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It’s as if I’ve stepped into a time machine, and twisting in my barstool, I take it all in. The low-lit bar. The globular lights hovering about the place in that speak-easy way. Everyone in suits and long dresses, their hair done up in the old way. 40’s jazz roaring rampant from the speakers. The bartender, a heavyset man in a fedora, suit vest, and suspenders, black gauges in his ears, and boasting a throat tattoo of a dragon, places a whiskey before me. I nod in thanks.
He slides his fingers along the hat’s rim, leans on the counter. “You know Classic Monsters was last weekend’s theme, yeah?” He points over his shoulder to the flier stuck to a paint-chipped pillar. A man and woman dressed to the 9’s, pistols in both their hands. It reads: Step into the Noir. He smiles, pours a shot for himself. “Gotta say though: the bullet holes in the jacket? The fake blood, dirt, and grime?” he raises the glass to me. “You make one hell of a zombie punk. That what we’re going for here?”
I lift my whiskey to him. “Nailed it.”
We turn our drinks back, and he full body shakes like a wet dog. Two young men in suits, college-age and hands clasped in one another’s, take up stools not far from me. The barman moves to meet them with a smile.
The bar’s a buzz with dancing couples and jazz, and I’m taken back to the 40s in Baltimore, to that dingy club where the whiskey flowed like water. I remember being transfixed by the drummer—full and sweaty, pained look on his face—as he rat a tat tatted the snare like his ma’s life depended on it. Hannah at my side, those eyes wide and overwhelmed as well. She turns to look at me, and—no one’s there. Just an empty stool between me and the men seated a seat or two over.
I turn back the whiskey again, and with every sip I think of her. That calm demeanor, the antithesis of myself, and how she’s just...gone. How I’m still here, just looking for a reason to be—but isn’t everyone? Perhaps reasons to stay aren’t just handed out. Maybe you find them as you go, if your eyes are open, whether you’re looking or not.
The noir boys next to me share a kiss as a big frat-type slides a bucket of beers from the bar. He nudges into my shoulder, ignorant and clearly drunk, and scoffs, mutters something I and the couple both hear. He puffs out his chest, as if to continue, but refrains when a roaring cheer climbs over the general noise of the crowd. He lifts the beers to the sky, and heads back to his bros he so lovingly refers to.
One of the men slumps at the bar, crying as his partner consoles him, all while flashing angry looks back at the mouth-breather’s table. I read their lips: Wanna go? the one in the fedora asks, casting a glance back at the loudening horde, oblivious and pulling from their beers. Shouting at any and all who walk through the sticker-plastered front door.
As the tender passes me, I wave him down, pointing to the whiskey still on the bar. I flash four fingers, nudging my chin to the couple, who are pulling on their coats, pushing in their stools. The barman nods and lines up four shot glasses, pouring whiskey into each. He slides me mine, and walks two over to the young men, who pause, confused as he hands them theirs. He points at me, and I lift my glass to them all. We shoot them back, and I tap the bar with the glass’s bottom. The bartender follows suit.
I think the jury’s still out on what that actually means, though I’ve heard all manner of things. That it’s done in respect for all the unseen members of the bar: the cooks, bar backs, tenders, servers, etc. I’ve heard that it’s to dispel spirits in the liquor itself, and that in not doing so after consumption is a provocation. A bad omen. Most believe it’s a toast to the future, good fortune and all that, but I know better. A tap on the bar acknowledges the past, those long gone.
Hannah Grace. Imani. Ma. Pa. Even you, Bodachi...you sonofabitch.
A woman in a wide-brimmed hat with predatory eyes floats across the Television in black and white. She’s stunning, and I’m not sure if I’m dazed or enraptured, but the barman seems to think so.
He twists to the screen, raises the volume a hair, subtitles in clumsy block text stamp below the film noir. “The Killers,” he says, tilting back his fedora. “One of my favorites.”
“Seems swell,” I say, and sip my whiskey again.
“None of my business,” he says, readjusting his hat, rubbing the back of his neck. “But are you alone? Waiting on someone?”
“Yeah,” I reply, because it’s true on both fronts. I am alone, and I wait on them forever now, for those who aren’t coming back. Imani, sitting beside me in that cafe. Me, the cursed nebula swallowing her whole, spitting her out. Hannah, the neglected sister. Me, selfish...all take.
