The Alones...
She feels. She's sad. She tips double on her wine. She asks me if I want one. She asks me again if I want one. She wants to buy me one. She really wants me to drink one. She has her money out. She drops dollars like hints. She smiles. She's older. She tries. She is many things and like so much else in this damn bar, she is an object, she's playing the part of need, I'm playing the part of resistance. For if I have one, I'll have more, then what, then where? She feels. She's sad. She tips double on her wine...
Unconscious, no response, 9-11. The place is rammed. People are taking photographs of the out cold tourist, an attraction. Breathing, yes. Don't touch her, says 9-11. Phone jackals gather. The spectacle. What happened to this woman? I stand over her like a guard at the museum protecting the venerable art. Cameras roll, a real life canvas of repose. She's dead, someone says, filming, it might go viral, that new disease.
And someone vomits in the men's. Thanks for letting me know, I say. That will need disinfectant. A bucket of bleach after the body of the tourist is removed. The sound of sirens. The doorman is yelling, Clear the bar! Someone shouts, I want a f****** drink, so what if she's dead. It's not last call yet!
The medics shove and push people out of the way. Hey! Watch it! yells a man with a grin, a gurney trundles in. The body now surrounded by men with equipment -- unconscious, no response. Wake up! they yell. Then boom! Smelling salts, awake, alive to be a tourist again. She'll send a postcard home to Japan. A few onlookers cheer and take photos. What happened? I ask the medic. Probably a roofie, he says. She arrived alone. Now she leaves on wheels with a group of saviors. Her vacation to continue in the public hospital. And somewhere else, maybe tomorrow, another woman will miss the depth charge of evil sinking to the bottom of her drink.
All gone. Everyone. Just me now. Alone with the bar. My old friend. It's sad. The bar weeps. It cries out, why am I the place for the sads and the alones. For the wicked.
And the bar waits for the next round of alones to come by, for no one hears the alones, no one sees the alones, until they are unconscious, no response.
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