“AMATEUR NIGHT,” Ariel yelled. Park Bar was filled with lumpy women strapped into flammable dresses, grown men in faded face paint. A pair of vampire fangs in an empty glass with lime rinds. A gold-chained, clown-shoed pimp sat in a corner, around him all the usual tarnished whores. Will, our own Peter Parker, had morphed into Spider-Man. He asked me to cover his Halloween shift, saying that it was his favorite holiday, and I thought he was being sarcastic. Not only had I not participated in Halloween as a child, I found adults who clung to it especially odd. But he owned a full costume and had been drinking with his friends Batman, Robin, and Wolverine since the early afternoon. He crouched on a bar stool and shot webbing at me, ignorant of how the red fabric clung to his beer belly.
Vivian was indecent. I had spent many nights appraising her with Ariel, who was critical by default, but also smitten. Sometimes I forgot Vivian was like me—a person, perhaps soulful, ambitious, or something. Tonight she was “tit soup”—that’s what she called it. She overflowed everywhere, the waistband of her fishnets cutting into her hips above little black shorts.
“What are you, sweet pea?” she asked over the bar.
“I’m inoffensive,” I yelled back. She didn’t hear me but pretended like she did and said, “Cool.”
“This is kinda sad, no?” But Ariel wasn’t paying attention to me either. She threw a cocktail cherry at Vivian, who was midconversation with a knight and princess. She caught it and popped it in her mouth and winked at Ariel.
“Cunt!” Ariel yelled and laughed.
Vivian laid out tequila shots and a bowl of candy corn on the bar. As soon as I took my shot my stomach gurgled. It had been hours since I had eaten. I was doomed.
“Total amateur night,” I said, chewing a slimy handful of candy corn. “Is someone getting a bag or what?”
“I think Spidey has plenty.”
Will was talking to Scott and the kitchen guys in the corner, wringing his hands. We all had our tics when we were high: Will wrung his hands, Ariel blinked rapidly, and I said, “No, wait,” over and over again. They mimicked me all the time. “No, wait, guys,” and I always sounded like the slow child when they did it.
“Nice costume,” said Scott. “Are you a teenage boy?”
“In your dreams, Scott.” I tapped Will on the shoulder. “Willy babe, do you have treats for me?”
“Trick or treat!” he yelled and slid his arm over my shoulder. He followed me, babbling, into the bathroom line.
“What are you saying?” I flipped on the lights and locked the door. It smelled like shit. “God, someone destroyed this place.”
Will was sweating, his face greenish against his red suit. His eyes chased light around the bathroom. He looked frightening.
“Sit down, babe,” I said, putting him on the toilet.
“You never watched that movie.”
“I’m getting to it.” I held my hand out and he started wringing his hands.
“You’re too busy now.”
“I’m not, Will, I’m getting to it. Are you going to share or what?”
“I’m a sharer,” he said. “I have five brothers and sisters.” He reached into his sock and his head fell into the sink.
“Ouch.” I grabbed his forehead and straightened him up. “I know. You have five brothers and sisters and you are right in the middle. You hold it all together.” I kissed him on the forehead and took the bag.
“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
I looked at the bag—it was nearly empty. “Okay, okay, Thoreau. You’re out.”
“You should watch that movie.”
“Did you do this all yourself?”
“Nah, I’m a generous guy.”
“That’s true, darling. No one would argue with that. I’m going to finish this.” I took out my compact—there was just enough for a serious line. I looked at myself in the mirror as I came up. The truth was that sometimes I felt nothing. I did the coke and told myself that I was high but I was just numb. That’s why I looked in the mirror. When I was really flying I couldn’t stop searching for my eyes in any reflection. I thought I was beautiful, I thought my eyes had secrets. That night I looked plain. I picked my eyelashes in the mirror and I saw Will staring at me, his eyes bulging out.
“Are you okay? Do you need air?”
