Jim Meirose

Next to the Last Stool

Yes; went in, sat a while, had a few—and this guy came and claimed the last empty stool. It’s really okay and nothing to sit close, rubbing elbows with strangers, in a place like this. Just pay no attention, don’t hear what he orders, just sit thinking. As quick as he came it’s like he’s all gone, but then, after having a few, and some more, to get settled, he opened his mouth and spewed and overflowed out of his personal space.

—so, okay. Here goes; I know that—hey bartender. Straight vodka—

Straight vodka? Sure. Drank straight vodka long ago, right from the bottle. Not ashamed to say it. Blackouts were just, well, things that happened once in a while in the environment. That time and place way, way back. You know—the place brought me up. Taught mind your own business, too. Most times, the hard way. But, suddenly, his words stopped the thoughts that had come from last night. Yes, twenty four hours back, about. Why this place, not home, was right tonight. The thoughts swirled inside, and struggled to go on being heard, but here surged this stranger’s voice again. A wave over a brand new summer sandcastle, which, since finished, must now be eaten all away.

—he always comes back, but if this is the time that he finally does not, I’ll have died in my sleep peacefully, like anything ever born ends up wishing to finally do!

His shot glass rapped down. The sound came in settled and lay deep down. Didn’t come in the place to chitchat or meet anybody or whatever, you know, just came to think. The guy seemed done talking. Three shots poured out before him. Yes, sure; they’d shut him up, shut him up good. As he downed them one by one, the thoughts of why it was so important to get drunk tonight spiraled up from below, all fumes of alcohol, that chemical, rising, and here came the thoughts behind, but; he spoke loudly again, blowing the fumes away sober.

—in there, all of it, into your mother’s mouth, the way you treat me bad, so bad, so dog fucking slimy asshole pile of shit bad, into your mother’s big round white ceramic mouth, caked with pubic hair in your stinking failing pothole of a restaurant, you dare call the El Sabor!

And right then he threw back the third shot, and swung the glass slamming back down, jarring everybody around with a bolt of fear, but quiet flowed all around from behind. Sure, he wasn’t actually dangerous. Sure, the words weren’t even him, probably. The liquor shouted out from in him, sure. Before us, stretched a wide mirrored wall. Every bottle in the row before the mirror was two bottles. One real, and one not; funny. Every person in the place was two people, one real, and one not; yes, and still funny. But, he must have been listening hard to something past his mere reflection, because he shouted back at someone not there, some special third person behind the two there already. A third person in the mirror no one else yet had.

—he leapt around and around and around, and the empty house he had been in was gone, as big as if it never was!

Well now, how about that. Each condensation wreathed glass sitting in their perfectly round bar top puddles absorbed every word, but not a customer heard. No use trying to remember why this place, tonight, had been chosen. It was chosen to pull up cool thoughts around the raw core of what had happened last night, but, every time the tip of it all showed from the black, black water, this rapidly becoming annoying guy shouted out some more emptiness that drowned everything back down.

—in, through, and out all windows—

Give up. Okay. Say uncle. The liquor was to blame for this big waste of time. Drunk liquor, was to blame, solid as rocks. You know drinkers don’t actually get drunk. The liquor is drunk, and comes to fill them up. All the time they’re sober. Just don’t know. So, so what he came again shouting even stronger now, coarse, loud, mixed with all the liquor. What the hell, he’s just temporary. The time to leave will come. So what the hell; relax, settle down, listen.

—the TV then passed me a little pill that slid down in me, and conked me out for the night, like I was some kind of prizefighter who just got all beat up half dead, or suchlike like that!

