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GINA LOVES ME. I KNOW that as a truth. She loves me more than any man deserves to be loved, but especially a broken-down fool of a man like me. That girl should run from me as fast and as far as possible. She should take her pretty blue eyes and turn them on someone else. A man who can make her happy and cherish her. A man who is whole.
I’ve buried my life in this corner of the bar with a glass of whiskey as my only sustenance for so long. I can’t even imagine what she sees in me. I’m not a man to be saved or rescued or helped. I’m on the trash heap and that’s where I’ll stay.
“Teach me how to play guitar,” Drew said, sitting down beside me at the bar.
“No.”
I didn’t even turn to face him. It wasn’t open for discussion. I had no interest in becoming a guitar teacher for anyone let alone a scared little pup like Drew. Teaching Drew guitar would have to be on my top ten list of things I didn’t want to do at any given moment and he’d picked the totally wrong time to ask me. My nerves were stretched as tight as a drum knowing what I had to do. Something terrible, something that will rip me apart, and I was so edgy, I might punch him first.
“Come on, Jackson. I thought you were my friend.”
“Yeah, if you want to stay my friend, you’ll shut up about it.”
Gina’s pretty and full of dreams. She has a quiet charm that many overlook but it’s all the sweeter for being hidden. When she walked into the bar, she didn’t turn heads. She didn’t have men look up from their drinking and wish they were the one she searched for. But that’s because most men are blind. They’d rather the glass that glitters like diamonds than to have to polish the diamond to make it shine.
When Gina’s gaze searched the bar, she always looked for me. Even though I’m always in the same place, just like the beer taps and the posters on the walls and the sign that says “no service area”. She’d see me and her eyes would light up, every time.
After tonight, she won’t search for me anymore. She won’t look in my direction and her eyes sure as hell won’t light up.
The first time she came into the bar, she sat in the corner and didn’t talk to anyone. I think she’d come to see one of the bands playing upstairs but had turned up too early and had to wait around. She’d tried to make herself tiny, invisible, but I’d noticed her. I’d noticed her right off. But I didn’t say or do anything. She was a skittish animal who needed to build trust.
I don’t know what it was about her but knowing she was sitting back there made me sit up a bit straighter and try to clean up my language when I spoke.
I wasn’t sure if she’d come back again after that. But she did. The next time she came in, the bar was quiet. There were no bands on. She ordered a drink and sat in the same corner trying to disappear. But Drew got talking to her and then Carlie. I think Drew sat down at her table and told her his life story.
I hated to admit it but it niggled me to see her paying so much attention to Drew. While they talked, I watched how she responded to him, her face animated. A strand of her hair would fall down and she’d tuck it back behind her ear, then it’d fall again. My hand itched to be the one restraining that errant lock.
Then she smiled and it was like a kick in the guts. It wasn’t even much of a smile, just a tiny curl in the corners of her mouth. A polite smile. But it hit me. Oh Lord, it hit me.
She sat there and listened to Drew’s boring story and, trust me, Drew’s stories are always boring. Her gaze didn’t dart around the room and she didn’t fob him off. She’d sat there and listened.
I hated to do this to her.
Drew’s voice yammered in my ear.
“Please, Jackson. It’d be only a few hours a week and I’ll practice really hard. I really, really want to learn guitar.” Drew never gave up.
“So, get Alex to teach you. Or Holden. He seems to be hanging around the bar often enough. They are both good. I can’t even play guitar any more. It’s been so long, I’ve forgotten how. Why would you even want me? It’s not like I’d be able to show you anything, just bark instructions.”
“Alex is too scary. He gets really mean sometimes. Worse than Carlie even. And Holden won’t stick around forever. Do you think Carlie will go with him? As soon as he releases the new album, he’ll go on tour and she’ll go away.”
Holden had stayed in town to lay down this album but he’d not stick around for long. He had a sparkling future ahead of him but I wasn’t sure if Carlie would be happy trailing around on the road with him. She liked being queen of her own domain, not just a hanger-on.
“It’s possible, but who knows with that one. She’s a wild card.”
