The Barkeep (7 page)

“So what about tonight?” said Lee.

Justin thought about it as he rubbed the rim of a cocktail glass with a lime before dipping the rim onto a small plate of sugar, leaving a narrow white band.

He had spent much of the morning on the tatami mats, recovering from the trauma of Birdie Grackle, with his mantra and his book.
Be not terrified. Be not awed. Know it to be the embodiment of thine own intellect.
After a day of meditation, he had reduced Birdie Grackle to a meaningless mote floating in the depths of his consciousness. And Justin had come up with a simple explanation for the turtle: it was a fake. The missing piece of turtle jewelry had been mentioned in the media reports of the murder. It wasn’t much of a trick to get such a brooch made and aged especially for Birdie’s little con. Hell if Justin could tell if it was the original; he hadn’t really looked at the thing in the fifteen years after he bought it in that antique store on Pine Street. For his own venal reasons, Birdie Grackle had been trying to rope Justin into stepping into the past, but Justin was going to have none of it. He wasn’t seeking remembrance and reconciliation, he wasn’t seeking to revisit the traumas of his youth when he was still ruled by the illusion of ambition. Instead he was taking the only true path this world allowed, to lose himself and his petty troubles in the
enormity of the void. And he had found that one of the best places to lose himself was in Lee’s bed.

“Tonight sounds good,” he said to her as he sliced into the back of another wedge of lime and perched it on the tip of the glass like a half-moon.

When he looked up and saw the brightness of Lee’s smile and the expectation in her eyes, he had doubts. There was an inequality to their relationship that he didn’t like, but still, it wasn’t like he hadn’t been clear about where they stood.

“So where were you last night, Justin?” said Larry. “Hot date?”

Lee looked at Larry and then back at Justin.

“Sort of,” said Justin as he took out his tin, added two long splashes of juice, first orange and then pineapple. “If a geriatric basket case with false teeth counts.”

Into the shaker went a hot shot of tequila and a splash of Cointreau. Justin dumped in some ice, capped the lid, lifted the tin to a precise angle, and went at it. He didn’t dance when he shook his drinks, or spin the shaker like a six-shooter, or in any way make a spectacle of himself. Plenty of bartenders tried to put on a show; Justin was simply preparing a drink. After enough time had passed to mix and cool and create the perfect light froth, he unscrewed the top and, using it as a strainer for the ice, filled the glass with the pale-orange cocktail.

“That almost looks good enough to drink,” said Cody.

“It’s not done,” said Justin as he grabbed a bottle of grenadine he had made in his kitchen and put in two quick dashes that wound their way like bright red scarves down to the bottom of the glass.

“Psychedelic,” said Larry as Justin slid it forward.

“La Bomba,” said Justin.

Cody picked up the glass by the stem, his pinky out for effect, and took a sip. “Not half-bad.”

“Maybe I’ll have one, too, instead of the Cosmo,” said Lee. “It looks so festive and it suddenly fits my mood.”

“Coming right up,” said Justin.

As he was finishing Lee’s drink, he caught sight of a ghost entering the front door. He blinked at the ghost until it resolved into the figure of a middle-aged man with a blond flattop, and Justin’s throat closed in on him with panic. The panic was a surprise, and a disappointment, seeing as it was the second time in two nights that his emotions had risen unbidden to throttle his neck. But you couldn’t say that the panic was unwarranted, seeing that the last time Justin had seen this selfsame man, four and a half years ago, the man had threatened to shoot a hole through Justin’s forehead. And he’d had a gun in his hand to back up the threat.

“Here you go,” said Justin distractedly, watching the man step up to the bar even as Justin pushed the drink toward Lee. “Enjoy.”

Lee followed Justin’s worried gaze. “Do you know him?”

“Not really,” said Justin. “He’s just my brother.”

8.

BLOODY URINE

F
rank was older than Justin remembered, and heavier, jowlier, but that might have said more about the remembering than about any deterioration on Frank’s part. In Justin’s mind, his older brother remained the high-school hero who seemed to know the secrets to everything—to life, love, scoring touchdowns, scoring the best marijuana, everything important—rather than the tired middle-aged man who was now leaning on the bar.

