He had to fight the crowd and their… hands… to make it over there, but he was grateful for the empty stool when he finally arrived. He took a seat and caught his breath, steadying his racing heart as the bartender approached him. He really wasn’t the partying type. He looked up to see the bartender staring at him expectantly and he tried to ask what was on tap. His voice was swallowed by the blanket of constant noise that surrounded them and the bartender grinned. He gestured to the blackboard behind him that had the tap list written in colorful neon chalk, along with several specials. The man must’ve been used to reading lips, Albert thought, glancing at his nametag.
David L.
David carded him and he ordered his swill of choice, grateful that it seemed to be available no matter what state he found himself in. He only meant to have one or two, to ease his anxiety enough to push back through the crowd and find the exit, but David was good at his job. Even though Albert couldn’t hear a word the man said, David seemed completely literate in the art of lip-reading. It was a strange sensation, having his mouth stared at so much, but not necessarily uncomfortable. The bartender didn’t have to say much to ask why Albert had immediately fled to the bar instead of staying with the girls he came in with, and Albert couldn’t even hear himself respond. He spoke louder than was comfortable in the static sound around him but it made no difference to his ears. Still, he told the bartender about getting dragged inside and not knowing the girls.
The bartender didn’t bother making Albert read his words, his face communicated understanding as he nodded at the story and indicated he’d seen it before. It was like Albert was speaking a language he didn’t know he knew how to, or he was being taught without even realizing it. The bartender had tattoos of grasshoppers up his arms and they looked familiar. Albert wondered the story behind them and lamented being unable to ask since he wouldn’t be able to hear the answer. He knew the bartender was listening, from his dimpled smile when Albert told him something funny or nice. From his intense stare when Albert recounted the more tense encounters he’d had while on the road. Maybe it was selfish and maybe it was sad but he kinda liked talking to someone who couldn’t talk back. David couldn’t interrupt, he couldn’t pass judgment. Albert felt heard, something he didn’t get often living alone in a car.
The bartender was indeed very good at his job, or so Albert thought. Maybe it was his self-centered perspective, or maybe it was that in just over an hour he was four pints deep when he meant to stop at two, but it seemed he was getting a lot of attention from the bartender. It seemed David was spending more and more time watching Albert's mouth move as he spoke, no longer bothering to speak up, every time he made another round. It seemed as the night grew older, other visitors to the bar were being spoken to less and less, and having their glasses sit empty for longer. Albert didn’t know when he’d stopped paying for his drinks, but his glass remained always full, and with the consumption his mouth told more and more.
He told the bartender about how he got into the club being dragged by two girls he’d never met. He told him about his car and how he’d saved for months when he was sixteen working odd jobs to finally buy it. About how he’d been in town for over a year trying to get the money to repair it. He told him about his quest across the country and running away from home and being a minor on the road. Nothing but the wind and the hope of what he’d find could keep up with him as he crossed the states like an outlaw on the run. He talked about the many people he’d met. He told him about the night and how it felt different, and the strangers that made up every fiber of the fabric of his life, and how each and every one of them was crucial. He went on about how people were hard to talk to but so effortlessly fascinating next to him in his single-minded and frankly delusional pursuit. He told the bartender about Locust, but he’d tell anyone who’d listen. The bartender was a very good listener, even though it was too loud to hear. Finally, the crowd thinned and the music's oppressive volume lessened.
Albert didn’t realize how much he’d had until he stood up.
The club wasn’t closed, but the height of its crowd had passed and it was less overwhelming through the fuzzy and almost honey-like haze everything had taken. Everything was slowly tilting, until he blinked his eyes and it returned to its upright position before slowly beginning to tilt again. He tried to remember why he’d stood and it came back to him when he saw the woman with the cropped blond hair tying an apron around her front. She said something completely inaudible to David and he left through the waist-high door in the bar. He circled the table and approached Albert, speaking a genuine sentence for the first time that night. It was still too loud for it to have been audible from a normal distance, but David leaned down next to Albert’s head when he spoke, making his face heat up at the awkward proximity.
“Follow me.”
Well, when had Albert ever said no to that?
He followed, not quite sure of why, as the bartender named David led him around the edge of the dance floor and through a locked metal door that read ‘staff only’. He was dimly aware that he should’ve been suspicious of the situation, with a stranger he’d never met going to a location most people wouldn’t be able to get to, but he was more aware of the excitement. Where were they going? Why was he taking Albert with him? He entered the staff room behind the bartender and in his drunken haze, he couldn’t see much. The light in the hallway was off but the one in the distant room with lockers was still on and it spilled into the walkway, giving him just enough light to see. The bartender pulled a bottle out of his jacket, just big enough for two shots.
“You’ve been drinking domestic all night, want a shot?” He asked, and Albert furrowed his eyebrows. David had an accent, but he didn’t know which one. Albert had trouble placing the difference even when he was sober, and David was speaking so quietly that it was very hard to tell. He could still hear the very lowest part of the base from the music outside in the real world, but he was entirely focused on the bartender.