Gina had been into the bar a handful of times before I even spoke to her. Just a few words in passing. She sat at the bar, talking to Carlie when the night was quiet. I sat on one side of the bar and she sat on the other. That bar, like a huge safety barrier between us. They were discussing one of the bands who’d played the night before.
“They have talent but they’re a bit trite with their lyrics,” I’d said.
Then she quoted a line from one of their songs, twisting the words to have far more meaning than I’m sure the band intended.
Her smile that night was like sunshine, the gentle sunshine of spring that warms your winter bones.
It seemed she moved closer to me around the bar. Sometimes, she’d ask my opinion on something. Was a band worth seeing, who was playing over the next week.
Within a month, she ended up sitting next to me at the bar. We had conversations about real things. And her smile foreshadowed the future.
Gina is far too young and I’m far too old and crotchety. I’m not even a whole man any more, just a shadow. A ghost. There was a real me once, passionate and fiery, a man who had something to live for. Gina brings some of that fire back to my insides. She looks at me and makes me think that maybe that dream I murdered, the one that is buried in an unmarked grave, could be resurrected. But what would that be? A zombie of a dream?
All I can do is down another glass of whiskey and try to get her to see that I’m not worth her efforts. I try, oh how I try, but when she’s around, I only want her to see the best of me. I wish deep down in my soul that I could be a better person, one who deserves her, but I see no way for that to happen.
Gina still hasn’t come into the bar. She’s late or, maybe, she’s come to the realization she’s wasting her time with me. That would save me the pain of making her see that.
She’d been angling for something lately. Something more than just friends. I saw it in her eyes and the way she moved her mouth. I had to go beyond just ignoring it. I had to kill this thing completely. It’ll hurt her for a while, but it’ll destroy the only bit of humanity I have left inside. Like punching a puppy in the face or mugging an old lady. I’ll hate myself for what I do to her but, in the long run, that will be far better than seeing that look of adoration slowly turn to disgust. I need to crush any hope she has growing in her heart. That’s the best thing for her. Otherwise, I’d just end up destroying her as surely as I was destroying myself.
“So, Jackson, now you’ve had time to think about it, I’m sure you’ll agree that teaching me guitar is a very fine idea indeed.”
Drew stood beside me with a dishrag in his hand and a pleading look on his face.
“Why do you even want to learn guitar? Surely the miserable bunch of bastards hanging out in this bar would be enough to turn you off the idea for life.”
Drew screwed up his face in thought. He might be thinking about that for a while.
“But sometimes I have songs and they’re inside me, just playing around, and I need to get them out.”
The poor little bugger was screwed. If he’d said he wanted to do it to pick up chicks or look cool or one of a thousand other reasons, there’d be some hope for him. He’d learn a few chords, fool around with the idea of making it big one day, and then move onto something else, but he had the worst reason of them all. The one that takes root inside you and never leaves. The one that is stronger than love or booze or life itself.
I banged my glass down on the bar. “Enough. I don’t want to hear any more about it. Ever. Give up, Drew.”
Poor Drew. His face dropped. I hated to be a bastard to him but he’d nag me forever if he saw any sign of weakness.
Without thinking, I picked my glass back up with my left hand. Sometimes I forgot. The glass slipped through my fingers because I couldn’t grip it tight. My brain sent the message but the fingers didn’t hear it. They’re closed off to the rest of my body, useless sausages. I grabbed a cloth off Drew and mopped up the mess. He didn’t say a word. He never does. For someone as mouthy as he is, he does know when it’s best to say nothing.
When Gina comes into the bar tonight, after putting my plan into action, I’ll disappear for a while. I’ll miss the bar. It’s been a home to me and a comfort but it’s the only way I can see to fix this. I’ll come back in a few months and, when Gina walks in with a new man, I’ll swallow my sorrow with my whiskey, in one big gulp. I’ll keep my gaze on my glass, not following her around the room. It’ll taste bitter but that bitterness will just blend in with the rest of it inside me.
I don’t want to be cruel and I don’t want to hurt her but, it’d be a crueler man to lead her on. I order another drink. I can’t be sober for this.
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