“I’m in love with you.” The words smashed together when he said it, but it was one of those unmistakable phrases. It was built that way so you could never take it back.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m in love—”
“God, no, never mind, don’t say it again.”
He put his hand over his mouth and fell backward, hitting the toilet handle. It flushed profoundly.
“Don’t be stupid, Will.” My voice sounded angry. I looked in the mirror and my eyes were vibrating. “You’re a fucking nightmare talking like that.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. His head wilted on his neck.
“Don’t be sorry,” I said. Of course tomorrow I would pretend like nothing had happened. Jake had taught me about that. I would be kind. But as I hit him on the back, I realized I was actually angry. “Don’t be sorry, just don’t be stupid, okay?”
I guided him out and dropped him on a bench near the door. He sat calmly, swiveling his head around as if he had just woken up. I sat on a bar stool next to Ariel and concentrated on my fingernails kneading into the wood on the bar.
“Did you ever read Djuna, I forget,” she said, totally coherent, chewing on a cherry stem.
“Yes.”
“I gave Nightwood to Vivi. I’m trying to get her to read more.”
“That’s good.” There was a tequila shot in front of me and I took it. “That should fuck her up for a minute.”
Ariel smiled. “You finished the bag, huh?”
A stethoscope on the bar. A cape hanging on a stool. Costumes wearing away then finally discarded as we approached another harsh morning. I listened to everyone, peeling back the black paint from the bar in strips. I could do it, if I wanted to. That’s what I was thinking. I could talk about Billy Wilder and Djuna Barnes and the new bone-marrow dish at the gastropub in the West Village and whether you knew so-and-so from that university, oh it’s just a little school called fucking Harvard, and isn’t it sad how the city is changing, every day for the worse, and of course radicalism is the only vehicle for change, and oh yes, revolution is intrinsically violent, but what is violence anyway, it all boils down to pheromones, we are just chemical mixtures, but when you meet that person you just know, you know?
“Fake,” I yelled. No one looked at me. Maybe I hadn’t said it out loud. “We’re all just waiting around to become real people—well guess what Vivian—we’re not. Remember the phonies?” She nodded, her face like a sequin. “You don’t remember. You need to read more.
“Fuck you,” I said to a man I didn’t recognize. “You want to repeat the names of things? You want to make out?”
That person disappeared.
“I serve people!” I yelled out above the music.
“Sasha, you think my life is easy ’cause I’m pretty? It’s not. I get a fucking door opened for me now and then. Being pretty…well…”
“I wanna fuckin’ record this shit right now.”
“It sucks.”
“Baby Monster, how ’bout you shut your face ’fore I break your face.”
“I hate you,” I said to Will, but he was asleep on coats.
Maybe it was that he’d said it in the bathroom. Was that me now? The Park Bar bathroom with its one dreary bulb and scratched-out mirror, scummy faucet, and STD-infected walls? A bathroom where I ran the water and threw up on countless occasions? Love?
But it was Jake, really. Will and Jake were friends, or friendly, as much as Jake could be friends with anyone. They drank together, acted like old comrades, had their safe subjects to chat about (rare Dylan recordings and Vietnam War trivia). But Will gossiped like a teenager. Everyone at the restaurant did. It was entirely possible—likely even—that Jake and Will had discussed this “love,” a word now irreparably tied to the Park Bar bathroom. Perhaps Jake had told Will to express his feelings. Perhaps Jake had told him I wasn’t worth it. What Jake certainly hadn’t said was, Stop, I like her.
“Ari,” I yelled. She turned away from her conversation. I shot back more tequila and reached behind the bar for the bottle. I heard glass shattering as I pulled it up. “Look, skulls.” I pointed to the bottle. “It’s spooky. Get it? Death.”
Ariel pinched me hard on the underarm but didn’t yell at me. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Can we share a cab home? I’m about to be really drunk.”
I shut my eyes and she patted my head.