my bonny lies over the Seagram's

All right, here's my entry for the Drunk At First Sight Blogfest. Rules are simple: grab a drink, cruise over to Jon Paul's blog, click on all the links, and read all the great fiction that the other applicants posted. Go on, do it. Kudos to everyone who signed up and a big hearty round of thanks to (a) Jon Paul for conceiving the idea and working hard to set it all up, and (b) everybody else for gettin' the word out. And by the way, I hope you're wearing green. If not, pinch yourself. Hard. And now, without further ado...

My Bonny Lies Over the Seagram's

(c) 2010 A.T. Post

I was halfway through my third glass when I noticed her. Dunno why I did. The place was packed. The bar was in Boston, and in Boston it was St. Patty’s Day. Everybody in green, everybody totin’ a glass of that godawful Guinness swamp water, happy as pigs in you-know-what. She was all the way across the room, sittin’ at the bar, all by herself. Maybe that’s why I saw her. It’s like when you’re in a noisy room and you can’t hardly hear nothin’ so you tune out all the rest of the gab, but when somebody shouts your name you hear it ‘cause you’re hard-wired to. I see a girl sittin’ by herself in the bar, and she’s pretty much got my name stamped on her ass.

Speakin’ of ass, I can think of a few other reasons why she caught my eye. I’ll admit to fallin’ victim to the beer goggles once or twice, but this chick didn’t need no alcoholic enhancement. Or any enhancement at all, matter a’ fact. She curved where it counted, and straightened where she ought. The lines on her woulda made Frank Lloyd Wright keel over. Her face mighta converted Picasso to realism. (I ain’t no collector, but I been to the Museum of Fine Arts a couple times.)

Now, I ain’t the kind to get sentimental or nothin’, but lookin’ at her, up there at the bar by herself, and bein’ into my cups already, I got kinda melancholy. I mean, I dunno about you, but there comes a time when every hound has to find his bitch. You know what I’m sayin’? You can only philander for so long before it starts to get sour. You get tired of it after a while. Wakin’ up alone. (Or needin’ to sneak out.) Gettin’ stoned every weekend in the bars, cruisin’. Stupid dumbass sonsabitches hornin’ in on your stompin’ grounds. Breakin’ down the same old femme barriers, night after night after night. The lay is good—hell yeah, when wouldn’t it be?—but everything else, it wears you down. Don Juan died a lonely man, but y’never hear that part of the story.

I guess that evenin’ I’d about had it. I was sick and tired of it. I’d come out for the Big Green Whoopdedoo, and there was no action. Nothin’. The girls was either taken or too young or both. (I’ve given up on the little girls, those under-twenty-fivers…they gets attached too easy.) I was just sittin’ there, gettin’ stoned for the hell of it. And then I look up and see her. And I think to myself, Ya know? Maybe this is fate or somethin’. Maybe this is it. Maybe that’s the girl I been lookin’ for. Now, if you’d a’ come to me sober, and told me when I woke up that mornin’, St. Patty’s Day, that I’d head down to the bar, see some chick and wanna get to know her better, I’d a’ said, “Hell yeah, partner.” If you’d a’ told me I’d see her, and get mellow, and think “Maybe she’s the one for me,” I’d a’ told you to grab your ankles, brace yourself, and yank your head outta your ass. I had three rounds of brew in me, which was nothin’. But it musta been affectin’ me somehow, I thought. I shook myself, and told me to get it the hell together. I was Herbie Krakauer, a regular latter-day Casanova, the King of All Hounds, Philanderer Extraordinaire. I had no business thinkin’ like this. It was the booze. That was all it was. The booze was makin’ me feel mellow. I was either too drunk or not enough, I figured. I erred on the side of drunkenness.

