Good Old 'Everyoneelse'
Winning Entry by Sir Lucealot
Here he is again.
Every day at opening time the dishevelled, grizzly bearded man slopes into my bar.
He’s often earlier than my barmaid but then… she still has dreams away from here.
He drags himself across with his cane pulling his life in a trolley bag behind him to the far side of the bar.
When he is not here I do not know where he goes nor do I particularly care.
I don’t want to be here a moment longer than I have to be not even in thought.
He raises his hand and I pour his first - a cheap gin drunk by the pint. Probably not legal but who cares- I know I don’t.
The hours pass away like this. Hand raised, another pint of liquor.
People ebb and flow around him like a tide but like an old wreck he is unmoved by any of them.
He says not a word the whole night to anyone. Never does.
I’m sure this is not how he planned his life. To be filthy and unwanted, not better than the rats in the alley, downing pints of gin all day.
But then I hadn’t planned to be here either serving him bottles of liquid no better than nail polish remover. Pleased that as he slowly kills himself at least he pays his tab at the end of every night.
As last orders are rung out and everyone else has long gone including the barmaid with dreams; finally he stands from his stool.
Swaying he declares clearly:
“To Good Ol’Me and to good ol’everyoneelse!”
Then he leaves- dragging himself and his life out of the bar to who knows and who cares where.
And every night I feel the same coldness.
After all who is he toasting? Who does he see?
And worse how long is it until he is me?
Every day at opening time the dishevelled, grizzly bearded man slopes into my bar.
He’s often earlier than my barmaid but then… she still has dreams away from here.
He drags himself across with his cane pulling his life in a trolley bag behind him to the far side of the bar.
When he is not here I do not know where he goes nor do I particularly care.
I don’t want to be here a moment longer than I have to be not even in thought.
He raises his hand and I pour his first - a cheap gin drunk by the pint. Probably not legal but who cares- I know I don’t.
The hours pass away like this. Hand raised, another pint of liquor.
People ebb and flow around him like a tide but like an old wreck he is unmoved by any of them.
He says not a word the whole night to anyone. Never does.
I’m sure this is not how he planned his life. To be filthy and unwanted, not better than the rats in the alley, downing pints of gin all day.
But then I hadn’t planned to be here either serving him bottles of liquid no better than nail polish remover. Pleased that as he slowly kills himself at least he pays his tab at the end of every night.
As last orders are rung out and everyone else has long gone including the barmaid with dreams; finally he stands from his stool.
Swaying he declares clearly:
“To Good Ol’Me and to good ol’everyoneelse!”
Then he leaves- dragging himself and his life out of the bar to who knows and who cares where.
And every night I feel the same coldness.
After all who is he toasting? Who does he see?
And worse how long is it until he is me?
Featured Entry by jellybean
Susie’s café stood at the end of main street, teetering between the newly-hip downtown and its ignored edges. The low-ceiling restaurant had been here since 1967, at least according to the sign out front, and at this hour of day was occupied almost solely by old men who’d been attending Susie’s for Sunday breakfast since they were young men.
I stood out amongst the diners, in my 20’s and dressed in khakis and the only button-down shirt I owned. Miniature swallows paraded across it in neat lines, white silhouettes against a navy background. Rich, who sat across from me, maintained the perfect and gruff picture of a Montana man in his mid-sixties. His jeans were well worn but clean, his belt buckle shined but was slightly obscured by a bit of a beer belly, with the look completed by a tucked in red-and-blue checkered shirt.
The men sitting at adjacent tables and the front bar seemed like they were all different versions of this same caricature; they sipped from cups of black coffee in worn white cups, read the morning paper, and laid thick compliments on the owner and hostess, Susie. The pictures that hid the majority of the wood-paneled walls that closed in the small space displayed images of the American West: bucking broncos, newspaper clippings featuring Rodeo stars, vast landscapes captured before white folks had put towns in the middle of them.
