It’s funny how a guy can spend thirty years at the same old grind, slowly finding himself becoming more and more jaded by people pulling the same old shit day after day, and then in just a second, just when you really think you’ve seen all the world’s got, someone can find a way to surprise you again.
I’ve worked at this crusty old bar since I was eighteen years old, right out of high school when I still got a kick out of how this job lets you see some of the best booze-fuelled hijinks the city has to offer. I’ve seen the best bar fights and bachelor parties. I’ve seen relationships just starting out, and I’ve seen relationships that go south and die. I even watched some dumb fuck propose to his girlfriend right next to the antique jukebox out by the bathrooms- how he thought that a seedy bar was the right place for such a non-seedy thing is beyond me, but I watched it happen just the same.
That happened on a Wednesday; I remember because Wednesday is shipment day and the guy ordered our entire crate of champagne, fresh off of the delivery truck. This happened on a Tuesday, and I’ll probably always remember it as a Tuesday because everybody knows that nothing good ever happens on a Tuesday.
The thing you learn fast while being a bartender is the three types of people who come to get a drink on a Tuesday. First, you’ve got the people who’ve had some unexpected excitement/disappointment in their lives and feel the need for a spontaneous night of celebration/sorrow-drowning. They’re usually loud and kind of annoying, but they sure do buy a lot of booze from me, so I’m not complaining.
Second, you have your steadfast regulars, who don’t bother anyone, really. They’re usually nice fellows just having a casual hangout with the gang, though you do sometimes wonder if their livers are doing okay if you take the time to think about it. They aren’t like the first type, who you see once and then never again. You get to know your regulars over time, and you learn which ones you like and which ones you don’t. Honestly, if I had to pick favorites, I might have said it was Rita.
Rita was a regular at the bar for I don’t even know how many years. She was one of those people who you could never really figure out what she did for a day job that let her stay out at a bar until closing time on a weekday, getting hammered. You didn’t want to know either. What my patrons do to make money is a topic that I learned pretty quickly to ignore.
She was one of those women who you only ever see wearing so much makeup that you probably wouldn’t recognize them without it. Her face always looked mean to me, but it could have been the damn makeup, who knows? Her eyebrows were penciled in so strong it looked like she was giving you the hairy eyeball. Otherwise, I guess she was pretty. I don’t know. More than anything, I just noticed how tiny she was. She barely broke five feet tall, and she was skinny, too. Half the time guys in the bar would end up buying her a drink just after they slammed into her accidentally because she was below their line of vision. She was probably in her mid 20s but she was the size of a middle school kid. She made up for her lack of height with attitude, that’s for sure. I’m pretty sure our first interaction went something like this:
“What’re you having?”
“I don’t know, man, just fuck me up! But be cheap about it, I’m not made of cash.”
She’d laughed her low, gravelly laugh and then let me give her a new mixed drink that I’d just invented. She made me give her a discount when she told me it tasted like horseshit, but I didn’t really mind. It probably did taste like horseshit, and you can’t blame a girl for being honest.
The regulars are my favorite type in the same way the third type of Tuesday drinkers are my least favorite. The third type you see is the your nasty type. Some are easy to spot- track marks, missing teeth, slimy clothing, that kind of face that looks like it’s always snarling at you. Others, well, they’re kind of like spoiled milk. They might look good enough to put on your cheerios, but you have to open up them up and give them a smell to know they’ll make you sick. From the first time Mike walked into my bar, I knew better than to buy his charm right away.
The problem is, this guy had charm. He’d been coming in here a few times a week for a couple years even though he didn’t really seem to belong here at first glance; his clothes weren’t super ritzy, but he wore a collared shirt and jacket in a place where most people are barely pulling off a wrinkled polo. He was tall, and his hair was styled in a way you know took some money and product. He wasn’t attractive enough to turn heads but he picked up women just fine after a little leg work. He’d flash his businessman smile and schmooze, and then he’d seal the deal by offering to buy his target a drink. It’s sad, but that usually does it. Free stuff is hard to pass up, even if you aren’t really buying the act. After that, the night usually seemed to go the way he wanted it to- he’d leave with a woman and that was that.
That all seems okay, right? A man’s allowed to have a sex life. I would have thought so too, but I’ve seen this before too many times. If a guy seems like he doesn’t belong in a place, he probably doesn’t. That guy could have fit in at a bar in the nicer part of town, easy. With the way he gives out free drinks to strangers, you know he’s got cash.
