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| (visual by pablo.sanchez via this license) |
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dispatch fourteen
Caravel by Ian Singleton
debuted 15 October 2009 | kept 482 times | click to keep
The bar was dark and covered in a thin industrial carpeting, crowded with hangdog strangers. A man who looked like my Uncle sat quietly on a stool by a karaoke machine, clutching his drink and a microphone. An orange coat came in through a plume of breath into the warm din. He sat down next to me and ordered in a Spanish accent. How you doing, he asked.
I’m all right, I said.
All right, here’s to you my friend, he said and lifted his glass.
Thank you, I said. We drank and set our glasses down. Behind the bar, on a hutch above half-full bottles of sundry liquors, hung pictures of men standing on logs or in front of empty dirt fields, as well as a photograph of Ernest Hemingway sporting a mustache and a sage smile.
You know who looks like Ernest Hemingway, I asked.
Who, replied my friend.
My Uncle. He looks like Hemingway, I mumbled.
That man drank a lot, said my friend.
My Uncle and Hemingway could’ve been twin brothers, I said.
I seen a picture, my friend. He drank, like, a couple bottles of the hot stuff a day.
I drew in my whiskey, savored the burn, and wheezed, He was a tough dude.
You got it, my friend.
I heard a woman’s hoarse laugh behind us and said, You can drink like that when you’ve been through as much trouble with women as him.
We bought another round, shot it. My friend faced me and said, I want to tell you a story. I lose my mother to the cancer. She was very special to me. On the night when I lose her, I was at the bar and had one drink. Just one, my friend! I wake up the next day. I was in the alley.
I see, I said nodding at the bartender to pour again.
I am no light drinker my friend.
I spotted a pair of legs two seats away, looked at my phone, and slid over. My friend chuckled. They were holding their drinks with gentle hands, watching the bartender open the floor panel. As I approached, one set her glass down and pinched shut the purse in her lap. I nodded and the brunette smiled at me, then flashed blue eyes at her friend. Do you want a drink, I asked.
She sat back and smiled with thin stretched lips. Why don’t you buy us a couple and take it easy yourself, hon?
How many have you had, I asked. I realized I had growled at her and the bar had become silent. I ordered another drink and raised my empty glass to Ernest Hemingway. Looks like my Uncle, I said.