Justin wondered if Frank had maybe unwittingly stumbled in simply for a drink, but no, he turned to Justin and stared without a smile.

Justin grabbed the bar rag for protection and headed over, wiping the bar as if wiping out the past.

“So you’ve returned,” said Frank, his voice surprisingly soft. In Justin’s memory, there was always a load of bluster in Frank, inherited directly from their father, like the blue of Frank’s eyes and the pug of his nose.

“I’m like the herpes virus, I always come back,” said Justin. “What can I get you to drink?”

Frank surveyed the bottles behind Justin as if he were choosing a new car. “Wine maybe?”

“Wine? Such a sophisticate you’ve become.”

“Cindy took me out to Napa last year.”

“I told you that woman would ruin you. We have a shitty red, a shitty white, or a shitty rosé, although you would think the vineyard would come up with better names. Maybe something like Cheap and Nasty, or Bloody Urine.”

“Bloody Urine sounds good.”

“Coming right up.” As he poured the blush into a long-stemmed glass, he said, “How did you find me?”

“Jarmusch saw you in here a couple weeks ago.”

“I thought that was him, but the son of a bitch didn’t say hello and then he stiffed me on the tip.”

“Jarmusch always was an asshole. When did you get back in town?”

“About half a year ago. I tried a few other places, the desert, the coast, but it all seemed the same. I’ve been working at staring down my demons, and this seemed to be the place to do it.”

“And now here I am. So how’d you end up tending bar?”

Justin rubbed a spill of condensation off the counter. “I picked it up in Reno.”

“I wasn’t asking about your STD.”

“That I picked up in Big Sur.”

Frank leaned both elbows on the bar, took a sip of the wine, winced. “Bloody Urine fits.” He took a bigger gulp. “You are such an asshole.”

“I know.”

“You should have called.”

“The last time we got together you threatened to shoot me.”

“That was just a little misunderstanding.”

“You were pointing a revolver at my face.”

“Okay, maybe I was. But I’ve been working through my anger, working through the way I’ve always felt about you. Did
you know that when Mom told me she was having another baby, I broke out into tears?”

“If she had told me I was being born, I would have broken out into tears myself.”

“I guess I resented you from the first, and that colored everything after. And it didn’t help that you were the perfect little boy, the honor-roll kid, Mom’s favorite. And then there you were banging that Carla Jane, who I had a crush on.”

“Carla Jane DeAngelo. I wonder what happened to her. Maybe I should give her a call.”

“She married Jarmusch.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“But I’ve realized now that most of the problems with us were my fault. Not all of them, of course—you were an insufferable little bastard—but still. And, believe it or not, I’ve missed you.”

“You must have a hell of a therapist.”

“It’s not a therapist,” said Frank. “It’s Dad.”

The reference to Justin’s father hit Justin like a mud ball to the jaw. He turned his head away from his brother as if from the blow.

“I visit him every week,” said Frank. “We talk. He’s been really helpful. And he wants you to know he forgives you.”

“I don’t need his forgiveness.”

“And yet he still has given it to you as a gift.”

“Tell the bastard he can have it back.”

Justin took his rag and went to the far end of the bar and let the orders wash over him. He poured a beer with too much head, made a Belvedere Dry Martini that was supposed to be a Grey Goose Dirty, and botched a Long Island Tea when he grabbed all the wrong bottles and topped it off with tonic. When he broke a glass in the ice well, he stopped himself, took
a step back, took a deep breath. Usually the work was like a cleansing stream, but somehow having his brother at the other end of the bar mucked everything.

“What do you want, Frank?” said Justin, after he had made his way, order by order, back to his brother.

“More wine?”

As Justin filled the glass, he said, “What are you really doing here?”

“I came to say hello to my little brother.”

“Consider it done.”

“Dad says you need to see him.”

“I don’t want to see him.”

“It doesn’t matter. He put you on his visitor list. He thinks you need to come.”

“If he wanted to see me again, maybe he shouldn’t have killed my mother.”

“She was my mother, too, and he didn’t do it.”

“A jury said he did, and that’s good enough for me.”

