I’m going to sleep, Fran says.
Say what?
Turn the TV off.
I’m still up.
Turn it down then.
It’s not loud.
Please.
But it’s not.
Shhh.
I shut off the TV, go out to the living room. I sit in the dark fingering my knife. The way Gene has vanished, an eighty-year-old man. I can’t help but notice the empty space at the bar. Like a radiator turned off. All that dead air, dead space.
Funny what you learn about a guy after he’s gone. For instance, Tim and Lyle said that Gene would come to Mike’s at eleven in the morning. He would stay all day and apparently be pretty toasted by the time he left at closing. Really, he never seemed messed up to me. Maybe he kicked in and drank like a horse after I left.
One night, Gene told me he had taken his landlord to court. It wasn’t clear to me why. I believed him, and whatever the reason, he made it seem like he’d won the case. After he disappeared, Bill told me Gene lived in his car. There never had been a court case or a landlord. Bill had put him up in his place but not for long. Said Gene wandered around the house with nothing on but his skivvies. I couldn’t have that, Bill said. Not with my wife in the house and the grandkids coming over. I don’t care if he is a vet.
Next day
Hey, Lyle, Mike says.
Mike, Lyle says, and takes a seat near Tim. He has his hair roped back in a ponytail and wears an army fatigue jacket that hangs well past his hands. His feet dangle off the bar stool and tap the air. He reeks of pot.
I was just getting ready to leave, Tim says.
No you’re not, Lyle says.
He turns to me.
What’s going on? Working?
Absolutely, I tell him. Staying busy.
You were in Afghanistan, weren’t you? How was that?
Good. It was good.
That’s good.
Actually, it was kind of crazy.
Crazy can be good, Lyle says, and he and Tim laugh.
Mike, I’ll have another, Tim says.
I notice Melissa come in the back door.
Hi, Melissa, Mike says.
Hey, Melissa, Lyle says.
Melissa, what’s up, Tim says.
Hey, Melissa says.
She sits next to Lyle and orders a Bud Light and a shot of Jack. She has on heels, gray slacks, gray jacket, and a white blouse.
Won my case, she says. Got him off.
Since none of us know who she’s talking to, we all nod at the same time. Melissa smiles. She starts talking about the first time she came in here as she always does. I don’t know why it bears repeating. I mean, I’ve got the story memorized. But she likes telling it. Maybe it gives her a sense of seniority. After Lyle she has been coming here longer than the rest of us. Like it makes her feel she belongs is what I’m saying.
It was just before closing, Melissa says. Mike and Lyle were shooting pool. Gene was in his usual spot. She remembers Mike saying he was about to close. Then he let her stay and the four of them had beers and got stoned after Mike locked up.
Gene got stoned? I say.
Yeah, Melissa says.
I hadn’t heard that part before.
Evening
Fran tells me that instead of doing a geographic, I should go with her to visit her sister in St. Louis. It would be cheap, she says. No hotel or eating-out expenses.
Sounds okay, I say.
Did you order a pizza?
Not yet, I say. I’m tired of pizza.
What do you want?
I don’t know. Shit, what’s up with all the questions?
Fran goes into the kitchen. I hear her making herself a drink. I try calling Gene. I gave Gene my cell number one night. He called me a few times before he disappeared but I could never make out what he was saying. He had a sandpaper voice that came at you like radio static. What’s that? What’s that, Gene? I’d say, and then he’d hang up. I’d call him right back but he’d never pick up. He doesn’t pick up now. I get one of those female computer-generated voices telling me to leave a message. I’d like to talk to Gene, I say, and hang up.
Next day
Anybody hear anything about Gene? I ask.
Lyle shakes his head. Melissa and Tim look at Lyle and shrug.
Getting to be awhile, Lyle says.
Yeah, awhile, Mike says.
I shout in Bill’s ear and ask him what he knows. Well, he says, speaking like he’s got a mouth full of cotton, I spoke to one of his sons in San Antone. Yes, San Antone it was. Gene gave me his number when he stayed with me. An emergency contact, he had said. Well, let’s hope this isn’t an emergency because Gene’s son wants nothing to do with him. One of those kind of deals, if you know what I mean. Still a lot of water under that bridge, I guess. Anyway, I told his son, I just want you to know your father is missing. We haven’t seen him for the longest. Maybe he’s headed your way. But his boy said again he wanted nothing to do with him. What can you do?
He doesn’t expect an answer and I don’t give him one because, well, what can you do? Melissa, Tim, and Lyle go out back to smoke. Mike steps into the kitchen. Bill stares at his glass. I tell him that today for no good reason I was reminded of this private, a young gal. We got mortared and she got all messed up. She lay on the ground, her right arm ripped to shit like confetti. Some medics put her on a stretcher and got an IV in her, and her shirt rose up exposing her flat stomach and full tits and despite all her screaming I thought she was beautiful. I went over to see if I could help and she looked at me wide-eyed and said, Am I going to die? No, I said. You’re fine. You’re going to make it.
Do I know if she did? No, I don’t. That bothers me.
What you say? Bill says.
Evening
I call Fran from the union hall on Admiral Boulevard, shouting above the traffic noise of cars backed up overhead in the tangled mess that is I-70 and I-29 looping around one another. I only worked a few hours this afternoon, I tell her. I stuck around for something else to come up but nothing did. Can you pick me up?
Okay, she says.
By the time she gets me, I’m pissed off. Pissed I had only four hours of work today, pissed I couldn’t get a ride home, pissed I had to wait around until Fran got off her job at Walgreens to get me. I was 360 degrees pissed off is what I’m saying.
I get in the car, ball my hand into a fist, and press my knuckles against Fran’s right temple. She tilts her head away and I keep pushing with my fist until her head is against the window and I feel the vein in her temple pulse against my knuckles.
Stop it, you’re hurting me, she says.
Next day
Mike, I’ll have another one, Melissa says.
She’s dating this gal, Rhonda, a school teacher. I don’t know how old. Younger, I’d say by the look of her in a photo Melissa passed around. I don’t care that she’s gay. I mean lesbian. She corrected me one time. Men are gay, women are lesbian. Okay. What do I do with that bit of knowledge? Keep my mouth shut is what I’m saying.
Melissa talks about how nice it is to be involved with a woman who doesn’t trip when Melissa has to work late. Doesn’t ask a thousand questions to make sure that nothing is wrong. It’s nice to be with someone who’s an adult, Melissa says. She says that a lot. Nice to be involved with an adult. Like she’s trying to convince herself that it’s nice. Like maybe the confidence of her lover makes Melissa wonder what she’s doing.
I’m going home, Tim says. Make some dinner.
What’re you going to have? Lyle says.
I don’t know.
What you say? Bill says.
Fuck you, Bill, Tim says, and he and Lyle laugh. It’s not as funny as the first time he said it. It’s starting to get old but I can’t help smiling a little.