On Something Different

So, I’ve been trying to pick up my manuscript. I’ve been working on it since 2016….here’s an excerpt where one of the supporting characters is introduced. Maybe, if I put out bits and pieces it’ll turn into something..here it goes….

The voice message was waiting for him. She’d been calling him, on and off, for the past 2 months. It was like a cycle — they’d drift apart, have separate lives, then one of them would reach out. A seemingly innocent “thought of you, how you doing?” But always the unsaid between them was simmering right below the surface.

Up until today he’d not bothered to answer. He was living with someone now — a whirlwind courtship that seemed to have all those synchronicities shouting “this is the one!” So she moved in 4 weeks ago, he sent out the obligatory “Hey, here’s my updated contact info and guess what? I have a live in girlfriend!” to his friends. That “friends” list was heavily composed of women — his black book, if you will. He felt good about “doing the right thing” and letting them all know he was now on a different path. One where he was faithful, taking into account someone else’s needs, living a better life. Responsible. Respectful. Caring. That he had reformed from the person he’d been to most of them, well, all of them, truth be told. Where his fears, self absorption, apathy, and rashness usually led to him fucking up and the relationship ending in a blazing dumpster fire while he walked away, to the next bed, the next woman. Hell, recently most of them hadn’t even been relationships — just casual hookups. Always searching…for what, he wasn’t entirely sure. For excitement? To be found? To be saved?

Sitting at the bar, the message gnawed at him. Sarah was out of town the next two days visiting her family in NH. He had been able to knock off work early, well 11 pm being early for his lifestyle, and he walked into his regular where his beer and shot were waiting. More accurately beers and shots, because the city doesn’t sleep and usually neither did he, and being awake just reminded him of everything he never seemed to do, never seemed to do right, or did right but somehow it never filled that void, was never satisfying. The voices in his head would whisper softly and build to a crescendo to drown out reality so he couldn’t breathe. The only thing that kept them somewhat at bay was the beers, the shots, the drugs, the women, the sex, the drama — generating intense emotions to counter the ones that were ready to engulf him at all times. The feelings of fear, anger, shame…It was what he could control, doing those things that walked the darker sides of human nature where enormous energy waited and beckoned that created a barrier between him and the voices. The darker things….they seduced him….and he would slip into them like a comfortable cloak. But every time it took something more to keep those voices at bay, something deeper, something darker, and the irony is that doing that “something more” is what caused his life to spin out of control even more, giving the voices their power.

Tonight the voices were loud. He’d had a bad night, he couldn’t seem to do anything right and the bar was filled with bad tippers, plus there’d been that group of women, taunting him as they were obviously out looking for fresh meat and they’d cast their net in his direction. He’d been cursed or blessed to be tall, dark, and attractive with striking eyes that caught women’s attention and pulled them in. Adding in his higher than average intelligence and natural charm, he made a lucrative career bartending without much effort. Leaning over just so to ask him for a vodka martini, sexual innuendos flowing from red luscious lips, fingers brushing his arm as he refreshed their drinks — it was a stale replay from every woman at a bar looking for that same escape he was and lately he’d been able to dismiss it. He was changed. But tonight the voices were loud.

Sarah wasn’t here to help him drown the voices out. Usually, a bottle of wine shared together on the couch then moving to the floor, bed, wherever, to let physical pleasures dominate his world and give him momentary release to push the voices away. Those feelings he needed and knew how to quickly and reliably generate to give him relief. Tonight, Sarah wasn’t there. He tapped his fingers on the phone….the voices kept taunting him….echoing with what he did wrong, that he was never good enough, that everyone laughed at him…..

“You’re worthless” “No one loves you.” “You fuck everything up.” “You’re a disappointment.”

Looking down at his phone, he thought fuck it and opened the message. He already knew what it’d say, and he knew exactly what to say so that in the next few hours, maybe sooner, he’d be slipping into bed and between the thighs of a woman he’d once thought might be the one, but really, they were all the one, as long as they kept the voices quiet.

********

“How could you? How could you do this? I thought you loved me?”

He reread the text message. Closing his eyes, he reached into his heart as the words reverberated in his mind. How could I? I don’t know…I never know…I just do it and then…I don’t know if I feel anything. If it’s possible to feel anything…..love…He opened his eyes.

“Don’t you have anything to say to me?”

His fingers hovered over the screen. What was there to say?

“I can’t believe you have nothing to say to me.”

He locked his phone and put it into his back pocket. Leaning against the bar, he looked around to see who was there. A couple of ladies giggled at the far end, flirting with the bartender. Behind him, there were a few tables filled with regulars. On the other side there were college kids playing billiards, clearly trying to grab the attention of the ladies at the end of the bar.

“Hey Ryan! Where’s Sarah?”

He turned his head and saw a short, slim, blonde man behind the bar placing a beer and shot in front of him.

“Hey Ben,” he said, acknowledging the bartender. Taking the shot glass and tapping it on the bar top, he downed the whiskey in one swallow. “She’s moving her stuff uptown to live with a friend.”

“Moving? Jeez Ryan. I thought she was the one. She just moved in with you! You two looked so happy together and man, she wiped your ass up on that table,” Ben gestured to the billiard table and guffawed. “Couldn’t handle her, huh?” With a nod, Ben walked down to a waiting couple to refresh their drinks.

Ryan froze at the words Ben had uttered.

Couldn’t handle her. Couldn’t handle her. Couldn’t handle her.

The words echoed in his mind. Slowly, Ryan took his phone out of his pocket and sat on the bar stool. Numbly he scrolled through several more messages from Sarah.

“Ryan, the least you can do is text me back.”

“I can’t believe I gave up my apartment to move in with you. I was an idiot!”

“I can’t believe you fucked that woman in our bed!”

“Ryan, I loved you. I believed in you. How could you do this to me?”

“On second thought, don’t text me back. I never want to see you again.”

Ryan put his phone on the bar. Leaning his head into his hands, he heard Ben walk back over to him.

“Women are complex at best, my friend.” Ryan looked to and Ben handed him another shot. “You know what they say. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”

Ryan put down the empty glass. With a wry smile, he said “You’re a terrible therapist, but one of the best buddies I’ve got.”

Looking down at his phone, he saw a message from someone he thought he would never hear from again. Ryan must have turned white because Ben leaned over in concern and shook him.

“Hey, you okay?”

Ryan looked up at him blankly, then blinked his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah man, I’m okay. Hey, what do I owe you?”

“It’s on the house tonight, bud. Take care of yourself.”

“Thanks man,” Ryan nodded absently as he got up and walked out of the bar.

********