I tipped the waitress the wink. The wink that had gotten me into a lot of pants. “What can I get you, sir?” she asked. Her cheeks were a little red. That wink’s never failed me yet.
“Gimme a glass of whiskey,” I told her. “Seagram’s.”
“Sure you don’t want Michael Collins or some 10-year-old Bushmills?” she asked, smilin’ a little. “To go with the occasion?”
“Positive, toots,” I answered. I nodded at her. “And send that lady up at the bar there another of whatever she’s havin’.”
The waitress craned her neck to look over at the bar. Then she looked back at me, and her smile had gone on vacation. “Will do, sir,” she said, all uptight.
I glared after her. Cripes, I thought, as her backside went around behind the bar. What wuzzat for? All I did was buy a woman a drink in a bar, for Pete’s sake. A few minutes later I was watchin’ as the waitress set the drink down in front of her. I saw her ask the waitress who it was from. I could see the side of her face, shinin’ in the lights above the bar. She looked like an angel. The waitress, her face still stiff, pointed over at me. The lady craned her head around to take a gander at me. Watchin’ her move was like watchin’ a willow sway in the wind. She moved so smooth-like, so cool and calm. Lookin’ at her from the front, she was even prettier—and with her ass, that was sayin’ somethin’. And then she swung off her stool and waltzed over to my table. I swear to Gawd, my ticker kicked up a notch. It started thumpin’ to beat the band, matter a’ fact.
Cripes, I thought again.
Our eyes never left each other as she came across the room. Suddenly that bar felt kinda huge—like a concert hall. But it was hot and stuffy, too. And sorta tingly, like the air was filled with feathers and snowflakes.

The lady sat down with a sexy kinda swivel. She glanced away for a moment to put her purse on the floor under the table. I breathed out, and breathed back in as she looked up and locked eyes wi’ me again. I heard one of her shoes scrape the floor as she crossed her legs. I couldn’t see those legs anymore, bein’ under the table, but my imagination kicked in somethin’ righteous. And then, suddenly, I found myself sitting at the same table with her. My brains were stuck in the mud, but my head felt like a balloon at a county fair—it kept tryin’ to float away. The beer wasn’t helpin’ either, as far as that goes. I couldn’ think straight. I didn’t hardly know what to do with my hands, so I glued ‘em to the empty glass in front of me. My ticker kept on thumpin’ away.
Cripes, I thought again, this is like bein’ back in junior high, for Pete’s sake.
She just kept starin’ at me. Up close, she was even more of a knockout. Her hair was dark brown, like a whiskey barrel, and wasn’t too long or too short. It was sorta done up, like, so it wreathed her head in Jesus-glow. Her face was just gorgeous. Liz Taylor had nothin’ on her. She had a nice, rosy face with a beauty spot, a little nose, some red lips that weren’t too big or fancy, a forehead like a Greek goddess, a chin that didn’t stick out, and a neck that Nosferatu woulda wept over. I liked her eyes the best, though. They were blue, almost bluish-purple, but not nasty-lookin’ like a bruise. What are them purple flowers that people like? Irises, that’s it. Her eyes looked like a couple a’ irises. They were deep and mischievous, too, sorta smilin’ at me. Her eyes reminded me of a sunlit flowerbed I saw once over in City Square Park in Charlestown.

I can’t tell ya exactly what it was like, lookin’ at her. It was kinda like Gawd took a Wordsworth poem and turned it into a woman, and that woman was sittin’ right across the table from me. I knew she was dif’rent than all them other girls before. That was for dang sure. The waitress stomped up and plunked that glass of whiskey down in front of me. “There you go,” she huffed.
I mumbled somethin’ and lunged for the glass, glad for somethin’ to do with my hands. I was about to knock it back, but then I met her eyes again. And she said somethin’.
“Come here often?”
It was a good thing she said that before I started drainin’ th’ glass, or I’d a’ probably spewed Seagram’s all over her, and died a lonely man. I set the glass back down, a bit shaky.
“Comin’ from you, that don’t sound like a pickup line,” I said, cautious-like, kinda surprisin’ myself with how steady I sounded.
“It’s not,” she answered back. She had a voice as strange an’ marvelous as her face. It was easy on the ears, very crisp, like a singer’s. And it lilted, kinda. It reminded me a’ music I listened to when I was a kid, sorta familiar and comfortin’, like.
“I ask because I’m trying to find out what sort of person you are,” she went on. That threw me for a loop.
“What, ya came over here to interview me for the Globe or somethin’?”
“In a manner. I’d just like to get to know you better, that’s all.”
“How come?”
“I’ll get to that later.”
“Well, for what it’s worth,” I said, giving her the wink, “the feelin’s mutual.”
Now her mouth smiled as well as her eyes.

This was awful strange, let me tell ya. When she’d walked over, I felt like I was gonna die. My heart was bangin’, my skin was tinglin’, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I was a deer in the friggin’ headlights. Now, with just a few straight words, she’d calmed me down. I felt all free and easy and relaxed all of a sudden, lookin’ at her across my glass of whiskey. It was comfortable speakin’ to her, ya know? Not weird or prickly or whatever, like it was tryin’ to talk to them other girls. It was like we were friends already.

