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Barstool Blues
A Short Story
Life had become hazy, sometimes incoherent. As if you’re reading a book with more than half of its content redacted. Water had a different taste. Colours seemed less bright and the sun felt cold on my skin, despite it being a sizzling hot summer with heat beating down from the blue skies above. The glass of malty beer in my hand had developed a layer of condensation. I watched intensely as the moisture formed into a droplet of water, sliding down the slippery glass surface, leaving a thin wake behind it. It was moments like these that seemed to make time slow down, allowing me to analyze the tick of every second, tick-tocking my life away.
I wasn’t always like this. Having been in a near-fatal car accident can do wonders to a person’s psyche. I remember the doctor approaching me, in his brilliant white coat. The intense ringing still in my ears, he slowly explained to me what had happened. He said my family was okay and that I could join them soon, but not right away. He said there were multiple bleeds in my brain as a result of a steel beam that came loose from the back of a truck driving in front of us. We were on our way home from a dinner, and the beam flew with no warning right through the windshield. Miraculously, it was just high enough, and we still had our heads. The doctor urged, while squeezing my hand tightly, that everything could’ve been so much worse. I nodded in agreement. The road to recovery was long, but the doc was optimistic.
That was good enough for me.
I sipped my still-cold beer and checked my watch. They were late, as usual. Probably Ella slowing my wife down in the process of choosing what outfit to wear. It’s amazing how time consuming and complicated dressing a seven-year-old can be. In the back of my mind, a quiet voice whispered, “What if they did leave? What if Ella did get dressed?” I saw the scene play out right in front of me like a flip book. And it always ended with a steel beam hurled in their direction.
I shook the dark thoughts out of my head. Looking back at the beer, it suddenly looked less appetizing. I took a sip, and the malt tasted sour and flat. I’d left it too long, maybe. I questioned why I was even drinking this beer in the first place. Had it been my fourth? Or was it my fifth? I wasn’t keeping track. It usually didn’t bother me, but today was different. The question was eating me up from the inside. It didn’t matter – I’d forked the cash out for the drink, may as well finish it. After all, I’d walked instead of driven to the bar. There wouldn’t be any problems.
Since Ella was born, a beautiful baby girl weighing in at seven pounds and two ounces, Elaine had asked me to slow my drinking down. Before my late teens I’d barely touched alcohol, a late bloomer. As I grew up, went to college and joined a fraternity, more party invites came along, and so did the booze. However, I’d slowed down since Ella had come into our lives. I had other people to live for, now more than ever.
“Another?”
A husky voice shook me from my thoughtful stupor. I looked up to see the bartender in front of me, waiting to hear my response.
“I saw you eyeing your glass. It’s not quite empty, but you look like a person who’d ask for another in advance. You come here often?” He asked.
Not here, per se. I shook my head, but the bartender gave me a look, as if I wasn’t telling the truth and questioned me further:
“What’s your name?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but was at a sudden loss for words. What was happening? Why was I struggling to produce my own name? I’d probably drank more than I thought. Just some more redactions. The bartender could see I was having difficulty. He patted my hand.
“Looks like you need another. ”
The bartender turned, and he went to work. Still reeling from sheer embarrassment, I felt my face turn red. The bartender turned back to face me, holding a full, golden pint of bubbling beer. He picked up a dull knife and slid its edge across the rim of the glass, removing the extra head pouring over in one satisfying motion. He placed a recycled coaster on the bar with the glass on top.
“I was in an accident not too long ago, and I... struggle with my memory,” I offered quietly. The bartender had a soft expression on his face. He seemed empathetic.
“All of us are struggling with something. Yours just happens to be memory. My name is Cassan by the way, but most of the time in here, people call me Cass.”
I looked around the bar, but I was the only customer.
“This time of day it gets quiet around here,” he went on, “and usually someone like you shows up, all quiet and brooding. Happens every day. Most of the time they take a seat in the darkest corner they can find and keep to themselves. But really, there are no dark corners here. You, you’re different. You took a seat right at the bar. And for that, I thank you! Makes my day go by quicker. Bartenders are supposed to talk to their patrons after all. I feel like that’s happening less and less these days.”
I eyed the beer on the bar. Once again, time slowed, and the noise of tick-tocking pounded my ear drums. The condensation on the glass continued to slide down.
“Wait a minute,” Cass continued. “I’ll have one with you. Just promise not to tell.” When he saw I wouldn’t object, he poured a pint for himself, then came around the bar and occupied the stool beside mine. “Cheers,” he said. We raised our glasses and brought them together with a hollow clink. I tipped my glass against my lips and felt the beer pour down my throat. It was a crisp and refreshing pour. I put my glass back down and stared at it, watching bubbles rise to the surface. Oddly enough, I was struck with the sudden urge to leave the glass unfinished, and pushed it away.
I thought I felt my phone buzz, but when I pulled it out, there were no new notifications. I opened my “spouse tracker app” (aptly named by Elaine) to see how much longer she would be. I could see Cass watching what I was doing. “Are you meeting someone?” he asked. I nodded. “My wife and daughter are coming to meet me here. They should’ve arrived by now, come to think of it,” I explained. Cass nodded and watched the shapes of cars and people zip past outside, the familiar whoosh oddly silent.
“What if I told you I knew your name? I have this great ability to guess people’s names.” I looked at him and briefly held his gaze before breaking into a laugh.
“If that's true, I’d take that as admission you lied about not seeing me in here before.”
Cass chuckled quietly. “What I said about not seeing you in here before wasn’t a lie, actually.” As he uttered these words, I felt a subtle slowdown of reality, as if life itself was solely depending on the pulsing tick-tock that rippled through reality, saturating everything. Only this time I wasn’t staring at a glass of beer. I was starting at the man in the stool beside me.
“What do you mean?”
“Your name is Callum Welford. Your wife is Elaine, and your daughter is Ella. Am I right so far?”
Callum. That sounded extremely familiar.
Images of the car wreck flooded my vision. My motionless daughter being removed from the back seat. My wife, still trapped in the front seat, repeating my name, over and over again, until she started to slur her words.
The memories were returning quickly now. Elaine had a gash in her forehead that wrapped around to her temple. Her favourite white blouse she wore was now soaked crimson. Her skin was sticky with blood and embedded with glass. I tried to make eye contact with her but she wasn’t focused on me. She was looking past me. Then, I saw why.
I’d moved from the wreck.
There was someone in the driver’s seat.
It was an empty shell.
It was me. Unresponsive.
“Your wife and daughter are both dead, Callum,” said Cass, his voice now echoing through the bar. “Your judgement was clouded. You were drunk. You left here with them, and now you’ve come back to accept the consequences of your actions. To seek their forgiveness.” Cass reached across and took my hand again.
“They forgive you.”
I felt nuclear. Sadness, grief, and profound loss erupting from my core.
“You came back here to see if you’d finish that last drink. You didn’t. You can move on.” He stood up from his stool and I stood with him, my legs completely numb. He turned me towards the entrance of the bar, and walked over to the door, opening it. In poured immense white light, utterly blinding. I could see two shapes holding hands on the other side. They were difficult to make out, but they were there.
“They’re waiting for you.” Cass released me. I started towards the door, and I heard laughter. I felt happiness. Everything was on the other side of that door. I went in and immersed myself in the light, in the intense warmth of happiness.
I let go.
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