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...scramble...
Glass conversations part 2...
Part 2


"You vandalized a streetcar? Bitchin'!" Said my thirty-nine year old neighbor the next Sunday, over coffee and cigarettes at her painted-linoleum dining table in her kitchenette. Samantha is a "found artist" which basically means that she steals lawn ornaments from random strangers and melts them into statues named things like "childhood, a parting" and "Youthful Decadence." They're nice names, but I have no idea how the ******** a flamingo and a gnome soldered together with some piping represent anything "youthful" or "decadent". To pay for the piping, destruction of public property, and occasional robbery charges, she teaches at Loyola College Art Department every time a real professor has a panic attack or gets a better job somewhere else. She says that she's, "Not tenured," I prefer to think that she's "gainfully unemployed." The rest of the time, she works at The Cowboy with me. Despite her age, Samantha gets better tips than most of the other bartenders-- including me. It's not hard to see why. Despite her age (not that thirty-nine seems that old anymore), Samantha is drop-dead gorgeous. She has that emaciated, fragile, artist look, complete with deep, doleful eyes that emaciated, fragile, musicians write deep, doleful songs about. She's tragic.Until she opens her mouth. She frequently says things like "bitchin'" or "sick" to try to better fit in with the students she sometimes has.
She took a long pull from her cigarette and then rose from her salvation-army-grade chair to make us another pot of coffee. This was all part of our Sunday morning ritual. Every Sunday, I stumbled, hung-over and bleary-eyed next door where Samantha, hung-over and bleary-eyed would make us coffee and we would discuss life, the universe, and everything over cups of the bitter liquid and cigarettes. We don't eat anything else. At this point, I don't think anything non-toxic can survive in our bloodstreams. Especially Samantha. I swear to god: in the four years that I've known Samantha, I have never seen her consume anything besides black coffee, Marlboro reds, the occasional espresso and whiskey sours. I'm pretty sure that she doesn't believe in solid food.
I sipped the remnants of my coffee, mulling over Samantha's comment and the way that the florescent light above me was making my head pound. Mostly the later.
"So, what did this ghost-writer write back?" She asked, refilling my cup of black sludge.
"Thanks." I took a sip, burned my mouth, winced, "Jesus Christ, Sam- don't you think you could warn me if you're pouring scalding liquid into my cup? And I won't know for a while. I don't even know if they'll respond. It was just a fluke, so let it drop." I was beginning to regret telling Samantha about the message on the streetcar. As far as I was concerned, it was just lousy coincidence, but Samantha was seeing something bigger. It's not her fault-- she's a romantic.
"You watched me pour it, moron," She says, sitting down opposite me and snuffing the tail-end of her smoke in the overflowing ashtray. "I'm telling you, Nora, it's a sign." She inhales a lungful of carcinogens between neon pink enameled nails.
"Whatever." I light a new cigarette myself and suck. I've been smoking for so long, I breath better with smoke in my lungs. How sad is that? "Anyways, didn't you say that you were starting a new project?" I blow smoke towards the light. I've always like watching the smoke disappear into the air. It's ephemeral, ethereal, evanescent, enigmatic. I got a mother ******** masters in creative writing from UPenn. I'm going to use all of the big words I can. At that moment, though, the smoke wasn't too pleasant. In fact, the light was still splitting my skull down the middle.
"Oh, yeah," Samantha pulled the cigarette away from her mouth and gestured at me with the flaking ash tip. "I'm still working on it, but I think I'm going to call it 'Seventh June'." Her eyes lit up. Dear, sweet Samantha, so easy to lead to different subjects,
"That's great, Sam," I grinned, "But can you please tell me what Flamingos and Gnomes have to do with your 'Seventh June'?"
Samantha wrinkled her fine nose at me. "Damn Yankee, you wouldn't know art if it danced naked in front of you." Samantha hailed from the fine hic state of Mississippi. I, New York.
The conversation, coffee, hangover, and smokes lead in other directions and all thought of my streetcar message-writer were forgotten.
--
I didn't forget about it, though.

