Bill worked nights, and he hated his life. Yet, he continued living, and for what?
The strain was enough to make his heart ache, and it did. But like I said—he continued to live his life.
He was always due in at work the next day. Even if he had a day off (which was rare), it always felt like he was due at work the next day. He hardly had time to breathe.
In the wake of the corona-virus pandemic, things became “normal” again. Whatever that meant.
And it didn’t mean much to Bill. Nothing did.
So, he took to drinking.
When I first saw Bill, he looked horrendous. But I didn’t say anything to him about it. We both continued to live our lives: he was a writer, and I was a chef.
***
Like I was saying, I started my career as a waiter, worked my way up, and Bill seemed to always hang around me. He fostered a sort of aimlessness about my presence, that others always questioned me about him.
“What’s with your friend, Bill?”
“Yeah. What does he do?”
I’d been looking at three or four pages of inventory, thinking of cauliflower, eggplant, red potatoes, carrots, iceberg lettuce, onions, garlic, peppers… I pulled a pencil out of my mouth, whiskey on my breath, and I marked a little check mark next to things we needed for the restaurant. One day, I dreamed of having my own restaurant.
Lost in contemplative thought, I just mumbled, “I dunno. He’s a writer.”
“A writer?”
“Yeah.”
“What does he write?”
That made me stop. Always. I couldn’t think of an appropriate response.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
I nodded, looking away absentmindedly. Whenever I caught the gaze of my colleagues—they always seemed to be hankered down within themselves, so caught up in the gossip of the day—that I longed to be as far away from them as possible. Each day seemed to linger in limbo: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It all became one and the same, except, as a chef, I instinctively knew that each day had meaning. Mondays were dead. Tuesdays were a little busier. Wednesdays shone a little light. Thursdays were good. Fridays were crazy. Saturdays were nuts. And Sundays were the final resting place of many local cooks and chefs I’d met.
“He’d never make it,” I said.
Walt, one of the older waiters noticed my gaze. He was polishing a glass, over and over again, .and I couldn’t figure out why. They were collected in my office. Walt stared at me, knowingly. We both nodded. There was a strange feeling between us, something we couldn’t say aloud. Bill is free. He’s free from the workaday world, and he doesn’t even know it. He doesn’t know. He’s clueless. He doesn’t even know how lucky he is.
And I woke up in a cold sweat, surrounded by an empty room and a lifeless pack of cigarettes. I’d fallen asleep in bed without knowing it.
The cigarette pack was on my chest. Everything on my shirt was stained with grease, black, and wet from the beer I’d spilled on me and the mattress too.
I heard some typing, typing—in the living room.
That’s where Bill “slept.” Although I hardly ever saw him asleep.
To me, he was almost like Picasso. But I never told him that. He had all this potential, and I did too. And we connected at different levels of brotherly familiarity, something nobody else could ever understand.
I heard all that typing, typing. And I thought of Picasso taking naps in his friend’s bed in the middle of the day, when his friend was away at work. And then, when his friend returned—I thought of Picasso painting in an attic at night. The entire world was in front of him, and all he had to do was dance. That ultimate dance of the artist versus death—to face the world. That’s all he had to do.
Bill kept typing, typing. I smelled the smoke from a cigarette in the living room, and that made me feel good. Somebody else could keep up with me, I thought.
But I was the one asleep at the wheel. I paid the bills, kept the lights on, put food in the fridge. And all Bill did was type, type away at some useless, pointless bullshit. He wasn’t fucking Picasso. Not even close.
My mood changed quickly. I felt it. I hadn’t eaten much that night, only some leftover chicken croquettes that somebody had burned. What the fuck? It was becoming impossible to find decent cooks to work the line.
“Hey,” I said.
There was no response.
“HEY BILL.”
“Yeh?”
“What happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, why am I in bed in my chef outfit with a beer spilled all over me?”
