Justin Taylor - Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever

Lisa again: “Hey, there’s a line forming behind you and they’re not regulars, so they don’t think this is cute, but listen: we’re having a closing party a week from tonight. For just the staff and the, uh, friends of the store or whatever. You should come.”

Well that’s something, anyway. A party. Tim takes his drink over to the brown couch, where there’s a spot open next to Jana, whose name is pronounced as if it started with a Y. She’s olive-skinned with a cute nose that goes out just a smidge too far to be as cute as it could be, and a dark pixie haircut that’s either brushed to look unkempt or actually is. She wears dark tank tops that favor her smallish breasts without being too showy about it, and black jeans with one of those belts with the double row of metal pyramid studs. They’ve been friendly with each other for however long she’s been coming to Harry Smith. Tim can’t remember the first time he saw her but he knows he’s got seniority, patron-wise, which makes sense because at thirty-one he’s probably what — five, six years older than she is? They’re about on opposite ends of a long trip to college. That’s another way of saying she was still in high school the year he thought he was going to get famous, and probably she was taking The Bible as Literature for a funky junior elective while he was working here.

“So what do you think of all this?” Tim says to Jana, gesturing at the wreath. He wonders who ordered it, if it was Lionel and Sadie or one of the other regulars. (Every regular secretly believes he is the regular, most cherished and beloved, so if someone else was told about this before him, who and why?)

“What’s to think?” Jana says. “Everyone sells out, apparently. This city is a dead fucking husk.”

Riot opens the front door. Figure he’s about Tim’s age, might even be older. With homeless people it’s hard to tell. He holds the door for a bottle blond in end-of-season-sale designer wear. A case in point for Jana if there ever was one.

“After you, miss,” Riot says with an exaggerated courtesy that is really leering. It’s amazing the girl doesn’t bolt, she’s so obviously icked out by him. Time was, Tim thinks, a girl like that wouldn’t set foot in a place like this. These days, she probably lives around the corner, pays four figures for a fifth-floor walkup, and when the deliveryman brings the Thai food she tips him $2 instead of $3 because she always remembers what Daddy said about a penny saved and a penny earned.

Lisa sees Riot and the first thing she says is “No.”

“Hey c’mon man c’mon,” he says, “I got money today. I just gotta use the john first.”

“No way.”

The girl Riot held the door for has found her friend. Not surprisingly, it’s the girl who was on the cell phone when Tim walked in.

“All right all right,” Riot says. He orders a coffee and throws his five on the counter.

Lisa isn’t sure what to do. What she’d like to do is throw Riot out on his ass. He’s been banned for life from this place more times than anyone can count, but here’s the thing: if she throws him out he’ll stand in the street and scream about fascism and panhandle passersby and generally make a scene until somebody — probably Lisa — calls the cops and then they’ll show up and then there’ll be that scene going down out front. What she’s thinking is that maybe if she just serves him, he’ll be cool. Who knows? Stranger things have happened at this place, though not many.

She takes his money and turns to pour the coffee. Riot takes the bathroom key from the counter and heads for the back.

Tim and Jana have been silently watching all this go down. Tim’s been trying to decide whether he should get involved: maybe tell Lisa to cool off; maybe tell Riot he can have a dollar if he goes outside. Who knows what Jana thinks of these people and all this? She’s sipping a black coffee. Tim wonders if it’s got sugar at least. He says, “Well, you’re coming to the party, right?”

“Who wants to celebrate death?” Jana says.

A few minutes go by. They sip their drinks without talking. It occurs to Tim that Riot still hasn’t come out of the bathroom. “Hey, Lisa.”

“Was thinking the same thing, hon,” Lisa says. She shouts: “RIOT! TEN SECONDS AND I KICK THE FUCKING DOOR IN.”

Tim laughs and shakes his head. Lisa will never last as manager after the place goes bourgeois.

“Four…three…two…OKAY ASSHOLE HERE I COME. YOU BETTER HAVE GODDAMN PANTS ON.” Lisa’s ready to kick, but the door’s not locked. This could be anything.

It isn’t.

What’s in the toilet is gross (Riot didn’t flush) but at least he’s not playing with it. Or shooting up or something. In fact, he seems to have forgotten about what’s in the toilet altogether. He’s got a Sharpie out, is detailing some of his 9/11 theories on the lid of the tank. “People have to know,” he tells Lisa. She grabs him by the jacket, sort of hurls him into the hall, hits the flush with her boot.

“All right, asshole,” she says. “You’re finished. Straight out the door or I’m calling.”

“You’re just a cog in their machine,” Riot says. “Towing the fascist line.”

“You know what?” She reaches for the phone. “You’re right.”

“Fine, okay, shit, Jesus. Put my drink in a to-go cup and I’m out of here.”

Tim’s from somewhere shitty in the Midwest. He was a good student, growing up, then college was a lot to handle (shrooms, mostly) so he wound up dropping out of Colorado State spring semester freshman year, took some time off, then got into the jazz program at The New School and moved to New York. He even graduated, though barely, since after moving to the city he discovered the then-burgeoning freak-folk scene. Tim knows his old band, Flash Pounce, could have gotten big if they’d stuck with it. They had a legendary live show, every venue wanted to book them. They broke up for the usual reasons: artistic differences and a couple of them got way too into speed and then the trumpet/synth player got engaged, decided to move back to Chicago.

Natalie calls Tim on Tuesday night, technically Wednesday morning. It’s about two thirty. He was sleeping, but when she asks if she woke him up he says she didn’t. He says he just got home, in a way that he hopes somehow implies he was out on a date.

“It’s too bad you’re so far away,” she slurs. “I miss you.”

“I could catch a train, I guess.” There are no cabs in the part of Brooklyn where Tim lives.

“No, it’s so late.”

“Yeah, you’re right. So.”

“Tim. Listen. Listen. Maybe we could…talk?” There’s a weird weight on that word. Talk about what? Them? What’s left to say? Is she going to break up with him again for good measure?

But he says sure, of course, and she starts talking. Saying the filthiest things, actually, first about what they did over the weekend, then made-up stuff. She describes in torrid, exalting detail all the nasty things they’re doing to each other that they’re not doing to each other. At some point he realizes she’s jerking off. So…He should, too — right?

This hand is Natalie’s hand.

This hand is Natalie’s face, etc.

“Oh fu-uck,” she says, and makes some noises in the phone that Tim tries to convince himself he is hearing for the second time this week, though if he’s going to be honest with himself (he’s not) she sounds way more excited right now than she did when they were together in person, though it’s not exactly a revelation that everyone’s their own best lover. Who knows what you want better than you do? (Little joke.) Anyway, he’s been on the verge himself for, say, four or five minutes now. What’s he holding back for? There’s no etiquette when she’s not really there.