Buddy

Thick with life and in need of a drink, Buddy woke up in his one room apartment. In one long, rehearsed motion, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, put on his coat, and left. He went for a walk down the same street he walked down everyday, awash in rain, barely visible. He reached his destination, a small bar, huddled in a small corner of the town's city square, a small walk downstairs once you saw the big bright sign in front. When he got inside, not quite satisfied, yet not quite miserable, he sat down at his usual seat and began tapping his fingers on the marble counter.

The bar was quiet, as it usually was on nights when people were more interested in drinking than making conversation. It was not long after Buddy sat down in his stool that the bartender approached him, his token smile and nonchalant gait in full swing.

"Hey, Buddy. Figures you should be here. Guess I shouldn't be surprised, but somehow I always am. What'll it be? "

"The usual, Mike."

"Scotch again. I'd think you'd be tired of drinking that by now, Buddy." Not expecting an answer, the bartender poured Buddy's drink. "The place sure is packed tonight. Have you ever seen this place so full? Must be the rain. They always come when it rains."

The silent crowd of drinkers went unnoticed by Buddy, who stared quietly at his drink.

"You know, I've met a lot of people like you, Buddy. To look at you, you'd think that you were just the shy type. I find that most people who drink alone usually just need the right kind of motivation to get up and initiate a conversation. You know, a lot of people have come through this place. Smart guys, dumb guys, smart girls, dumb girls, beautiful girls--people, Buddy. Tonight, out of all these people here, and there are a lot of people, I'm sure you could find one you could talk to. Don't you want to do that, just once? Get up and talk to someone?"

"Sometimes," Buddy said. He put his head down quietly for a moment before turning back up to face the bartender. "But then again, Mike, sometimes you just want a drink."

"Yeah, I know, and I understand. Sometimes you drink to forget. But when the bad memories don't go away and the drink isn't helping--well, you just need to find something else, right?" Mike nudged Buddy ever so lightly with his elbow.

Buddy didn't respond.

"Friends, girls, a new job, a new life, or maybe just life. You know?" the Bartender offered.

Buddy sat there silently and took a sip of his drink.

"You know, you'd be surprised at some of the things people have told me over the years." The bartender looked off, thoughtfully. "I have some good stories. Most of them are other people's stories, but they're still good ones. Would you like to hear a story?"

"Not tonight," Buddy said, turning his attention to the glass of scotch on the table. He looked into it, and saw something ugly he couldn't quite rid himself of.

The bartender watched as Buddy drank in silence. The bartender cleared the bar of empty glasses, and began wiping down the countertop. Briefly, the bartender went to another part of the bar to talk with some customers. When he returned he saw that Buddy had finished his drink and was signaling for another.

The bartender put the bottle of scotch on the table. "Scotch, huh. Sure, I'll give you another drink, Buddy, but only on the condition that you listen to one of my stories. How does that sound?"

Buddy shrugged indifferently.

"I want to tell you about this guy I knew once. Now he was a man who liked his scotch. A good friend of mine, too. He worked as a reporter for one of the local newspapers, the Sun or the Sentinel, I forget which. He and his wife used to come over to my place for dinner all the time. That was a long time ago, back before… well, let's just say it was a while ago. His wife would bring me the best apple pies you'd ever tasted." The bartender smiled to himself for a moment. "Do you like apple pies? Oh, how rude of me, your drink…"

The bartender poured Buddy his drink. "Anyway, maybe I don't have to tell you this story… it's a story I've probably told you before. Alex was his name. Anyway, he was a reporter, one of those investigative types. He does this story on a mobster named Billy Corpus. Maybe you've heard of him. Anyway, Alex does his job real well. Gets Billy sent to jail, wins himself one of those fancy journalism prizes to boot. One of those that looks pretty good on a trophy shelf, you know? He's the city's golden boy and we all love him. Anyway, things are going good for ol' Alex, but one day, Billy Corpus gets stabbed in his jail cell. A good thing as far as this city is concerned, but it turns out Billy has a lot of angry friends who would like to see Alex a few feet under the ground, if you know what I mean."

This was usually the point in the story when most people's ears perked up a bit, and Buddy's were no exception. The bartender let a little bit of silence pass.

"Alex is working late one night, when it happens. He's been getting these death threats from Max Corpus, Billy's brother. Ol' Max has some mental problems. Since Billy's death nobody knows where Max is. As it turns out, Max has been following Alex's wife, tracking her every move, memorizing her routines. It's raining when she starts to drive her car home. Max, in his fury and his insanity, drives his car into hers, killing them both."

"Wow," Buddy said, shocked.

"Yeah, well that's not all. Alex, he goes to pieces, and he goes there fast like no man I've ever seen before. That girl was everything to Alex. Quits his job, because what's the use working when you have no reason to live. Becomes obsessed with getting revenge: finding Billy's friends and killing them all. Real loony stuff. After all, he's no killer. So he ends up here one day and he tells me: 'I lost a part of my soul.' 'His soul,' he says. But Buddy, we all lose people. What we lose with them has as much to do with ourselves as it does with them. Did Alex have to lose his job? Did Alex have to kill himself?"

Buddy looked at the scotch sitting at the bottom of his glass, gulped it, and set the glass back on the table.

"More?" the bartender asked.

Buddy nodded. The bartender took the glass and filled it once again.

"So how did he do it? Kill himself I mean."

"Part with the drink, part with a knife." The bartender shook his head with more than a little regret. "I sure will miss the guy. Some people you can never get used to not having around."

Buddy nodded in agreement and took a sip of his scotch. "I lost a friend once." He was silent for a long moment after he spoke, and then he took another drink from his scotch.

"Everyone comes here for a reason Buddy, whether they like to admit it or not."

There was a long silence that followed. Within that time Buddy finished his scotch. He thought about Mike, and how he reminded him of some bartender he had seen in a picture-show once. The whole bar seemed different, even though the bartender stayed the same.

The bartender looked at him, his face now expressionless.

Buddy could hear footsteps behind him. The barstool next to him slid away from the counter and a man sat down next to him.

"Can I have another scotch, Mike?"

"Whatever you want. By the way, Alex, this is Buddy," the bartender said beginning to pour him his glass. "You know me and my friend were just talking about you." The bartender looked over at Buddy.

"Buddy, I want you to meet my good friend--Alex, the news reporter I was telling you about," the bartender said, looking into Buddy's eyes.

Buddy suddenly became sad and frightened. He tried to figure out what he was doing in the bar.

Buddy looked at the bartender and realized that he was running an enormous tab. He had never noticed the zombies before, and that sort of killed the mood. Suddenly, without thinking, he opened his mouth. "I'm scared," he said.

The bartender gave Buddy a compassionate smile, putting a hand on his shoulder; he thought about saying something comforting and offering him another drink like he was supposed to, but somehow it didn't seem right. He said this instead: "Once you walk out of this bar, two blocks down the road there will be a street you've never seen before, with people you've never met, and beyond that street will be another, and another. I'm not saying that they're all going to be good places, Buddy, but I think you'll agree they're better than here."

Buddy got up from his stool and stuck his hands into his coat pockets. He took one last good look around. "Mike, I think I'm going to go for a walk."

"Take care, Buddy."

THE END

Bio: Mr. Clausen's first published work of fiction in Aphelion was "Plan 9 from Hollywood" back in 2001. His short stories and essays have been published in Slipstream, Leading Edge, and Zygote in my Coffee (among other places). He has a novel titled The Ghosts of Nagasaki.

E-mail: Daniel Clausen

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