We Were Still in the Bar

by Scott Burr

We were still at the bar, and the bartender was getting the look. He kept glancing at me and at what I had left in my glass and at Johnny and at what Johnny had left in his glass and setting his teeth like he was trying to figure out how to tell us there wouldn't be another round, not for us.

He was probably within his rights. It was Sunday afternoon, and we'd been there since the place opened. The lunch crowd had cleared out, and aside from one old guy at the end of the bar we were the only ones left.

Johnny said, "I guess I should call her."

I watched the bartender pour the old guy another beer. I said, "That's certainly an option."

Johnny said, "I just don't really, you know. I don't really know what I would say."

I said "Yeah." Then I said, "Well." Then I said, "You probably want to have some idea, before you call."

Johnny said, "Right." He raised his glass and said, "Right, right, right." He tipped the glass back with one hand and drank what was left and with the other hand he waved the bartender over.

The bartender came over. He was a tall skinny guy in his late twenties or early thirties. He looked like the kind of guy who, at one time, had thought he was going to be more than a bartender, but was currently between visions of what "not a bartender" looked like. He said, "Gentlemen."

It wasn't a question, but Johnny treated it like one. He said, "Two more of the same."

The bartender looked at Johnny and then he looked at me and he did it without reaching for any bottles or moving from where he was standing. He said, "Don't you think maybe you guys have had enough?"

It was pretty clear from his demeanor that he'd meant for it to come out differently: that he'd meant to say something more assertive. He seemed disappointed with himself, but in a way that he was used to. Johnny said, "Do I think we've had enough? Um, no, I don't." He said, "You're still serving the old guy. He's been here as long as we have."

The bartender looked to the end of the bar, down to where the old guy was sitting, and winced. He looked back at Johnny and he said, "That's not. I mean that doesn't. That's not what's important here." He said it quietly, like he wanted Johnny to lower his voice.

"Is he talking about me?" said the old guy. It was strange, because at first I didn't know who said it, because the voice didn't sound like an old man's voice.

"Forget it," said the bartender.

The old guy was getting up and coming over, though. He said, "Did he just call me the old guy?"

Johnny was looking at the bartender. I was looking at my glass, and kind of glancing at Johnny. Both of us were trying not to look at the old guy.

The old guy wasn't having it, though. He said, "You aren't even going to fucking look at me when I'm talking to you?"

"All right," said Johnny. "You want me to look at you? Fine." Then Johnny said, "Shit." He said, "Sorry."

I looked too. The thing was that the old guy wasn't really old, he was just a mess. His face was basically one big scar, and because of that it looked wrinkled and craggy, like an old guy's face. His beard was all patchy, too, because it wouldn't grow in where the scars were. I said, "Christ." I didn't mean to say it. I was pretty drunk. I said, "Sorry, man."

The man with the severely scarred face sat down next to Johnny. He said, "Bring these guys another round."

The bartender did it without saying anything about it.

Johnny said, "Thanks."

The man with the severely scarred face said, "Don't mention it."

The bartender brought the drinks. He gave us a look, a look that said something like: you made your bed. He went away and stood over at the end by the sink and started washing glasses.

None of us said anything. I kept glancing up at our reflections in the mirror on the back wall, trying to get a read on Johnny and on the man with the severely scarred face.

The man with the severely scarred face spoke first. He said, "Honestly, though, how old do you think I am?"

Johnny said, "Look, it didn't mean anything."

The man with the severely scarred face was already talking again, over what Johnny was saying. He said, "It's fine, it's fine. It's an honest question. You over there," he said, meaning me. "How old do you think I am?"

I figured if I answered him it would at least take some of the attention off Johnny. I said, "I don't know. Forty. Thirty-five. Thirty-eight. No, forty." I was watching his expression, watching his reaction as I said each number, but it was hard to know what all of the little movements in his face meant. It was hard to know if they were just things that happened now that his face was a mess, or if they actually meant something. I said, "Thirty-nine. Final answer."

