She ignores him for a moment, or at least what he says. The important things. Eyes are instead looking past him, honed in on the display of liquor that adorns the wall. “ Can I have something else, please? ” She doesn’t even specify — he knows, already, and she can tell. That she doesn’t crave fruity cocktail Killer Kellers or the mixed drinks in martini glasses that she orders to make herself feel more mature than she actually is — she just wants the burn of something, anything, SOON. She doesn’t let go of her grip on the bartop. “ I don’t want to be anything, ” She says, finally, after a few moments of measured silence. She still isn’t looking at him. And god, even if she wanted to be anything, what could she be? NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING. And maybe that’s why she drinks so much, sits in her room stoned out of her mind whenever she isn’t. Maybe that’s why she makes googly eyes and tugs her top down to show more cleavage at any guy who gives her a second glance, and why she always cries on the ride home, sometimes so hard she has to pull over. And what can one be, in the face of failure? What can one do when they’ve always done nothing, but persist? A whore. A drunk. A pothead. A loser. A nobody. She thinks towards the future — next year, or when she’s Marty’s age. When she’s eighty-five, if she lives that long. There’s no house with a picket fence and a dog and two point five children. There’s no high heels clicking down city streets on her way to a business meeting. There’s absolute, barren, nothingness. And she wants it so, so, so badly. That empty abyss of no tomorrows and no todays and no right nows. “ And if I can be honest with you, ” She looks at him now, really looks at him, and wonders if he’s ever felt the same way she has. If he’s just made it through. If he still hasn’t, and is just alive to tell the tale. “ I don’t think anyone grows up. ”
he sees a fork in the road, and he wishes he hadn’t because now it means he’s culpable. sadly, it won’t be a question of will or won’t. he’s already unscrewing the cap of a strong kentucky whiskey and pouring her glass that ebbs on more rather than less. with little resistance, he slides the glass towards her. he’s the bartender of his childhood, though he’d like to believe he’s more fun. he’d like to believe that he’s less fractured or at the very least has more than an ounce of modesty when revealing his wounds. at the very least he doesn’t have a tattoo dedicated to any of his family members. he finishes the last of his own beer, he doesn’t find the same sort of comfort in it like she does. her reliance is potent, his mulled and subdued. he fights numbness while she seeks it and intuition prays that she isn’t on his path and he doesn’t know why. he’s the greatest, ain’t he ? ha. ‘ so don’t be. ’ he says and he’d meant to be imbue the words with a pride that would make her embrace nothingness for all that it’s worth, but to embrace nothingness is a fundamental impossibility. ‘ do what you want. ’ he’s able to say that with the utmost conviction. selfishness was never a sin, god made it that way. she catches his gaze, or rather seeks it out and it leaves him disconcerted. there’s a paralleling childishness in each of them, and he has to remind himself that although hardly an emblem of maturity, he’s still the adult. the adult pouring her drinks, the adult with a slew of advice that only looks pretty on the surface, the adult with a daughter in new york city that he didn’t know how to properly care for. he could smile, and cheers a glass to her statement. he believes it wholeheartedly. he never did. ‘ that’s not true. you do. eventually. but it’s a fucking fallacy if you think it’s when you turn twenty one. ’