“So,” she said, “do you come here often?”
“Yep,” I said, givin’ her smile a friend to talk to. “I’m in here a lot, matter a’ fact.”
“Okay,” she said, noddin’, like she was filin’ my answer away in her head. “Now it’s your turn.”
“Huh?”
“I ask a question, then you ask a question. You said you wanted to get to know me too, didn’t you? Let’s take turns interrogating each other. It’s only fair.”
Well, I didn’t know what to say to that. I was havin’ a hard time figurin’ this lady out. Most chicks I bought drinks for either threw ‘em in my face or took me home after invitin’ me over. No lady had ever got up and come to me before, hell no. And she was so frank and open about everythin’ to boot. Askin’ me questions and sayin’ we should take turns like that. It was weird. But it wasn’t weird in a bad way, ya know? I still wasn’t sure whether I liked the way she acted, or whether we were gettin’ ourselves into a bad round of speed-datin’. But I decided to go with the flow. Couldn’t hurt. And I was awful curious.
“Alrightie,” I said, “what’s your poison?”
“Pardon?” she asked, a puzzled little smile hoverin’ round her lips, those big beautiful eyes openin’ a little wider. Man, but she was a knockout. My ticker skipped a beat.
“What’re ya drinkin’?” I clarified, smilin’ right back.
“Oh!” She laughed. It was a beautiful sound, like clean water tinklin’ over rocks, or the birds singin’ on Boston Common.
“It’s something I ordered specially, just for today,” she said, and a little hint of her laugh stayed in her voice, and made it shine an’ sparkle. “It’s a leprechaun martini.”
“And what the hell’s in a leprechaun martini?” I chuckled, crackin’ her up as well.
“It’s vodka, Irish cream, and green crème de menthe,” she giggled.
“Sounds nasty.”
“It is. But I thought I should try it, at least, before I said yea or nay.”
“Least you c’n do.”
“My turn again. What do you usually do after a night like this?”
“A night like what?”
“This,” she said, gesturin’ at the bar and the happy swillin’ folk all crowdin’ around. “Where do you go and what do you do?”
Here’s my shot, I thought, grinnin’ inside.
“Well,” I said, free and cool and easy, “I usu’ly wind up takin’ a gal home and gettin’ some, if you know what I mean.”
I gave her the wink again. She didn’t stir a hair. That threw me off even more. Good or bad, that wink never failed to get a reaction outta the womenfolk. She might as well have been blind for all the notice she took of it.
“I see,” she answered, not mad, not glad, just plain. “Your turn.”
“You live around here?”
“Up in Charlestown,” she replied, impassive. “Are you happy?”
“Huh?”
“That’s my next question. Are you happy right now?”
I thought about that for a sec. Seemed like a simple question. But if it’s one thing I’ve figured out about womenfolk, it’s this: they ask loaded questions. They might ask how you’re feelin’ or how the grub tastes or what you think a’ this and that, but they’re actually tryin’ to find out somethin’ else—usu’ly how you feel about them. That little fact has bit me in the buttocks a few times, let me tell ya. So, natur’ly, I was careful how I answered her.
“Sure, I’m happy,” I said, sorta proud-like. “I’m real happy right now. I got a full whiskey glass on the table and a knockout chick sittin’ across from me. What more could a guy like me want?”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to find out,” she said. Her elbows were on the table, and she was leanin’ forward, all cozy and intimate, like we were plottin’ to kidnap the Pope or somethin’. Those killer eyes of hers were opened wide, not like she was surprised, but like she was investigatin’. My ticker kicked up another notch when I imagined that she might be likin’ what she saw, and wantin’ to drink in more. I could oblige her there. But there was a knowin’ little smile hoverin’ around her mouth. That I just couldn’t make out. What was she smilin’ for? Was she makin’ fun of me? What was so funny?
I didn’t know what she meant, so I asked her.
“Well, you do this a lot, don’t you?” she went on. “You come down here to the bars, get drunk, pick up women, go home with them, make love to them, and abandon them the next day, right?”
Oh boy, I thought. Now I saw where she was goin’ with all this. I was in for a lecture. I could just feel a reprimand comin’ on, from the way she was all squared up over there across the table. “Abandon” was a pretty punchy word, too. I felt kinda ruffled. My life was my life, and how I conducted it was nobody’s business. She shouldn’t presume to tell me whether what I was doin’ was right or wrong. It worked for me, so that should be the end of it.

