Later That Same Evening

Three days later, I said, “How did we go from Beavis and Ramona to Bevis and Butthead?”  

I said this out loud to no one in particular, seeing that I was home alone watching cartoons. Yet, I got responses. 

“It’s that stupid rap music!”

“The leftists have poisoned the water.”

“Global warming.”

“Jordan should never have come back the 4th time.”

“I don’t work here.”

“That is not my dog.”

That’s what I get for leaving thr window open with a snow storm pending. 

I am pretty sure that the last 2 responses and possibly number 3 were not talking to me. But I decided to respond anyway,  in reverse:

“No? He resembles you… 

“…you wouldn’t work anywhere … 

“ Jordan only came back 3 times, and ‘number 3 goes on all the time…’

“ Yes, it’s an inconvenient truth … but dangit I like warm air… 

“… leftists can’t poison the water because it would harm the trees, and then who would they hug?…

“… don’t write rap music off, because it won’t write back…”

There was a pause, then someone laughed and said, “Yeah, the dog does look like you, especially when he smiles. And I like warm air too. I am sure we all do. So why do we all have our windows open in February?”

There was another pause. Then someone turned on Mos Def’s “May-December.”  Good answer, I thought. No secrets shared, no words spoken, no promised broken.  Secretly we each knew that the others were dancing. It was too cold to do much of anything else. How cool would it have been if we had danced together?  

There was another pause. Actually, there was a 100-year blizzard. We were trapped in our little spaces. So the pause lasted several days. On Tuesday, someone blasted “I’ll Be Gone ‘Till November.” How cool would it have been if the song had been longer?

Someone tried to play a Janet Jackson song about rain. Most of us booed. A few opened their windows wider and said “Janet can’t dance! Janet won’t dance! “ The perpetrator smoothly switched to “FM” by Steely Dan. You can’t dance to it. You just act like you can, because it’s such a cool song. Nod your head, bite your lip, look cool. 

My turn. I blasted “I’ll Be There (When the Time is Right)” by Winton Marsalis. 2 minutes of the most heart-wrenching non-vocal balladeering you will never hear.  After that, all was quiet and solemn. I think they tolerated it because I started the whole thing… but just in case I slipped in Simply Red’s “Sunrise” (Live at Blackburn Lancashire or someplace English like that). Surprisingly, everybody knew the words: “Don’t even think about it/say no go/ Sunrise/Is it in your mind at all… forever…”

It was only February. Long way to go. You make the best of what’s available, and whenever possible, you dance, encouraged by the inconvenient truths that it is too cold to do anything else, it will be warm again soon, and ‘number 3 goes on all the time.’


Three days later, a stranger interrupted my muse.

I came to The Green Hat with every intention of doing nothing except musing over what would happen later that same evening, but instead I was listening to a girl who I was sure was  younger than some of the receipts in my wallet. 

She wanted to toast. I don’t toast. (Imagine a childhood where toasting is a thing.) She had one of those hard seltzer things in her hand. She didn’t ask me to toast. She just kinda stuck the hard seltzer thing between my face and my beer. 
 
“I just had my first shot of Malortt,” The Stranger said. Malort only has one “t” but she pronounced it in a way that made me see two. (I see the words I hear in the air. It’s a gift.) It wasn’t a stutter or lisp - I wouldn’t make fun because I struggle with both - it was just the way her “T” came out. 
(By the way, I don’t like Malort. It’s lighter fluid with an IG following.  Give me Wahaka any day of the week.)

I reluctantly ignored my childhood apprehensions and brought my beer glass to her seltzer bottle. As we clinked, I asked, “First ever? Or first tonight?”

This was a mistake. The Stranger began to tell me her life story. I should have ended the conversation at the first opportunity. But she was meek and mild and innocent and unaffected - in my life, that’s Unicorn material. Or train wreck material. Couldn’t be sure yet. Either way you can’t stop looking until the Unicorn flies away or the authorities come to inform you that there is nothing more to see. 

Half an hour and 2 beers later, I said “Tthatt’s intterestting.” No, I really did. She didn’t get the joke because by that time she’d had 4 or 5 shots, shattering her previous record of 0.

But the guy with her got the joke. He got it, and he did not like it. 

I didn’t see him at first. In fact, I didn't see him at all. Not sure how I missed him. He was like Baby Huey in a get up T-Pain would be proud of. 

Baby Huey asked me “What’s the idea?” I was impressed.  He had used the balance of the evening to come up with this incredible intimidation tactic. 

I responded, “'Idea'? I don’t have those.“  He paused, Googling in his sizeable head for a comeback. I surmised this might take a while.  

The Stranger reacted to his befuddlement in the worst possible way. She literally laughed out loud, spilled her drink, and then, without warning, she hit him.   Full hand-to-face. Baby Huey took the blow without flinching, but he seemed to shrink an inch or two. Honestly, he was helpless. He looked at me, and I, also helpless, pointed to the Marlort, and gave him a ‘what did you expect’ look.  Then as I turned to finish my beer, I said, “train wreck,” out loud to no one in particular. 

At this point, having seen all there was to see and taking a cue from the approaching security-bouncer person, I made my move to side exit door. Almost every dive has one.  It’s where deliveries come and go, where smokers step out to have a drag even in the worst weather, the door that leads to an alley where the kitchen help eat the food they brought from home.  

My life has such doors.  Yours too. They lie in that place between chapters in our story, a place between what happens now and what will happen three days later or even later the same evening. For diversion or comic relief or just for word count, we sometimes let strangers into our stories. We share drinks with them. We share histories with them. And then they walk away. Sometimes I get a name but most often I don’t. When this happens, I become a ghost in someone’s ghost story, a nameless face in an anecdote, The Stranger. But I always assume the role of The Protagonist.  It is, after all, my story. And my audience loves surprise endings.