Читать книгу Sombrero Fallout - Richard Brautigan - Страница 23

BAR

He looked at the clock. It was 10:30. He could not call her on the telephone because he knew that she was with another man: enjoying his body, moaning softly underneath him . . . and loving him.

A huge sigh hurricaned his body and then he sat down on the couch. He tried to sort it all out. She was a thousand pieces of a puzzle tumbling around in his mind as if they were in a dryer in a Laundromat.

For a few moments his mind was simultaneously the past, the present and the future, and there was no form to his thoughts about her. Then her hair began to emerge as a dominant theme in his grief. He had always loved her hair. It was somewhat of an obsession with him. Thoughts of her hair, how long and dark and hypnotic it was, began to put pieces of the puzzle together until he was remembering the first time he met her.

Two years ago, it was raining.

She didn’t go to bars very often.

After she finished work that evening she was tired but her two co-workers persuaded her to go with them to a local bar where young people hung out.

He was there and he was very bored. He was often very bored and he did not think twice about telling other people about his boredom. He bore it with the good humor of a cross.

When he turned around on his bar stool, very drunk, which was a condition not unknown to him, he saw her sitting at a table with two other women. They were all wearing white uniforms. They looked as if they had just gotten off work.

She was beautiful.

Her hair was combed into a bun on top of her head in the classic Japanese style. The drink in front of her had barely been touched. She was listening to the other women talk. One of them was talking a lot and enjoying the drink in front of her.

The Asian woman was very quiet.

He stared at her and she looked back for a few seconds and then returned to listening to the women talk.

He wondered if she had recognized him. Sometimes women did and it was to his advantage. His books were popular and easily obtained in bookstores.

He turned back to the bar and ordered another drink. He would have to think this one over. He was a very shy person when he was sober. He had to be drunk before he could make a pass at a woman. As he sipped his drink, he wondered if he was drunk enough to go over to the table where the Asian woman was sitting and try to get to know her. He turned around again to look at her but she was already looking at him. It rattled him and he turned back around again to the bar and his ears were burning with embarrassment.

No, he was not drunk enough to make a pass at her.

He motioned to the bartender who came over.

‘Another one?’ the bartender said, looking at the one that was only half-empty in front of him.

‘A double,’ he said.

The bartender’s face remained expressionless because he was a very good bartender. He went and got the whiskey. By the time he was back, the humorist had finished the glass that had been half-full. A minute later the double was half-gone. The humorist with two sips had changed it into a single.

He could feel the Asian woman looking at him.

She’s read my books, he thought.

Then he drained the glass in front of him.

It was as if the whiskey had fallen into a bottomless well without making a sound. Its only presence now was the energy for him to get up and walk over to the table where the woman sat and say, ‘Hello, may I join you?’