4
280 Words
4
I went to Nestor’s. Jeff was tending bar. He was the picture of health. He and his girlfriend Cathy had recently had a baby, a Down’s syndrome baby. He said,
“Jeez, Jack, where have you been?”
“Low profile.”
“Are you doing OK? You look, I dunno, kind of haunted.”
I juggled that expression, repeated,
“Haunted, now there’s a term. I’m off cigs, coke and booze. Why on earth would I be less than par?”
He was astonished, said,
“Even the cigs…the coke… Christ, Jack, I’m impressed.”
The sentry, in a semi-stupor since Christmas, raised his head, said,
“Good on yah,”
and slumped back on the counter.
In the days I drank in Grogan’s, there were always two men propping up the bar, one at each end, dressed in identical donkey jackets, cloth caps, Terylene pants. Sentries, I called them. They never spoke to each other. No acknowledgement ever. In front of them, always a half drained pint; no matter what hour you came upon them, the level of the glass never varied. When Grogan’s changed hands, one had a heart attack and the other moved to Nestor’s. Jeff said,
“There was a young guy, looking for you.”
“How young?”
“Twenty-five maybe.”
“That’s young. What did he want?”
“Something about work.”
“Did he give a name?”
He rooted through a pile of papers, found it, read,
“Terry Boyle.”
“What did you make of him?”
“Uin…polite. Oh yeah, he had a good suit.”
“And that tells us what?”
“I don’t know. If he comes in again, you want me to ask him anything?”
“Yeah, ask him where he got the suit.”
I went back to the hotel, muttering,
“See, was that so difficult? You were in a pub, didn’t drink, you did good.”
As I lay on my bed, I asked myself,
“Did that make you feel better?”
Did it f**k?
- Writer
