42opus

is an online magazine of the literary arts.

2 June 2004 | Vol. 4, No. 2

I Love Happy Hour

4:30. Somewhere in New Mexico. The bar is almost empty and the sun cuts a pattern like a paw print across what was once a beautiful countertop, giving it length, making a confessional out of the tiny crevices of its beveled edges. The bartender is a man who used to be handsome—now he has to work for his living. He begins with a conversation.

"So where are you girls traveling to?"

I look nervously in Addie's direction; she is pissed. She hates being called a "girl," but I told her that this journey would not be like any other, she would have to experience the underside of America, take a trip into its beautiful misogyny. She has decided to be nice because she is tired of driving. We have no hotel reservation and perhaps this used-up man can provide us with a room. I speak first.

"We're going to Los Angeles." I am wondering if I should flirt with him. I am bored, so I ask, "Where do you hail from?"

"You must be from the South—nobody says that around here." He puts a pint of lukewarm beer in front of me and busily wipes the countertop eyeing my silver rings and nicotine-stained fingers. I roll Drum in the interim.

"I spent my summers in the South and you?"

"Mississippi by birth, but I got out of there when I was fifteen and went to New York—the city of dirt and people and broken things."

I like him already—he is smooth and easy and the afternoon ends rather lazily for all of us. I point to Addie—"She's from New York and she doesn't like to think that there is anything between New York and Los Angeles. But there must be because here we are."

He continues as if I haven't said anything. "I spent about thirteen years in New York and then retired out here for good—for the weather—for the company." He smile