Two Liars

The doctor took out two one-hundred dollar bills and placed them in front of the bartender.

'Top shelf? Maybe treating ourselves for Christmas?' the bartender said.

'No. It’s got to last the day. Although, quality is important. Give me the most drinkable bottled beer you have.' The doctor said. 

The bartender turned and went to the bottom fridge behind her. She opened the door  and took out a bottle, showing it to the doctor. 

'Import ok?'

'As you said, it is Christmas'

The bartender smiled and took out an additional bottle. She opened both of them and put them in front of the doctor. She turned and grabbed him a glass and a coaster. Scooping up the bills she gave him a wink.

'I’ll give you a buffer beer in case I get called away or distracted doing something else. We’ll settle up at the end of the shift. No rush though, I’m here all day.' 

'Sounds like a plan,' the doctor said. 

The doctor took a look around at the bar he planned on spending his Christmas in. It was surprisingly busy. A lot of that probably had to do with the lack of selection during the holiday. There were only three bars in the whole city open on Christmas Day. According to his research, this was the one he figured he was the least likely to get robbed, beaten or stabbed in. Its decor was that of a regular country bar that served a variety of clientele. Regulars who came during the day, young people who came at night for a more festive and high energy experience and a more wholesome crowd who came for a bite to eat. Many of these were represented this Christmas day. There were some tables of four in the back, couples and two friends at the high tops and what looked like a couple regulars at the end of the bar not doing much talking. . 

The doctor turned back towards his seat facing the bar. He took one of the bottles and poured it into the glass. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out a notepad and a pen. Taking his pen, he put a checkmark beside one of the items on the list. He put it back, took his glass in hand, paused, and took a drink. 

'Now there is a man with a drinking agenda if I ever saw one'

The doctor turned towards his right where the voice had come from. A well dressed man, sitting at the other end of the bar looking in his direction. 

'You could say that,' the doctor replied. 

'Do you mind if I join you, or does that agenda there require silence on this most festive of holidays?’

‘By all means. I welcome the company.’

The well dressed man got up from his seat, leaving his jacket and sat at the empty stool next to the doctor. 

'Cheers. Merry Christmas Doc'

'Cheers'

They both took a long drink.  

'How did you know I was a doctor?

'Same way I knew you had an agenda here today. Notepad that got a checkmark, large bills to the bartender with the expectation you’ll be here a while. The fact that it's Christmas day.'

'That doesn’t really scream out doctor'

'No, but the imported beer does. Also, your hospital ID lanyard is peaking out from your jacket.'

'That’s impressive.'

'Thank you, and if I may be so bold. From those two observations, might I assume that as a doctor here alone on Christmas, the main item on his agenda is loss. I am going to guess that you are either a surgeon, divorced or both. 

'One of the two. I am divorced.'

The well dressed man paused waiting to hear the answer he got wrong. 

'You’re close. I’m an anesthesiologist; the doctor you see before you see the surgeon.' 

‘Oh,’ the well dressed man said. ‘Seems I am not so impressive after all. I thought for sure you were here to mourn the people who fell under your knife these past 365.

‘Well, again, you’re not far off.’ 

‘Can’t imagine you lose too many people putting in an epidural. Pregnant ladies dropping like flies at your hospital?’

The doctor smiled a little at the joke.. 

‘No, I am an anesthesiologist for the critical care ward of the hospital.’

The well-dressed man took a drink.

‘Sometimes … a lot of the time in fact, for some of the patients, it’s either surgery or certain death. But the surgeries have their own risks as well. There are some that when I put them under, they don’t come back up again. In fact, I’m the last person that they see, their last experience, their last memory if you will.’

‘I can only imagine what that experience is like. I’ve got the gift of the gab, but even there, I would be speechless.’

‘Oh, talking is someone they want to do. Last chance to get a few words in. A few are brave, but a lot are scared. Rightly so. They ask questions, looking for reassurance. So … I lie to them.’

