Short Fiction: Various Answers

This is the first story published in the original Xeroxed issue of Moisst.
Note: This is the original, pre-edited draft of the story.

Various Answers
By A. Giampietro

There was a time when most days I just felt bad. I don't know what to say about it other than I just didn't feel right. There was no joy, no fear, no sense of any sort of loss or anything. I just didn't seem to feel anything. I went by day after day and before me passed faces and names, ideas and morals, the ambiguous line between fiction and fact eluded my perception, and worse yet, I was indifferent to it all. I suppose that the only thing that stopped me from walking down to Water Tower with an assault rifle is the fact that I was just so apathetic about everything.


I decided I needed a vacation. Perhaps a few days away would help. I talked to my boss he agreed that I needed a vacation as well and pretty much told me not to let the door hit me in the ass on the way out. I went to the bank and deposited the check. For the first time in months I made a deposit without having an outstanding balance. The weather was beautiful that day. Halloween was mere days away and the mercury neared 70, the leaves were changing colors, and as the sun set it turned the sky a faint pink. I made arrangements to visit friends in Phoenix and was to leave the next morning giving me about twelve hours to kill before my flight.    I stopped at a local watering hole to see about putting down a few beers.

There was a bar in my neighborhood I often went to after work, but I had never been there in the afternoon before. I was usually a late night customer. You'd see some weird characters there around midnight. If you managed to stay there after two, you got to see some really weird characters. Kathy was behind the bar that night. I was a bit familiar with her and actually surprised to see her there as early as I was. She was wiping dust off the bottles behind the bar.

She was an attractive young lady and I had spent some sober moments conversing with her, but most of what she had heard from me had to pass drunken lips before reaching her ears. I looked at her face in the mirror behind the bar as she worked. She had a very pretty face. I don't suppose that most people would think so at first glance, but as I sat there studying the details, taking in the whole, breaking it down and seeing it in sections, then viewing it as a whole again. It was then that I noticed that she was looking back at me through the mirror. Waves of shock and shame ran through my spine as I blushed and coyly nodded hello to her.

She nodded hello in return and turned to face me. She walked to the cooler and pulled out a blonde ale, popped the top on the opener mounted on the side of the bar and placed it in front of me with the fluid movements of tedious repetition. I said, "I hope you're not closing up tonight, it's kinda early for ya isn't it?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing. Ya need a glass?"  I waved my hand and took a pull from the bottle as I snaked a five from the wad in my pocket and placed it on the bar.

After placing the change in front of me she turned to attend to the bar's other two patrons, an older Mexican man of about sixty with jet-black hair, and a woman considerably younger than him of obvious beer hound descent. I took another pull from the beer and felt almost as if I might feel happy sometime soon. A feeling of revulsion then began to creep into my brain as I realized that there I was in a bar, probably about to get drunk, and I was happier than I had been in weeks. Oh well, fuck it, I thought. Sometimes ya gotta go with what feels good. I took a long hard pull from the beer.

I was about to swallow when someone slapped me across the back of my head causing my mouth-full of beer to spray across the bar in front of me. I turned to see Jack standing behind me grinning that weird lopsided grin of his. He took a seat next to me and grabbed what was left of my beer and downed it in one long pull. He then turned to me and said, "So what's your problem now mister wishy-washy?  Just here nursing a beer, staring at a woman and thinking about how she'll never go out with ya, huh?  I'll tell ya you're like an open book. You just sit around watching life pass ya by, afraid to jump in and act like a normal person."

"I suppose ya also know what kind of underwear I'm wearing too huh?"

"Yeah, and I suppose it's time ya change 'em too."

"Why don't you go bother someone else huh?"

"Because I like pissing you off . . . even more than that I feel like its high time someone helped you get off your knees and start taking some steps. You've been crawling for too long baby."