The next Tuesday I was taking the streetcar to the Cowboy. I was already planning to get myself pleasantly and embarrassingly s**t-faced, since I had just been rejected from a creative writing journal for the third month in a row. Sam worked Tuesdays, too. She would get smashed with me. My dear friend was always looking for an excuse to drink herself forgetful. She didn't live out of a vodka bottle because she thought that would make her an alcoholic. Apparently it's not a disease if she has an excuse for it, though.

When I arrive, though, I don't even get the chance to mention my literary failure to my dearest friend and neighbor, sine Sam approached me first, already speaking to me. She was wearing liberally applied red lipstick and her mess of dark curls floated like a halo around her head, streaked with neon pink and blue from the fluorescent lights. It was only five, but things get started early in The Quarter, and The Bourbon Cowboy never closes. We lock the doors for about half an hour around seven am so that our ghostly Mexican janitor can wipe the vomit, s**t, blood, and alcohol off the floor before the morning drinkers come in for their vodka and orange juice.

"The Barfly's Back, Katie." Samantha says to me, her wide mouth pulled down at the corners and a miserable look in her wet brown eyes. There's a smudge of dark lipstick on her yellowed front tooth. I don't mention this.

"You mean Bukowski?" I ask. I don't mean to infer that this is the real Charles Bukowski, writer and alcoholic extraordinaire. The real Bukowski's been dead for years.He's been dead longer that I've known about poetry. Our Bukowski's real name is Leonard Dailey and our Leo is the Bukowski I never imagined or wanted to meet. He drinks as much as I smoke, chews the stubby ends of fat cigars, and even works for a post office. Leo comes to The Cowboy to watch tourist girls get s**t-faced and to moon over Samantha. It's not unusual for a customer to be in love with Sam. It happens all the time, and she actually dates a few sometimes, but Bukowski's too old for her. In his sixties, at least. Samantha tends to date men between my age and hers. The problem with Bukowski isn't that he looks at her, but how he looks at her. He watches her the way I think a starving wolf looks at a lamb that's just decided that he's her mama. He stares at her over the rim of whatever he's drinking and just sit there until the sun comes up and we go home. He's followed us to the streetcar stop twice now, just walked a few steps behind us the entire way. By the time we reached the stop, the first time he followed us, we were both pretty nervous. Samantha had already punched 911 into her phone and had her manicured thumb on the green call button, ready to press it if necessary, and I turned around and shouted for him to ******** off, and he did. He just turned down a side street and hobbled away, this old man in a plaid jacket and paint-splattered jeans. He just stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked off, like it was nothing. Like we weren't there and he was just taking a walk. Creepy mother ********. The second time, we stopped him right away. Sam yelled this time, and he did the same thing, just turned and disappeared. Like a wild dog at the edge of a rabbit warren that's just been noticed. Just trots off and knows that it'll come again when the rabbits don't expect him. The hunger will just make them taste better in the end.

"Yeah. Oh, Kate, can you take care of him for me? He's been looking at me, and you know how creepy it is." Sam looks really nervous and her eyes dart to Leo, who's watching us talk form his bar stool. I can understand her nervous look. If it were me, I wouldn't want to get within fifty feet of the crazy ********. Lucky for me, though, he seems to think this place is completely empty except for him and Samantha. The rest of us are just flies on the wall, as far as he's concerned.

"Sure, Sam." I say, and I pat her shoulder gently. I can feel her clavicle under her white blouse. "Go take a smoke break, you look like s**t."

"Thanks Kate." She says, and I can tell by the way she looks at me that she means it. It's the kind of look that could break your heart. It's an animal sort of blind trust, and it reminds me of a lamb.

Jesus, I'm overdoing the animal metaphors and similes.