Rich cleared his throat. “So what’d you think of church, college boy?” he picked up his cup of coffee and sipped, waiting for my reply.
I shifted slightly in my seat, the red vinyl letting out a slight squeak. “It was lovely, Rich. Thanks again for inviting me.”
The older man narrowed his eyes, nodding. He’d taken to calling me ‘college boy’ since I’d showed up at the Flying K, the working-ranch-turned-dude-ranch we were both employed at. Only difference between us was that he’d been there since they drove cattle and I’d been there three months.
“What’d you really think of it? You grew up going, didn’t you?” he pried.
I sipped from my own coffee, contemplating how to reply. My relationship with church was not a rosy one. I started to regret accepting Rich’s offer: free breakfast if I went to church with him in the morning. The list of things I’d do for a free breakfast was long. Disassociating for an hour while people sang around me seemed like an easy ask for some pancakes and eggs I didn’t have to pay for. I hadn’t considered that the free breakfast part would also mean alone time with Rich.
I didn’t know Rich well, even though we’d spent the last three months working and bunking together. His language was typical of the other ranch hands, which is to say it was fouler than a sailor’s. His jokes were crass, and he always had a different conspiracy theory to bring up no matter what topic was discussed around dinner.
Still though, when he’d offered the free breakfast, I’d taken him up on it. “I liked the Gospel today, and the organ was a nice touch. And yeah, I grew up going, but haven’t been since I left home.” I kept it at that, no need to give my further opinions on organized religion.
“Seems like that’s what happens to all you kids!” Rich replied, a zealous vigor slipping into his speech. “You leave the barn, go off to college, and poof! No more church.”
I was used to this rhetoric, and gave the reply I’d already practiced on my uncles: “Don’t worry, I’m not a lemming. I didn’t go just cause other people weren’t going, I just didn’t want to go.”
Rich’s reaction startled me. He straightened up in his chair, swinging his coffee mug forward and allowing the hot liquid to spill in a tidal wave across its edge. He didn’t notice, and was about to launch into what was undoubtedly a fabulous tirade when Susie arrived, two plates in hand. One bore my pancakes and eggs, the other Rich’s cinnamon roll and sausage.
“Rich, darling, hope you’re not giving this handsome boy too much trouble.” Susie feigned disapproval as she set the plates down in front of us.
The ranch hand chuckled, adjusting his ball cap before replying, “Nah, Susie, none at all. This young man was kind enough to accompany me to church this morning, and I figured I’d reward him with the best breakfast in town.”
Susie smiled at that, patting me on the back as she left.
I dug into my eggs, and Rich turned back towards me. “So, lemmings,” he said.
I glanced up at him while I ate, the table manners my parents taught me not making an appearance as my hunger took over.
“Did you learn as a kid that lemmings jump off cliffs, commit mass suicide when their population is too big?” I nodded, taking a beat to douse my pancakes in syrup.
“Well, it’s a lie!” Rich proclaimed, holding his fork in his fist and raising it up high. A couple patrons looked over at him dubiously. I doubted Rich’s morning outbursts were an irregularity.
I waited, silent. Rich leaned over his sausage and started sawing through it, all the while narrating: “Disney made a nature documentary, White Wilderness, back in 1958. As part of that they drugged up a whole bunch of lemmings, brought them up to Canada, and threw them off a cliff! Filmed the whole thing, and from there, the image of lemmings spilling over a cliff to their demise has populated everyone’s mind. Don’t be a lemming! Don’t be stupid! Don’t run off a cliff if everyoneelse does!”
Rich paused for a moment, taking a big bite of the sausage before continuing, “But lemmings just migrate as a herd! They can swim! Any cliff-jumping involved is one of a reasonable height to water they can survive in. If lemmings understood English and analogies, they’d be pissed!”
I’m a fast eater, and was nearly halfway through my pancakes at this point. “So, I’m not a lemming?” I asked, interested to see where this was going.