Funny, funny—but back to business; got to shake it off, get clear, and start ignoring this gasbag of vodkafumes. This morning, yes. Start there, moving in the dark without even deciding to, tossing back the covers, letting in the air. The air pressed; always something pressed; always some air some voice some talk, pressed. Then it came. The words that were said last night; last night loud and clear to the one still lying sleeping at the far edge of the bed, right next to emptiness. So, now the time came to do everything done every other day, after the covers toss back in the back of waking. No light came around the drawn window shade edges. So it must have been early, sure, yes, maybe too early to get up now, right—but now here came the next wave sucking the morning away, forcing everyone near enough, to look up, gasp, and swallow down his words. Everybody’s hands were wet and cold around their glasses.

—Johnny was back to never was, where every single living thing on the planet ends up!

That’s it? That’s actually it? Well, yoy no, not, no; back to the morning and stand up from the bed, again only deciding to after it’s been done. Getting up in the morning’s a lifelong addiction, a fix a day is needed. We’re all addicted. But there’s hope all the time. Death will make everyone clean and sober. The time, what’s the time; there’s a glow in the dark clock across the bed past the sleeper, on the other side, can’t quite see, lean, peer, yes the clock said it was, but; but drunken words from the next stool ripped across, swiping away the time, which had been this morning but again was just now.

Now, he is just a dead man.

Who? Who’s a dead man? That’s all you have to say? The morning washed out down melted. So what time is it anyway? Must have seen the time, but; the time was all stolen gulped down into the drunk. Oh well, go shower, there’s no right and wrong time to shower, if when the shower’s done, the clock can be seen, and says it’s much too early, just towel off dry and go back to bed with one big chore of the day done and gone already even before waking up. Hey. But, the vodka man talks, louder still, loud enough to burst eardrums bloody.

Yes, really; a waste for you all!

Clothing falls off, gone across the floor. Again, no decision was needed to let go the clothes. The clothes just all fell away as if changed to wisps of smoke. Go in the bathroom, step in the shower, after the shower light came on, all commanding, like the drunk.

Can you hold a number in your hand right up to the day you die?

That’s no question to leave the shower for. Plunge the water on with the chrome plated valve. Stand in the cone of water; all dotted line drops dropping all blurry, a sheaf of dotted wet drops falling fast and noisy. The warmth came, the warmth, and the first piss of the day got let go into the tub and the shower powered along faster, faster yet.

—In white bright dark nothing ever moves—

After the shower the dark bedroom came around again, before it could even be noticed, it was there. Stood dry in the dark, not even having felt the savory sweet rub of the soft dry towel rubbing all over everywhere until everything is perfectly clean and dry; that’s gone, never was, and still the sleeper lies blocking the glowing nightclock’s hidden hands that mocked crying out, You will never know the time, because of the silly sleeper. Hah! You will never know the time, because of the silly sleeper. Hah! You will never—

—It is happening every day.

Sure yes, okay, agreed; it’s happening every day; like gripping and dragging the cheap plastic loaded dirty clothes hamper bump bump bump down the stairs every morning. Being up’s not like laying idly asleep. Being up, means find thing after things after thing to do, until it comes time to sleep again. So the kitchen came up, down the stairs, and lit up the words the drunk blurted this time.

Lord, God, how bad he needed a job.

Sure, sure; everybody needs a job, until they die or retire which always seems so far away, but then rushes pop right up in your face. The kitchen’s lit looking like it could be any time at all, and the memories of last night come closer, but; the room’s quite gloomy, this early. Must wake better. How? Oh, coffee. Make, have, and swallow coffee swiftly; and down it flows shockingly hot crying out, You must get ready go out and get to work early; you must hurry before something happens that it’s too early for you to remember; so very very wise and true was this, yes, yes, today no time for toast, but—the voice the words pop the toast anyway—

Do you?

