Tarnished Dreams

Some people seem to thrive on rejection, seem to crave the personal and direct scorn of authority. Eddy was one of those people. He'd been coming to Gridlock for at least as long as the six months I'd been working there, probably a lot longer. Some nights, most nights, I thought he was trying to get eighty-sixed.

He was over by the nurses' table when I came back from the cooler. I knew what would happen from here. He would slur a pickup line at them, they would politely decline, he would persist, and I would tell him to go back to his seat. He knew this, I knew this, everybody knew this. It happened all the time.

"I was sitting over there," Eddy said. He was over by the dart board, but I could hear him clearly. "And I could tell you wanted me to buy you a drink."

"No, thank you," said a pretty, brown-haired nurse. Gridlock was popular with people from the local hospitals, though neither she nor her friend had been in here before. Even so, they seemed to recognize Eddy's act for what it was.

"You made me walk all the way over here for nothing?" Eddy said, feigning indignation.

"Eddy," I said. I put the case of beer down on top of the coolers.

"Um, we didn't make you do anything," said the other nurse.

"I was watching you in the mirror," Eddy said. "You were looking at me."

"Eddy," I said, a little louder.

"No, we weren't," insisted the nurse. "And besides, even if we were, that's not an invitation to come over and breathe on us." They giggled.

Everyone knew it was a game, but the most annoying part, at least to me, was that everybody—the girls, the other regulars, even Eddy himself—seemed to understand that Eddy was playing to lose.

I was late getting in to work, but I had a defensive line already prepared. "I should probably let you know, Buddy," I said. "I've been looking for another job."

He gazed at me, a wry smile slowly filling the wrinkles of his face. "I like having you here, Jack, but to be honest, I'm kind of surprised you've stayed this long."

I moved behind the bar and started inventorying the supplies for my shift. "I feel like there's a whole world out there, and I'm missing it."

He nodded. "I understand, Jack. Young guy like yourself. You have to get out there."

"Yeah," I said, but without any enthusiasm.

He studied me quietly for a moment. "Is this because of your birthday a couple weeks ago?"

"No."

When he spoke again, his voice had taken on a note of humor. "Jack, don't worry about it. You're a young guy. Lord, if I could be twenty-three again."

"That isn't it," I insisted. "It's more than that." I sighed. "Six months went by this quickly. What would six years be like?"

He shrugged. "Like this, only ten times longer."

"That's what I'm afraid of. Next thing I know, I could wake up and be thirty, still here every night, still … I don't know, hoping for something better."

He studied me for a moment. "How's your art going? You haven't mentioned it lately."

"It's going fine," I lied.

Buddy waited for a minute, then turned to go.

"Did you ever work to get something," I asked, "then wonder if you really wanted it in the first place?"

Buddy turned back to me. "All the time," he said, his voice now gentle, that of an old friend. "Things don't hardly ever turn out the way you think they will."

"Eddy!" I said, my voice rising to a tired shout.

He turned back to me.

"Come back to the bar and leave them alone."

Eddy turned and walked quickly toward me, as if trying to intimidate me. He did that rather frequently, but I wondered again if he was more relieved than angry. "You got something to say, Trexlor?"

"Eddy," I said quietly, "just sit at the bar and be cool, all right?"

Eddy slumped onto his stool and turned his attention to his beer, muttering semi-intelligible threats into the foam.

I walked to the far end of the bar and poured a refill for another of the regulars, a middle-aged guy with a brush cut. He flicked his gaze down at Eddy, then looked up at me. "One of these days," he said under his breath. "There's going to be trouble."

I nodded soberly.

At that moment, however, any change—even trouble—sounded like an improvement.