“No!” Rich stabbed his fork in my direction; it hovered in the air between us, bits of sausage still clinging to its tongs. “No, you’re a human! Sometimes you’ve gotta run with the herd like the lemmings though. Just make sure you keep your head up and look out for filmmakers.” He laughed at this, finally deciding to tackle the enormous cinnamon roll that occupied his plate.
My pancake being almost gone and me in a considerably better mood because of it, I decided to test him a bit. “So, what about church then? Isn’t that literally blindly following?”
Rich looked up at me quizzically, seemingly interested. “For me there’s a difference between blindly jumping off a cliff and blind faith. Faith involves open eyes, open ears. Faith allows for doubt. For questions.”
The answer surprised me. My church-going days had been spent in a fire-and-brimstone church, no room for error, much less doubt.
“It’s good to be part of community.” Rich continued, unprompted. “We need people in our lives, and yes those people are incredibly fallible and any system we make is damaged, college boy.” He glanced up, a mischievous look in his eyes. “But we need them, just like the lemmings need their herd.”
The meal was finished, the bill paid. I got up and left, said thanks to Rich, and walked down the bitter-cold street to my shitty car. The wind whipped in devilish ways off the sidewalk, spraying my face with week-old snow.
When I closed the car door behind me, I pulled out my phone and Googled lemmings. Turns out Rich was right. I owed an apology to the species.
I turned on my car, desperate for the heater and knowing it was still a good ten minutes until I’d feel its warmth. I watched through my front windshield as Rich finished a long goodbye to Susie and sauntered back to his truck; I didn’t think Rich would get me back to church, but maybe I’d come to breakfast next Sunday. Suppose I could pay for my own pancake and eggs.
I stood out amongst the diners, in my 20’s and dressed in khakis and the only button-down shirt I owned. Miniature swallows paraded across it in neat lines, white silhouettes against a navy background. Rich, who sat across from me, maintained the perfect and gruff picture of a Montana man in his mid-sixties. His jeans were well worn but clean, his belt buckle shined but was slightly obscured by a bit of a beer belly, with the look completed by a tucked in red-and-blue checkered shirt.
The men sitting at adjacent tables and the front bar seemed like they were all different versions of this same caricature; they sipped from cups of black coffee in worn white cups, read the morning paper, and laid thick compliments on the owner and hostess, Susie. The pictures that hid the majority of the wood-paneled walls that closed in the small space displayed images of the American West: bucking broncos, newspaper clippings featuring Rodeo stars, vast landscapes captured before white folks had put towns in the middle of them.
Rich cleared his throat. “So what’d you think of church, college boy?” he picked up his cup of coffee and sipped, waiting for my reply.
I shifted slightly in my seat, the red vinyl letting out a slight squeak. “It was lovely, Rich. Thanks again for inviting me.”
The older man narrowed his eyes, nodding. He’d taken to calling me ‘college boy’ since I’d showed up at the Flying K, the working-ranch-turned-dude-ranch we were both employed at. Only difference between us was that he’d been there since they drove cattle and I’d been there three months.
“What’d you really think of it? You grew up going, didn’t you?” he pried.
I sipped from my own coffee, contemplating how to reply. My relationship with church was not a rosy one. I started to regret accepting Rich’s offer: free breakfast if I went to church with him in the morning. The list of things I’d do for a free breakfast was long. Disassociating for an hour while people sang around me seemed like an easy ask for some pancakes and eggs I didn’t have to pay for. I hadn’t considered that the free breakfast part would also mean alone time with Rich.
I didn’t know Rich well, even though we’d spent the last three months working and bunking together. His language was typical of the other ranch hands, which is to say it was fouler than a sailor’s. His jokes were crass, and he always had a different conspiracy theory to bring up no matter what topic was discussed around dinner.
Still though, when he’d offered the free breakfast, I’d taken him up on it. “I liked the Gospel today, and the organ was a nice touch. And yeah, I grew up going, but haven’t been since I left home.” I kept it at that, no need to give my further opinions on organized religion.