“Really? The jury convinced you? Because it looked like you made up your mind long before a jury ever heard a stick of evidence. And considering Dad had an alibi and they never found the real killer, it seems really—”

“I’m not going over it again. I’m so far beyond it now that if I turn around, all I see is a single speck on the clean line of the horizon.”

“Must be nice,” said Frank as he stared into the pale, ruddy wine. “Uncle Timmy died last night.”

“Oh.”

“Of a drug overdose.”

“Shit.”

“I’m springing for his funeral. At Mulligan’s. Thursday morning at ten. He never really had any family except for us.”

“Frank, I hate to break it to you, but he wasn’t our real uncle.”

“Still, Dad asked me to make the funeral. I thought you might want to come.”

“Maybe, I don’t know.” Justin thought of the strange, skinny man on his motorcycle in his blue-jean jacket, looking so unlike Justin’s straightlaced father it was almost comical to see them together. “I’m surprised Dad still cared after what Uncle Timmy did at the trial.”

“He had changed his testimony,” said Frank.

“Who?”

“Uncle Timmy. He changed his testimony and claimed that Dad never asked for help in killing Mom and that the police forced him to lie. He signed an affidavit and was ready to testify. Dad was trying to get a new trial based on Uncle Timmy’s changed testimony. And then he has to go and die of a fucking overdose.”

Justin thought about this, didn’t understand what it might mean, didn’t want to understand. “Thursday?”

“Yeah.”

“Can’t make it.”

“Justin.”

“Look, I have to go. I have other customers.” Justin tried to smile, grimacing like he had an attack of gas. “The wine’s on the house.”

“Cindy says hello.”

“Give her my regards. I always liked Cindy.”

“No, you didn’t. And what about Dad?”

“What about him?”

“You need to see him.”

“I think I very much need not to see him. He’s found his place in the world: prison. I’m still looking for mine, and
frankly, Frank, I don’t think he can help.”

“You know,” said Frank, calmly staring at his brother, “when I found out you were back and tending bar, I thought you might have changed. I thought maybe life had knocked the breathtaking arrogance out of you. But I was wrong.”

“Change is a mirage,” said Justin. “Like everything else in this fucked-up world.”

Frank opened his wallet and dug out a ten. “For the wine,” he said as he dropped the bill beside the wineglass.

9.

SLIPPERY NIPPLE

L
ee was inspiringly beautiful, especially when she was naked and lying beneath Justin with her legs hitched around his waist and her hands grabbing at his hair like it was a mane. Her cheekbones were sharp and high, her lips glossed, her teeth pearly, her tongue moist and pink, her breasts soft mounds of perfection, her stomach lean, her legs long, her knees dimpled. If the Buddha was right, and all suffering derives from desire, then Justin, as he moved slowly atop her and gently pulled at her lower lip with his teeth, was suffering greatly.

There were times, especially in the middle of his suffering, when Justin desired more than raw sex with Lee. In those moments he longed for some deeper attachment than their pale friendship-with-benefits. Part of him wanted to hold her, to hold on to her, to love her and commit to her, to add a level of possession to their relationship, to create for themselves and all their progeny a sun-dappled future. The craving became almost unbearable, and he felt his heart break with the wanting.

And then he would come. To his senses.

For who knew better than Justin Chase where all of that emotional attachment would lead. The holding would devolve
into a jealous clench, the loving would become a bitter chain around both their necks, the possession would turn into soul-killing ownership, the sun-dappled future would darken, the spawn would die, and there would be nothing left but the misery and the pain.

“That was so nice,” said Lee.

“That’s what I aspire to,” said Justin, lying on his back now, his hands clasped behind his head, “a genial niceness.”

“You know what I mean.”

Lee leaned over and kissed him, and Justin sort of kissed back.

“It was strange seeing your brother at the bar,” she said.

“You’re telling me.”

“You never mentioned your brother before,” she said. “And whatever you guys were talking about, it sure as hell got you upset. I had never seen you like that before.”

“A momentary lapse.”

“I liked it, it showed you were human.”

“More like an adolescent turkey, squawking away. Family can do that to you.”

“Do you see him much?”

“I hadn’t seen him for years actually.”

“He doesn’t look like you at all.”

“He takes after my father.”