"I wish it were all that easy."  Jack was this sorta strange guy that lived in the neighborhood. He was always around the bars late at night and was known everywhere. No one knew what he did and anytime anyone asked him what he did, he just told people he kept the world safe for mediocrity. He was funny, and even though he usually drank all my beer and smoked all of my cigarettes, he had this way of putting life in perspective. He was just one of those people you just can't seem to get away from and think that maybe in some way he was meant to be around in order to help those that needed a foot in the ass every now and then.

"It is ya fucking fool. Let me tell ya I've been to hell and back and I know things that would make ya soil those dirty shorts of yours. Why don't ya listen to some advice for a change . . . better yet why don't you listen to yourself?  You've got all of the answers up there." He then took that opportunity to accentuate his point by slapping me on the head again, "Don't let your self get in the way of what you deserve."

I sat there for a moment and contemplated what he said while staring at the pool of beer on the bar that had been in my mouth only moments before. A hand then appeared with a bar rag to wipe up the mess. The forearms were more hairy and muscular than those I usually like on a woman and I was relieved to see that they belonged to a man and not Kathy. It must have been time for a shift change. "Two PBR, please." I called to the bartender. The bartender then told me he could only serve one beer to a person. I turned to see Jack gone. "He must have gone to the bathroom or something he'd probably be back soon."  The bartender reluctantly placed two PBR on the counter. It was just about the worst beer you could get, but the price was right. If I was going to have to buy beers for Jack all night, I was going have to weigh quality versus quantity. It was ok with me though, after four or five, beer just tastes like beer. It was the next morning that I usually wound up paying . . . cheap beer gives me nasty hangovers.

I took a sip while surveying of the bar to find that the only new addition to the crowd was the additional bartender. Kathy was racking up a game on the pool table once again displaying a disinterested manner of repetition. I watched her mesmerized with the cat like elegance in which she moved. It was as if every move she made had long ago been thought out and it was only a matter of time before her body caught up with her thoughts.

Minutes went by and Jack didn't return. I replayed what he had said to me over and over in my head for some time and realized he was right, but of course, I had known so all along. I turned again to watch as Kathy sunk shot after shot, some with the gentleness of an egg packer, others with the thunderous report of warfare. I wanted to approach her, but all I could think of were reasons not to . . . excuses if you will.

Someone of that caliber of beauty would never be able to understand, or appreciate the eccentricities that lay etched in my brain . . . my own appearance, the bushy blonde hair that never fell right on my head . . . the clothes I wore that were never flashy or stylish. She was the type of woman that I felt would only appreciate a man who had qualities opposite mine.

Then something deep in my self reached out and over and over in my head I heard Jack's voice say, "You've been crawling for too long baby."  I picked up both beers and walked to the pool table. "Hey," I piped up. I was nervous as all hell and my throat went instantly dry as soon as I began to speak. The sound that came from my throat sounded less like speech then it did throat clearing. She looked over at me and nodded as she surveyed the variety of shots the balls had placed themselves in across the table. "I uh, ordered an extra beer on accident, ya want it?"  It wasn't my most interesting of lines, but it guess it worked because she accepted and asked me to join her in a game. "Sure, I'm not a very good player, I usually run either hot or cold, but I like to play."  I grabbed a stick and chalked it up. She made another shot and told me to shoot at the solids until we cleared the table. I lined up an easy corner shot and looked up to see that she was leaning over the pocket I was shooting at while giving me a view of some very finely displayed cleavage. My shot went way off mark.

"I win more games with that move. It's my best defense. Nice huh?"

"The strategy or the show. Either one is just as good as the other I guess."

"Pool is mental, ya gotta learn to relax."  She then made a series of shots clearing all of the striped balls from the table whistling the theme to the Mary Tyler Moore show as she did so. She then walked over toward the beer I had brought her and took a sip, grimacing as she swallowed. "You like this kind of beer?"

"Not really, but I'm leaving for Arizona early tomorrow morning and I'm trying to conserve funds for the trip."
"Family?"