“Seems like that’s what happens to all you kids!” Rich replied, a zealous vigor slipping into his speech. “You leave the barn, go off to college, and poof! No more church.”
I was used to this rhetoric, and gave the reply I’d already practiced on my uncles: “Don’t worry, I’m not a lemming. I didn’t go just cause other people weren’t going, I just didn’t want to go.”
Rich’s reaction startled me. He straightened up in his chair, swinging his coffee mug forward and allowing the hot liquid to spill in a tidal wave across its edge. He didn’t notice, and was about to launch into what was undoubtedly a fabulous tirade when Susie arrived, two plates in hand. One bore my pancakes and eggs, the other Rich’s cinnamon roll and sausage.
“Rich, darling, hope you’re not giving this handsome boy too much trouble.” Susie feigned disapproval as she set the plates down in front of us.
The ranch hand chuckled, adjusting his ball cap before replying, “Nah, Susie, none at all. This young man was kind enough to accompany me to church this morning, and I figured I’d reward him with the best breakfast in town.”
Susie smiled at that, patting me on the back as she left.
I dug into my eggs, and Rich turned back towards me. “So, lemmings,” he said.
I glanced up at him while I ate, the table manners my parents taught me not making an appearance as my hunger took over.
“Did you learn as a kid that lemmings jump off cliffs, commit mass suicide when their population is too big?” I nodded, taking a beat to douse my pancakes in syrup.
“Well, it’s a lie!” Rich proclaimed, holding his fork in his fist and raising it up high. A couple patrons looked over at him dubiously. I doubted Rich’s morning outbursts were an irregularity.
I waited, silent. Rich leaned over his sausage and started sawing through it, all the while narrating: “Disney made a nature documentary, White Wilderness, back in 1958. As part of that they drugged up a whole bunch of lemmings, brought them up to Canada, and threw them off a cliff! Filmed the whole thing, and from there, the image of lemmings spilling over a cliff to their demise has populated everyone’s mind. Don’t be a lemming! Don’t be stupid! Don’t run off a cliff if everyoneelse does!”
Rich paused for a moment, taking a big bite of the sausage before continuing, “But lemmings just migrate as a herd! They can swim! Any cliff-jumping involved is one of a reasonable height to water they can survive in. If lemmings understood English and analogies, they’d be pissed!”
I’m a fast eater, and was nearly halfway through my pancakes at this point. “So, I’m not a lemming?” I asked, interested to see where this was going.
“No!” Rich stabbed his fork in my direction; it hovered in the air between us, bits of sausage still clinging to its tongs. “No, you’re a human! Sometimes you’ve gotta run with the herd like the lemmings though. Just make sure you keep your head up and look out for filmmakers.” He laughed at this, finally deciding to tackle the enormous cinnamon roll that occupied his plate.
My pancake being almost gone and me in a considerably better mood because of it, I decided to test him a bit. “So, what about church then? Isn’t that literally blindly following?”
Rich looked up at me quizzically, seemingly interested. “For me there’s a difference between blindly jumping off a cliff and blind faith. Faith involves open eyes, open ears. Faith allows for doubt. For questions.”
The answer surprised me. My church-going days had been spent in a fire-and-brimstone church, no room for error, much less doubt.
“It’s good to be part of community.” Rich continued, unprompted. “We need people in our lives, and yes those people are incredibly fallible and any system we make is damaged, college boy.” He glanced up, a mischievous look in his eyes. “But we need them, just like the lemmings need their herd.”
The meal was finished, the bill paid. I got up and left, said thanks to Rich, and walked down the bitter-cold street to my shitty car. The wind whipped in devilish ways off the sidewalk, spraying my face with week-old snow.
When I closed the car door behind me, I pulled out my phone and Googled lemmings. Turns out Rich was right. I owed an apology to the species.
