I wrote this story when I was nineteen. I dug it out a few weeks ago—been doing quite a bit of digging lately—and I decided to dust it off. I have edited it only minimally, for clarity and flow, as if it were someone else’s, which in many ways it is. Oh, and I changed the title, which was execrable.
“A child is born.”
The man lifted his face from his drink again… slow and thick with whiskey. He gazed up to a string of tiny colored lights hanging above the smoked mirror, but his eyes lost focus after a moment or two, and then dropped back down to his glass.
Sean and me watched it all from the back corner of the bar. Me on a stool; Sean behind the bar, leaning on the liquor rail, chin in one hand, while the other twirled a beer rag.
One of the two down at the other end called him. So Sean straightened up, jammed out his cigarette in the ashtray we were sharing, and strode down there pulling a draft on the way. When he passed the whiskey drinker coming back, he gave me a look. I shrugged. He shook his head and grimaced.
Couldn’t have been more than maybe ten, twelve people in the bar all night, but at least Sean would make some tips. The restaurant had been entirely dead, and I had made zilch busing. Twenty years old and still busing tables. Sean had let me off from bar-backing, so he wouldn’t have to tip me out. Made sense: there was nothing to do. And I was not going to bitch for five percent of twenty-five bucks … a liberal estimate of what Sean was going to make. I knew I’d drink way more than that with the Stoly and cranberry juices he was so generously feeding me.
‘Tis the season. Fa la la la la.
And Carson mugged his way through a re-run monologue on the boob tube bracketed to the ceiling. And Sean and me talked; and Jack Kelley, too, butting in sometimes from two stools down. Mostly it was waitresses, especially Laura. Me and Sean had her nailed as a pricktease. Jack said he could break through given half a chance. Sean asked him what he planned to do with no chance. Jack told him he’d have to settle for Sean’s mother. Sean said his mother was dead. Jack got a serious look on his face; said he was only playing. Sean shook his head and laughed.
“You’re an asshole, Sean,” Jack grumped.
“You’re a stupid asshole,” said Sean. He was quite pleased with himself. He knew every trick, every bar joke, and every bar story. There are only three or four. The rest are variations just like great literature. Sean lit a cigarette and began an in-depth analysis on the Laura situation as he saw it.
“A child is born.”
We turned to the whiskey drinker. Just like before, and before that, he lifted his eyes to the lights and dropped them when his stare went blank.
“Hey.” Sean said.
The man just sipped his drink gently.
“Hey!… What the hell is this? Midnight Mass? Tell you what, we’re all Jewish in here, so we don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jack Kelley grinned, and the old fart Mr. Heneghan snorted into his beer another two stools down. The whiskey drinker said nothing.
“Who’s he bothering?” I asked Sean,
“He’s bothering me. Is that alright with you? He’s been saying the same goddamn thing every twenty minutes since ten o’clock. Not a word else. When he wants another drink he just shoves his glass in front of him like I’m his goddamn slave.”
“Well, how much has he had?”
“Enough.”
“Well, maybe you should cut him off.”
“Screw him.” Sean said, and then walked down to the other end to check on their drinks. On his way back this time the whiskey drinker pushed his glass out in front of himself just like Sean had said. Sean stopped, and after glancing at me he pulled the J&B off the shelf under the mirror. He poured the whiskey with customary style. That’s one thing Sean always had, style behind that bar. He touched the metal spout to the rim of the glass with a clink, then, as the liquor poured out in a thin stream, he lifted the bottle an arm’s length off the bar suspending the stream, turning it into a gleaming caramel icicle. When he brought the bottle down to the rim again, a perfect double of whiskey sat in the glass.
He pushed the glass back under the man’s face.
“Just Jews here, guy.”
He walked back over to me. “You want another, Kevin?” He pointed to my glass, nothing but ice now.
“Yeah, man,” I said, not looking the gift horse. Just lucky for me, I guessed, that Sean had no women to lube up. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have gotten the time of day. Busboys being lower than dirt, and all. As it was though, there seemed to be no limit to the holiday cheer flowing.
Stolyandcranberry juice. Stolyandcranberry juice.
And so Sean chewed my ear: small price for the booze, I guessed. He told stories, and he complained, and he preached; and Jack Kelley butted in sometimes.
And the regular pastel bar lights mixed with the light from the twinkling string of colored sparks above the mirror; and this mixture hung on the smoke in the air with a thick, dim, red-orange glow. Something stabbed through my alcohol blanket. My brother at the window peered over to me on my bed, his face painted orange by the plastic electric candle masking-taped to the sill. “Come over here,” he whispered. “Look at the sky. He’s up there somewhere. Listen, if you cover the other window, that doubles our chances, right?”
I had to swallow before I could speak to bum another cigarette from Sean. He drew one from his pack, tossed it to me, and finally lit me up after I had fumbled long enough in my pockets for a book of matches.
“I don’t care how good you treat me, Sean,” I said smiling as I blew out my first drag. “You ain’t taking me home tonight.”
“Get away from me, you faggot-ass,” he said. He pulled himself a beer and then leaned back again among the liquor bottles, propping his one leg up on the beer bin. It was then, or just a second or so after, that all eight or so of us that sat drinking, noticed the man move. We watched as he climbed from his stool on to the bar: first on his stomach, then scrambling to his knees, and then finally pushing to his feet shakily. Lifting his arms with open palms up to the tiny bulbs, he spoke.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Sean muttered, blowing out smoke with his words.
“Be not afraid. Behold I bring you tidings of great joy.”