God almighty, what a question, that the answer to is yes so often, that it’s the answer everybody gives, if it’s true or not. All answers must be pleasant answers. So after snapping the coffee maker off, went up to the clothes hung waiting to be put on. Back up in the bedroom, the window shade edges now glow with gentle light. The sleeper’s still sleeping. Wait, what, still don’t really know the time. The glowing hands of the clock, still blocked by the sleeper, still refuse to supply the time. Idiot! Why did you not check the time downstairs? Why do you only think it’s important to know the time, when the only clock in sight is hidden in the dark, behind some sleeper? Never mind, no—knowing the time is very silly. Hurried and hired to dress fast and silent. Time’s not important. What’s important of never wake a sleeper, so push, push, faster, yes; all dressed. All ready, all successful. And since the dog passed six months ago, there’s nothing more to do as far as chores in the early morning house. So go down in and through the kitchen light and leave. Forgetting to look at the clock, of course, but not knowing that because knowing would have prevented forgetting and so such round and round like that—

No doubt she is totally different by now.

Outside it is summer, it’s green, and it’s cool, but by midday it will be totally different, like the man said about whoever she is, it will all be scorching sweat and stench but, you’ll get there you’ll get there, to the big everyday corporate box o’ cubes, so, funny! Huge great bit corporate box o’ cubes, to run to, and stay in, and keep cool, the same all year round. Shit pissed and weighed upstairs this morning too, pops into the warm car about to go to the box; shit was okay, piss all mucho, but weight was totally unacceptable, shouldn’t have had salami or that other thing—the start of the car rushes over though, turning the key, gripping the wheel, turning around, it it’s all homes flowing past and then slowly merges all together and it is the Interstate and the speedometer says seventy-five—

Don’t spend it worrying—

Huh? Worrying? Why drink alone at a fucking stinking bar, if you’re not trying to prevent worrying? But that car slid out from under the voice that said more, and more, shit from next stool, but the interstate sign says, turn, so turn, and slow, and brake, and steer, and there’s the box coming, coming up. It has all necessary parking places, and it’s pushing all words said last night away; so, everything is wonderful, beautiful, fabulous and pure—park, shut, zip up the emergency brake even though nobody in real life ever uses it for an emergency. Emergency brake; what an anachronism! Emergencies happen much too fast, why no one could ever—yes what an anachronism, emergency brake! Emergency brake, what an—

And of course no one notices such a thing; just another jagged shit crack to be avoided, lest someone unsuspecting stumble; just something else the damned town will never fix; a little shit crack, like all the others; not a one even worth two shits, or less, of some scam.

—anachronism; and over and over the words circle round tighten and move so here’s the cube with its shrine; its glowing screen of phony dogshit striving to shoot out smearing all the pretty clean corporate people’s cleanly washed eager faces. And, as at least once every day ever since, at the top of the to-do list every day is item number one. Take time to miss the dead dog. Yes, yes—miss the dead dog for a while. That kills some time. And thank, because back home the sleeper is no doubt up, not in the way of the clock anymore. Why does time only become visible and easy to know, when no one’s wanting to know what it is? Yes, the world is—yelling from the next stool again.

One minute, not now, too busy, be right there, called out Eli, from the other darker room where he sat lancing a great boil on his arm with a knife, bringing all sticky white ooze flowing down, and Father squeezed and squeezed where the boil had been and more and more ooze came and dripped and dripped and dripped, like some liquid spilled on rough cobbles that would go to waste and be gone and forgotten forever in the heat coming down from the sun—

Sure as hell, that’s what the drunk just said! Reading a story or a script, it seems. And now that the period of mourning the long-dead dog is forgotten, the work of the day could be begun. That is, the work, you know yes; such as it is in the corporate box o’ cubes all day; not much, but pays well. Sure does, does it not, do you think? Yes, I think it pays stinking fucking well, it does, sitting here all day pretending this job is real.

Sleeping partner is risen.

Just do what I’m fucking asking you to do!

All right, have a drink, don’t be nasty, I mean that’s just a cutie bartender you’re talking to, yeah—and the sleeper comes down half sleeping and silent and very much aware of the task that needs to be done today—because of last night’s words—

The blood-drenched man’s smile and face faded away, as he got up, continued on, and step by step finally reached the place they would put him to death.