I turned on my car, desperate for the heater and knowing it was still a good ten minutes until I’d feel its warmth. I watched through my front windshield as Rich finished a long goodbye to Susie and sauntered back to his truck; I didn’t think Rich would get me back to church, but maybe I’d come to breakfast next Sunday. Suppose I could pay for my own pancake and eggs.
Featured Entry by Shay Rose
Truth be Told
I belly up to the bar and order nice gin. "Make it a double, and don't ruin it with bad tonic."
The man next to me three seats away says, "You know your drink order."
I laugh, as required.
"You know your drink order like you know yourself."
I laugh again, this time more reluctantly. I don't want to engage. My brain screams danger, and its why I stand three seats away.
"You wait for someone to acknowledge the sophistication of your choice. I have; well done. You have been seen and approved."
The giggle dies in my throat, and I sidle further away as the bartender hands me my drink, a twinkle in her eye. "He's here most nights, disturbing the guests and myself. He can't seem to get enough."
"I'm sure," I laugh, and explain, "I'm going to go sit at a table, I don't like the bar, enjoy." I take a sip of gin.
The bartender wishes good luck under her breath and under a grin.
The man nodded, and says into the head of his Guinness, "Ah, yes, good old everyoneelse."
He said the word as if it were a single word, an affliction. It held too many Es.
The nonsequitor prompted me to respond, and not move away. "Excuse me?"
"If I repeat the words they still won't come true. It's always go, go, go, as demanded by the masses, and the masses bend over in aquiesence. They set the pace, they keep the pace, they demand the pace out of others. Who can stop the peer pressured race?"
The heat rose up the back of my neck, and my feet felt rooted in place. I didn't like the tone, or the question, or the man. He looked from where he sat, and again began talking, then time looking me in the eye, his voice both crisp and slurred; a gentleman of the cups, an oracle of past hedonism.
I presence filled the room and swept all inhibitions into its path.
My mouth opened of its own accord, and I began to speak: "There's this fast down, turn around hustle and bustle of the modern world, and I cannot seem to clear my mind long enough to write a single line of prose."
"What is prose when we could pose naked in the sun?" He parries.
Bothered and too articulate, I ask, "What poisoned nectar do we drink, to speak thus in tongues?"
"You call this poison, this freedom? It is what I seek and what I return for."
A terror engulfed me. My feet could not move, the water beaded on my drink, and the man was looking at me with a devil in his eyes.
Again I spoke, if not freely, then truefully and uninhibited, with no hint of the earlier laugh to hide my mind, "When I looked into the mirror, the stretch marks of a thousand smiles swore back at me. The masses, as you say, may sweep and turn, and I am left wanting." My hand moved as if to cover my lips, but it could not limit the sound. "I have both said too much and too little, and none of it makes a difference compared to the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner."
Our eyes broke contact and darted to the corner, where an oaken steadiness now permeated the space. The feeling it had not been there before engulfed me.
The man replied, "Your words create, yet you do not call yourself a poet? Would you call yourself a mother? My hands are scarred by asphalt and rebar, yet I do not spend my last paycheck. I am a good man, and truthful. We are connected in this moment. What is it you fear?"
"I fear a thousand fears. I fear my freedoms and my inhibitions. My hungers are worse than my starvation. I fear you believe you hold appeal to me. I do not fear solitude, but rather the dying of the years." I tried to hold back the truth-dance, before more of my psyche could stain the floor.
"If never another true word passed my lips, it would not be a curse," I mutter.
"You fear me then, the unnamed man?"
"I should not."
"Yet you do."
"I fear your attention. I fear you and I fear my own actions betraying my true wants. My actions hold more consequence than do yours. I fear my wagging tongue, what back alleys it might push me to, and I fear what must have been slipped in my drink."
"No! I would not do the thing you accuse me of. I am as trapped as you in this moment. My drink holds me, and my tongue has a will of its own. I too hunger and desire, but not for what you think. I want to know, to know, to know, the youth that still clings to you. I want to know your mind and its twists. I want to be the cause of a smile."
