Bar Fly and Bare Nights..To Be Continued..

..a start to my short stories?...

*

You use the thick sheet menu as a coaster for your beer, condensation forming a ring on the lamination. You nudge the half full bottle with you’re knuckle, but you’re tired of easy sipping and Bells Two Hearted, just to feel uncomplicated, a girl boys like because she slugs a hoppy, kitschy, somewhat hipster beer, without a glass, mind you.

You listen to the table behind you talking about biker gangs, which you remember from the summer living on the lake, their tailpipes leaving ashy trails in their wake and a gargle-putter you could always feel in your ribs as they sped by you, when you were a waitress on the patio at Zinc downtown.

The bartender tosses his head back and forth, his hips swaying in fitted jeans, a wine key and bottle opener slung in his back pocket. You watch as he mouths the words to Billy Jean as he grabs vodka, then cranberry, then triple sec, shaking the shaker above his head, a fine tuned body in a tight burnout t-shirt that has a print of Debbie Harry with gold letters reading BLONDIE. You want to be his friend immediately and have a quick day dream about the two of you hitting the gay night clubs, dancing on speakers, glitter flying.

God I wish you were here you think. I wish you were here “..two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year…”

You catch the waitresses eye over two skull capped heads and trace the water droplets with your pinky a crossed the “entree” section of the menu. The waitress takes her time to get to your table and says nothing as she pauses in front of you, hip popped to one side.

“Can I try the…French 75?” She eyes the beer bottle she brought you only minutes ago.

“Not doing it for you? She points to the bottle with her pen. You grab the bottle and gulp the beer like a man and taste nothing until you take a breath in, feeling momentarily nauseated. The waitress looks bored.

“Nope, just need something else.

*

You sip the French 75 and can taste the gin on the back of your tongue, a bite of juniper and effervescence spiking your taste buds, tickling your nose and the space between your eyes. The aftertaste of sugar and lemon reminds her of the chapstick he wore the first time you kissed him in the dry heat of early summer.

And you wonder with the last trickle of liquor down your throat what kind of lover he would have been. The taste of gin brings you back to that porch, looking at the silhouettes of the trees, black against a night sky the color of soaked figs, and the edges of the leaves glow against dull light from neighbors’ windows. He lassos his bare feet onto the back of the chair, dragging you towards him, pulling you onto his lap and you wrapped your legs around his waist like a serpent.

*

The air coming through the open door reminds you of his fingers cupping the back of your neck, words splayed out between tasting the liquor on the insides of each others lips, tracing lyrics over the outlines of your mouths.

Now you spin the empty glass counter-clockwise on its base with your index and middle finger and you look for something to focus on before you decide to order straight whiskey on half melted ice, and you find a couple sitting just off the crest of your left shoulder. You try to observe out of the corner of your eyes but it gives you a headache so you maneuver just enough in your chair where it looks as if you only re-crossed your legs. The girl reaches out to finger the cuff of the boy’s sweater and he catches her pinky, hooked into his and he quickly places her finger between his teeth as she giggles.

You order another water from the waitress, too miffed now to pretend like she actually cares if you are going to tip or not, and you hold an iced cube on your tongue and remember how he always seemed to wear white t-shirts and jeans in the summer, went barefoot and there was something so masculine and fervent about seeing a man that plain and beautiful, smelling like bar soap and warm rain. And the night that never leaves you, you remember him sitting like the boy a crossed from you, one knee bent, the other straightened, his toes fondling the cuff of your jeans.