I remember back when I was just starting the job, I saw a guy just like him. I don’t remember this one’s name, probably because he wasn’t important enough for anyone to have said it out loud. Average Joe, we’ll call him. Joe here went around wearing his nice suits, his fancy watches, his perfectly shined shoes, and he looked like a total dumbass sitting on the creaky old barstools that were covered with some combo of beer, piss, and puke. He’d pick up women just the same- always so kindly buying the ladies as many drinks as they asked for, plus some. When I was taking the trash out one night and caught him with his hand up some girl’s cheap leopard print skirt, I won’t lie, I didn’t see it coming. The shithead had her propped against the dumpster, and she just flopped there, way too many rum and cokes into the night. I could hear the sound of his belt buckle clanging against the metal while he had his way with her. He wasn’t quiet about it either; with each clank you could hear him gasping and grunting. It was 3:00 AM, who was going to hear him? He saw that I was there eventually, and he didn’t even say anything, didn’t look worried about it even a little. He was smug, truth be told. He just tossed her aside, buckled his belt, and left me with some drunk girl lying in the alley, her skirt still hiked up.
You don’t ever forget something like that. What you do is you go home and hope to God you never see it again. It does though, over and over again. It’s not even worth mentioning how many more times that sort of thing happened to me, but by this point, I don’t even really bother feeling disappointed by these guys. You gotta learn that even if a guy looks like an outsider in a hole like this, where it’s so clearly not the place normal, happy people like to go, he knows better than you. He knows that he damn well isn’t out of place. He knows he’s not good enough for anything better than this.
So yeah, I had Mike pegged right away. It wasn’t that hard to do. The actual hard part is guessing what shit thing they’re gonna pull in the end. Every man has a vice, and I swear I’ve seen them all: sex, porn, violence, drugs, you name it. I was guessing Mike was some kind of sex fiend, which I would have preferred because then I probably wouldn’t have had to see it. Usually- and I hate how I can only say usually- people keep that freaky shit behind closed doors. Unfortunately for everyone involved, myself included, Mike was one of the violent ones. Not in the bar fight type either, which is amusing on a good day and a hassle on a bad one. It wasn’t in an obvious way. I only noticed because when you’re one of the few sober ones in a room full of drunks, you don’t have anything better to do but notice.
Mike’s typical move seemed to be the one night stand, but on at least two separate occasions, he settled down for a little with one of the girls who fell for his nice guy routine. They seemed to like him enough, and he kept buying them drinks and schmoozing, but you could tell things weren’t right- Mike was getting mean. The girls showed it in different ways, and it started out little- the first girl just got really twitchy, and the second one got really quiet. Pretty soon though, you could tell. Their make-up got heavier, and they started covering up with sweaters even though when they first started coming to the bar, they’d show up barely dressed. I don’t remember much I learned in high school, but that was some textbook “red flag” shit. It’s common sense, too. I honestly don’t know how no one else seemed to notice, but then again most of them were drunk. And really, they probably just didn’t care.
There was no dramatic end to either of those relationships as far as I saw. I just slowly saw less and less of those girls until I never saw them again. Mike always stayed though. He had nowhere else to go.
When you know a guy is shit, but it’s still your job to give him his order, it’s hard to not want to spit in his drink. Luckily for him if I had to spit in the drink of every last piece of trash that I served drinks too I’d have no spit left in me. It’s also hard to watch when he finds his next target. On a Thursday, probably four months before the eventful Tuesday, he found his next girl and it just had to be Rita.
From the start, I had Rita pegged, just like Mike. I liked her, sure, but I gotta admit that you see girls like her all the time. The girls who grew up rough and ended up this weird combo of hardened and vulnerable. Some of them come in with their friends; some come alone. They don’t usually leave alone. They don’t really know what they want, so they come here, get drunk, and pretend that a night with some lousy piece of shit will be good enough.
I won’t lie, when I was just started out, I thought I was hitting the jackpot with this job because of women like Rita. I mean, I was a horny teenager surrounded with easy women, right? Not all of them were like that, sure, but the ones who came in with their standards low and their tits out were the only ones that stuck out.
Way before Rita, my favorite around the bar was a girl named Lola. When she first started coming to the bar, I was newly twenty, newly promoted, and extra arrogant. I told myself she was in her early twenties, too, but I was kidding myself with that one. She was closer to thirty and the years hadn’t been good to her. Her voice was gravely from all the packs of cigarettes she’d smoked since she was probably fourteen, and she had this permanent frown that meant she’d seen shit. Like Rita, she was a weekday regular, and it was anyone’s guess how she paid for all those drinks.
Well, I started pulling the moves, shooting her a wink when I passed her a drink and telling her it was on the house. Holy hell, I was so embarrassing. After a couple of weeks, she seemed to just run out of reasons not to humor me, so we ended up fucking against the jukebox the second closing time came around. There was no joy in it, and when we were done, she threw in something that was supposed to be a joke, but really just made me feel like shit. This one’s on the house for once, she said. She laughed a little but you could tell it wasn’t funny.
Like I said, it’s better not to ask about their day jobs.