“Sure,” He agreed. He was already more wasted than he’d intended to be, may as well do it right. He watched David unscrew the cap to the bottle, intoxicated eyes fixed on his hands in a fascination he didn’t know how to name. He realized he’d never been in a situation like this before. He knew the sense of adventure and mischief, but not the particular company. He had felt this sense of interest before, but there was something not connecting between the situation itself and how it was making him feel. Something wasn’t adding up.
Maybe he was just drunk.
He watched David down half the bottle, handing it to Albert. He took it and drank the rest. He was not a heavy drinker, but the alcohol was much more tolerable when you were already drunk, and being watched with such expectation.
“Why’d you bring me back here?” He asked finally. He wasn’t one to ask questions for fear he’d look stupid, but he couldn’t fear anything when he was so drunk.
“You’re fascinating, Albert Oliver Felix.” The man replied seamlessly. Albert felt his whole face heat up, creeping down his neck and blooming in his chest with the spreading sensation of the liquor. Girls gave out compliments like parking tickets, but from this man? The one who could seamlessly read lips, had curious tattoos, and could speak and teach an entire language in less than a night…? It was a different kind of flattery.
“I’m fascinating?” He laughed, finding more humor than was there through his euphoria. He didn’t know what he’d said to trick the man into believing such a lie. He didn’t even remember mentioning his name, though he was sure he must’ve. Albert was not a heavy drinker, but he sure knew how to ramble like one.
“Yeah, you are.” The bartender stood very close to Albert and something didn’t connect between the situation and how it made him feel. He wasn’t even sure he was aware of the entire situation anymore. Something didn’t add up and the more he tried to make sense of it the more confused he became. He’d known before that it felt nice to stand so close to someone, but he’d never had to look up. It felt completely different and entirely surreal to be so close to someone and look up. The bartender traced the scar on the side of Albert’s face with a finger, a touch that left a line of surprise from the contact. “How’d this get here?”
But he didn’t get to remember anything after that.
He’d had too much to drink. He’d blacked out from rage before, it was something he’d been trying to quell for a long time. He would go to any lengths necessary to avoid whatever was angering him when he felt it push at his eye sockets. When he saw red, he didn’t get to know what happened, and it made him feel helpless. Somehow not in control of the actions he was still responsible for. It made him feel powerless and less like himself. He didn’t like blacking out from rage and he learned that he didn’t like blacking out from alcohol either.
He didn’t get to know what happened after David had kissed him in the back room. He remembered it felt nice, of course, it did. Kissing always felt nice. He remembered it felt different, but he didn’t remember thinking about it too hard so it was hard to say how he felt after the fact. Albert wasn’t an attractive guy, and he had to wonder why a bartender who probably met scores of people more attractive and interesting than Albert, had brought him into the back room. He didn’t get to remember the rest of the night, or how he came to wake up in the Saint Mary’s Hospital.
He got to hear the story second hand, again.
The shift change for the bar was at 11:00 PM. He’d been taken to the back room around that time to have a shot after he allegedly impressed the bartender. At 2:34 AM the club was attacked…
…
…you know what… Albert didn’t bother to remember the exact nature of the people who did it. That wasn’t the part he cared about, and he felt his heart was too heavy to hold any more unnecessary information pertaining to tragedy.
They’d committed a tragedy. Fourteen killed and over fifty injured.
Albert was one of the injured, drunk off his wits and apparently still there at almost three in the morning, he’d taken a bullet to the calf and gone down. He had no memory of it, but it would make walking a pain until he got through physical therapy. It made making money almost impossible and fixing his car a distant dream. He was one of the injured and that’s all he got to know. He didn’t get any more information until he visited the club again.
It was three weeks later, he was discharged on crutches and it was the second thing he did. The first thing was to find his car after it sat unclaimed for so long, but it wasn’t there. It wasn’t with the racist old man he’d paid to watch it. It wasn’t impounded or towed in any records he could find. He considered it might’ve been stolen, but even if someone wanted to take the heap of junk, it wouldn’t drive long enough for them to get it out of the storage locker.
It was gone.
He went back to the club to find some kind of answer to a question he wasn’t yet sure how to ask, or why he wanted it answered so badly. Regardless of his reasons, he found what he was looking for.
There was a memorial set up by the building. It was old and abandoned now that it had been almost a month since the shooting. Now that the buzz of the media had worn off and the stir of righteous anger had moved on to the next cause. There were bottles of liquor and bowls of food being picked through by rats whenever no one was looking. There were flowers, candles, and letters. All were left by the people who knew those who died. Or those who wanted to feel the satisfaction of saying they did something. There was a concrete tablet that listed the names of everyone who’d been injured, and everyone who’d been killed. Albert found his own name in the small print of the footnotes, and it made him feel strange to be listed as ‘Albert Felix’ without the ‘Oliver’. His name amongst the injured was not the focus of the memorial, and he scanned the section for any other name he recognized. He couldn’t find it in him to be relieved when he found nothing. He read the list of the names in bold, one by one, listed under ‘killed’. Until his eyes slid across a name that made his skin cold in a way he was becoming frighteningly familiar with.
David Locust.
If he’d asked David about the tattoos, he’d never get to remember the answer.
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