Resolutions

A short story

Resolutions are like assholes he sighs. His distinctive voice burnt ash ground under a boot toe. The inevitable outcome is shit.

He pulls a pack of Marlboro reds from his chest pocket, extracts one and snaps his thumb on the knurled wheel of a weathered, chrome Zippo igniting a stubby flame.

New Years Day brings out the curmudgeon in him.

"What'll you have, Unc?" I ask spinning a cardboard coaster down on the bar before him.

The zippo snaps closed with a satisfying metallic clink and he pulls long on the cigarette, the answer on hold as he fixes his grey eyes on mine, and through the exhale, smoke billowing like a locomotive, answers, Jameson neat and a Guinness.

The orange cat in the bay window, the bar's cat, wakes up from his slumber in the sunlight, hops down and saunters across the floor over to Unc and hops up taking post at the neighboring stool as if to order a matching round himself. Sleepy-eyed the cat meows its demands.

Guess you've missed me Unc says scratching the cat between the ears and under the chin.

"That makes two of us," I add and set to work.

The proper way to pour a Guinness, the way we do it here, takes time. The first pull of the tap fills the glass two-thirds, the nitrogen bubbles plunging and swirling and rising, deceiving gravity in a mesmerizing milky maelstrom.

While the first pour settles I round up the bottle of whiskey and ask over my shoulder, already knowing the answer, "Double?"

He nods. Save us both the deceit.

My lips reflexively pantomime the words of this phrase I'd heard a thousand times.

The whiskey double gets a strong freehand pour into a low ball, jiggers and precise measurements no way to treat family. Back at the tap, a tilt of the pint glass permits the excess creamy head to spill, and with a second pull on the handle, the glass goes nearly full, a perfect layer cake of black and tan. The dark Guinness goes bullseye on the cardboard coaster and the caramel-colored Jameson double set neatly beside it.

He eyes the drinks through his bushy eyebrows with veneration.

This ritual.

I take the top off the stack of ashtrays stashed behind the bar and promote his set of glassware to a triumvirate.

He grunts and nods a thanks and taps the burning cigarette on the rim depositing the spent tip, his knuckles swollen with arthritis, his fingertips yellow from the lifetime's bad habit.

He takes a sip on the lowball, swirling the whiskey around his mouth before allowing it to paint the sandpapered rings of his vocal cords. The warmth of the 80 proof gets chased with a couple long swigs of the Guinness and he wipes the foam from his lips with the back of his hand, his bushy mustache chittering across his knuckles like the bristles of a broom.

Another year he starts to say then pauses to take another drag on the Red, grey smoke and grey eyes.

The dry swallow in my throat croaks audibly.

Suitable refreshed Unc starts again setting his hard gaze on me. Another year and you're still here.

It's not a question but it's wrapped in one. My mouth is a desert.

I grab a highball and flood it with tap water from the soda stream and tilt it up, taking big gulps, drinking past my quench until the glass goes empty, the whole time watching him down the sides of the cylinder, gluing him in place.

The cat hops from the stool onto the bar and prostrates and arches and flops into a fresh set of demands. Unc gives the cat some more scratches and long sweeping pets and the cat closes its eyes and stretches. A satisfied orange slinky.

Back at school? Unc asks.

"No."

Fucking waste of smarts you didn't finish.

"I know it."

I fetch a wine glass and a polishing towel to relieve my pressing need for distraction. Rubbing out water spots, holding the glass up to light, rubbing anew. A street urchin and his magic lamp.

The smoke off the end of his cigarette dances, the ghostly tendrils caught in the updraft of cremation.

The bar is empty save for a couple in the corner who have spent the entirety of my shift whispering to each other, married by their rings, maybe not to each other by their coquetry. Unc glances at them and then fixes back on me.

Still hanging onto Amy? he asks, the cigarette glows orange on the drag like a dying sun.

His words burn in my chest.

"It's complicated." I turn my back to hang the clean wine glass in the overhead rack, my reflection wavy and ephemeral in the copper plate that bears the bar's name. His name.

He takes another long drag, exhales, contemplates my answer and discards the indecision of it. So that's a yes he says.

The next wine glass busy in my hands, the stem pinched between two fingers, holding it up to the light, my other hand working the polishing rag inside and out. All muscle memory.

"Amy doesn't come around much any more." I work the wine glass to a spotless sheen.

Unc shakes his head in disappointment. If only you could have held onto that one.

"That was the plan."

He nods.

I change the subject. "Last I saw you..."

Same day last year he interrupts.

"Right, but before that was..."

The funeral he interrupts again.

Unc's words hang in the smoky air.

The cat stretches anew and rolls over.

Unc tosses back the final swig of whiskey, gulps the beer dry, pulls the last drag of the Red and stubs it out in the ash tray. And what do you have to show for it? Same job. No school. No girl.

"I have a cat though," I joke trying to break the tension. Break Unc's focus. It doesn't work.

A man will do almost anything to avoid the truth.

Unc spins in his seat, facing away, taking in the sight and smell of the bar.

His bar.

The cat watches.

I turn my back to hang another wine glass in the overhead rack. I rub the polishing cloth on the brass name plate clearing a smudge that caught in the light. Rambling over my shoulder, "You used to come around more."

Didn't I though? The voice familiar and sweet.

