What's in a Name?

Chapter 1Looking back, I’m not sure how the friendly challenge began. My first guess would be the night of my thirtieth birthday. The night I asked a question one too many times. My outgoing boyfriend had promised me a “special surprise”. Then we ended up at Stonewall Saloon as usual. That night, I’d been abandoned by my best friend and business partner, Felicity, who was working. Our gang of friends from the Bay Area was also absent. I was in a funk sitting at the bar teasing the big, bald bartender and playing Poor Me with shots and pints. So I’d asked the one question that had been bugging me for a long time. “What’s your name? Your real name?” “If I tell you, I might have to kill you,” the bartender with the tag proclaiming him to be “Alex” said. He wasn’t smiling. He hardly ever smiled. Wait a sec. This was a new answer for him. I wasn’t as quick on the draw as I’d been earlier in the evening. I blinked at him and probably looked like a baby owl. A baby owl who’d soaked up a brewery or two. What he said was a joke, right? He wouldn’t really kill me, would he? Or wait. Were we playing “Who said this famous line”? I was too far gone tonight to be absolutely sure if what he’d said was a joke or a game—or if he was serious. All I knew was I was here and confused. And drunk. So very, very, very, very drunk. Over the past year or so, I’d seen this handsome bartender wearing numerous nametags, all with different first names on them. At first, I thought I was imagining it. Then when I was sure, I asked him his real name. He always reflected. Deflected. Whatever. Tonight, deep in my misery, I’d asked because I really wanted to know what his real name was. Again, he turned it into a joke. It didn’t look like my wish to learn his name was getting granted. Even if it was my birthday. Didn’t he owe me something as the birthday boy? “Right, Alex.” I sighed into my beer. “You know what? You’re already killing me.” I took a breath, letting the alcohol fumes go from my mouth back through my nose. “Alex,” or whoever he was, had become my only friend tonight like he’d been a lot of nights for the past few months. I’d come in happy and ready to celebrate. Now a few hours later, I was wallowing and throwing the biggest pity party on the planet. “Alex or whoever you are, I’ll have another one.” Alex glared at me, like he wanted me to wake up and smell the…well, not roses. Not here. “Jimmy, my friend, he isn’t worth it.” Tell me something I didn’t know. “Yeah, I got it. You’re right. So can I have another beer? No, wait. Make that another shot. Let’s party.” His glare turned a little soft. He shook his head. No more beer? No shot? Or maybe no, he didn’t know what to do with me? Or no, he didn’t get it. Yeah, well, join the club. I didn’t get it either. A beer would help clear things up. A beer and his super secret name. I couldn’t forget my goal. My birthday present to me was finding out his first name. Tonight he wasn’t playing. He wasn’t in a chitchat mood. Something was bugging him. He was being surly, a big meanie. Well, that made two of us. Dammit, after all this time, sitting in front of him at the bar and chatting, I was getting seriously drunk and seriously serious. I sighed. The alcohol fumes made my stomach rumble. I got it. He didn’t take me seriously. Nobody did. In this whole bar filled with gigantic, hairy, rambunctious guys, I looked like a matchstick. People say I’m a lightweight, a twink I guess they’d call me behind my back. I’d just been publically dumped by my boyfriendoommate or at least left hanging by him. On my birthday, no less. I was feeling very naked, very vulnerable. All I wanted was to know something real about my only true friend tonight. My s**t ex-boyfriend’s name was Alex, which was what made me ask bartender Alex what his real name was. They couldn’t be both named Alex, could they? Alex, Alex, Bo Alex, ALEX. God, I hoped not. For a little over a year, Alex the s**t and I had been coming to Stonewall Saloon. While we were here, we always seemed to end up fighting. He would sit with me at the bar, we’d order drinks, and then after a few minutes, he’d turn to me. “So who do you think’s the best looking tonight?” “Why? What does it matter?” “It doesn’t. I’m just wondering.” Most of the time, he’d wink at me at that point. “You always gotta keep your options open.” Then he’d get up and wander away. Most of the time I’d sit at the bar and talk to the bartender, the guy in front of me now. Most of the time, Alex the s**t Alex would find someone and cozy up to him. He’d always go home with me, but still. My boyfriend said I should be friendlier, get to know the natives, show them what city guys were like, on and on. I sighed. No love hit me in the face, only alcohol fumes. I focused on the bartender who said he might have to kill me. He’d never threatened me before. Usually we got along real well. So it had to be a joke. Right? Why wouldn’t he share his first name with me? He’d carded me before. He knew I was aware some people had shitty given names. After all, my real first names are King and James. But I just tell everybody to call me Jimmy. Bartender Alex was a real cutie—a bear, a bear wearing his uniform of a leather vest over a white T-shirt and ass-tight jeans. Tonight he’d added a scowl, though. He was acting like he didn’t want to serve anyone, even harmless old me. He had a really bad attitude going as he kept glaring over to where Alex was tonguing somebody who wasn’t me. My usually friendly bartender would look at me, sigh, and shake his head, which didn’t help my heartache any. This old-timey bar was located in a Northern California foothills nowhere, a suburban oasis east of San Francisco. A cluster of old mining towns circled a fashionable