She leaves and I go over to the bgar and duck behind it, assuming my usual work visage, which generally means smiling and trying to look seductive while mixing drinks, and it is very difficult to do all three at once. Smiling and mixing drinks simultaneously is hard enough, but add seductive into the mix, and I have a better chance of swimming the English Channel. I'm a mousy looking girl-- too much eyes and too little mouth to really ever accomplish the seductive stare. I look too childish for that. The closes I can get to a succubus is an impish, inquisitive look, which is helped immensely by the inequality of my eyebrows. My left eyebrow is slightly higher than my right one, which gives me a constant look of disbelief, like I'm questioning the world around me. Almost Noir-like. The overall effect is like a chain-smoking, jaded Nabokov's Lolita. The kind of men who come to The Cowboy aren't looking for that, though, so I'm safe.

Bukowski watches Sam exit through the back with her cigarettes and lighter before looking back to his glass. It's almost empty.

"Evening, Leo." I say, smiling while mixing a fruity drink for a girl in a white halter, a bleached jeans miniskirt, white cowboy boots and matching white cowboy hat. Even her hair is bleach blond and she has this enormous rack that's leaking around the edges of her top. Some hic in a blue polo top is buying this drink for her. They're shouting and grinning at each other over the music. Lousy tourists. They probably won't remember this in ten years when they have beer bellies and full time jobs.

Leo doesn't answer, just polishes off the last of his drink.

"Rum and Coke." He growls at me. Bukowski doesn't speak. He growls and he barks. I'm sure he whimpers, too, but I have yet to see that.

I refill the drink and he slides me some cash across the bar. It's a crappy tip. Thank god for tipshare. I'll make his drinks weaker for the rest of the night now-- bartender's justice. Son of a b***h should tip better if he wants a real drink.

"Rum and coke," I say, sliding the stumpy glass across the bar in his direction. He isn't paying attention. He's watching two blonds with miniature outfits holding three-foot-long pitchers filled with what I can only assume are Hurricanes and trying to figure out how to work the mechanical bull. It's really not a difficult process. Just a matter of slipping two quarters into a slot by the front, but I guess that after a Hurricane, quarters start to look life fruit cakes.

In my entire life, I've only had one Hurricane. They seem to be New Orleans's favorite mix of scotch, vodka, whiskey, 151, amaretto, fruit juice, PCP, grenadine, more fruit juice, acid, cocaine, meth, and topped off with a cherry and shaved ice. Of course, those are only the real hurricanes that one buys exclusively from shady street vendors who leer with dark gums and golden teeth while a few dollars are exchanged for a neon colored, plastic enormous vial that contains some mixture that is more than capable of getting even the most seasoned bar tender (me) smashed in a matter of minutes. Of course, that may have been due in part to the fact that I chugged the entire thing in less that thirty minutes on an empty stomach two months after moving to New Orleans-- which was before I developed such a high tolerance for toxins.

Of course, anyone who wants to drink on Bourbon Street will ask for a Hurricane at some point, and so I've made my fair share. Naturally, though, mine do not involved illegal substances, just the drugs that the government permits.

I look at the clock on the wall. It's neon like the rest of the place. It reads Zero 9 colon 4 two, to write the way Bukowski would. The real one, I mean. not the one who's downing Rum and Cokes five feet from me, looking less and less human with each passing minute. It's nine forty two. I pour myself a glass of Grey Goose and orange juice behind the bar. It's almost a quarter of ten, and I have my first drink.

After the first one, I'm swamped with the ten o'clock rush. Believe it or not, The Cowboy spends most of the day Full, with waved of Absolutely Packed at Ten, Eleven, One, and again at four, when the beyond drunk nocturnals of the city shamble in for their final drinks before retreating back into their respective nests to wait out another long day of sleep and sunlight-- two things these people know very little about and have a hard time remembering when they wake up in six hours.

About fifteen minutes later, Bukowski demands another drink. I oblige and take another for myself. It's my way of coping with him. I can't drink with my friend, so I'll drink to match him.

"Where's...your friend?" He growls at me after a while, just as the eleven o'clock crew begins to lurch in. It seems as though he's finally noticed that Sam is gone. Nearly two hours after she left. Observant, this one is not, apparently.

"Who?" I respond over the click and swish of my silver cocktail mixer. I'm three drinks in now, and playing dumb seems smart. At least I can still bartend while intoxicated, since I'm not exactly capable of much else.

"The girl."

"Which one?"