"Friends"

"That's cool. What would you rather have?"  Various answers came to mind, but I decided not to be a smart ass for a change and told her I'd rather be drinking blonde ale. "I got some pull around here, I'll go get us some."  She took the beers we were drinking and pored them out in the sink as she told the bartender to get us two more. I watched her and once again marveled at the grace and beauty with which she carried herself. I knocked the balls around the table trying in vain to put them home. It was not one of my good pool game days and I was beginning to feel waves of insecurity wash over me. Waves of tension and fear mixed with doubt and hopelessness passed through me as I watched her walk back to the table. Eye contact was made as she returned and never faltered until after we held our beers to each other and drank. I moved to rack the balls for a new game. She then raised protest to the way I was setting up the balls. "Now wait," She said. "This one goes here, and this one like this . . ." she didn't give me time to get out of the way and was reaching around my waist as she rearranged things. " . . . Then ya gotta grab the triangle like this, and shove it forward like this."  The movements she then made brought what she previously referred to as her secret defense firmly against my back. "There, ya feel that?"  Once again various answers came to mind, and a shrill dry voice replied affirmatively. She then backed off and shot me a demure little smirk that melted my spine.

We shot the balls around for longer than I had planned on, but I really had nowhere to be till five the next morning and I was unable to break away from the hope and free beer. Eventually the bar filled up and we played teams with other patrons controlling the table most of the night. The more intoxicated we became, the better we seemed to be playing and flirtatious banter abounded between us the whole night. Every now and then a guy would approach her and start up a conversation with her, filling me with jealousy each time, but she always shook them off for my company replacing the jealousy with ten-fold joy. Eventually we retired ourselves to the bar leaving pool for those still eager to get in a game or two before last call. We sat there not really saying much, gazing alternately between beers and each other. A long period of eye contact ended with her rubbing my hair and saying, "You're sorta cute."

"I gotta tell you," I began. I then stopped myself short. This was where I usually blew things. I had this desperate knack for reaching too far, saying too much and spoiling a moment, but I was too intoxicated to stop myself. I continued even though I was sure the results would be disastrous. "Hey, now, I had a great time playing pool with ya tonight, but I gotta fly to Arizona in a few hours and I was wondering if ya wanted to come with."  She laughed and rubbed my head again, telling me she had to work the next three days. "No wait . . . ya see I got a two-hour lay over in Vegas and I figure that gives us just enough time to hop a cab to the Elvis chapel to get married. See they won't be mad at you for taking time off for your own wedding will they?"  I instantly tasted foot odors, but she laughed at the proposition and her eyes sparkled in a display of drunken coyness. "Come on it'll be fun. Afterwards you can put on my tux and I'll put on your dress and we can do it."  She laughed even harder and placed her hand on my thigh as she leaned over and kissed my cheek.

On the plane, the whine of the engines and air compressors reminded me of the fact that I had gone way over board the night before. Various recollections of the previous night ran through my head, but I was unable to put them in any sort of order. I remembered hanging with Kathy the night before and having a good time, I remember that I said something stupid, or maybe I just assumed that I had since that was usually the case. I decided not to worry about it, she was a bartender and probably heard a lot of guys say a lot of stupid things . . . if she didn't get over it I probably would. Anyway, I was on vacation, all I really had to do was hope the drink cart would be by soon and I could get a little dog hair to help me nap. It would be a long flight and hopefully I could sleep things off and become a little more functional before I landed. I had over slept and had to rush in order to just barely make the flight and had been drinking cup after cup of coffee on the way to the airport in order to sharpen my wits. This however only seemed to amplify my shaky nerves and cause grave tension on my bladder. I got up and made my way to the bathroom. I looked at my blood shot eyes in the mirror and smiled to myself as I rubbed at my temples. I then turned, undid my pants and saw I was wearing women's panties. I relieved my aching bladder and chuckled to myself.