Rita definitely fell into this group- the damaged, the bitter, and the desperate. I don’t know what about her tipped me off in particular. You could just tell. It was a combination of the little things, like the look of skepticism she gave in the few times someone was actually nice to her, and the pissed but accepting look she gave whenever someone was extra nasty. When I first met her, I think she reminded me of Lola in a way I didn’t really know what to do with. At some point you’ve got to realize that you’ve gotten to the point in life where you aren’t the young guy chasing tail anymore. I was in a new place with her; I didn’t want to fuck her but I always liked the days that she came into the bar best. I looked forward to making up more horseshit drinks to try out on her.
That’s why when she came to the bar that one Thursday- I remember it was a Thursday because she ordered the Thursday special two for one Margarita deal- I was not happy to see Mike crawl up next to her. “Can I buy you a drink?,” he asked. I wanted to roll my eyes. So predictable. I just kept squeezing lemon into Rita’s drink.
I could see exactly how this was going to play out in my mind. I’ve only seen it happen a thousand times. Enter Mike, the guy that’s just okay enough to put up with for a night, god forbid any more than that. Enter Rita, the kind of girl who could easily fall into his trap and get pummeled for it. I’d seen her put up with guys that had a lot less going for them.
Sure, why not? That’s all Rita had to say on the matter. If you ask me, why not isn’t a good enough reason to do anything. But no one asked me.
They probably went back to his place after that and had the kind of sex that two people who don’t care that much about each other have. That should have been the end, but when do things ever end when they should? Next Thursday, Mike’s buying her another cheap Margarita and she’s just interested enough to keep it going with him.
I’m supposed to be just the guy that hands out the drinks. I think I pull it off pretty well most of the time. It helps that all the screw-ups I’m surrounded with aren’t even creative enough to keep me interested. But I can’t lie, I really didn’t want to watch this teeny tiny girl I’d been seeing regularly for almost half a decade get the crap kicked out of her. I had to remind keep myself that it’s not like she was really that pleasant. More than anything she just hadn’t ever left without paying her tab, which does a good a job as any at making me like you. That’s all.
So you can imagine the dilemma when Mike and Rita’s “relationship” started taking the expected turn. It always starts small. One Monday night, Rita spilled a drink and Mike screamed at her for it. Cue the pissed but accepting grimace. The next night they showed up together, this time a Wednesday, neither of them were smiling and she was wearing some pretty rough hickies on her neck that looked like they weren’t that fun to get. I’ve seen good hickies and bad hickies, and those were bad hickies for sure. Another night, when she went to put some money on the bar for their drinks, he grabbed her arm and twisted the money out of it. “I can pay for this, why are you trying to make me look like an ass?” he practically hissed at her. What a class act.
Most of the time, I don’t pay too much attention to any particular group in the bar. I’ll make quick conversation with my regulars. I’ll get the update on the wives of my regular beer drinkers (and don’t think about why they never invite them out). I tease Marcy, the fifty-year old bank employee that always comes in to rant about her crapsack boss over a whiskey sour (and try not to think about how I’m closer to her age than I’d like to admit). But the more I noticed about Mike and Rita’s little whatever-it-was, the less I could move on after a quick glance.
They came in one Monday, and instead of my usual “Hey, Rita, what’ll it be? Or do you want to try something new?” I couldn’t stop myself from throwing in a “What’s with the scarf, kid? It’s only September!”
I mean, come on. We all know what’s up with the scarf. I can’t be the only one here.
Rita never seemed to like it much when I got anywhere near her personal life. You could tell she didn’t want my pity, and especially not my judgement.
“Aw, shut up, man. I can wear a damn scarf whenever I want.”
She tried to keep it light and casual but she never managed to get rid of her pissed off frown. It also didn’t help that her eyebrows weren’t penciled on quite right, so she looked a little goofy.
Some days I saw her were good days, and it was easy enough to think (pretend) that everything would be fine. She and Mike would get drunk and dance, and they’d leave without me even noticing. Other days were bad days, and Rita looked like she would rather be anywhere else on the planet while Mike just looked like all he could think about was the sex they were probably having later. Who knows, maybe that was the only redeeming quality of their relationship. I don’t really want to think about it. All I know is that the bad days started to happen more often than the good days. They always do.
On the last Tuesday before The Tuesday, Mike and Rita came in together around 11 PM, already a little buzzed. Rita was wearing more makeup than I’d have thought you could fit on that little face of hers, and her black tights had a bunch of runs in them that clearly weren’t on purpose. Mike just looked trashed. His tie wasn’t done right, he’d ditched the jacket he never seemed to leave the house without, and his hair gel was a wet, goopy mess that he’d clearly thrown on in five seconds.
“Looking good tonight, guys.” That’s all I said to them, because I’m an asshole.