The man with the severely scarred face laughed. He said, "You're way off."

Johnny said, "You're twelve."

The man with the severely scarred face ignored Johnny. He said, "You give up?" He said, "I'm twenty-six."

He laughed when he said it, which made me think that maybe he was just messing with us. I said, "Bullshit."

He said, "No, really." He took out his wallet and handed me his license. On the license was the picture of a guy who looked nothing like him. He said, "See? Nineteen eighty."

I handed the license to Johnny. I said, "Huh. Well." I lifted my glass and said, "Cheers." I didn't know what else to say.

The man, his name was Parker, I'd seen it on his license, was drunk enough that he just went along with it. He raised his own glass and said, "Hey, here's to you guys."

We all drank. Parker finished off what was in his glass and called to the bartender. The bartender came over and poured him another beer without being asked. Then he went away again, before Johnny could ask him for another. He must have done it on purpose, but I was drunk enough that I was willing to believe that he just hadn't noticed Johnny wanting to get his attention. I guess Johnny was, too.

Parker leaned in close to Johnny, kind of right in front of Johnny so that he was talking to both of us, and said, "So do you want to know what happened?"

Johnny said, "To what?"

Parker snorted. He looked at me and made a face that said, are you going to try to play dumb, too? At least that's what I think it said.

I said, "All right, what happened?"

Parker laughed and he slapped the bar with his open palm. He said, "Guess."

I laughed, too. I was just going along. I said, "That's ridiculous. I'm not going to guess. It could be anything."

Parker said, "Just guess. I'll let you know if you're close."

I said, "Factory accident."

Parker said, "Way off."

I said, "Car accident."

Parker said, "Not really, no." He was enjoying me guessing.

I said, "I don't know, man, did your house burn down or something?"

Parker said, "Did my house burn down? No."

I said, "I don't know, then. I mean, I don't know what else it would be."

Parker said, "All right, do you want me to tell you?"

I said, "I mean yeah, if you want to."

Right then the door opened and someone called Parker's name and then she was coming across the floor and she was standing right behind Johnny and she was up in Parker's face. It all seemed to happen so fast. She said, "God damn it, Parker, we talked about this. You told me you weren't going to do this anymore."

Parker said, "Take it easy, I just got here."

The woman said, "Dave?"

The bartender said, "I'm not part of this."

She looked at me and she said, "Did you see him come in? Did he just get here?"

I said, "Um." I said, "I mean, we just got here." I said, "I mean, I have no idea."

She looked at the four of us and then she said, "You know what? Fuck this. If this is how you want to spend the rest of your life then fine. Enjoy. I wish you the best." She looked at the bartender and she said, "Thanks a lot, Dave."

Dave, the bartender, said, "Hey, I just serve the drinks."

The woman said, "Whatever." She was already walking out. I watched her go. She yanked the door open, and against the dimness of the bar the rectangle of light she walked into was overwhelming, practically blinding. I had to look away.

After she was gone Parker said, "Shit, man." He was slouched over his glass, and all the fun of a minute before had gone out of him. He said, "I've got to go, man. Dave, I've got to go." He got up and he went into his pocket and he came up with some bills and he threw them on the bar, a pile of fives and singles and a twenty. He said, "I'll settle up the rest the next time I'm in. Or you keep track." He was moving slowly across the floor. I watched him go. The rectangle of light, seen the second time, didn't seem nearly as brilliant.

After he was gone I turned to Dave and I said, "What the hell was that all about?"

Dave was wiping out the glasses. He said, "You don't want to know."

I said, "I don't?"

Dave said, "Let's just say that there's fucked up, and then there's Parker's situation."

I said, "You know him pretty well?"

Dave said, "I know him well enough to know his situation."

I said, "Did you know him before?"

Dave looked at me and he looked at Johnny and then he nodded at the pile of bills next to Johnny's elbow and he said, "Parker just paid your tab. Finish up and get moving."

We did as we were told. He wasn't going to serve us anymore anyway, so there was no point in staying. We went outside and stood there squinting and blinking and shielding our eyes with our hands. I said, "You want to make that call?"

