You come in out of the oppressive bright sunlight through one of the double swinging doors that flap behind you, announcing your presence. It is afternoon-empty, a few people on stools or scattered around the tables in back who nod in your general direction. You order a shot of tequila and take your usual spot where the bar slopes around toward the bags of chips and pretzels, near the bartender leaning against the rows of bottles.
You always come here by yourself, and though no one quite talks directly to you, you are not left out either. The bartender’s brother is always here in the late afternoon with some other guys he works with at the Sanitation Department, cleaning up crime scenes after the L.A.P.D. have taken all the evidence. You started coming pretty regularly on Mondays because they had good stories after the weekend, stories you told yourself you could use in a script someday.
You are here even though it is Thursday. It has been a bad day. After months of meetings with a producer and rewriting your spec script, he has finally told you he’s not going to hire you for his new sitcom. Or rather, his secretary left a message on your cell phone early this morning thanking you for your interest in the position, which has has now been filled.
You suck down the tequila, then order another one, and another. The bartender just looks at you as he moves a toothpick from side to side in his mouth. The place smells strangely comforting, a cross between your grandmother’s and an alleyway: ammonia, piss and people who drink so much they sweat liquor. Christmas lights are up all year round and a variety of beer signs hang off the walls. A few pictures of regulars are scotch-taped to the bar back. You like to tell people you go to this bar. Whenever you drive past with friends you point it out.“You go there?” they ask. “By yourself?”
After your fifth shot, the crime scene cleaners arrive. The bartender puts down his TV Guide crossword puzzle, his face loosening up as he pours beer into pint glasses which spills out onto the counter.
“Hey Frank, what you got for me?” the bartender says to his brother, wiping up the foam with a stained cloth.
“Dead woman eaten by her own dogs,” Frank says.
“Her fifteen dogs.” One of the cleaners who is completely bald passes around the drinks.
You have another shot of tequila while they describe the dead woman’s home. It was covered in shit, and they found dog carcasses and a dead cat in the kitchen. Even though she had lived there for years and years, there were no photographs or pictures on the wall, barely any furniture, not even a bed.
“We could not figure out where she slept.” Frank sucks down his beer.
“I think that was the worst place we’ve seen,” the tall curly-haired one says.
“No, what about that fat hoarder who killed himself. Remember the rats in that place?” The bald one stands in front of them all. He talks the loudest and always manages to make himself the center of attention.
“Don’t even talk about him. It took me months to erase that from my memory.” Frank has his eyes shut and he leans over the counter while the others laugh.
You are envious of the crime scene cleaners, the combination of routine and horror that is their lives. You wish you had a job with a title, something easy you could tell your mother about and she would understand, instead of having to explain over and over how it is you could have an agent and work so much, but never really have anything to show for it. “I thought you wrote sitcoms,” she said when you told her that a VH1 show about hair bands that you worked on two years ago will finally be on TV. You order another shot and try to remember not to say these things out loud.
A prostitute is monopolizing the jukebox, playing Journey songs over and over. Then she gets into a fight with one of the drug dealers who sell coke and crystal meth out of the men’s room. You have never seen her in here before. As far as you can work out, one of them owes the other money, but it’s unclear which way around it is.
You are starting to have a lot of trouble keeping your head upright and decide to rest it just for a minute, but the bartender is right on you. “No sleeping,” he slams his hand on the bar.
“Hey, look at the kid,” Frank says. They all call you that even though you are older than them. “Wow, that’s impressive, not even six o’clock yet.”
“Don’t even think about puking on my bar,” the bartender says.
You nod at him and then suddenly you are on the floor, Frank and the bald one are lifting you up. You’re not sure how long you’ve been down but the prostitute is still shouting, Journey still playing.
“Get him out of here,” one of the drug dealers yells. “We don’t want any yuppies in here anyway.”
You start to explain that you’re too poor to be a yuppie, but think better of it. The bald cleaner asks for your car keys. “Hey buddy, I’ll drive you home. I’m going to take the kid home,” he says to Frank. “Follow me, would you, in my car.”
You are trying to make your legs move, but they feel like they have a life of their own and you are merely floating above them. Frank and the bald cleaner each have you by an arm, holding you, leading you outside. You remember something funny that the producer did and you start laughing, trying to tell them the story. They don’t seem to understand, just open the passenger door to the car and deposit you inside.
“Hey, where you live, buddy?”
You are slumped over a little but manage to give them the address and rough directions. They slam the door shut, and you watch them confer with each other, look over at you and laugh.
You pass out again and wake up at a stoplight. The radio is tuned into a Classic Rock station. “I fucking love this song,” the bald cleaner starts singing along with it.
You don’t even know the name of this man who is driving your car. At each red light, you wake up, your head jerking forward when the car slows down. You keep forgetting where you are and what is happening. You look over again at this strange man. “Who are you?” you ask him, unsure if you have really said this, or if it just a thought. You are having trouble telling the difference. At one point you feel like you’re going to throw up, so he pulls over, and you open the car door, lean out. But the nausea passes and you lie back against the head rest, managing to stay awake the rest of the way.
“My girlfriend lives near here,” he says at one point. He’s got one hand on the steering wheel, the other crooked outside the car window, his whole body relaxed as he navigates the road. You think how nice he smells, especially considering what he does all day long. You almost wish you could just keep going, drive around all night with him, listening to Classic Rock. You feel safe with this man you don’t know. He looks like he always takes care of everything. He is singing again and you imagine him doing this while he shaves, right before climbing into bed with his girlfriend. He probably buys her flowers every week, surprises her with gifts when she’s least expecting it. He looks like the kind of guy who visits his mother on a regular basis, can fix cars, leaking toilets, has a million friends he’s known since he was five.
And then you are on your street. He pulls up in front of your building. It has never looked more shabby than it does right now. You are thinking of inviting him and Frank in for one more drink, feeling a bit sobered up now, not really wanting the evening to end just yet. “The wife is going to kill you, huh kid,” he says so instead you just thank him for the ride as he hands you the car keys.
You watch them drive away together and then head inside. You walk around your darkened apartment, unsure what to do next. You grab a beer and spread out on the couch with the remote and fall asleep. The television is on when you jolt awake, your hand wrapped around the bottle, still wearing your jacket, beer spilled all over you. The phone is ringing and you lie there listening to one of your friends leaving a message, bar sounds in the background. The VCR clock flashes 7:23. Your shirt is soaked and a little pool of beer has formed between your legs. You move over to a dry part of the couch, take off all your clothes and throw them on the floor.
Your desk is in a corner of the room next to a filing cabinet that houses all of your years of work. Spec scripts, sitcom ideas, pilots, game shows, a buddy flick, an unfinished horror movie. Research on hair bands, surfer-punk bands, skater-punk bands, Minneapolis bands, the Boston scene in the early 80s, the Manchester scene in the late 80s, the influence of drugs and rain on music in the latter part of the twentieth century. Except for occasional temp jobs on basic cable, no one has ever seen any of it, has ever sat in a movie theater or on their couch and been entertained or moved by anything you have done. On the floor is the printer and a package of blank paper, waiting for more.
You get up and go to the window. Standing there in your damp boxers you watch the cars moving between various destinations in the city, people going in and out of the 24-hour convenience store, the laundromat across the street. A sunset peeks between palm trees, the only clue that an ocean is only three blocks away. Otherwise you could be anywhere. If everything would stop just for a moment it might be possible to hear the Pacific crashing onto the beach, the rhythm of waves breaking apart on land.
© 2007 Susan Buttenwieser