We fell silent at that, trapped still in lock-eyed contact. He could not lie, and so my fear lessened. I still feared his attention, but not his intentions. I was sickened by his logic, but not afaid of the deep fear of womanhood.
"Another round then?" and a pint appeared in front of him, and a goblet in my hand. I had finished my first drink. The bartender's eyes glintened sharply.
"Is it you, then, who so ensnares us?" I ask the barkeep. Her eyes glistened, and there was no devil behind them, for the devil possessed the whole face. She says, "I see the truth becomes no easier to bear, the more the eons pass. Come now, genie-eyed, and tell me what you see?"
The man stood from his chair, and tipped it. I saw he must be a worker, leather-tanned and hard-lived, and someone I could never trust. Yet, in face of worse he came to my aid and said, "You capture us both, you devil-wench, and in so doing have painted your own demise. You unite where you would soil, and placate where you would embroil. Who are you to question our means? Who are you to stand in our path? You forced metaphore upon us, what could you possibly want with that?"
"You amuse me, man."
She continued after licking her lips, "You have been here before, but only now protest?"
My feet still rooted to the ground, and the second drink on my lips, I said, "She asks for wrath and rage and ruin, she asks for sage and distant vision, she asks for unspoken platitudes, and wants to know the root of ruin."
The devil smiled, and refilled our glasses. "I had hoped to be more subtle. But as it is, I must admit, I had wanted to see you ruined. Who knows to who the antichrist will be born?"
My mind reeled ahead of my loosened tongue. Not a word, not a word, echoed in my mind, pedantic wanderings I did dispise, and I glanced to the man on my left, glanced to him who was held rapt, and directed my next question at him. "You know of the ruin of which she speaks?"
"It is the ruin that never sleeps, which ruins the woman more often than the man, and wakes itself at three am, howling of the moon and crying to be suckled. It is the ruin of families and of nations."
The devil grinned, its plans revealed, "You know this ruin has happened before, it is the fear which drives all your actions. You, woman, do not trust, you stand alone, and you," she glances at the man, "you have no chance, because of others who have taken my mixture, and in the morning woken up sicker."
I felt my heart pounding ever harder, as the trap being sprung had no way out.
"Not this man..." died on my tongue, with all the justifications that had died before. The broken truths, the broken trysts, the seveal minutes of pleasured bliss--it was wrong, wrong, wrong, and there seemed to be no escape from the terrible fact: it can happen to anyone, it happens to everyone.
The devil, she smiled, and filled up our drinks, and walked away to leave us to our devices.
The man and I stared back again, and drank our drinks and tried to pretend that thousands of years of confused injustice didn't drive our genes to seek the things the devil implored them to seek: him to take, and me to hide.
Then the man, some decisions reached, he straightened up, and still looking into my eyes, for he could not look away, he said, "I'm sorry. It's not enough, and will never atone, but I do not wish to stoop so low. She has prompted conversation before, for which I return, but never have the fears and plans been laid so bare. If we can leave, I will leave this bar, and never again will I be tempted at heart to fence with the devil and to tempt my heart, to ask and to lust after what isn't offered. I am sorry"
I broke his gaze then, for with those words he had broken the spell, and I looked down at my half-full gin, and wondered.
Was that all it took? To never or no longer partake? And the truth-sense still on me, I opened my mouth, and a final truth came pouring out:
"The facts have been changed after the fact, to power do the stories lie, and within the victor's eye. I am not Eve; I ordered my cup. But just as then, somone ordered me drink. The world has not slowed down, not since then, and the fire that is burning might never be quenched. You sit at this bar every night, what, did you not expect this? Has this temptation not happened before? You are part of the problem if you are only proving what a good man you are. You may not perpetuate fire, but sir, what did you do? What did you do, when your buddies told you, told you about everyone else?"
