A short and silly story.
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The air is stale here. Too many years of cigarettes, the recent laws passed that forbid public smoking weren’t enacted soon enough to save the walls here.
I sit alone with a whiskey. The crowd is loud, like always. I have a feeling the owner in the back still smokes, though for his public service announcements you wouldn’t trust it all.
A bouncer throws out a drunk. It’s another night in paradise. I settle back and take a sip. My writings have suffered of late, too much distraction, not enough soul, anyway that’s my guess. So I try again. A red headed old bar whore stumbles to my table. I ask her what she wants, she says a drink.
Fuck off.
Haughtily as a boozey queen would, she turns and moves back into the crowd. That’s why I quit going to strip clubs, it was awkward enough without a stripper bothering you to buy her drinks all the time. Buy your own goddamn drinks. The lactating strippers were the worst. Or the ones with new c sections. Their birthing fat all cheesy and wiggling like it shouldn’t be… and they’re shaking their disgusting asses in your face while your buddies are drooling for a taste of the had…
Fuck em all. Money grubbing…whatevers…God, I love shitty bars.
I watch her adjust her clothes and half saunter, half drag herself to another man. Do I really look that lonely, I wonder
A waitress, server, whatever you want to call her brings another glass. Doubles yet? She asks me.
No, it’s still too early.
As I drink it gets harder to read the text on the laptop. So I find sometimes, in my writing, the paragraphs incrementally grow larger, by the time I’m finished the script looks like an enormous eye test.
I keep trying to fix that and failing, so I usually wait until the following morning to send it away to whomever wishes to read it.
Then a new girl walks in, familiar too me, but new for this bar. I thought I had finally found my get away. But there she is with all of her floofy headed materialistic retarded friends. They’re a walking shrine to Jersey Shore and I find myself growing nauseous.
Two long years of life and whatever else separates us. Though now only twenty feet of sweaty strangers does. I felt closer to her when I was alone in this bar then now with her in the same room.
Forget it, I’ve got writing to do.
Twenty minutes later I’ve written maybe two lines and am furiously playing freecell trying to ignore her. My eyes don’t find her but I know she’s still here…I can smell that old perfume. The one I hate but loved once.
Like a ghoul in the middle of the night she plops down in front of me. Uncharacteristically I find myself speechless. Though my mind screams for an insult, any insult. I am blank.
So, you come here. She says.
Yes, I come here. I reply.
Alone? She looks around, as if expecting to find someone else.
Yes, alone. I admit.
Her beautiful soft, scornful eyes peer into mine. Still trying to write? she’s playing with me.
Still writing. Still trying to model?
Still modeling. she looks bored. She always looks bored when she’s most interested, a defense mechanism, I think.
Any spreads?
Elle, and one for Mary Kay, that was this week.
Wow, you’re moving up in the world.
No, just got some snags. What about you?
Editor says I write too darkly. I need a romantic comedy.
You can’t write romance though…
I know.
Does he know?
Yes.
So it’s hopeless?
No…I’m writing one now.
Can I read it?
Yes. I spin the lap top toward her and she begins to read it. The server is suddenly standing beside me asking me something.
A Manhattan. I reply without really hearing her. She shows up a few minutes later with one. It’s for her.
The server hands it to her and she’s reading it and drinking at the same time. When she finishes she looks up.
You still can’t write romance.
I tried to tell him.
Like always.
Yeah.
She silently judges me, her so beautiful, me so pitiful. A failed anything, anywhere looking into the eyes of the most powerful woman on earth. at least to me.
I thought you would have gotten better at it after two years. Are you still writing dark?
She always called my writing dark.
Yes. I’m really good at that.
I know. She touches my face for a second. Her touch says I wish you were better at loving. I wish you could do more than write of heartbreaks and dying humans. I wish you could hold me the way you long to in your stories.
And my heart feels heavy, a little, I think.
I pull her hand down.
You still love me. She whispers it.
I never quit. But I can’t look at her.
Two years?
Yes.
I miss you.
I miss you too. Why don’t you…why don’t we do something tomorrow? I ask.
You know why. She frowns when she says it, recalling a sadness I know too well.
You never found…anyone?
I did. he’s at home.
Good. My head feels tired. So I rub my temples.
You didn’t though.
Everyone is boring. I smirk.
I know. He is too, but he’s real.
She suddenly stands.
Keep writing, you’ll get it down someday.
I don’t think so.
Me neither. She puts a ten on the table. For my drink.
My treat. I start to say.
No, I’ll pay for my own.
Then she bends down and kisses me on the forehead. Her fingers gently touch the scruff on my chin.
You’re a good man. she whispers. She turns and walks.
She stops a few feet away and says something…. I can barely hear her.
You just can’t write romance to save your goddamn life.
Storied By Josh 