Storied By Josh

The smoke would sting your eyes and was constantly veiling everything. It would permeate your clothing. He walked through it and it was like walking through an eternal sheet hanging on a clothesline in the summer. Fifty years old and still going to these places. He was getting to old for this, he thought as he slowly slid down into a cheap fold up chair before the stage, and watched the dancer. She was hollow and a farce. An imitation as fake as the music she synced to like a robot.

The server stunk like the smokers here. She was wearing a red and black polyester costume of a suit and he could smell her sweat or maybe that was the guy next to him. She was old, old even by this place’s standards. Her make up tried to hide it. All it managed to do was accentuate her wrinkles.

“Whiskey. Three fingers.”
“Ten bucks.” He pulled out a wad of cash, fingered through it and handed twelve to her. “Coming right up.” She walked away. He turned back to the stage. The song was ending and she was already collecting her tiny treasures of tips. He had never been here before but it didn’t matter. All of these joints were the same. Lonely, hot, and empty. Soulless as the people who sat here, hopeless and dying.

One more classic rock song started and it was played too loudly to be enjoyable. The guy next to him grunted as he shifted his massive stomach to reach for his wallet. He stymied the impulse to say anything rude and made himself comfortable. A figure came through the smoke. A figure he had known and would always know.

She moved slowly and he could see now that she, like everyone here was soulless and hopeless too. They all were biding their time until their ticker finally quit and they could stop worrying about it all and find rest again. “Here’s your whiskey.” The server gave it to him and it was only two fingers full. Fucking cheap ass.

“Who is that up there?”
“That’s Rose. Now treat her good,” the server said halfheartedly. There was less joy here than in a supermarket check out line. The fat man put down a five on the stage. It had taken him all he could to lean forward. And he was instantly angry. She deserved better. She deserved the world, and he might not be able to give her that but he might be able to save her from the fat man whose shirt had spittle on the front of it. He motioned for the server and it took her a minute but she came over.
“How much for a private dance?”
“Fifty bucks.”
“Here.” He gave it to her. “When?”
“When she’s done.”
“Alright.”

He sat there and watched her. She was still beautiful. Even though she was older. She was too regal to be up there. Always was, always would be. She didn’t see him, he doubted she saw anyone while she danced. The stage was littered with ones and fives. She stopped before the song as well and picked up what she had. He watched her the whole time. He watched her leave and go into her room. The server went after. A few minutes later she came out and did a once over to the crowd before going into the back. The server came out and walked over. “She’s ready. Room three.” He got up and walked to the back. As reached the door. The fat man was struggling to lean over and place a five on the stage again.

He stepped into the room. It wasn’t as smokey here but everything was a red shade, even the light. She had her back to him. “Ground rules,” she said, “no touching, no creeping, if you want another dance it’s a hundred and you have to give it to me before I finish.”

“Hello, my sunrise.” He whispered and she bristled. She slowly turned around.
“What are you doing here?” She said and suddenly she was covering herself with her arms. She didn’t want him to see her naked.
“I came for the scenery.”
“I’m not dancing for you.”
“My money is as good as the next man’s.”
“No, it’s worse.”
“How about fifty bucks of conversation?” He asked. She nodded curtly and pulled on a shawl she had in the corner of the room.
“So what do you want to talk about?”
“Years, you and me. I didn’t come here knowing you were here.”
“That’s good to know.”
“When did you get this gig? I never would have thought you would do this.”
“Don’t you judge me, you asshole.”
“I’m not. I’m one of those creeps who watches.” That did it. She slumped her shoulders a little.
“A CPA doesn’t go as far as it used to.”
Someone banged on the door. “Rose!” a heavy voice said. “The boss says you need to be dancing in there or you need to be dancing out here!”
“I gotta go,” she said to him as she eyed the door. He nodded. She brushed past him.
“Wait.” He said as she put her hand on the door. “Take my number. Call me. We can see each other in…not such an intimate setting.” He hastily scribbled his number on the back of a receipt in his pocket.
“Okay.” She said, already back in robot mode.
He took her arm. “I’m serious.”
She gently pulled away. “Maybe.” And she walked away.

He got up the next morning and did his routine. He went downstairs to Sonny. Sonny, your stereotypical Russian in Adidas work out gear would give him a list of addresses. He would go and collect, or collect rent from these places. They were always run down. Usually they were inhabited by users, hookers, or old people. Sometimes families lived there. He would usually go easy on the families and old people. Hell, he was becoming an old person. And he had always wanted to be a family man. He had come so close a long time ago. He pulled up to the curb in his Oldsmobile. He knew this house. He had visited this hooker and her junkie boyfriend twice last week. This week it was time to collect. He popped the trunk and pulled out a steel bat.

He had just finished convincing the boyfriend to give him what money they had when his phone rang. He mopped the sweat off his brow and pointed the bat at the hooker whose voice had gone out from screaming a few minutes ago. She tearfully nodded. He answered. It was her: Rose.

“I’m available tomorrow afternoon.”
“Coffee?”
“Maybe something stronger?”
“Coffee at a bar?”
“Sounds good. Three.”
“I’ll be there.” He flipped his phone closed and took the money off the table to his left. “You’re still three hundred short. I’ll be back next week.” He wiped off the bat with the table cloth and left.

