bars

So I’m minding my own business (for the most part) and the boys are sitting next to me chatting up with each other about their prospects over the latest skirt to walk into the bar. And sitting next to me is an attractive woman, probably in her fifties, quietly reading the back page ads for the legal hookers and the latest massage parlors, pretending to be enthralled by the little boxes of lust.

She’s dressed casual but the well fitting clothes draping her angulated body are definitely bought and paid for on someone’s Saks card. It’s obvious that in her day, she was a “real looker.” Actually I would say that her day hasn’t set. She’s spent a couple of bucks at Georgette Kinger, or regions close on her regions. And although the lines on her face speak that she’s seen a few days and nights, the cut of her jaw and endearing smile still have a glow of youth and beauty, less than beyond her years.

She quietly puts down the paper and picks up her light beer with slender fingers that wrap around the bottle with a gentle embrace. Next to me the boys are taking bets and bravado on how easy of a mark she could be. I peek out of the top of my glasses as I work out some of my latest letters. I figure she’s sitting there all by herself and I’ll bet she’d like to have someone to talk to. After all, she didn’t get that French manicure and look in the mirror so long this morning for nothing. To be honest, I’d rather not talk to her at all. But I’d just like to let her know that she’s important. So I say hi and tell her my name is John and ask hers. Of course this is exactly the kind brilliance that has made me the amazing ladies man that I am. That’s created a past littered with an unending line of wreckage and regret. But there is no way that she could know that I’m just trying to be pleasant and nice. Nice, now there’s a word that’ll get you in big trouble. Someone much wiser than me once told me that being pleasant would get you exactly nowhere. Maybe that’s where I am.

She tells me her name is Jackie and we exchange pleasantries and smile. I figure I’ve done my job, she either figures I’m worthless or boring. Possibly both.

I go back to my words.

On my left the boys are still taking bets on their honor and ability to take her down with one shot. And I glance out of the corner of my right eye, under my glasses that somehow create the air of intelligence and… Whatever…..
And I see that Jackie has tears streaming down the side of her face and is soaking up her pain with a single ply cocktail napkin.

Oh shit. There is a woman crying next to me. No matter how much I’m reworking the alphabet, I can’t just retreat back into my own mind. I lean over and ask her if she’s OK. Shit, she’s obviously not OK or she wouldn’t be loosing it here on the north corner of the bar. She looks up at me with eyes that are the shade of blue that only comes from evaporation of soul and the falling of tears. And with a childishness that speaks of who she was and still is, she tells me that she’s sorry about making a scene and wipes the corners of her eyes being careful not to smudge her mascara. Even in her pain she’s still working on vanity composure.

“Would you like to talk, or would you rather be left alone?” Talking would good. Let me buy you a drink. OK. She’s ready to trade up from the light beer and orders an Absolute and water. And Jackie begins to tell me a story about how she got a DUI last month and can’t drive, so she took a cab down here in the hopes that she would run into an old friend. But the old friend was nowhere to be found. And on top of that a couple of weeks ago her boyfriend dumped her. All of this was just too much. And along with the fact that she sat next to a guy in bar that’s more interested in is QWERTY keyboard than he is in her. She’s still fighting back the tears as a story of how age doesn’t make them fall any lighter.

Over the course of the next hour we talk about where she grew up and her kids. How things in the last year just haven’t turned out like she hoped. But when the vodka and water hit the low tide mark and the ice was rattling around in the bottom of her glass, when the tears had subsided it was time for Jackie to look for the next cab ride home. Talking still didn’t change the reality that waited for Jackie in her apartment that overlooked sailboats and sand. The home that she knew would still be as empty as her wounded life.

My heart really broke for Jackie by the time she made a beeline for the door. I gave her my number and told her that if she needed a friend to give me a call. I’d be more than happy to go to the movies or take her out to dinner, because you see I can be lonely too. I knew she’d never call. Out of pride or belief in the sanctity of pity. There is no going back when pride comes sneaking in your door. And there is no way for Jackie to know that I really was being sincere. After all, who is she going to meet in a bar? A kindred soul? A compassionate drunk… who’ll only wake the next day with remorse. Or one of the sharks and remora’s to my left.

I watched Jackie out the window as she held her head up high, with her heart sinking like the sun over the waves on Fort Lauderdale beach that night. And I knew that the sadness and empathy I felt for Jackie was really mostly for the reflection I saw of myself falling from the tears in her ocean blue eyes.