Patrick deWitt - Ablutions

The new tenants discover Curtis in their closet and force him onto the street where he is robbed of his leather jacket, mirrored sunglasses, and holsters — he throws his spurs into the gutter and spits. He spends the next three days and nights blubbering in anonymous alleyways, plotting revenge killings and elaborate suicide parades that he hasn't the intelligence, energy, or courage to execute. Looking in the phone book he finds that his parents, whom he has not seen in many years, are living in the San Fernando Valley, and he calls them collect to plead his case. His mother refuses to fetch him but says she will permit a visit or short stay if he can find his own way, and he throws himself at the mercy of an MTA driver who tells him he can ride for free so long as he stops crying and sits in the rear of the bus. Curtis locates the house and finds his parents sipping Arnold Palmers on a creaking porch swing, a gentle vision that fills his heart with heat and gratitude, only his parents are not happy to see him and are quick to remind him of his many faults and his weird sex escapades. They point to a corner of the garage, a chalk-drawn outline that is to be his living space; they give him a list of chores and tell him that if he should ever fail to complete them he will be immediately and permanently banished from his parents' home and affections. He signs the list and a rental agreement and weeps like Christ on the cross as he mows the dead lawn.

Each year at Christmas you drink whiskey sours for two weeks. The bar smells of pine boughs and glows red and green with Christmas lights and you are reminded of a time several years back when you lived in the North. It was cold and rainy and you were a laborer and this was your drink, whiskey sour with a cherry and a lemon wedge. At night you met with friends at the corner bar and spoke of the little daily things: An accident on the work site, a prank played, things you had stolen from the home of your employer, something unfortunate your sociopathic uncle had done. There was a young woman behind the bar; you liked to watch her reach. She sold you pills over the counter, so when you entered the bar you would shake the rain off your hat and Pendleton coat and say, "Double whiskey sour and two blues, please." You would dry your hands on your pants so as not to dissolve the pills and in twenty minutes would be overcome with a wonderful, fleeting sadness. A string of Christmas lights blinked year round over the bar, which is why you are reminded of your time there each December. You still get calls and invitations to visit the northern town but you don't dare return, as some piece of the memory would certainly be ruined. Everything changes and rarely for the better. But you honor this faraway place with two weeks' worth of whiskey sours at the close of every year, and this will have to do for now.

There is an upheaval at the bar motivated by some mysterious money troubles of the owners, who call an emergency daytime meeting and are grim and cryptic as they talk of their finances, and your hands are buzzing at the thought of termination and as the meeting progresses you do not follow along but scramble to think of another occupation you might fall back on, only there is no other occupation except that of laborer or cashier and you cannot return to either as you have been spoiled by barbacking, which leaves your days free and for which you are paid illegally in cash and during which time you can drink all the Jameson you like, and so you decide you will not search out further employment but apply for every existing brand of credit card and then borrow cash advances from each company that agrees to do business with you. You could survive a year if you are careful with your spending, and you think of short trips to Big Sur and San Francisco and cheap hotels and coach train travel. You could even bring a backpack and sleep on the beach like a dirty hippie, or maybe actually become a dirty hippie, and you imagine yourself with a beard and a dog and a walking staff and you laugh out loud and the meeting comes to a halt and you apologize and the owners carry on, and now you are listening and this is what you hear them say:

No one is to be terminated (your freewheeling plans are dashed over rocks) but there will be cutbacks, and all employees will have to reel things in until the money troubles recede. This means: The bartenders and barbacks will cease handing out any complimentary drinks, no matter the customer or amount of time or money they have spent at the bar. The employees are aghast at this and begin naming certain customers, saying, You don't mean so-and-so, and We can't be expected to charge such-and-such, and the owners reiterate: Every person pays every dollar for every drink. The decree sinks in and the employees are quiet as they imagine the many horrible conversations they will soon have to have, because to deny the regulars their alcohol would be like turning away hungry bums at a soup kitchen, and you think of their pushed-in faces as you tell them this new rule and again interrupt the meeting with your laughter and you are warned — once again and you're out.

Further rulings: Simon will no longer be manager and his extra pay will hereafter be forfeit. No one says anything to this but wonders why the news of his wage cut was not left to implication. Simon is not in attendance, having been earlier informed of his demotion and spared the public humiliation.

"Is he all right?" you ask.

"He is golfing."

"Who will be the manager now?"

The room comes to attention and the owner and his wife look at each other nervously. They say there is someone they want you all to meet and they call out a name and a golden-tanned young man, dirty blond hair and green-eyed and good-looking to the point of prettiness, enters from the backroom office and stands before the group. This is Lancer; he will be the new manager. He makes the rounds, shaking hands and proffering small compliments (to you he says it is his understanding that you "know how to have some fun"). He is younger than you by a decade and younger than some of the bartenders by two, which means he was still in high school when you began working at the bar and that he was ten years old when the others signed on at the bar's opening. Having no ambition to ascend even to bartender, much less to the position of manager, you are not bothered by this turn of events, but the others in the room are transparently wounded and they stand and shout out and one tips his chair and quits on the spot and the owners raise their arms in a call for peace and for a moment you think there will be violence against them (you will not take part but neither will you play diplomat) and also against Lancer, who has backed himself into the corner and looks uneasy and unnerved (and dramatic and handsome).

There is no violence. The employees drift out the door, ignoring the beckoning voices of the owners and returning to their cars and homes to speak with their wives or girlfriends of the many years sacrificed in the darkness of the bar, all to be passed over for youth, beauty, and inexperience — all for nothing. The owners retire to the office where they will drink away their guilt and you are left alone with Lancer. He is upset about his reception and says he will not take the job but return to his unemployment insurance and his acting and scriptwriting and you are impressed with his manner of communicating this, which is something like a one-way radio and wholly for his own theatrical benefit, and you know there is nothing you can say to this person that will affect him in any way and so you only pat his arm and offer him a drink and he answers this by looking at his watch. You walk over to fix yourself a drink and Lancer sees this and says, fine, let's have the one drink and then I'll go and tell the owners to find somebody else, and you bring over two shots of Jameson and he chokes on his and you shiver down the long length of your spine and he asks what the drink was and you tell him the brand and he says no, I mean what type of alcohol, and here you fall platonically in love with Lancer and shout the answer in his face: "Irish whiskey!"