Mike just glared. He never really liked me much. He got all protective of Rita- or I guess you’d say possessive. He grabbed her elbow and turned her away from me, muttering something angrily that I didn’t bother listening to. They both got their drinks and then went off to sit in the corner. It was like they just sent off a negative energy, those two. People wouldn’t sit near them.
Before they left, Rita stumbled over to the bar to pay their tab, since apparently Mike was too plastered to give a shit who paid now. I think I expected her to look sad, but if anything, she just looked gone. You can’t have that many bad days in a row without losing yourself just a bit. It was like nothing could touch her anymore. Her hands shook when she forked over some cash.
“Are you okay?” I should have asked.
“Want me to punch that guy square in the face?” I wanted to offer.
“A buck fifty is your change,” I actually said.
I don’t know if anything I did that night would have mattered, if I could have made things end up better. I probably shouldn’t think about that. All that matters is what did happen, right?
What did happen is that I didn’t say shit, and they showed up at the bar again the very next Tuesday. The eventful Tuesday.
They were sober this time. Mike walked in with his nice jacket back on, his chest puffed out like he thought he was important because of it. Rita trailed behind him, her hands stuffed into the deep pockets of her oversized leather jacket. She kept glancing around like she didn’t trust anyone in the room. It was a busy night at the bar, and I had a lot of more enjoyable people I could have talked to hanging around. One of my other regulars, Harry, had just come back from a hunting trip in the mountains and he was gathering a nice crowd around him as he told his success stories. I only half listened, keeping my eye on Mike and Rita in their corner by the jukebox.
“I’ve never hunted with a crossbow before, but I told myself now’s as good a time as any…” Harry was saying.
Mike was downing a beer, ignoring Rita to watch the game. Rita was silently sipping on a bloody mary, giving him this weird side-eye that left me unsettled.
“…I know it’s a bit early for wild turkey season, but you should have seen…”
Mike moved on from beer, and started working his way through a whiskey. With enough booze in him, he was starting to look at Rita in that familiar “I want to fuck you now” way. Rita obviously noticed and was doing her best to ignore him. He whispered something in her ear, and I could just imagine how Rita must have felt to have his warm breath reeking of beer on her face. It turned my stomach.
“…so I’m staring this bear right in the eyes, I swear to God…”
Rita stood up, and I could hear her saying she wanted to listen to a song on the jukebox. Mike grabbed at her, telling her they should just finish their drinks and get out of there, but she sidestepped his hand. You could tell this pissed Mike off– the guy wasn’t good at being told no.
“…I’m aiming right at it, and I’m thinking it’s now or never…”
Mike stood up, and you’d think someone had pissed in his cheerios with all the rage I saw in him. I don’t even want to think about what gave him so much anger in his life. Maybe his mom beat him as a child, who’s to say? He didn’t yell at Rita, he just sort of gave a low growl telling her they were leaving. I waited for Rita’s usual acceptance, because once you’ve seen them go dead in the eyes, you know there’s no going back.
But let me tell you, I’ve never heard someone talk back to an asshole with as much venom as Rita did just then.
“They have Can’t Buy Me Love on the jukebox right now, so you can just fuck off while I listen to it,” she spat at him. Not gonna lie, I chuckled a little.
“…and then BAM, I let it fly, and it was a thing of beauty lemme tell you…”
By that point, the whole bar’s attention was on Harry, who really was a hell of a storyteller. That’s why when Mike slapped Rita right in the face, no one noticed. I did, though.
Rita didn’t even make a noise when it happened. I barely heard the sound of the slap over the music and Harry yammering on, but I knew it had to have hurt. She curled up a little bit, shaking with what I thought was fear. Then she stood up, stiff as a board, and I knew that she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t done, either.
What I saw in that tiny woman was a rage that made Mike’s look like child’s play. All of the pity, the feeling that I should protect her, that went right out the window. In that moment, I was just glad I wasn’t on the receiving end.
I was confused when it happened; at first I thought Rita had gone in for a hug. Mike looked confused, too. I think the last thing he said was just “what the hell?” before he flopped down on the floor. Rita stared at him for a little while, looking probably the best I’ve ever seen her. Satisfied. She shot a quick look over at me, and that’s when I saw the knife and the blood on her jacket.
I don’t really remember calling the cops. I don’t remember much about the effort we made to stop Mike from bleeding out on the dirty, sticky floor. I couldn’t tell you how many times she stabbed him by the end- was it five or seven? I’ve tried to forget how much blood there was, all pooled up by the jukebox.
I’ll always remember it was a Tuesday, though. I’ll remember how Rita never ran, even though she could have. I’ll remember the look on her face when they slapped on the handcuffs. She looked like somebody who had been dreaming of doing something for so long that she was lost in the high of having finally done it. You could tell she didn’t have a single regret.
Everyone has their vices. It turns out Rita liked to fight.