"You know," He takes a sip of his drink, and as he pulls the glass away from his mouth, the liquid on his fleshy lips catches the neon strobe light. It makes me want to vomit. "The one who looks like my daughter."

"Your daughter?"

"Yeah, my ******** daughter," He growls back, "Not that I would know, since her c**t mother took her and split thirty ******** years ago." He slams the glass on the bar. The people on either side look at him in surprise and edge as far away as the pushing of the crowd will allow.

"Leo, I don't know--"

"Of course you don't know! Nobody knows! I don't ******** know, either! But that girl, your little lesbo friend, has the same ******** eyes as my mother and my ex-wife's smile! I know she's not my girl. I know she's not my ******** kid, but god damn it, can't you all just let an old man dream?" He sprays spit on my face as he talks. He's howling now. I've been diluting his drinks, so I know that it's not because he's drunk that Bukowski is acting like this. It's got to be something else. My fellow barmaids look nervously at me. They want to know if they should call the bouncer. Our bouncer's name tonight is Teddy, and Teddy is to humans what New Orleans cockroaches are to normal cockroaches-- a giant who is capable of eating the smaller on their species. As ******** crazy as Bukowski is, I don't necessarily want to turn him over to Teddy yet. I don't really want an old man's blood on my hands.

"Just calm down! Look--"

But Leo's not listening anymore. He's on his feet, his veiny hands on the counter, leaning over towards me. "But today I got this call from my c**t deserter wife, and guess what! My ******** little girl killed herself in a car accident last night! She was driving with some s**t head in Mississippi and they were getting high and they hit a ******** tree out in the middle of nowhere! Do you get it? I haven't seen either of them in thirty three ******** years, and now I hear this? Now I hear that my little girl- my only little girl is dead because of some son of a b***h somewhere out in Mississippi! I haven't seen a picture of my only kid in thirty three ******** years, and the only thing I have that is left of her in your little bar-tending friend and she doesn't even have the decency to show up! Well, ******** you, you nasty little girl! ******** you and your dyke friend and my c**t, runaway wife, and my dead," His voice breaks off in a dry sob, "and my dead ******** daughter who probably had my mother's eyes and her mother's god damn ******** beautiful smile. ******** all you crazy bitches and your crazy lives and just leave me the hell alone! I've been alive for sixty six ******** years! Can't you all just leave me alone?" He's howling how, like a hurt animal, and fat tears are rolling down his ugly cheeks. The people around him are beginning to stare now, and a coworker of mine is signaling for Teddy. But before Teddy has a chance to arrive, Bukowski pushes through the crowd, and out into the New Orleans night. It's quiet for a moment, and everyone can feel the thumping beat of the music profoundly, but after that single moment, the crowd starts up again and it's almost louder than it was before. I can't move yet. I'm still staring at the seat where Bukowski was. Some part of me wants to cry, but another part wants to laugh. So I stand there, torn, not really doing anything.

I feel a hand on my shoulder.

"Hey," Says a soft voice. It's Penny. She runs this place most nights, and now she's looking at me under her penciled on eyebrows and thick mascara with genuine concern. "You o.k., Katie?" She asks me.

"Yeah." I say with a short sign. I smile lopsidedly at her. "The rat b*****d didn't pay for his last drink, though."

Penny's artificial eyebrows draw towards one another, but since they're drawn a bit higher than the arch of her natural eyebrow would be, all it manages is a comical, half-surprised, half-concerned look. "You seem pretty shook up." She says. Penny is a good woman, and a good boss. She understands that it's bad fr business to have a bartender who can't think straight. She's thinking about sending me home.

"No." I say sharply, and she draws back, "No," I say again, softer this time, "I mean, it was kind of messed up, but I'll be ok. I'm just going to take a quick smoke break, ok?"

"Sure, baby," Says Penny, her thick New Orleans drawl making it sound more unimportant than it actually is. "Take the whole night for a smoke break, alright? Come back when this is all behind you."