The man slumped low, and looked at his drink. He muttered something I could not hear, and I backed away, my feet now unfettered. The glass it dropped and further shattered the spell, and I ran from that bar with the devil's laugh still in my ear.
I belly up to the bar and order nice gin. "Make it a double, and don't ruin it with bad tonic."
The man next to me three seats away says, "You know your drink order."
I laugh, as required.
"You know your drink order like you know yourself."
I laugh again, this time more reluctantly. I don't want to engage. My brain screams danger, and its why I stand three seats away.
"You wait for someone to acknowledge the sophistication of your choice. I have; well done. You have been seen and approved."
The giggle dies in my throat, and I sidle further away as the bartender hands me my drink, a twinkle in her eye. "He's here most nights, disturbing the guests and myself. He can't seem to get enough."
"I'm sure," I laugh, and explain, "I'm going to go sit at a table, I don't like the bar, enjoy." I take a sip of gin.
The bartender wishes good luck under her breath and under a grin.
The man nodded, and says into the head of his Guinness, "Ah, yes, good old everyoneelse."
He said the word as if it were a single word, an affliction. It held too many Es.
The nonsequitor prompted me to respond, and not move away. "Excuse me?"
"If I repeat the words they still won't come true. It's always go, go, go, as demanded by the masses, and the masses bend over in aquiesence. They set the pace, they keep the pace, they demand the pace out of others. Who can stop the peer pressured race?"
The heat rose up the back of my neck, and my feet felt rooted in place. I didn't like the tone, or the question, or the man. He looked from where he sat, and again began talking, then time looking me in the eye, his voice both crisp and slurred; a gentleman of the cups, an oracle of past hedonism.
I presence filled the room and swept all inhibitions into its path.
My mouth opened of its own accord, and I began to speak: "There's this fast down, turn around hustle and bustle of the modern world, and I cannot seem to clear my mind long enough to write a single line of prose."
"What is prose when we could pose naked in the sun?" He parries.
Bothered and too articulate, I ask, "What poisoned nectar do we drink, to speak thus in tongues?"
"You call this poison, this freedom? It is what I seek and what I return for."
A terror engulfed me. My feet could not move, the water beaded on my drink, and the man was looking at me with a devil in his eyes.
Again I spoke, if not freely, then truefully and uninhibited, with no hint of the earlier laugh to hide my mind, "When I looked into the mirror, the stretch marks of a thousand smiles swore back at me. The masses, as you say, may sweep and turn, and I am left wanting." My hand moved as if to cover my lips, but it could not limit the sound. "I have both said too much and too little, and none of it makes a difference compared to the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner."
Our eyes broke contact and darted to the corner, where an oaken steadiness now permeated the space. The feeling it had not been there before engulfed me.
The man replied, "Your words create, yet you do not call yourself a poet? Would you call yourself a mother? My hands are scarred by asphalt and rebar, yet I do not spend my last paycheck. I am a good man, and truthful. We are connected in this moment. What is it you fear?"
"I fear a thousand fears. I fear my freedoms and my inhibitions. My hungers are worse than my starvation. I fear you believe you hold appeal to me. I do not fear solitude, but rather the dying of the years." I tried to hold back the truth-dance, before more of my psyche could stain the floor.
"If never another true word passed my lips, it would not be a curse," I mutter.
"You fear me then, the unnamed man?"
"I should not."
"Yet you do."
"I fear your attention. I fear you and I fear my own actions betraying my true wants. My actions hold more consequence than do yours. I fear my wagging tongue, what back alleys it might push me to, and I fear what must have been slipped in my drink."
"No! I would not do the thing you accuse me of. I am as trapped as you in this moment. My drink holds me, and my tongue has a will of its own. I too hunger and desire, but not for what you think. I want to know, to know, to know, the youth that still clings to you. I want to know your mind and its twists. I want to be the cause of a smile."
