His name is Christopher. Christopher Rios. He says that he just wanted to say “hi” since he always sees me sitting in the booth alone.
“Yeah man, I’m just another regular. Feeling good due to some damn good bourbon.” He adds, “Special on shots of brown liquor — whiskey, scotch, bourbon — tonight, if that’s your thing.”
He breaks eye contact and looks at my empty glass.
“Beer man I see. I respect that.”
He likes to talk but his talking doesn’t fade. I hear every word.
More he talks the more I forget about my phone. Screen goes black, standby, and I don’t like it when I can’t see the screen lit up.
But Christopher is talking.
“Call me Rios. Everyone does.”
I must have called him Christopher.
This is where I would type something. But I don’t.
“So what’s your name, bro?”
That’s a grin. I think it’s genuine.
“Zachary.”
“Right on, right on.” He looks at the bar, at all the activity. I continue to look at him.
He leans back in the booth, slouching a little; he has one arm stretched across the top of the booth, other resting on the table, an inch or two away from my glass.
I look at the phone. Dark screen.
“Yo Zack, this place is a real dump huh? You agree?”
I am put on the spot.
I think about what to say and whether or not I should agree.
I agree.
He approves.
I feel the tension in my shoulders releasing. I exhale, having failed to notice that I held my breath.
I say, “Cool.”
“Yeah, it’s ‘cool.’”
This is where I would type something. I don’t.
Two more lines and this becomes a conversation.
“So what do you do, Zack my man?”
I tell him, “I work at Elite Aesthetics.”
“The place at the megamall?”
I nod once. Not twice, once.
“Right on, right on — all those crazy gadgets and stuff. You guys actually sell a lot of that stuff?”
This has become a conversation.
I think about what I can say here:
I can say — Yes, we do very well.
I can say — Sometimes, but, then slip in something I remember Jeffrey saying about how “sales could be better.”
I can say — Yeah, I guess.
I choose the last option.
He just looks at me.
I find myself saying, “I’m just an employee.”
That makes him laugh. When he laughs, he throws his hands up in the air and hits his palm once on the table.
“Good shit, haha,” Rios says.
I think I’m smiling. I look down at my phone. I see my reflection on the darkened screen. That is a grin, a smile. It is genuine. When I try to figure out where this fits with everything I’ve done at least once, I come up empty. This is not Zachary the employee. This is not Zachary walking down the street.
This is Zachary. Then I get confused.
“Can I ask you another question?”
All I can think about now is — don’t say anything stupid.
“Yes,” I say.
I say “yes” too much. I add, “sure.”
He waves to someone at the bar.
Asks me, “You ever talked to anyone else here?”
I shake my head, “No.”
“Never?”
Once more, “No.”
“You don’t know any of their names?”
I could say that I know how many people are here and likely why they are here on a Monday night … but I settle for another, “No.”
He grins.
This is where I would type just to type. Yet I don’t.
They bring me over my third beer. They bring him a glass of bourbon.
He says thanks and then I say thanks.
The waitress looks at me strangely.
Looks at Rios. He winks.
I don’t think I wink.
But maybe I do. I may have copied Rios’s actions. I have done this before. I used to copy Veronica’s actions if we spoke for a long enough time; she made a game out of it.
Rios takes a sip of the bourbon, “Times are tough, man. I don’t get this grade of liquor as much as I used to.”
I take a sip of my beer.
He narrows his eyes, “Not gonna ask me?”
I hold my breath. Did I miss something?
Rios laughs, “Be cool, be cool — I’m an asshole. I like talking about myself. Looks like you’re the opposite of me, opposite of any one of these assholes at the bar!” Rios raises his voice when he says “assholes” and people from the bar shout back various profanities.
From this point, I don’t know what to expect.
I start thinking about potential altercations. My fingers tap the edge of the table as I plan out posts about what might happen.
The phone is there, and it remains there. I don’t move from my current position; to get to the phone, I would have to move my beer aside. I would have to reach for the phone which would result in Rios seeing that I’m reaching for the phone. That might send the implication to him that I’m bored, or worse, uncomfortable.
Fingers tapping against the table—I am uncomfortable.
I see that Rios is watching my fingers.
He makes a face, “You should come by my place. We’re having a party, well, I mean, we always have those parties, but you should come.”
He doesn’t look at me directly. He looks at my fingers. Then he looks at the beer. Then he looks over at the bar.
I perceive this to be a sudden lack of interest.
He takes my phone which sends me into a shiver.
I gag and cough.
“Bro, it’s cool, it’s cool … I’m giving you my business number.”
4 people at the bar are looking at me.
They are looking at me. They shouldn’t look at me.
“Like I said, you’re good people. We should hang out. Lots of us hang over at my place. You need a better place to hang other than this dump.”
He hands me back the phone.
“Stop by. If I’m not here or on call I’m at my place.”
I say, “Okay.”
“Got no life,” says Rios as he snaps his fingers.
Rios doesn’t look back at me when he leaves the booth. I watch as he finds a place so effortlessly at the bar. 2 people, male, look over in my direction after Rios says something to them.
I sit there for a long time, not moving.
Then I check my phone. He saved his number as “Your dealer.”
Feeling as though something had changed, I fixate on what’s left. I have 1.5 beers to be ingested.
I drink them quick, and then I leave payment on the table.
15 % tip, as customary.
I am too tired to do anything so I stare at the television screen for a long time before turning it on. I don’t change the channel because every channel is the same. I don’t turn on any of the lights in my apartment.
Meurks needs to catch up but I wait.
On the screen, a man walks a dog. The man reaches the end of a street corner, kicks the dog, and with a whimper the dog starts walking the man. This repeats, perhaps, a number of times. As many times as there can be time in the day to walk the dog and to walk the man, but I don’t know. I don’t watch for long. I can’t be sure if this is the character’s routine or not. I make an assumption, like most. It is on TV so it must be a show. It is on TV and I find it easier to assume, as a result. It could be a situational comedy. No — I think it might be just for me. This may or may not make a lot of sense.
My phone rings, goes to voicemail, and then rings again.