Alternate

Alternate

by

Bryan Sawatzki

            This bar is not dilapidated by any means, but it looks like it could be from the outside.  Swanky’s is tucked between two bland buildings that held offices on the street level and converted apartments above it.  The street that the bar is located on is marginally busy during rush hour, but midday just after lunch traffic is non existent.  The only car that is moving on this road is mine.  As I park in front of the bar, my phone alerts me of a text message, it’s from my wife.  Ur work just called and said you left. What is going on? Why didn’t you tell me you were leavin?  I think to myself, ‘God this bitch knows everything.’

            I left work shortly after lunch because I couldn’t handle my reality any longer.  Work is always down my throat, my wife is even further down, and I just needed a break.

            Inside Swanky’s looks as expected, semi-clean and dimly lit.  There are three people in the bar and a bartender serving their every need.  I chose not to sit at the bar, but instead behind everyone in the corner booth that gives me a full perspective of the joint.  The booth I picked had a sign above it that read, DOES YOUR WIFE KNOW YOUR HEAR?!.  I thought if she only knew my month would we over. 

“Hey pal you need a drink?”  The barkeep yelled.

“Yeah, a beer and a therapist would be great.”

“Coming right up and I’ll get you a number.”  He bellowed back.

            The beer gutted bartender brought my drink over and smiled, “Leave it open or closed?”

            “Open is fine for now.”  I returned.

            I take a sip and survey the clientele of the bar and I begin to alter my reality.  I begin to create a different life where I was invested and intertwined with other occupants.  This is my therapy, my escape from my reality.

            My alternate reality picked the older gentleman sitting at the bar.  My attention was drawn to him because of the song coming from his cell phone, People are strange when they are strangers, kept repeating itself yet the man doesn’t even flinch.  He just lets it play through.  The man seems content on just sitting there letting the smoke roll up his face as the cigarette just burns while attached to his lip.  His back is to me, but I can see his reflection in the bar mirror directly in front of him.  His reflection seems weathered; each crevasse in his forehead seems to tell a story that is matched by each line of his crow’s feet next to his eyes.  His skin is leathery making it difficult to determine his nationality, but if I were a betting man, I would guess Native American or maybe Hispanic.

            My mind wanders and our story starts to come together.

            A year ago I met Marc Halfmoon at the V.A hospital.  I was there for my physical check up that has been mandated since the explosion I was involved in during the Gulf War.  Marc was there for therapy for his brain, those are his words, from his time in Vietnam and Korea.  We spoke to one another by chance that day.  Marc came into the lobby in almost hysteria, screaming at whoever he was in the room with.  His screaming startled me and I stood up in a reaction to it.  Marc didn’t notice how close he was to me when he turned around in a fit and knocked the both of us to the ground.  The physical contact between us must have snapped him out of it and he helped me up and introduced himself while apologizing.  Once we are both on our feet he nodded at me and sat in the far corner of the lobby. 

            The doctor called me into the room and we completed the physical and everything seemed to be in working order physically for me.  When I walked out of the room, Marc was waiting for me.  He apologized again and offered to buy me a drink.  I could tell he wanted someone unaffiliated with the medical profession to talk to, so I accepted.  We made our way across the parking lot to the sports bar that shared the same parking lot.

            Once inside the bar, we got familiar with one another with the usual chit chat that strangers do.  After the first beer, Marc asked me why I was at the V.A.  I told him about my own stupidity at during the Gulf War and how I came so close to the explosion.  He had a good laugh at my expense, as do I when I tell the story out loud, then I passed the story telling torch to Marc.

            Marc tells me about the tours he did in Vietnam.  His vivid details of the blazing night skies and the countless number of people he killed during the war were fascinating.  I could tell Marc was having trouble talking about it, but he kept going.  He seemed like he needed to get it off his chest, and he felt comfortable recalling this memories to someone who shared the same directives.  Through out the stories he told me and a few beers, I could see each story in the wrinkles in his forehead.  Each wrinkle had its own memory steep in pain and anguish. 

            I was snapped out the fantasy with this weathered bar patron when the bartender yells, “Steve, you gonna drink that beer or what?”

            Steve looks down at his warm spirit and glares, “I will when I’m God damn ready.  If I wanted my wife here, I would have brought her!”

            I wanted my fantasy of us to be real, I wanted that relationship where someone felt they could talk to me and I could relate to them with my own real life experiences.  The moment I heard Steve for the first time destroyed the fantasy.  In his real life, Steve is probably very much like me.  He deals with his wife not because of love, but out of fear of being alone.

            I finished my first beer and the bartender waddled over another one.  I take my first sip of my second drink and I locked on to the overweight couple at the opposite end of the bar from Steve/Marc Halfmoon, and begin to create a new alternate reality with them.       

            Dwayne and Ethal met each other through me a few years ago.  Dwayne and I grew up together in an Angola, Indiana.  We lived in the same neighborhood, went to the same schools, and played football together from pee-wee through high school.  Back then Dwayne was a statuesque middle linebacker for our mediocre high school team.  Once adulthood set in, he traded working out for late night fast food and lack of motivation.

            After high school, Dwayne and I went our separate ways.  He stayed in state and went to an engineering college, and I left Indiana for the blonde bombshells of Arizona State.  We kept in touch and saw each other whenever I would come home to visit, but it wasn’t until our 10 year high school reunion where he’d meet Ethal.

            On my way home for the reunion, Ethal was sitting next to me on the plane.  We began idol chatting to pass time.  She told me that she was heading to Angola for a job interview with the metal fabricating company that is based there.  She told me that she is nervous to move away from everything and everyone she has ever known.  Ethal was a nice woman but she had a few extra pounds on her.  In my estimation she probably heard that she had a pretty face her whole life but was always overweight, causing her to be lacking self confidence.  As we landed Ethal and I exchanged numbers and I told her I could introduce her to some of the people back home if she wanted. 

            At the reunion, Dwayne and I started talking and he expressed to me how lonely he was.  He never meets anyone new and with this increased size over the years, even the high school stay behinds won’t even consider him anymore.  He’s been reduced to the funny fat guy friend.  I sympathized with him and remembered I had Ethal’s cell number in my pocket.  I tell Dwayne we are going to the Machine Shop Bar for a few drinks and to meet a friend.

            Dwayne says his good byes and I called Ethal and told her where to meet me.  I told her that I had a friend I wanted her to meet.

            Dwayne and I get to the bar first and ordered shots of Tequila, to loosen him up for his impromptu blind date with Ethal.  We get the shots down and Ethal walked up.  After the introductions the sparks flew.  I just sat back and watched while they told each other their life stories, accomplishments and embarrassments.  It was beautiful.  A year later they were married and the following year they welcomed my god son into the world. 

            This reality was beautiful until it was interrupted when the two overweight people I was fantasizing about bumped my table on the way out.  They snapped me out of what I believed to be the greatest love story ever told.  I looked down and noticed my beer was gone, and there was nobody left in the room but me and the bartender.  I signal to him I wanted to cash out and looked at my watch.  I was in the bar for an hour, but to me it felt like a life time.  The bartender hands me the bill and I give him a twenty and tell him the rest is tip, he thanks me and I walk out to my car.

            As I pull my seat belt across, my cell buzzes again.  I have five missed calls and ten text messages, all from my wife.  The last text message read, I hope you don’t even come home. You don’t deserve to have a woman like me.  I take a deep breath and put the car in drive.