The Girl at the Bar    3 of 3

The Girl at the Bar  3 of 3

My father gave it to me, she said. He gave me my very first watercolor set. It was cheap — probably something from a local 5 and ten stores — but it was the start of everything.
She said she didn’t remember there being a reason for it. She thought maybe it was a spur of the moment thing.
I don’t remember much of my father, she said, but I still remember his smile that day, and the sound of his laugh when he heard my own.
I watched the shadows play across her face.
I remember I hugged him, she said. And he smelled of whiskey.
Whiskey was woven into the fabric of Mary’s childhood memories.
It was why she loved the scent of it.
But it was woven into other memories, as well, Memories of broken lives and broken marriages, of broken promises and broken homes, broken hearts.
It was why she refused to drink it.
Some people say whiskey is a complicated drink, Mary said. But for me, it’s a very simple drink — it just happens to be mixed with a lot of complicated feelings.
The following night, she gave me a package.
What’s this? I asked.
It’s a painting. I wanted to give it to Hiroki, but I think it’s better if you take it now.
You can paint again?
She nodded. Since last night, she said.
Why don’t you give it to him yourself? When he gets back?
She shook her head.
It’s not for him anymore.
The painting was of two boys sitting on a park bench; one of them in color, the other in black and white. They were wrapped in winter coats and thick scarves, marveling at a light winter snow.
In the bottom-right corner, Mary had written the date and a title.
H & H
I looked at that painting for a long, long time.
The next day, I found out James had died. His landlord told me when I tried to visit his apartment again.
He said James was hit by a truck riding his bicycle home. There was a bag of groceries nearby; the police assumed he was on his way home from the supermarket. He wasn’t carrying anything but coins at the time — No phone, no wallet, and no ID. His bicycle was unregistered.
The police knocked on doors for clues. It was slow, painstaking work, but eventually they found his apartment.
I thought of a broken body and a mangled bicycle on a winter night. The spilled groceries and scattered coins on the pavement, I imagined a foggy, ragged breath, fading into a dim, lonely silence.
And for whatever reason, I thought of a watercolor painting of a house, somewhere far away in the countryside.
And I wept.
When I told Mary, it was like she already knew. She nodded, sipped from her gin tonic, and stared up at the smoke by the ceiling.
I will miss him, she said.
And I realized then that if Mary held any other feelings about that moment or of James, I would not see them here. They would express themselves in gentle, flowing arcs of color, thrown against paper.
Rambling, aimless arcs I hoped would be beautiful.
Beautiful and hopeful
When I left the bar that night, Mary walked with me up the stairs. We stayed there a time, watching a gentle rain fall upon lonely Ohio streets.
You shouldn’t come back here, she said.
What? why not?
This place, it’s not for you. It’s for people who lose what they can’t get back.
What about you?
I lost James, she said. As I lost my friend and the color of his memories is my muse now.
She kissed me gently on the lips, and looked into my eyes.
But you still carry him with you, she said. You still have him, and you always will.
I sometimes think about that rainy night, and the minutes that passed before Mary and I separated; when I wanted to kiss her, and hold her, and not let go.
I think about that bar in Ohio, and the bartender who hides behind his doors the stories of those who visit — the ghosts and spirits who might never find what they’re looking for, but find in the bar a comfortable purgatory.
And when I think of James, I think of a painting of two boys sitting on a park bench in winter; one of them in color, one in black and white.
And I wonder which one am I.

By nutbuster