Johnny said, "Not really, no." He said, "Not until I've sobered up, at least. Come on, let's walk."

We walked downtown. It was one of those short winter days, and the sun was already down behind the buildings to the west. We caught little flashes of it as we moved past. There was nobody really out on the streets. Most of the shops were closed on Sunday and the ones that were open were closing early.

Then we came around a corner and down in the alley there were two bums fighting. They were grappling and shoving and pushing each other back and forth. They did it all without saying anything; the argument, whatever it was about, was over. One of them, a tall skinny white guy with a compact face and hollow cheeks, started swinging one boney fist in a wide, loose arc. The other man had his head down and was avoiding the blows. Then they both lost their footing and went down. The whole thing happened with almost no sound. There were no garbage cans or bags of trash for them to crash into, nothing like what you see in movies where people fight in alleys. The only sound was from the gavel scraping under their shoes. The white guy was on top, but then the other bum managed to get him over. He was short and latino and had the same broad forehead and narrow-set eyes that Mikey, the retarded kid in my fourth grade class, had. He got his hands around the skinny bum's throat. I thought about saying something, but instead I just stood there. The skinny bum struggled and struck out at the retarded bum's face and eyes, but it had no effect. After a minute the skinny bum stopped moving. I felt Johnny pulling at my sleeve, but I don't think he said anything.

We went down the street and into the coffee shop. Johnny ordered us large coffees and we took them to a table in the back where no one walking by and looking in the windows would be likely to spot us.

It was one of those things where afterwards, sitting there in the calm of the coffee shop, it was like, did that really just happen? The shop was on the corner, and the storefront on both sides was mostly windows, and after a few minutes I saw the retarded bum walk past along one side. A few minutes after that, the skinny bum walked by along the other side. He was touching his throat with his fingers and kind of staggering. He kept putting his hand on the window for balance, and he left a series of hand prints all the way along until he was past.

Johnny saw him, too. He said, "That's a relief."

I said, "Yeah." I felt pretty shaken up by the whole thing. I tried to tell myself that, since it had turned out ok, it was better that I hadn't said anything or stepped in or tried to stop what was happening. But of course at the time I hadn't known it was going to be ok. I was just too chickenshit to do anything. I said, "All's well that ends well, I guess."

We sat there, drinking our coffee and watching the world go dark outside the windows. After a while Johnny got up and made the call he'd been putting off. I watched him as he paced around the shop, looking in the pastry cases and at the fliers pinned to the bulletin board and at his own reflection in the window glass.

Even though it was a Sunday night and there was almost no one out of the streets, the coffee shop was pretty full. People sat alone or paired or in little clusters at tables around the room. Some high school kids near the front were talking and laughing. The music over the speakers was old jazz. Soon the dark beyond the glass made the windows a perfect mirror, and you could almost trick yourself into believing that the world outside was just more of this same warm and pleasant inside.

Johnny came back, with his eyes down and his hands in his pockets.

"How did it go?" I said.

He said, "Um, ok, I guess." He shrugged and said, "She says she already made up her mind, so I don't know. I guess that's that."

I said, "Oh." I said, "So that's good, right?"

Johnny sat back down. He said, "Yeah, it is. I mean, I guess so."

We sat there, drinking our coffee. Some people left, but other people showed up. Then we finished our coffee and we went outside. It was cold enough that we could see our breath.

"What's all this coming to?" I wanted to know.

"Beats the fuck out of me," said Johnny. "Come on, let's get back."

We walked back to Johnny's car. When we walked past the bar we almost went back inside, but then we decided against it. Johnny said, "What do you think happened to that guy?"

I said, "The guy from before? The guy with the scars?" I thought about it. I said, "You mean with that woman, or what happened to his face?"

"Either," said Johnny. "Both."

"It could be anything," I said. "I don't know. It seems like Dave knows. I'll see if I can get it out of him, then next time I'm in there."

