NIGHT

 

     Sitting around one table or another, on one bar stool or another, they talk, talk, talk --of baseball, of women, the weather, work, women, politics, the coming eclipse of the moon, women, travel, and, again, when all else fails, women --especially of women they had known or desired.

     Catching sight of himself in the bar mirror, he pats his hair back into place; looks at the bottles  lined up next to the cash register, noticing the regularity of their spouts all curving in the same direction; and, down the bar, at the bartender rubbing the bartop  with a damp, white cloth. He watches him as, with a faraway gaze he uses the same towel to wipe some humidity from his lenses before rearranging the glasses in rows behind the bar.

     It is a slow, rainy night. In attendance, at the bar, for the most part, are the regulars who are becoming more and more lubricated. In the booths, where the couples sit shoulder to shoulder ...or across tables, hands clasped, with the occasional movement of a thumb across the back of the other's hand the only visible motion, it is the hour of deep, penetrating looks. For the solitary, it is the time drooping heads begin to  be propped up by stiffened forearms. It is the hour the laughter becomes a little too loud ...the greetings a little too effusive. Tomorrow is a work day and those to whom it matters a great deal one way or the other are already asleep.

     Cars hiss on the pavement outside, heard only during jukebox pauses or when the door to the street opens or closes, and the busses emit metallic, elephantine snorts ...but he is barely conscious of any of these sounds. He hears the beating of his own heart ...the passage of blood through his veins and arteries ...the scuff of his shoe against the base of the bar.

     It is stuffy in the bar. Coat racks hold raincoats, umbrellas, sweaters, caps emitting invisible vapors. Some have been there, it seems, forever, their owners long passed down the byways of time into that kind of delirium tremens that the sober call reality. He smiles at that thought--an inward smile--for his face shows no visible change of expression. Only gradually does he become  aware that he is again witnessing himself in the mirror.

     Now, the sounds in the bar again penetrate his consciousness.

     As the bartender passes, like a bidder at an art auction, he makes a barely perceptible signal,  nodding slightly, gesturing faintly at his empty glass. This motion is well understood as he is served another of whichever flavor it is that he is using tonight.

     He is past the point at which it has any particular taste at all ...and well past the point at which each drink has any sensible effect. But he is far from drunk and it looks tonight as though he would not attain a level  of intoxication that would make tomorrow's work difficult.

     He lines up his change ...three coins...and slides one against another in time to the music on the jukebox. He inhales and exhales smoke in various geometrical forms from rings to swiftly moving clouds. He slides from one side of the round stool to the other. He listens with only half an ear to the conversation. He has heard it before. He will hear it again. No need to participate this time.

     It is then and only then that he begins to think, involuntarily at first, of a woman--a woman who is not there. Though he feels an aching, there is a vague sense of excitement, otherwise missing,  to it.

     He swallows as if to swallow the thought back down his throat again. She remains floating on the surface of his thoughts.

     He breathes a little quickly hoping to exhale the thought.

     He rubs his hand across his eyes as if to squeeze the thought away.

     He yawns as if to fool himself into believing that he is too tired to think of her. He laughs at himself for that one, then looks quickly about to see if anyone has caught him in this indiscretion, wondering if the laugh broke the bounds of his body.

     But he does not succeed in ridding himself of the thoughts. With a sigh, he looks again at the arrangement of bottles and glasses on the counter behind the bar ...at the bartender leaning against the open cash register drawer.

     With another sigh he swings around on his barstool and looks out the window onto the darkened rainswept street outside. There are reflections of streetlights on the glistening pavement; headlights sweeping and sloshing by.

     The conversation about him fades into the air from which it came. The window, black except for the doubled letters of the name of a beer company, one set of letters, neon, the other, the reflection of the neon itself, fades. The smoke seems to clear and he sees the woman and himself meeting in a scene that had never existed but that he knew could have ...if only ...if only... He cannot bring order out of this chaos.

     He reminds himself that all of this is being played out only in the recesses of thought. That while they have more power here in the city, what operates in this world of steel and concrete, asphalt and rain, shrieking siren and gurgling sewer drain is not wishes and "what if's" any more than in that world beyond the great river where some other nature seems to rule men's lives.

     The window ripples back into focus as the images vanish and only the words run across the screen of his mind.

     He does not want to think about anything. It's too late, too wet, too warm in here. He's too tired, too bored, too impatient. So he tries to shake the thoughts out of his head. The movement of his head brings to him the conscious awareness that he can see the entire bar reflected in the blackened window and that, despite his inner turmoil and his sudden movement, his outward expression, as though painted on, has not changed.

     He bends his head and sees the figure in the window do the same. The drone of voices ...the sharp, raucous laughter from the rear of the bar ...the vision of the couples in various poses of intense communication ...flares into consciousness like a newly lit candle flame ...and once more retreats to the background.

     Though his mind will not release him from the thought of her, there are, at this moment, more definite, more urgent needs. He nudges and sidesteps his way through the crowd of patrons, past the booths in the rear, into the pungent bathroom and, in his urgency, finds himself standing at the urinal, side by side with someone he does not know.

     He wants no contact and turns his shoulder toward his neighbor who spits impatiently into the urinal before emitting a sputtering stream accompanied by sighs and grunts.

     As his attention is momentarily diverted, the urgency of a few moments ago must be recreated and a certain tension builds. He looks at the ceiling, holds his breath and strains momentarily but, finding he cannot force relief, relaxes, and waits for the pressure exerted by his bladder to work for him. In a moment he shakes the clinging drops and walks back into the bar ....only one pointed, downward glance being enough to remind him, halfway down the aisle, to zip up.

     He has tended to his immediate needs, without thought of her; but when he returns to the bar, he finds she is still there looking out through his eyes ...hearing through his ears ...a vague, but insistent, presence in his consciousness.

     His drink remains half drunk at the end of the bar. He has a new coaster. His change is neatly stacked. The bar has been wiped.

     Someone wants to tell him a joke but he nods them off. He cannot stop.

     He tosses a bill on the bartop near his change and walks on to the coat rack near the door where he takes his hat and coat, wraps his muffler about his neck, and, opening the door, walks out into the rainy night.

     Rain beats against his waterproof cap in no particular rhythm at all. He feels the cool, moist air, against his cheek.

     His stride picks up. With an unexpected sense of wonder, he feels a sudden release, realizing that though he may never see her, may never have known her before at all, she is now at home in the very depths of his being.

     Her heart beats in his. The warmth of her smile rises from his heart and explodes onto his face. "I love you," he smiles... "I love you," he sings... "I love you," he dances... and she smiles, sings, dances in each step of his.

     "What," he asks softly, "is your name?" "Love..." she whispers, "Love itself."

      He turns and looks back at the bar ...sees, through the haze of rain, the neon sign blinking, sees the shapes silhouetted in the orange light ...and walks on.
 

Cedar St. Bar, NYC 1962, Oaxaca, Mexico 1984, Tucson, 1999