Rainy Night At Boone's Tavern*

She wanted to say something.  So did he.  Jesse, the bartender, placed a tall drink in front of the quiet, slouching, man and as he did, the lady considered commenting on it.  She didn’t.  Jesse, always believing he knew how to size up a situation, felt that in time they would talk to each other, so he kept his distance.  They should go at their own speed. 

She played with the straw in her drink.  He folded and unfolded his cocktail napkin.  She checked her cell phone for messages.  There were none.  He went to the jukebox to play a slow, sad, jazz number.  It matched the quiet din of the bar, accompanied by falling rain outside and the chill in the air—the chill that brought them both to this moment.  He returned to his bar stool, wondering if he should just leave, go to bed and start anew tomorrow.  He wondered if he should end his own life.  Surely, he thought, if fate had a plan for him it would have fallen into place by now, or at least been made clear to him.  It hadn’t, and living was becoming more and more painful.  His divorce was especially bitter.  He didn't want it.  He wanted to give it another try.  But even he knew now that it would have been pointless.  Pointless.  That was the word that seemed to encapsulate his life to this moment.  No family, no friends, stuck at a meaningless job.  The world had become hollow and joyless. Why go on?  Why pretend to have hope?  Deep down he believed things would never change. 

All this he thought in a flash of a moment, while she, pretending it wasn't her 40th birthday, asked Jesse for another.  “I'm not going home, not tonight,” she thought.  “I'm not going home.”  Soon, she imagined, a crowd would gather at the bar and she would mingle, and somehow the topic would come around to birthdays and she would say it was hers and everyone will sing “Happy Birthday” to her and toast her health, and she'd buy everyone a round of drinks and they'd become her close friends.  Yes, this could happen.  It probably happened all the time.  She asked Jesse for the time.  He told her.  “Okay, it's still early,” she thought.  “It's still early, and most people don't go out until much later.”  Yes, she convinced herself that this birthday would not be a lonely one, and that she would find her place in the community.  Not bad for a girl who never had any friends of any kind; a girl whose only companion was her sickly mother for whom she cared for until she died last year.  Not bad for a girl who only six months ago was confined to the grounds of a, what did they call it? — Sanitarium.  Not bad at all.  Yes, this birthday would be different.  This birthday would be special. 

And so, mustering all the courage she could, she turned to the gentleman seated two stools to her left and said, “Hello.” 
He was startled out of his deep reverie.
“Excuse me?” he said. 
“Oh, great,” she thought, “he doesn't even want to say hello to me.”  She froze.
“Oh, nothing, excuse me, I thought you were someone else.” 
She placed a twenty-dollar bill on the bar and walked away.  He didn't notice. 

 Jesse took the bill, rang up her two drinks, and kept the change.

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* from, "The Gibbonsville Saga."  c. 2010, U.S.