I didn't go in there again, though, at least not during that posting. When I finally did get back there was a new bartender, and he'd never even met Dave. "He must have left before I started," he said.

"There was a guy who used to come in here a lot," I said. "A guy with a bunch of scars on his face? Do you know who I'm talking about?" I'd been thinking about Parker a lot. I had seen some things now, and I had some new ideas about what might have happened to him.

The bartender shook his head. "Sorry man," he said. "No idea."

"I was wondering if you knew what happened to him," I said. "Dave, the old bartender, he knew, but I never got a chance to ask him." There was no point explaining it to him, I knew, but I hadn't been sleeping very well, and they had me on some medications that were affecting my mood and my thinking. A lot of times I caught myself doing and saying things I didn't think I would have done or said before. I said, "Never mind. Thanks anyway."

The bartender said, "Sorry I couldn't be more help."

I went outside. It was summertime and the afternoon was warm and I had nothing to do. Next door to the bar was a tattoo parlor. I went inside. The woman working was sitting in the back, in the chair where the person getting tattooed sits. She was reading the newspaper, and the headline on the front page said, Violence Escalates; 7 Confirmed Dead in Bloody Clashes. Her arms were covered, and parts of her neck were covered too. She said, "Minimum is seventy-five."

I said, "I'm just looking." I said, "Is it a different price, if you draw it or if it's one of these?" I was looking at the designs papering the walls.

She hadn't gotten up or put down the newspaper. She said, "The rate is the same, but I charge for the time the drawing takes."

I said, "Do you have time now?"

I started telling her what I wanted. She stopped me partway through. She said, "Let me write this down." She went over to the reception desk and she got out a pad and she wrote and nodded as I went thought it. Then she said, "Ok, no problem." She said, "Do you want to wait?"

I waited. I fell asleep in the chair, but it wasn't true sleep. It was the shallow sleep of someone afraid to leave this world for any reason, even temporarily, and who does so only when all other means of avoiding it have been exhausted. It was like being an inch below the surface of a pool or a lake, so close that the world above still looked almost as it would if I was still in that world. It was barely sleep at all. Still, it was more than I wanted. I'd been looking for another answer, but I hadn't found anything that worked. Once I stayed up for seventy-two hours using pills, but the crash that followed convinced me it wasn't a viable long-term solution. I'd tried other things, too, but the pills were the closest I ever come to feeling like I'd finally found the answer.

I was aware of her coming over to tell me that the drawing was finished before she was anywhere near me.

She said, "Where?"

"Here," I said, and I pointed to my chest. I was pointing at my heart, but my chest was as close as I could get.

She looked at the place and then she looked at me and she said, "Have you done this before? Do I have to tell you how much you should expect it to hurt?"

I said, "No, but it doesn't matter." I didn't think it would.

She shrugged and said, "Ok, let's get started."

It did matter, how much it hurt. I didn't think it would, but it did. I've never been very tough. In the fourth grade I fell down playing kick ball and broke my wrist, and I was convinced the pain was going to kill me. I couldn't believe how bad it felt. It just didn't seem fair. Finally she was finished, though. She said, "Keep it clean, and don't go swimming or soak in a tub for the next couple of weeks."

I said, "Sure." There was a mirror set up across from chair, and I was looking at my reflection. Part of the problem with not sleeping was that sometimes things didn't seem very real. This was a big problem if things were happening that required immediate and decisive action, but most of the time it was just strange. I was looking at the tattoo, trying to make myself hold onto the thought that this was really real and permanent and forever. I didn't do a very good job, though. I put my shirt back on. I said, "What do I owe you?"

I paid and then I left. It was getting to be dinner time. I decided to go back to the base to eat. I was bleeding through my shirt, though, so I went back to my room to change. When I came out Tolliver was standing in the hall, smoking. I said, "You're not supposed to smoke in here."

Tolliver took a step towards me so that he was standing in my way, and he blew the smoke right in my face. It was like something out of an eighties movie, one set in the hard-ass culture of the military. Except Tolliver wasn't a hard-ass. He worked in IT.