"Thanks, Penny, but I-"

"Baby," She says, smiling at me and bracing my shoulders with her hands. Penny is in her fourties, and not aging gracefully at all. She has had two children and still bears the weight of them around her middle. Her makeup is thick and poorly done, and only her hairdresser knows what her real hair color is. Her husband walked out on her before I started working here, before her children grew up. She's not aging gracefully, but she's wearing it well. She's the kind of stout woman that a rabid pitbull would be afraid to take on, and I'm nowhere near as brave as a rabid pitbull. I'm not as stupid, either.

"Ok." I say, looking at the splotchy floor, "Ok, I get it. I'll clock out."

"Have a drink before you go, though, Katie. It'll take the edge off the night."

I laugh coldly. "You're the boss."

"Damn right I am, baby." She says, and pinches my cheek. "I'll make it for you. What you want?"

"A Hurricane," I say, wrinkling my nose at Penny's touch. "Make is as strong as is legally possible."

"Sho' thing, honey." She says, and I know she will. Since her kids are in prison and in college, she treats us like her daughters. Her strange, messed up, bartending daughters that she pays twice a month and passes thick green wads to every morning after shift. It's just like having real daughters, isn't it?

---

Less than an hour later, I'm more drunk that I really should be while walking through the French Quarter alone, but no one stops me, so I don't really care. Like I said, though, I'm drunk, so that really means that I don't care about much of anything.

"Ugh." I say, removing my shoes as I wait for a streetcar that will take me back uptown. I'm glad that I have a car pass. It saves me from having to count change while intoxicated.

There is only one other person at the stop, which is unusual for a night in New Orleans. I figure that I must have just missed a car. I have fifteen minutes to kill. Maybe more. Maybe less. Whatever. I have time.

The other person waiting for the streetcar is a young man, maybe even just an overgrown kid. His face is smooth and orange under the streetlamp and his hair is dark and messy. He has a guitar strapped across his back and a whit plastic bucket dangling from his left hand at his side.

"So you're a musician, huh?" I slur at him. He turns to face me. I was right. He is just an overgrown kid. His late teens, maybe. His eyes are large and dark, but hidden under too-long bangs.

"Seems that way." He responds.

I can tell he has a nice voice. Then again, while I'm inebriated, I tend to think the best of everything. Maybe his voice was awful, but I remember it as this melodious harpy-thing. "What month is it?" I ask blearily. I pout my lower lip. I may think that this is sexy. I don't want to remember.

"April" He says quietly. I commend this stranger for putting up with me, but equally recognize that he must not have lived in this city for very long. After a few months, everybody learns to just ignore the drunk people.

"April is the cruelest month." I mumble to myself. "But there is time, there is time. For visions and revisions and I've measured out my life in coffee spoons!" I say, throwing my arms theatrically in the air.

"Something like that." Responds the boy in his quiet voice. He neither moves closer nor farther as I perform my loose interpretation of "The Wasteland" He just stands there, waiting for the streetcar and observing a drunk writer/bartender/store clerk who is making a fool of herself.

I grow instantly calm, as is my way when I had alcohol in me. "Today has been s**t." I say candidly, and I sink to the ground.

"Huh."

"Yep. Today, I was turned down by a writing magazine, and then my best friend abandoned me at work and then a crazy old guy named Bukowski flipped on me because he daughter died and then my boss gave me a Hurricane and made me go home early without any tips."

"Sounds rough."

"Yeah. Hey, tell me something, kid." I say, and I scratch the top of my mousy head with one hand. I want a smoke, but I can't remember how to use a lighter.

"What?"

"How do you measure your life in coffee spoons?"

"I don't know"

"I think it's about aging."

"I think you're right."

"Don't ever grow up, kid. It sucks."

"I can see that."

"It really, really sucks." And we fall silent. Or rather, I fall silent and I stop trying to make awkward conversation. The streetcar comes, we both get on, we separate, I get off when I need to, I unlock my door, give my cat fresh water, and I collapse in bed, completely dressed and completely drunk. I think about Bukowski. I think about Elliot. I think about kids and Hurricanes and I don't make any sense of it. Sleep claims me before I can protest.

And the world is dark.








 
 
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