My back still turned, I close my eyes and shut out the world to enjoy the melody of her voice.

A deep breath swells my chest. Her perfume on my nostrils. The scent of flowers and powder and everything that was right.

Turning back around to face the bar Unc has disappeared, old man bladder I suppose, and sitting one stool over, Amy smiles at me softly, red lips. You look good, she lies to me.

"I've been better."

I know she answers. She gives me a moment to take her in.

The cat army crawls over to her and flops on its side and demands a fresh round of scratches and pets and Amy obliges. Her fingernails scratching. Her finger tips petting. The cat purrs contentedly. I'm filled with envy.

Amy looks up. So, what's a girl gotta do to get served around here?

"Marry me?"

I was gonna.

"I know it."

I spin a cardboard coaster down before her. "What'll it be?"

She looks up with her hazel eyes, pondering, then decides. Vodka cran?

"Nothing fancy?"

She tilts her head. What did you have in mind?

"Sex on the beach?"

Don't you wish she chortles.

Every goddam day I think choking the words back. She knows anyways.

I grab a high ball and fill it with ice and fetch the bottle of Grey Goose. "Strong?"

Like an ox, she confirms.

I pantomime the reply. Like an ox.

The cat meows in agreement.

The dram of Goose goes in heavy, the remainder filled with cranberry juice from the mixer, and a splash of soda water just the way she likes it. Placed before her, centered on the cardboard square, she takes a moment to admire it with reverence. Same as Unc did.

This ritual.

Join me? She Betty Boops her eyelashes at me.

Helpless. I fetch a low ball and fill it with ice and flood it with tonic from the soda stream and hold it up for a toast.

She holds her drink up and we air clink and we drink and I'm swallowed by memories of what life was going to be like together.

"Why'd you have to go?" My eyes wet with the hurt of asking.

Life's like that sometimes.

"It shouldn't be."

Her lipstick stains the tip of the straw red.

She lets me admire her. Her strawberry blond hair set in waves down the side of her face. The style not of this time but to that she was never beholden. She's wearing my old sweater. Two sizes too big for her, the neck hole hangs off her pale shoulder revealing the thin strap of a white cami. I could live here, admiring her, if she'd let me.

She spots Unc's smokes on the bar and grabs the pack, offers me one which I decline, extracts one for herself, cherry red lips, snaps the Zippo flame to life and draws the smoke in.

"I thought you gave them up?"

One won't kill me.

"Fair enough."

She puts the Zippo back in its place. Unc give you the third degree? she smirks, exhaling the smoke.

"Every time."

Both times?

"Seems like more."

She takes another sip and another drag. Play our song?

Anything.

With a coin liberated from the cash drawer I feed the jukebox and punch in the code for *Anything Could Happen* by The Clean.

With the first notes of the clean guitar shuffle a big smile spreads across her face and she starts shimmying in her seat. Bouncing. Biting her lower lip. Eyes playing peek-a-boo behind the dancing rivulets of her hair.

The bass comes in then the lyrics start and we sing them together.

We know every word.

And the chorus comes around:

*Anything could happen and it could be right now*

*And the choice is yours to make it worthwhile*

*Anything could happen and it could be right now*

*And the choice is yours so make it worthwhile*

The memory of when this song became our song. In my car. Windows down. The kind of crisp day where you cheat the cold with a little floorboard heat. Stereo cranked. Two-lane country road to nowhere. Chasing white lines and killing time. Together. I already knew I loved her then but that's when she figured out she loved me too.

We dance together and sing together, here in the bar, and everything is right. My life in this moment full in a way I forgot it could be. To crawl into it and spend eternity, one could die a happy man.

But the song ends. It always ends.

Where'd you go? she asks, head tilted.

"With you."

I reach out to hold her hands across the bar but she pulls them back and goes back to petting the cat.

"Just one more time?"

She looks away and let's out a long exhale. Some day maybe.

Unc remerges from the nowhere he disappeared to.

Amy glances at her watch. Well, I guess it's past time.

About that ride? Unc asks Amy, his gravelly voice smooth with a kindness he reserves for women he's sweet on.

You ready then? she asks Unc.

Unc nods.

It's time Amy tells me.

I shake my head no.

She pops down from the bar stool, helps Unc put on his jacket, and out they walk.

She turns back, Get on with it, already.

"I can't"

You can.

I'm living that dream where you're paralyzed. Can't run. Can't scream.

The door closes behind them.

I'm stuck in place. Stuck in this place. Just me and the cat and the couple in the corner.

Amy's Honda exits the parking lot, Unc in the passenger seat, headed towards that moment.

Again.

The couple in the corner, the couple who probably isn't each other's couple, catch me staring out the front of the bar. They've extricated themselves from their corner booth and have come to settle their bill.

He looks around at the vacated bar and furrows his brows at the drinks. "All these for the cat?"

I shake my head without answer.

He pays up and out they go, all hands and anticipation.

"Cherish her!" I yell after him.

He looks back, side eyed, and gives me a nod and a shrug.

I collect the couple's spent glassware from the corner booth and wipe down the table top. Back behind the bar I collect Unc and Amy's glasses. They're still full. The Guinness and the Jameson and the vodka-cran. Not a sip gone. Ash tray spotless.

This ritual like votive candles.

A man will do almost anything to avoid the truth.