“That’s it.” Sean hissed, as he shifted off his perch between the liquor shelf and the beer bin. “Jerry!” he hollered.
“… For to you is born this day in the city of David a…”
“JERRY!”
Jerry poked his head around from the foyer. “What? “ Then he saw the man. “Oh.”
“Oh, is right,” Sean said. “You want to get off your butt and do your job for me? Just this once?”
Jerry played lacrosse and football on scholarship. Big guy. Good looking and always dressed real nice. I never had any problems with him. He sauntered to where the man stood. He looked up kind of like he was bored and shook his head.
“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying—”
In a clean synchronous motion Jerry slammed his fists into the backs of the man’s knees so that he crumpled like a puppet and fell gently into Jerry’s arms as if they formed the most comfortable chair. Brian Kilte tossed the man’s coat on top of him so that we could only hear mumbling underneath. Jerry walked him out easily, no doubt setting him on the nearest mound of trash bags.
“Another?” Sean asked me.
“Naw,” I said. “I’m finishing this one and then I gotta split. Miles to go before I sleep, and all.””
“Whatever.” Sean took his perch.
I drained my ice after a few minutes . It was almost midnight now. I slipped off my stool and went back to the kitchen where I put on my cycle suit, packed my stuff into my knapsack, grabbed my helmet and then, as an afterthought, punched out.
“I’ll see you all, later,” I said as I walked past the bar.
“See ya,” they said.
Sean said, “Later on, Wise-ass.”
“See ya, Jerry,” I said as I walked past him leaning in the foyer.
“See ya, Kevin,” he said.
And then I was outside with the freezing air smacking my face—the only part of me open to it. The moon shone from a gap in the thin clouds and lit those surrounding it. The buildings, the street—everything was quiet. Maybe no more so than any normal slow night, but the power of persuasion splashed in my stomach and creeped up my throat in halted burps, leaving a sour taste. Under my feet, the ground, the concrete felt harder–like it was frozen for yards down into the earth. It seemed to ring with each step I took.
A heap of trash bags and boxes sat on the curb near the fire hydrant. I looked on top of it, but no Whiskey Drinker. I wondered if I was disappointed.
My cycle sat in the alley behind the kitchen. It hadn’t been as cold when I rode over that afternoon; I knew the clutch would be stubborn. It took me five minutes of pumping the kick-starter before she fired to life. I sat with the engine vibrating underneath my butt as the cycle warmed up: where was I going? I hadn’t thought about it really. My parents had extended the invitation but I had told them not to expect me. I had said I had to work: sort of a lie; sort of the truth. Now I thought I would go up to the house. None of my roommates would be at the apartment.
I twisted the gas, squeezed the clutch, kicked down into first and I was riding through the alley under the sky. I remembered my conviction as a kid that if I ran fast enough looking up at the moon I’d take off. Flying. I thought of her. The feelings came so close. I must have had some moonlit time with her. I couldn’t dig one up.
She was at school down in Florida now; not coming home for the holidays, her mom had told me when I saw her at the mall. I didn’t ask her why.
We didn’t write. We didn’t phone. I had cut her off neatly after we talked for the last time last summer. She wouldn’t say good-bye to me. She cheated me.
In the country now: the watershed of the reservoir. Curving through roads, I switched off the headlight and drove the power lines. (An old country roads game: watching the wires for the gleam of headlights coming from even three-quarters of a mile away: you can own the road doing this, swinging through the bends from one side of the asphalt strip to the other. Dimension.)
A thought crossed: my bike hits a patch of ice and I hurl off the road, smashing my rib-cage against some grand oak tree. I’d die on impact; then slide down the trunk into a bed of leaves and small dry bushes by the road. I’d look so beautiful in the quiet, frozen moonlight–but then I remembered morning would come and the picture of my crushed body in dark blue and silver would be spoiled by the harsh and ugly bruise colors that daylight would bring. It pissed me off.
I spun the twenty miles beneath me in about the same number of minutes, and reaching my parents house, I pulled off the road onto the gray gravel driveway. In it, right in front of the garage, sat a black, shiny, new Corvette. It dawned that my parents had moved, at least a month ago, to the next county over. Jesus Christ.
So like a third millennium man from space I sat there on my vehicle in my helmet and suit; the moon watched; I watched the house.
I saw my Dad—more than a little fat; more than a little loud and red-faced. (He was old now, and he hadn’t had a drop since the stroke in ’83—almost skinny, gentler definitely.) But there he was, from some year I didn’t know for sure, leaning out the storm door surrounded by the big colored outdoor lights that went around the shape of the door and continued into the bushes on either side. The living room windows had been thrown wide open, and the stereo speakers had been placed in them facing out to play to what I guessed was the universe and the face of God HimseIf. They trumpeted Mahalia Jackson, “Go Tell It On the Mountain.” My Dad grinned wide and then he transformed his face into a deep fake frown. He stepped out the door onto the front stoop, turned around back towards the house and shouted up: “I don’t care who you are; get those goddamn reindeer off my roof!”
I sat there. I sat there until the image had all the way faded back to just a house with a shiny new Corvette outside.
I had plenty of gas. I could hit a bank machine and I’d have plenty of money. I twisted the gas spitting gravel as I turned the bike around to the road. Maybe by Virginia or North Carolina I’d sober up and think twice; but then I’d already be a couple hundred miles below anywhere where it would make any sense for me to turn back.
Maybe I’d get picked up by some hard-assed state trooper for speeding and D.W.I. Didn’t matter. Maybe I’d freeze to gangrene driving a thousand miles on a motorcycle in this weather, but I took my own dare. It gets warmer as you go, going south.
