21st Street Tavern
Mark Casey

 



A short click from the gun followed by a flash and sharp crack like lightning right next to my ear and the bartender goes down for the count.
Then two cops are on their way through the door with their hands grabbing at their holsters, and I figure this is all my fault.
Someone in the bathroom or something probably called the police, or maybe the bartender had triggered some alarm under the counter. Either way, Frank and Lee aren’t making it out of here.
And this night had started so badly.


***

Two hours ago I’m back in my apartment, screaming at her.
She brought up my mother and then slapped me. Somehow I don’t make the connection between my dead mother and her dead career. Then she tells me she can’t support the both of us in her shit-hole apartment, and needs me to contribute more to our existence.
She says she’s struggling at the magazine; that it just doesn’t cut it right now; that maybe I should stop working in that fucking factory and get a real job that pays real money. I say they don’t let people who never finished high school have those jobs, and she tells me they don’t let those people have anything at all. She says we can’t afford our own life.
I say life doesn’t cost money.
I say that’s no magazine she works for, and she slaps me again.
And I still can’t make the connection between my mother and her failing career; I say my mother has nothing to do with the fact that no one will buy that piece of shit magazine. My dead mother has nothing to do with her lack of ambition.
I say she can do design for any magazine in town.
I’m nice and say she’s that good.
But then she says she wishes she didn’t love me. All of the sudden she’s telling me that I’ve changed; that I’m not the man she fell in love with. She says all I used to have going for me was my love of life, and now I don’t even have that.
And she’s right.
She tells me about what I used to be like; that I used to make her feel loved, and that she didn’t use to care about the things that she does now; that she never used to think about money; she’d forget about the drugs and murders and crime in the streets we walked home on and about the dark spots in subway stations; about the things we couldn’t afford and the crimes we’d ignore, the sins we’d commit under the cover of apathy; the garbage that overflowed onto the sidewalks and rotted there so that she forgot what fresh air smelled like and what a deep breath feels like; that sunsets were gray in the city with no stars afterward and that she never saw the moon anymore; she forgot about our bills and the watermarks on our ceiling and our cockroaches; about how the tap water smelled like rotten eggs and tasted like metal and how the bare bulbs hanging from our ceiling flickered at night. She forgot about our rusty box spring mattress that would squeak when we made love.
She completely forgot about our sordid life in this dirty little spot and this whole filthy fucking city. She forgot about everything but me.
She didn’t use to care about money.
I feel my muscles tighten, and I say life is free. I say it’s free to live; it always has been.
But then she’s telling me about the memories I gave her. She says I used to be a writer; that I used to write her stories and poems. I used to take her up on the roof for candlelit dinners, and she would forget about the car horns and the smell of tar.
She says that when I was around, she forgot where she was.
And all I can do is stand there.
All I can do is listen. I can’t speak because my jaw is clenched so tight; I can’t move because my body won’t respond; soon I can’t even see because my eyes are welling with tears.
I’m thinking: I used to feel loved, too.
She’s telling me that I used to be able to do anything I wanted, and now I drink too much. She says at one time I could’ve been a writer. She says it’s only gotten worse since my mother died, and that I shouldn’t let a dead woman control my life. She wishes she didn’t still love me; and she says she doesn’t know what to do next.
My jaw unlocks and my body moves.
I say she doesn’t have to make that decision, and I walk out the door.
The walls are stained and paper-thin, and I can hear her crying as I walk down the hall. Its cold and raining outside, and I can still hear her crying as I walk into the street, out of our gritty life.