But…well, I dunno why, but I got kinda uncomfortable after she said what she said. I hadn’t felt guilty too many times in my life, but I felt guilty right then. Somehow, hearin’ my love life repeated back at me that way made it seem ugly and heartless and low-down all of a sudden. Hearin’ her say, right out and honest like that, that I was a philanderin’ rake…well, that was a bitter pill to swallow. It was like gettin’ a splash of cold water in the face, the morning after the best sleep of your life. I’d never looked at things that way before. And it was hard. Real hard. It made me mad. I didn’t like that guilty feelin’ at all. I didn’t like feelin’ bad about the stuff I’d done. I didn’t like hearin’ my habits put to me like that.

So I got mad. I sat up straight in my chair, looked at her square-on.
“Hey, what’s your game, lady?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You know what I’m talkin’ about. You got no call to be judgin’ me like that. I don’t care to hear my life put to your music. What I do is what I do, and I don’t mind it, and that oughta be good enough for you. I got enough problems without havin’ to hear the gospels preached to me by every moralizin’, uptight chick who walks into my bar. So lay off, will ya?”
I glared at her, intendin’ to keep railin’, or knock my whiskey back and take my leave. But I pulled up short. She was still leanin’ on the table, all casual, lookin’ at me with them same open, honest eyes, her hair still framin’ her head like angel-fire, that face of hers just glowin’ under the incandescent lights, like a lighthouse out on the cape. And that small smile was still hangin’ around her mouth, too. That was what really took the thorns outta my side, that smile. If she was goin’ to take me to task, she probably wouldn’t be smilin’ about it.
It was the same kind a smile people get when they’re thinkin’ about somethin’ familiar. Ya know? When they’re recallin’ an old haunt, or an old friend, or somethin’ that happened to ‘em a long time ago that made ‘em real happy. Or when they’re sittin’ next to their bestest old buddy and they do somethin’ silly. That’s the kinda smile she had on her face right then. And right then, it wasn’t like I was sittin’ across the table from a stranger. It was like I’d known her for years, all of a sudden. It was like we were friends, buddies, comrades-in-arms, almost. I can’t even hardly explain it. It was just a feelin’ I got that welled up inside when I looked at that little smile on her face.
She looked at me, and said, “I wasn’t going to preach.”
I’d a’ given a lotta money to see what my face looked like right then.
“Huh?”
“I said, I wasn’t going to preach to you. I don’t care what you’ve been doing.”
There was a little pause. “I just wanted to ask if you were happy doing it,” she went on.
I stared at her. My mouth was hangin’ open like an idiot. I just couldn’t figure her out. Now, just like that, I wasn’t mad. I was confused as hell.
“Well, whadda you care?” I fired at her. “What’s it to you whether I’m happy or not? What difference does it make whether I’m happy, doin’ what I do?”
“Wouldn’t you rather be happy?”
“Hell yes I’d rather be happy! Jesus—”
“So you’re saying you’re not happy now?”
“Sure I’m happy! Like I said, I got a drink in front of me, and a lady too!”
I was startin’ to get mad again. I couldn’t figure out what she was gettin’ at, and I didn’t like where the talk was goin’. I was still tryin’ to flirt, but she started to fire off questions at me like a machine gun, and wouldn’t let me finish a sentence. She never raised her voice or nothin’—just kept sittin’ there, all serene, just quizzin’ away.
“Don’t you think there’s more to life than booze and women?” she asked.
“Sure there is, but—”
“Don’t you ever wish you could find it? Don’t you ever get tired of doing the same thing day in and day out?”
“No, lady, for your information, I’m pretty damn happy doin’ what I’m doin’—”
“Don’t you think you could be happier?”
“Well, maybe, if I won the lotto or somethin’—”
“I’m not talking about money or wealth or anything material.”
“What in hell’s name are you talkin’ about, then?”
“Happiness.”
“In my book, happiness stems from booze, women and money.”
“True, lasting happiness.”
“Lastin’ happiness stems from winning the lotto.”
“Please, Mr.—”
“Herbie. Just call me Herbie.”
“Herbie,” she said, and she fixed me with a look outta them eyes like I ain’t never seen before. She was skewerin’ me with ‘em. She leaned in a little closer, and I almost got the urge to lean back, even though I loved the way my name sounded comin’ outta her mouth. Her eyes was so intense. She looked like she was talkin’ about the fate of the world or somethin’.
“Be honest with me,” she said, and her voice was low and so quiet I could hardly hear her. I couldn’t look away from her. That supernatural feelin’ just kept rollin’ off her, and my ticker didn’t slow down any. I can’t even hardly talk about it—I was mad, scared, confused, and curious all at once. I thought I’d explode.
But somehow, I didn’t reach for that glass of whiskey.
“Are you happy?” she asked, her voice almost breathless, her eyes narrowing.
“No! No, dammit, no! I’m not happy, all right? We got that all straightened out now?”
It just kinda slipped out. Here I was, trying to run my game, tryin’ to ignore those melancholy thoughts I’d had earlier, and here this strange woman had just up and drawn ‘em all out of me at once, without my even meanin’ to give ‘em up, usin’ some kinda hypnosis, like. As I spoke, her smile finally disappeared. That made me madder than ever.
“Look, what’s this all about, lady? What’re you interrogatin’ me for? Whadja come in here and mess up my evening for, huh? Why don’t you just leave me alone? Jesus Christ, I don’t even know what the hell you’re about. You’re askin’ me all these weird questions, and talkin’ about happiness and whatnot, puttin’ me off my drinks, spinnin’ me all around—”
“Am I really?”
“Jesus Christ! Yes you are! What’s your game? Why are you askin’ me these questions? What the hell do you want?”
“I think,” she said, finally taking her eyes off me, looking down at her drink, picking it up, and sipping on it, “that we want the same thing, Herbie.”

