His nose was terribly crooked. I couldn’t help but look at it. It refused to go in a straight line. Yet,
on his face it didn’t look out of place. It was part of his demeanour. When all the parts were added
together—the slouched shoulders, the twisted nose, the tight fist— they created something familiar
sitting at that bar.
I knew him through work. We once had jobs in the same office where we worked together on projects that slightly held our interests. He moved. Then he was back for a day or two on a business trip of some sort. He never did tell me exactly why he was in town.
He left my limited imagination to contemplate the possible reasons for his visit, hoping I could envision
he had returned for something other then a simple business meeting. I couldn’t. We meet at the same bar where we would routinely go after work to conjure up foolish notions of freedom.
He hadn’t always looked this way, and it took me a moment before I recognized him. His nose was once straight. I knew what he used to look like, but I wasn’t surprised when I met him and his new nose. Everyone changes. I was glad Annie didn’t come. She would have been put off by his new nose, by his heavy sighing. But even more so, by how these things combined into a restlessness that couldn’t be contained, a lewd sort of optimism. A delicate balance existed in that bar, and Annie would have offset it. She would have diluted the bar’s dullness. Vivaciousness was her norm. She could never have been convinced that for some people a bar like this was cheerful. Cheerfulness is cheerfulness, she would have insisted. There was no way a dank bar, with depression and anxiety oozing from the walls onto everything inside, could be considered cheerful.
She packaged everything. She kept all her emotions separate in her mind like furniture that she loved
around until the arrangement of the pieces created a comfortable living space. Depression was a
book on a shelf that never touched the happiness of a painting hanging on the wall across the room. They were always separate, she was sure of this.
“Another round?” I knew what he was asking. I nodded. We were drinking scotch with beer chasers.
“Leaving for home tomorrow, hoping to get back as soon as possible.”
I had known it. This wasn’t where he wanted to be. He was able to maintain the naïve illusion he had severed all his ties to this town until he stepped back into that bar.
He wanted to believe it was a choice he could make, whether or not to pack memories in boxes along with clothes and books. His shoulders slouched even more under the weight of this unavoidable realization.
His voice began to recede within itself. I had to lean in closer so I could decipher the muffled words
which slipped out of his mouth. I felt the warmth of his breath hit my face, and I knew inside of him there was still something burning.
It was a fire in which he was trying to destroy all those contrived perceptions he unwillingly let stain his reality. Hoping he could substitute them with concepts and impressions of his own.
A man vomited on the floor. He continued to drink, uninterested by the pool of filth his body had rejected. “I’m still with Annie,” I finally informed him. He didn’t seem surprised.
“She’s pregnant.” This announcement produced somewhat of a response.
“Cheers.”
We both took a sip from our glasses and looked down them, estimating how many gulps were left.
I shouldn’t have mentioned Annie. We were both too far gone to maintain a conversation. I tried to keep her inside myself all night. She had managed to push her way out of my body and then I left
her stranded, unacknowledged amongst the drinking and noise. His eyes were busy wandering the room, checking every stool and every table looking for someone with a nose like his own.
Then it caught us, the extravagantly loud noise. I turned to see four people sitting at a table manufacturing laughter. Their laughter hovered over us, asphyxiating our minds. I gave in. I indulged in my bitterness without any rationality, wondered why I could only hear an insipid monotony in the noise. My friend sat quietly beside me, his eyes never straying from his glass. One of the four approached the bar to order some drinks. The guy placed his order. Put down some bills and casually leaned on the bar. He was clean cut, but a little overweight, another misfortunate person who was unable to conceal his own idleness.
As the guy was leaving, hands full with glasses, my friend sunk his elbow deep into his gut. The guy
stumbled back, his mouth open wide as though he was going to heave. Nothing came out except a couple muffled grunts.
Then punches were thrown and some more alcohol wasted. They stood so close together neither one
could see anything past the other’s face. Waiting. They watched each other, neither retreating from the
other’s daunting stare. Waiting.
The three other guys were now standing behind their friend. I was still sitting at the bar. I had turned around so that I was facing everyone, ready to jump in, but still sitting. It seemed like the whole bar was looming over us, everyone in a trance.
A man came rushing out of the stupor with indiscretion at hand. “Get the fuck out!” he screamed
as he pushed my friend through the doorway.
It was bitterly cold outside. I heard a voice call me from the darkness of the streets. He was trying to find a cab. “Just like old times.” Neither of us believed it was. A cab rounded the corner. We jumped in wanting to escape the indifference of the winter night.
It was a short visit, just as he wanted.
See next week’s Postscript section for our first-place short story.
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