Jesus Christ, he’s drunk enough, to sit quietly someplace far away inside. But, what the fuck did he mean? What universe is he from, tonight, here, flowing out spew from the bottles all doubled across in the mirror up stretched behind; see the world? The world is full of things voices thoughts and words; thank God I am not home this morning not having left early staying to leave as usual, saying to the risen sleeper trying to break through the trouble trying stupidly to make the trouble last night never happened—

So what are you thinking this morning? You’re not talking. Want to talk? Friends again? Shit. Grip this glass. Thank God that’s not; thank God for everything coming from on the next stool.

By now, he was probably just dead and gone.

Whisky shot washed down, and Lord, that was a close one, but; what was close, what? There was just a close that raised, raised my hackles, but if it raised my hackles it ought to come out from hiding behind the whisky mirror wall and show itself; and it does. Starts coming need to go—

You said things I never thought I would hear you say. You said that you were—

No! Not ready! Grip the glass harder. It will not break. They are built to last.

As she disappeared, Ben snapped off his gloves and swept back his mask, and walked from the room where the swaddled baby lay sleeping, just like everybody else. These things, I can never forget. Now I must get to the next place to be, before the mist falls to the solid point, trapping him frozen forever in between, yes, yes; walking faster, faster, walk—

Tight grip. Keep tight grip; it’s coming, can’t stop it, it’s rising, in the word-waves there’s dark shapes; no swimming, no. No swimming.

Vitus did not know it, but he and the horse were exactly the same; days spent nodding, blinking, and dreaming the passing time.

Oh no, here’s the sleeper, come in on the word-waves, from the thing stop the next stool.

These things, I can never forgive.

He shook his head and sniffed in the dank smell of the hallway and, forgetting her a bit more with every step he took, he headed toward whatever was next.

Next? Go on. Say what’s next. We can take it.

In the end most things turn out to have been nothing at all.

At that it came coming, and before the sleeper slept last night, here came again the words; For a long time I’ve been waiting for the special instant to hit, for me to say I love you. Thank God, that instant didn’t come before you showed me the real you. It’s easier to never say I love you than to say it and have to take it back. I hate to need to take things back. I’m so glad, that on top of the way you have already made me feel, that you haven’t forced me to hate you. That would be the most terrible punishment, laid on top of how you have already made me feel. Life would stop being worth living. And it would all have been because of you. You would have needed to be punished. You wouldn’t want to know the ways I would find to punish you.

Oh my God, yes, it came.

Where the fuck is the voice from the next stool I need it now!

I will be gone when you come home. And you will be all alone.

It came and it went, the whisky beer and wine and all flowed hotly out over the floor to cover it as though unsaid, but I don’t care, no; the stranger on the next stool will make it all go to never happened again. Yes, come, come keep me safe.

Save me.

But the stool is empty now. He must have had enough, and left.

At least now, I’ll be able to see the clock hands glow each day I awake alone every morning. Nothing will be in the way anymore. That’s a good thing, no?

Okay. Me either. I suppose I better go home, too. You can close the place now.

It is very late.

***

Beyond the usual glow-in-the-dark artifact, there are some special cases where glowing products work a little differently. Glow sticks work by chemiluminescence—that is, the light is emitted as a product of a chemical reaction. Items that need to glow continuously with little or no “charge,” like clock or watch hands that glow for hours after a light has been turned off, work by radioluminescence. Timepieces like this still use phosphors to create the glow, but also have a little bit of a radioactive element like radium added to the glowing parts, which gives off small amounts of energy, not enough to be dangerous to the user, but, historically, a problem for the people who make the products that constantly charge the phosphors in the same way a light would, and keep the item glowing through the night.

Jim Meirose’s stories have been widely published, and his novels include Le Overgivers au Club de la Résurrection, Understanding Franklin Thompson, and Sunday Dinner with Father Dwyer, all on Amazon. More info at www.jimmeirose.com.