Her blood is a gift, though it always was, and one given for me. See, I’m remembering things I was made to consign to oblivion, and in each recollection, she tells me to forget. In another motel room. In the back of a rig I don’t recognize. Atop a roof overlooking a bay. I must’ve stumbled on them so many times. She weeps in each remembrance, hates what’s happening, all while thinking it’s for the best. And can I blame her? If I could only go back, I’d forget it all over again to be with her.
I grip my glass tight as a joyous roar blossoms around me, like nails to a chalkboard.
Be grateful for your sugar-coated lives, because for some of us, waking up we’re putting on armor.
The piercing laughter. The clinking glasses. The soda gun firing from behind the bar. The rattle of bottles sliding along the wood. Certain words catch my eye on the Television, and quick as they’re there, they’re gone. Something about certain women, the chill of a corpse coming off them.
Grief is a hole in your heart forever unsatisfied. Insatiable, and gorging on you a bite at a time.
Hannah sitting across from me in our bedroom. Worry in her eyes.
At that table in that low-lit bar in New Orleans, watching the sheep dance.
Of us sitting atop some rowhouse roof in Baltimore as the city takes on new life across the harbor. My head finding her shoulder, someone to lean on, someone I leaned on for so long without reciprocation.
Grief is a tomb for those left behind. The true undead. An impossible weight, and you know? I hope it clings to me forever, because what is grief but unexpressed love? And if I still love her, she’s still here somehow.
A scent on the air, and I turn my nose to it. The music dies, and the patrons slow. The same perfume smelled one night near Boston fills the room like an embrace. A quickening heart in a small chest. Boots clicking like the hands of a clock. The door shutting behind her. My heart fills with something I can’t explain, something I’d thought lost. The dust blown from what’s left of my soul.
I could never remember warmth, not really, but always how it made me feel. How I took it for granted.
I exhale, slowly turning in my stool, and she lifts a hand to me, smiles in her way. As Julia crosses the bar, squeezing between frat boys, dancers, all the others, it takes everything not to squint for her brightness. And I smile, remembering what it is to be warm—know I’m staring at the sun.
Acknowledgments
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So many people to thank, so little space to do so. I want to thank Andrew and everyone at DarkLit Press for their enthusiasm regarding this book and for championing it as hard as they have. I’d recommend those with a homeless story to be mindful of DarkLit’s open calls.
To George Cotronis, for the phenomenal cover art. I’ve worked with George a handful of times, and he always picks up what I’m putting down. Thank you.
To everyone who read this in its developmental stages: J.A.W. McCarthy, Sofia Ajram, Justin Montgomery, Eric Raglin, Micah Castle, and Tyler Henry. Thank you.
Special thanks to Ross Jeffery and Eric Raglin, your nonchalant comments on “Hunger Pangs” persuaded me to follow the thread further. Thanks for reminding me that sometimes, well, a story has legs.
To Charlene Elsby, Cynthia Pelayo, Eric LaRocca, Hailey Piper, J.A.W. McCarthy, and Laurel Hightower, thank you for taking the time to blurb this novella and for your unbridled enthusiasm. I was humbled by your words and have great respect for each of you.
And to you, reader. Always you. Thanks for giving this story your precious time. Seconds you’ll never get back—there’s one now...and another. Know that the gift of your time isn’t lost on me.
I wrote this for me in one of the darkest times I’ve ever known, but hope it’s for you too.
There is light out there. Remember that.
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Scott J. Moses
A café in Rossville, Maryland
November 5, 2022
A Note From
DarkLit Press
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About the Author
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Scott J. Moses is the author of Non-Practicing Cultist (Demain Publishing). A member of the Horror Writers Association, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cosmic Horror Monthly, The NoSleep Podcast, Planet Scumm, and elsewhere. His work has been praised by Laird Barron, Brian Evenson, and others. He also edited What One Wouldn’t Do: An Anthology on the Lengths One Might Go To. His debut novella, Our Own Unique Affliction, is slated for release in early 2023 via DarkLit Press. He is Japanese American and lives in Maryland.
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You can find him on Twitter/YouTube @scottj_moses or at www.scottjmoses.com.
Content Warnings
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Alcohol use, suicidal ideation, self-harm, neglect, violence, and musings on the nature of reality. How little we know.