***

I end up at the Twenty-First Street Tavern. That’s what it’s called.
I end up talking to Nick the bartender, who I know pretty well because I’m in here so much. Nick says I’ve been in here a lot lately, including twice today. I tell Nick he’s right; and to pour me another shot.
The bar’s empty because it’s Tuesday and only guys like me go to bars on Tuesdays. I’m the only guy slouching in the big mirror behind Nick.
I’m explaining to Nick that I used to be different, that’s when they come in.
I’m telling Nick that I used to write: I used to write poetry, I used to write stories; I used to write all the time. People used to tell me I was good, I tell him; sometimes even people who knew what they were talking about.
It’s when I’m telling Nick that I used to love life and everything in it that Lee and Frank come in, wearing masks and yelling; pointing guns and moving fast.
Nick puts his hands up and doesn’t pour my shot.
They come up on Nick and point their guns at his chest, standing right next to me and yelling at Nick to give them all the money in the joint. They’re yelling at him while he’s opening the cash register, and I know their names because they call each other by them.
Frank and Lee are yelling at Nick and asking him about a safe when they notice that I’m still sitting there at the bar, next to them. They ask me what the hell I’m doing.
I tell them I’m waiting for my goddamn drink.
Lee points his gun at me and asks me if I would feel stupid when they shot me and took all my money just because I wanted my drink.
I tell him I’m not worth anything.
Nick stops rushing around and watches this exchange.
Then Frank points his gun at Nick the bartender’s head and says to get them the rest of the money. And for a couple of minutes there’s a lot of yelling as Lee and Frank point their guns back and forth from me to Nick, threatening but not doing anything.
Lee is yelling at me to get down on the ground, and that’s when we hear sirens outside. They start to panic. The yelling gets worse and Nick swears there’s no more money. Lee and Frank say it’s not enough.
I say, nothing’s ever enough for people.
I tell Lee and Frank that life doesn’t cost money.
But they’re not listening and Frank says that they need to get out of here. Frank takes a step toward the door, but Lee keeps his gun on me; he says I’m going to die.
I tell him it’s too late.
The sirens stop and we all know the police are outside. Nick the bartender makes a motion behind the counter, and Lee swivels to point the gun directly at his chest.
Then for a moment there’s silence and everyone’s holding their breath. No one moves. My eyes float over to Nick’s face, whiter now than his shirt and shadowed way past five o’clock, cheeks drooping down on either side of his jaw like a basset hound, and he looks back at me, blankly. For a moment.
Frank yells.
And there’s this click followed by a sharp baseball bat crack, and then some more; I see bullets impacting Nick the bartender’s body, burying themselves in his chest and opening fleshy red mouths in his white shirt.
Then two policemen burst through the door, and Frank and Lee spin around to look at them. The policemen see the guns. They see poor Nick falling to the floor, and they open fire.
My world erupts into chaos.
I’m still sitting there with my hand on the empty shot glass, and a hail of bullets rips the bar apart. Sound comes from all around me, and in a matter of seconds, everything is destroyed. Bottles explode with that jagged sound of shattering glass. Bullets slam into the bar and chip holes in the wood, bits flying off and hitting me in the face. The mirror cracks, and for a moment I see my reflection sharply distorted, caught in a web of silvery glass, then it shatters: the shards crashing into a thousand pieces on the floor.
Nick, Frank, and Lee fall slowly to the ground.
This is how close I am.
And somehow, I feel like this is all my fault.

***

Then more police. Then paramedics. They ask me questions as three men’s blood seeps into the floor. The police believe my story about why I’m there. They believe I was a victim. As small talk, the paramedics ask me what I do and I tell them I’m a writer. They’re nice and ask if I make enough money to live on.
I tell them life is free.
Then they laugh and they agree. They tell me I’m free to go home if I don’t want to go to a hospital. I think about it, and then say I’m going home.
And I start down the street back toward the apartment.
But as I walk I forget where I am.
I can’t hear the car horns honking. I don’t notice the smell of tar. I’m not thinking of the cockroaches and I can’t see the garbage on the street; I don’t smell the exhaust and I can’t feel the grit under my shoes. I start down the street feeling like I haven’t in a long time; like I’m heading into something new. And I’m thinking, why not?
I’m thinking it’s free to live.
It always has been.

 

 

Copyright © 2006 Mark Casey
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"