I said, "Come on, man."

He smiled, like it was just a joke. He said, "Ok." Then he pushed me. It wasn't a push like he was actually trying to fight me, it was a push like he was just joking around. The thing was, though, that he pushed me right in the chest, right where I had the tattoo, so it hurt more than it should have. More than Tolliver meant it to. But because it hurt and because it was just so unnecessary, and I guess because I hadn't been sleeping, and definitely because of what that tattoo was, it really really really pissed me off.

I said, "What the fuck, Tolliver?" and I pushed him back. I said, "You think that's funny?" and I pushed him again. I said, "You think it's funny being a fucking asshole all the time?" I pushed him one more time, and he bumped into the wall with one shoulder and it knocked him off balance and he fell down. His cigarette fell in his lap and it burned a hole in his pants. He didn't even notice at first. He just looked surprised and a little confused. He said, "Whoa, whoa, I'm sorry, ok? I was just messing with you, all right?" Then he said, "Shit," and he started swatting at his crotch, because he'd noticed the cigarette.

I said, "You just." I said, "Why do you have to?" I wasn't sure how to say what I was feeling, and either way it felt like Tolliver wouldn't get it. So I said, "Just forget it, man." Then I walked out. I thought for a second that Tolliver was going to follow me, to apologize or something, but he didn't. Once I was outside I lifted up my shirt to see if him pushing me had messed anything up, but the tattoo was too high up on my chest for me to really see it, so I really couldn't tell. I had to go into the bathroom in the mess hall to see.

It was Johnny's name, plus the names of four others who had been killed, all worked into the design I'd asked her to draw. Three of them had been killed together when their Humvee ran over a roadside bomb, two of them right there in the road and the third during the evac. Peter died in a firefight where five others, two of ours and three Australian soldiers, were also killed. Of the five Johnny was the only one where he was the only one to die in the incident.

It was just a random sniper shot. There wasn't anything going on. They were standing out in the street, the guy he was talking to told me later. Just standing there, not expecting anything, not really thinking they were in a fight. Things had been quiet all day. Then Johnny went down. "It was like somebody came up and unplugged him," the guy said. "Like they took the batteries out."

The guys in his unit, the guys who'd been with him, asked me if he had any family. "Just his folks," I told them. I didn't tell them about Stephanie, the girl he'd called on the day we saw the two bums fighting in the alley: didn't tell them about how he and Stephanie were hooking up for a few months - not really dating - or about how she'd called to tell him that her period was late or about how he'd thought about it for a long time before he called her, or how he was too late and that by the time he called she'd already made up her mind, and so he never told her what he thought, one way or the other. I didn't tell them how, afterwards, he hadn't seemed as relieved as I thought he should be, as relieved as I would have been if I was in his shoes. "There's nobody else," I told them.

The tattoo still looked ok. It was bleeding a little, but the girl at the shop had told me that it would. I washed it carefully with the hand soap from the dispenser, and dabbed it dry with a paper towel. Then I went out and got in line.

Dinner was ribs and corn and mashed potatoes. It was actually one of the meals they did pretty well, but it gave me really bad heartburn, and I had to get up in the middle of the night to walk it off.

It must have done the same thing to everybody else, too, because when I went outside there were already a bunch of other guys out walking the drilling field. I stood on the rise above and watched them. Some walked in straight lines, back and forth, and some walked in circles, and some walked no ordered path that I could tell. In close to the lights and the buildings I could tell one from another, but as they moved off across the field the particulars of their faces and limbs became indistinguishable, until only the whites of their standard issue undershirts and standard issue boxer shorts were visible. Even far out into the dark these remained, ever-more indistinct and yet somehow un-enveloped, unwilling or perhaps unable to wholly disappear. I watched them for a long time, until the cold in the ground had numbed my feet, had advanced along my shins and knees and thighs to claim the base of my spine, the pit of my stomach, the newly-raw skin across my chest, and then I walked down onto the field and joined them.