oasis of Home Depot and a mall with clothing boutiques, ear-piercing kiosks, a food court, a movie complex, and other gotta-have things. The mall sat in a ring of a gazillion look-alike housing complexes that were sprouting up like mushrooms around it. The mall also serviced four dying mining towns and tiny Stone Acres, all left over from the Gold Rush and passenger train days. Stone Acres was different because it had turned the wood and brick buildings along its main street into a touristy “Old Town”. A couple of restaurants, a few souvenir shops, some essentials like a hardware store, hotel, farm and ranch supplier, sheriff’s office, municipal park with a bandstand, post office, barbershop, and this old saloon looked almost like they had during the late 1800s. Stonewall Saloon had been in the bartender’s family for generations. Or that’s what someone told me. Maybe the bartender. My best friend Felicity and I had moved here from the Bay Area and got a good deal to open a coffee shop called Penny’s in the mall. Speaking of which, where was Felicity tonight? Shouldn’t she be celebrating my birthday with me? I looked down at my phone to see the time. Oh, yeah, the last movie hadn’t let out yet, so Penny’s was still open. “Just one more,” I begged the bartender everyone called Stone. I refused to call him by the saloon’s nickname. “I won’t even ask about your name again,” I added with a slight burp, or maybe a hiccup. He just stood there, shaking his head and frowning. I gave him sad cat eyes, you know, the kind Puss in Boots gave Shrek. My friends say I do it really well. It didn’t seem to be working on him. I sighed. The alcohol stench again went from my mouth through my nose. My stomach rumbled louder. Nobody and nothing was a happy camper tonight. “Aren’t we friends?” I asked. “I thought we were friends.” Okay, maybe I was whining now. “Can I see your keys?” he snapped. “Huh?” “Your keys? Let me see them, Jimmy.” I fumbled with my pockets. My wallet and a couple pieces of paper fell on the floor. I bent to pick them up while trying to dig out my keys. I tripped and landed on the floor. I grabbed my wallet just as my keys popped from my pocket. Both went flying. The bar floor smelled worse than my breath. My stomach was getting unhappier by the second. A sturdy hand under my arm helped me up. “Alex?” I asked. “Yeah, sport. Let’s get you a ride and on your way home.” “I can drive. No problem.” My words came out a little mushy but, I thought, understandable. Maybe not. Wait. Did I even have my car or had Alex driven us in his? I looked around, trying to find him in the crowd. Had he left with the other guy? Just like that? Would he leave me? The hand under my arm was gripping me too tight now. I tried to shake it away. Did I really want to go back to the apartment Alex and I shared? The one I’d been paying most of the rent on recently? Alex’s big surprise was to dump me at a bar? What the hell? “I need just one more beer. Juss one more.” I blinked up at the bartender. “Oh, yeah. And your name, plish. Um, yeah, pleash.” “Not happening, Jimmy, my friend. You’re going home.” “Can’t go home. I don’t wanna see Alex. I’m done with him,” I said to the hand that had pulled my arm next to my mouth. “Going to sleep in the car. Sleep it off. Off it sleep, A2.” I had a car somewhere, right? I could just sleep in it. Off it sleep, I will. I giggled at how Star Wars I sounded and repeated it. The hand got me pulled up onto the barstool. I tried to sit on it but overshot, almost going down again. My stomach gurgled. I giggled. “Whoa! The barstool shrank, uh, shrinked. No, um, shrunk.” I glared at it. “Naughty barstool. Don’t do that.” With a little help from the hand, I tried a third or fourth time, but the barstool was even smaller each try. I turned and looked at the guy, who was still holding me by the arm. He was out from behind the bar and standing next to me. I couldn’t remember seeing him without the bar hiding his body from his waist down. He was quite a bit taller than me. The hair poking out of the top of his T-shirt was nearly in my face, but since my head hung down, his tight jeans and his prominent bulge were all I could really see. “I could blow you,” I muttered, watching his bump jump. Then I giggled again. “Your d**k jumped.” I started laughing. The contents of my stomach were even less happy with laughter. They took offense and rose to punish me. “Oh, God, I’m gonna….” Then I was zooming across the nearly empty bar. My head was pushed over a toilet, where everything let fly. Not better. Definitely not better. In fact, I felt worse, much worse. A hairy hand roughly swiped a wad of toilet paper across my mouth. “How’re we feeling there?” I started to shake my head, but more beer left me. A nap sounded good afterward, so I started lowering my head. Only the hairy hand again swiped across my mouth. Then I drooled, and the hand with toilet paper was back again. “I gotta go,” I slurred, trying to stand. “Sleep in car.” The toilet next to my head flushed. I winced. Were all toilets so loud? Jeez, where was a silent toilet when you needed one? “I gotta go,” I repeated as the hand and his friend, another hand, lifted me under my arms. I stood and stared at the guy’s hairy chest. His n*****s were erect, so I swiped my tongue over the closest one. “Oh God. Yuck. Stop.” He dropped me with one hand as he started swiping at his n****e with the toilet paper. “Jeez, Jimmy, that’s gross.” Oh, yeah. I’d just vomited. He was right. I was being gross. “Sorry,” I said, trying to wipe away the saliva on him. “Gross, gross,” I muttered, missing his n****e and running my fingers along his chest hair instead. “Sorry. Too gross.” Then I purred because his hair was so soft and cuddly warm under my hand.