He gave what money he had from the hooker to Sonny. “They’re three hundred short,” Sonny said as he counted.
“I’ll go back next week.”
“No, I’ll kick them out.”
“Awe give em a week. A little money is better than no money.”
“One week. Then they’re out!”
“Deal.”

He didn’t sleep much that night and got up early. He put on a nice shirt and slacks. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting but he wanted to be ready for anything.

She met him at the bar a few blocks away from the club she worked at. The bar was old but well maintained. It was dark inside, like all bars, but he wasn’t worried about letting his hands touch the table. He came here a few times before. The bartenders were nice they served burgers too. She led him to a booth and a waiter took their drink. “Whiskey, three fingers.”
“Cosmo.” She looked at him, long and hurtful. He looked at her the same way. “So what do you do?” She asked finally.
“I’m in debt collection.”
“What’s that?”
“Honestly?”
“Yeah.”
“People pay me what they owe my boss or I beat them til they do.”
She was silent for a while and he wondered what she was thinking even though he knew it, really. “I never thought you’d be doing that.” She finally replied, quietly.
“Me neither.” He eyed her. She looked uncomfortable and he was too. Seeing her now like this dredged up too many good memories. Memories that he felt weren’t really his. Someone else’s. Her’s maybe. They certainly didn’t mesh with the couple sitting at the booth now.
“What happened to us?” She said finally.
“Life, I suppose.”
“I thought for sure you had made it somewhere doing something great.” She said.
“I thought the same thing about you,” he replied. “You were better than me at everything.”
“Mostly.” She said smiling. It was a smile that the face wasn’t used to: genuine.
He smiled back. He always liked the way her eyes would sparkle when she smiled.
“I couldn’t get a job,” he said. “No one was building but I met my now boss through my foreman at work. He said he would always have work for me. So I switched. I didn’t have the luxury of being moral, really. I was too hungry.”
“Mine was the same thing. No work for accountants. I did internships and temp work, but at the end of the term I’d continually get laid off. Someone at the agency promised me permanent work, at least until my boobs were too saggy to fit in a bra. Once I started I wasn’t able to get out.”
“That’s how they get you.”
“That’s how they got you?”
“Look at me. I’m a fifty year old thug. You think I’d do this if I could build things?”
“Do you think I’d shake my ass if I could work with numbers?”
He smiled. “I’d let you shake it for me.” She snorted.
“No, no. That’s been ruined now. I don’t think I could do it for anyone like that anymore.”
“You used to.”
“Like I said.” She sat there for a long time and he reached over and took her hand. She pulled it away but then brought it back. He held it. Her face fell and his throat was heavy and everything came back.

“We almost beat fate, didn’t we?” He asked. She had a tear in her eye.
“Yes.”
“I really wanted to have children with you, to be a good man and normal.”
“I wanted that too.”
“Why didn’t we?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought I could do better.”
“Me too.”
“You made me a better man, but I made you a worse woman.”
“No, don’t say that.”
“You said it to me. It was the last thing you said.”
“I was wrong. I was nothing without you.”
“Can we fix it now?”
“It’s not too late?” She asked.
“It’s never too late.”
“Yes, then. Let us try.” Then he was kissing her and she was kissing him and all of everything was breaking his heart and all the memories flooded through his head and he remembered this kiss and realized he had never forgotten and that he had always loved her.
She pulled away and looked at him. “The world isn’t so bad you know. If it let us meet again.”
“No, not really I suppose.” They had a few more drinks and it was ten by the time they left. He felt young again and happy and she was beautiful, more now than he could have remembered and he was sorry that they had let go all those years ago. He called a cab and paid their bill. She wanted to but he told her this was what they always did and he always had won before so let him pay now and save them both the trouble.

The cab pulled up and she got in. He followed her. He held her hand and they talked. She told him of having a miscarriage and how it had ruined her for a while. When she came out of the other side her job had let her go and she was months deep in owing rent. So she did what she had to do. “I’m not apologizing for who I am. But I wish I didn’t have to be.” He said the same thing. But he didn’t want it anymore. He missed her and knew now how empty he had been. The cab stopped at his apartment.

“Never got the house, did you?”
“Never had a reason too.” She waited at the door. He paid the cabbie and cabbie drove off. He pulled the keys out of his pocket.

“Hey.”

He turned around. The junkie from earlier that day was standing behind him. And when the gun went off he had known it was going to his whole life. They had defied everything everyone had predicted about the two of them and then had proven every prediction right. His life with her and then without went on in his eyes like a movie for someone else. Let me live til the end He thought. Let me see it. The junkie ran as soon as the gun went off. And He stumbled back into the door. He hit it and slumped onto the ground. and he felt the warm running down his chest. She started to scream for help. She grabbed him and tried to cradle him.
“I think I’m washed up.” He said.
“Don’t you dare be. I just found myself again.”
“Me too.”
“Don’t leave me again.” She said as he had a hard time breathing.
“We beat fate, you know.”
“I love you.” She said but it was too late and he couldn’t hear her anymore. She began to cry. “Damn you, damn you, damn you.”

The smoke was thick and it was swallowed by your lungs after every breath. There was more to replace it as soon as it was gone too. A fat man was sitting close to the stage. He struggled to place a five dollar bill on it. The music started playing a classic rock song too loudly to be enjoyed.

She took her place on the stage. And began to dance.