We fell silent at that, trapped still in lock-eyed contact. He could not lie, and so my fear lessened. I still feared his attention, but not his intentions. I was sickened by his logic, but not afaid of the deep fear of womanhood.
"Another round then?" and a pint appeared in front of him, and a goblet in my hand. I had finished my first drink. The bartender's eyes glintened sharply.
"Is it you, then, who so ensnares us?" I ask the barkeep. Her eyes glistened, and there was no devil behind them, for the devil possessed the whole face. She says, "I see the truth becomes no easier to bear, the more the eons pass. Come now, genie-eyed, and tell me what you see?"
The man stood from his chair, and tipped it. I saw he must be a worker, leather-tanned and hard-lived, and someone I could never trust. Yet, in face of worse he came to my aid and said, "You capture us both, you devil-wench, and in so doing have painted your own demise. You unite where you would soil, and placate where you would embroil. Who are you to question our means? Who are you to stand in our path? You forced metaphore upon us, what could you possibly want with that?"
"You amuse me, man."
She continued after licking her lips, "You have been here before, but only now protest?"
My feet still rooted to the ground, and the second drink on my lips, I said, "She asks for wrath and rage and ruin, she asks for sage and distant vision, she asks for unspoken platitudes, and wants to know the root of ruin."
The devil smiled, and refilled our glasses. "I had hoped to be more subtle. But as it is, I must admit, I had wanted to see you ruined. Who knows to who the antichrist will be born?"
My mind reeled ahead of my loosened tongue. Not a word, not a word, echoed in my mind, pedantic wanderings I did dispise, and I glanced to the man on my left, glanced to him who was held rapt, and directed my next question at him. "You know of the ruin of which she speaks?"
"It is the ruin that never sleeps, which ruins the woman more often than the man, and wakes itself at three am, howling of the moon and crying to be suckled. It is the ruin of families and of nations."
The devil grinned, its plans revealed, "You know this ruin has happened before, it is the fear which drives all your actions. You, woman, do not trust, you stand alone, and you," she glances at the man, "you have no chance, because of others who have taken my mixture, and in the morning woken up sicker."
I felt my heart pounding ever harder, as the trap being sprung had no way out.
"Not this man..." died on my tongue, with all the justifications that had died before. The broken truths, the broken trysts, the seveal minutes of pleasured bliss--it was wrong, wrong, wrong, and there seemed to be no escape from the terrible fact: it can happen to anyone, it happens to everyone.
The devil, she smiled, and filled up our drinks, and walked away to leave us to our devices.
The man and I stared back again, and drank our drinks and tried to pretend that thousands of years of confused injustice didn't drive our genes to seek the things the devil implored them to seek: him to take, and me to hide.
Then the man, some decisions reached, he straightened up, and still looking into my eyes, for he could not look away, he said, "I'm sorry. It's not enough, and will never atone, but I do not wish to stoop so low. She has prompted conversation before, for which I return, but never have the fears and plans been laid so bare. If we can leave, I will leave this bar, and never again will I be tempted at heart to fence with the devil and to tempt my heart, to ask and to lust after what isn't offered. I am sorry"
I broke his gaze then, for with those words he had broken the spell, and I looked down at my half-full gin, and wondered.
Was that all it took? To never or no longer partake? And the truth-sense still on me, I opened my mouth, and a final truth came pouring out:
"The facts have been changed after the fact, to power do the stories lie, and within the victor's eye. I am not Eve; I ordered my cup. But just as then, somone ordered me drink. The world has not slowed down, not since then, and the fire that is burning might never be quenched. You sit at this bar every night, what, did you not expect this? Has this temptation not happened before? You are part of the problem if you are only proving what a good man you are. You may not perpetuate fire, but sir, what did you do? What did you do, when your buddies told you, told you about everyone else?"
The man slumped low, and looked at his drink. He muttered something I could not hear, and I backed away, my feet now unfettered. The glass it dropped and further shattered the spell, and I ran from that bar with the devil's laugh still in my ear.
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