He laughed. Then I heard the chair roll out from behind my desk (where Bill wrote), and his footsteps came across the hardwood floor in the West Philly apartment we shared, that I paid for.
“Dude, are you okay?”
I looked to my left, and there he was—scraggly long hair, brown, skinny, tall, lanky, awkward, and afraid. But it was the strangest thing to have somebody asking me that question, because nobody else ever did.
“Yeah, just tired.” I drew a drag on my cigarette and so did Bill on his. It was dark, but the light began to shine through the gaps of the curtains on the windows overlooking the street.
“What happened? Did I fall asleep?”
“Yeah, man. I guess so.”
“What do you mean ‘I guess so’?” I couldn’t help but laugh. I didn’t know why.
“Well, we were out at the bar…”
“Oh, that’s right, I forgot.”
“Yeah,” Bill nodded, dragging on his cigarette, blowing out a cloud of smoke. He was wearing a plain t-shirt, dark green, had jean cutoff shorts, and he wasn’t wearing any shoes. He looked homeless, like a vagabond who might put the world on his back, just to piss on it—or himself—out of fear, recklessness, and spite. The pointlessness of human existence seemed to echo and smear within his aura. Almost like nothing ever bothered him but everything did, at the same time.
“Well, you were flirting with Andrea.”
“Oh shit. Was I?”
He laughed.
“Yeah, yeah. So, Carey kept calling me instead of you…”
I sat up.
“Oh fuck.”
“Yeah, man.”
“What did you tell her?”
“What do you think I told her?”
“I have no idea…”
“I told her that you were busy playing pool.”
I felt relieved, somewhat. I looked around, coming to my senses.
“Did you spill your beer?”
I looked down at the mattress in the gray light of dawn. Still, the wet stain was visible. I touched it. “Yes, yes. I guess I did.”
We both laughed. I took the beer bottle at my side and drained it. Bill had a can of beer, and he drank it too. We finished our beers in silence. Then I belched a loud one that relieved me of a shit-load of stress, and I felt calmer. Like everything was going to be OK. If I just got…
“Hey, man. You want another beer?”
I laughed.
“You read my mind.”
“Yeah, man. You must’ve had too much whiskey. But I didn’t realize how drunk you were until we got home.”
“Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.” I looked around me, trying to locate my mind … wow … things were spinning, all of a sudden. I felt dizzy, nauseous, and sick.
“Man, I feel like dog shit.”
I fell back onto the bed. Life was impossible again.
“Oh shit, man. Are you OK?”
I held my forehead. It was sweaty and warm.
“Just gimme a second,” I said. Each time I closed my eyes the room began to spin. I fought to open them without puking.
“Here man, lemme help you out.”
I felt Bill lifting me up by the shoulders.
“I think you should sit up, if you’re gonna spew.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I said through laughter and pain.
But he was right. I felt better by sitting up against the headboard.
“Carey is gonna kill me…”
“Nah, man. It’ll be all right.”
“No, no. She’s been asking so many questions at work. She knows I’ve been flirting with Andrea. She’s been busting my balls.”
“Yeah, so what?”
I pulled my hand away from my face. “Dude, no offense. But you don’t understand women.”
He laughed, and I could sense his embarrassment.
“You don’t get it. She’ll fucking leave me and take half the shit in this apartment. And then what?”
I didn’t mean to say all that. Actually, I wanted Carey to leave me. I wanted any excuse to get into bed with Andrea. She was tall, blonde, skinny, and way out of my league. Carey was a good girl, but it had been about three or four years—and I’d had enough. She plagued me with questions and insecurity. Everybody wanted to cling to me. I was the chef, I made bank, and we put out some of the best food in the city, especially for high-end clients. I could have any girl I wanted, or so I thought.
“Yeah, I dunno man. Maybe you should just chill. Don’t think about that right now.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said.
After a few moments, I began to feel better, like my nausea might subside.
“Get me that beer, bro.”
