dodgeball GOD and I loved every second of it.

And there was one boy I remember more vividly than any others from my formative years. They're his scars I feel, fear I thought was his at the time, but now haunts me. Gerald Levinson weighed two hundred and fifty pounds by the age of thirteen. He might as well have had a giant red bulls-eye painted on his chest.

We would always make a point of embarrassing Gerald. He had the added misfortune of being stuck with huge, thick glasses that made him as appetizing to dodgeball players as a crippled zebra to a starving lion. To make matters worse, he was also captain of the chess team. When the game commenced, Gerald would stumble blindly amidst the chaos, taking refuge behind other, more skilled players. But sooner or later, as the ranks thinned out, he would slowly back into the corner, his fleshy cheeks glowing red as he waited for the inevitable. I remember his lips trembling, sweat glistening on his forehead, his timid eyes scanning his peer's faces for a reprieve that never came.

Our favorite tactic was to wait until all the balls had accumulated on our side, at which point we'd gather them up and dole them out to competent throwers. The other team, anticipating what was about to happen, parted graciously, giving us a clear view of Gerald shaking in the corner.

“Ready!” I would yell. We'd cock our arms and hold the dodgeballs high above our heads.

“Aim!” We'd turn sideways and line him up. Gerald would cover his head with his arms, still trembling, his fat heaving, his body shaking.

“FIRE!”

All at once we'd launch our missiles, screaming with glee as Gerald tried helplessly to deflect them. Sometimes he got lucky and knocked most away, but there was always one that snuck through his defenses and nailed him squarely in the face. His head would snap back with a
thunk.
He would cover his face in his chubby hands and cry, rolling back and forth on the floor while we laughed. When we finished, he'd slink off to the side where the gym teacher would attend his wounds.

Gerald never forgave me. In high school he was the one person who if I passed him in the hall would never offer so much as a friendly nod. I didn't blame him.

Gerald was our plaything, a device to amuse us because no matter how hard he tried he always ended up on the business end of our Nerf brigade. The one time he fought back and eliminated my friend Derek Jorgensen, we pelted Gerald so hard in the head that the nurse sent him to the emergency room with a ruptured eardrum.

It wasn't his fault. He was born a wounded deer, hunted and played with by other predators until someone finally came along and put him out of his misery. Try as he might, Gerald always failed, and I'm sure that's stuck with him the rest of his life.

I saw Gerald Levinson in the eyes of a man who came into Slappy's today. That same sad defeated smile, knowing he'd tried his best at life but had been ground down so often he came to think that the street was at eye level. The way he caressed his drink reminded me of Gerald with his blue dodgeball, gently turning it in his hands as if in awe of its incredible power. The power to move mountains or destroy universes. His savior and villain in one neat package.

I haven't often been exposed to true sadness. I always thought sad people frequented hotel bars, places where the tenders are as old as the woodwork and despair hangs over the room like mist.

The whole time I spoke to this man, this Larry Mason, I could see his life hanging from the tip of his tongue like a jumper the moment before the plunge. He didn't have to say much. He asked me questions I wasn't prepared to answer, and answers came I'd never fully considered.

There's an awful lot of pressure when someone offers a life to you. It's hard enough to keep my own on track.

I know it isn't a bartender's job to listen to their customers, but there's a moral responsibility in it. With every five-dollar drink comes a new best friend, confidant and lover. We sell blocks of time to patients who were referred by others or learned of your practice through word of mouth. We can't be picky and turn anybody away. Instead we must listen even harder, trying to impart some wisdom that, hopefully, comes across as heartfelt and authentic.

I felt sorry for Larry Mason the moment he sat down. After two drinks he was crying about his dead wife. After three I'd learned he's held the same job for thirty years and is making twenty thousand dollars more than when he started. After six drinks he told me to give it all up and go home, that once you're stuck in the trap it's easier to die than to gnaw your own arm off. I didn't understand what he was saying at first. Not until I realized
I
was the one caught in the trap, and I didn't have the guts to chew myself out.

So here I am, stuck in the same job, in the same bar, making less money, bring humiliated by serving with no shirt and loathing the wrong people. Why should I hate Artie for sticking me here, when I should have the balls to tell him to fuck off and be on my way?

Larry was drawn to me, the same way that pretty girls and nerdy guys stick together in high school. He gravitated to what felt right, to someone who could understand his pain, someone who could correctly diagnose him. Coping with the disease is easier when you spend time with others afflicted.