Suddenly, all the mad and the sad and the confused disappeared. It just dropped away, like a sheet drops away from a sports car on a game show. The whole pub seemed to go quiet. There were people standin’ all around, laughin’, yellin’, drinkin’, courtin’, getting’ blitzed as hell, makin’ noise fit to raise the dead—but I couldn’t hear ‘em. The rest of the world just kinda toned down. I had ears and eyes only for her. I fancied I could almost hear my heart beat. And if I listened, I thought I could hear hers, too. They were beatin’ to th’ same rhythm. And just like that, I knew what question I was goin’ to ask. For my turn at the game, y’know.
“Why’d you come over here?”
“I recognized you,” she said, and I could hear every sweet syllable comin’ from her lips, like music floatin’ over from the next street over durin’ a parade. “I saw the look in your eyes as you sat there.”
I didn’t say anything. I just let her go on.
“It’s the same look I see when I look in the mirror,” she said. She wasn’t smiling. She looked about ready to cry, in fact. There was another a’ them little pauses.
“So that’s what it is?” I asked, almost as breathless as she was.
“Yup,” she said, kinda joking, like, but blinkin’ a lot. “I think the both of us are tired. I think we both came in here tonight, believing nothing would happen, that nothing would ever change. And we took a look at each other and thought, ‘What the hell, maybe.’”
Man, I just about fell outta my chair. That was exactly what I’d been thinkin’, remember? She looked up. Her face was like stew—a little bit a’ this, a little bit a’ that. Hope, fear, sadness, lon’liness, and more than that— Trust. I saw trust in her eyes. No woman had ever trusted me before. The look in their eyes at night said it loud ‘n’ clear. “I know you’ll be gone tomorrow morning.” Her eyes told me: “I hope I find you next to me—tomorrow, the day after, and every day after that.”
“So how about it?” she asked. “Shall we take a chance with each other?”
I looked at her just one moment longer. The sound was still cruisin’ along at zero. That delicious silence was ever’where. I was sober, too. Those three glasses had gone right outta my system. I looked down at my whiskey and suddenly didn’t want it anymore. I looked up at her. That angel-fire hair. Those gorgeous eyes, like iris blossoms floatin’ on the water. That frank expression on ‘er face, that little knowin’ smile. Now I knew why it had seemed like she was pullin’ a fast one on me. She saw through me the whole time. She knew me. And now I knew her. We were the same, pretty much.
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s get outta here. And when we can hear again, tell me yer name, huh?”
“Certainly,” she said, her face lightin’ up like the Second Coming.

“And by the way,” she added, as I held the door open for ‘er, “thanks for the drink.”