He laughed and did as he was told. That felt good.
He returned with two bottles of Yuengling. That delicious golden lager of the Keystone State.
We opened our bottles of beer. We had our identities. I was a chef, and Bill was whatever the fuck Bill was or wanted to be. On my dime, of course. I said nothing.
Then I started laughing, uncontrollably. I couldn’t help it. I laughed and laughed. I thought I might cry. I began laughing so hard.
“What the fuck is so funny?” he asked.
“Now I remember,” I said.
“Remember what?”
I laughed some more, covering my face, crying tears of laughter.
“I did it,” I said.
“Did what?”
“That’s why Carey isn’t here.”
Bill kept drinking the bottle of beer as the sunlight got brighter.
“Don’t you remember?” I looked at him. He seemed confused.
“Dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you sure you’re OK?”
“Am I OK?” I sat up straight, holding my beer. The pack of cigarettes fell to the floor. “We did over 400 covers, I’m fucked out of my head, and I got so drunk tonight that I barely remembered what I did!”
“What did you do?”
“I fucked her!”
“WHAT?”
“YEAH.”
“Where?”
“When we went out to her car in the parking lot.”
“No way.” Bill started laughing.
“I did it!”
We both began to laugh and cackle and fight for air.
“What the fuck, man!”
“Carey is gonna kill me!”
Then we heard a door slam outside. A car door.
“Oh shit,” I said. “Go see who that is.”
Bill went out into the living room and pulled back the blinds.
“Oh boy,” he said. “It’s Carey.”
“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!”
I jumped out of bed. “What is she doing?”
“She’s getting out of her car and going to the trunk. Looks like she’s getting something out of there…”
“Oh fuck,” I went over to the window and I saw her. She looked emboldened, intoxicated, and irate. She was still in her waitress outfit. I didn’t understand that. “What the fuck is she doing?”
“I have no clue.”
Then I saw it. She had my laundry in the trunk. All my work clothes. My chef jackets, pants, t-shirts, underwear. She held the basket, slammed the trunk, and walked across the sidewalk. She reached into the basket and grabbed a t-shirt and flung it at the window.
“Duck!”
We both got down with our beers. “Oh shit, dude,” Bill said. “She’s pissed!”
“Yeah, no fucking shit.”
Bill stood up slightly to peer out the window.
“Well,” he said, “she’s definitely throwing all your chef clothes all over the sidewalk and into the street.”
We could both hear her shrieks of anger. “And here’s for THAT girl. And here’s for THAT girl. And this is for THAT girl.”
“I guess she found out about more than Carey,” Bill said sarcastically and without a tinge of humor. It was the first time all week that I really wanted to punch him in the face.
He drank his beer. I held mine while sitting on the floor, shocked, staring into nothing.
Then I looked up and saw the computer monitor. I saw Bill’s words on the screen. Lines of text that he’d written while sitting out here, alone. He was always alone. He never had money. Every shitty job he worked made him helpless, as ever—but he never complained. At least not to me. He never had any deadlines throughout those endlessly soul-crushing days of being busy or a girlfriend who came screaming at him at sunrise.
“What could you possibly be writing about?” I asked in disbelief.
“What?” He traced my gaze from the window to the floor to the computer, my computer. My desk. My apartment. My fucked-up life.
“Do you really wanna know?”
“Yes,” I said, as Carey peeled away, tires screeching, as she floored it out of the neighborhood after decorating the sidewalk, windows, street, and stoop, all with my clean chef clothes. Well, they wouldn’t be clean anymore, would they?
“I really wanna know.”
About the author
Bryan W. Myers has been published in various lit mags. His first chapbook, Empty Beer Cans: Quarantine Poems from Da Nang, Vietnam, was released in 2022 by Alien Buddha Press. His second chapbook, Traveling the World (at the End of the World) was published by Ghost City Press. (bryanwilliammyers.com)
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