The man looked at him. 

‘I have to. I can’t have them panicking while I’m putting them under general anesthesia. Any chance of survival would go right out the door.’

‘So I was right then, your agenda there is …’

‘A list of people. People that I have lied to this past year. I come to a bar, every Christmas holiday season, and I have a beer for every single person I lied to.

‘If you don’t mind me asking. How big is the list?’

‘Ninety-seven’

‘I don’t think two hundred dollars is going to get you there, friend.’ 

The doctor chuckled silently.

‘It usually takes me multiple sessions to get through the list. I get drunk, too drunk. I go back to my  hotel, and feel like garbage,I mean like really suffer. But I force myself to come back and try to finish off as much of the list as I can the next day and then the day after that.’’

‘That’s one way I guess of dealing with things’

‘Only thing that has worked so far. I’ve tried therapy, journalling, groups. None of that helped. This little ritual here’ He said as he pointed to the glass, ‘is surprisingly cathartic.’

‘Well then, in that case. Cheers. To the first name on your list’

‘To Emily Jacobson.’

‘To Emily Jacobson.’

They both drank and finished their beers. The well-dressed man motioned over to the bartender. He signaled for another pint of his draught beer. The doctor poured his next one. 

‘My turn’ The doctor said. ’Since you were so forthcoming and bold with me.’ 

The well-dressed man turned to him, opened his arms.

‘Go ahead, take your best shot!

The doctor looked him up and down. ’

‘You’re a self-professed gifted conversationalist which means as true as that might be, you’re also confident, or at least project the aura of confidence. You’re observant and quick to make conclusions based on those observations. That makes me think you’re both university educated and in sales, which means that you’re not just selling household products or other lower end goods, probably something a little high end. You’re not a regular here or you’d be chatting with the regulars at the other end of the bar instead of a clear outsider like myself. I’d say you were in finance, but you’re most likely from out of town. Finance guys don’t travel to sell. So I have no idea what you sell, but it’s important and big. No ring so no family, which makes sense given the traveling, although you probably have a girlfriend or two. And since you’re ordering draught import and talent recognizes talent, I am going to say you have an agenda today too, but I’m guessing a little bit more positive than mine.’

The well-dressed man took a drink nodding. 

‘Hot damn! Talent indeed recognizes talent. Almost dead on.’

The doctor waited to hear now what he got wrong.

‘What’d I miss?’

‘I’m a business consultant. My team and I go to companies and tell them how to turn their company around so that they can stay in business.’

‘That’s awesome.’

‘But you are right, I get paid on commission. I do have to go out and find the businesses that need help and solicit my team’s services.’

The consultant took a self congratulatory drink.

‘And this year was a good year!’

‘Saved a lot of businesses and jobs this year. That is more uplifting than what I got going on here.. Cheers to that.’

They tap glasses and take a drink

‘Well, I didn’t say my clients had a good year. I said that I had a great year. In fact, most of the companies that hired me ended up  not making it. 

The doctor gave the consultant a look.

‘Not because of me! Nothing that was my fault. A lot of it has to do with things that leadership did before I even got there. A prior strategic decision that made no sense or a misallocation of funds. Some kid inherits a business from his father with no idea how to run it, or just a product or service that is not needed anymore or undercut by something else.’

‘Since we are being so bold with each other, It’s actually not that dissimilar to what you do. I meet these people when things are already headed downhill and I lie to them. I use spreadsheets and PowerPoints, but I tell them that everything is going to be ok, even though most of the time, it’s not. We hold company wide meetings where we rally the troops and talk about how we’re going to turn things around. That the company will make it as long as we reach our numbers that quarter. And should they be successful, we’re going to have to let a lot of those people go in order to make loan payments, or make the balance sheet more attractive to a potential buyer, or to at the very least pay my consultant fee.’ 

He takes a drink. Pauses and thinks. 

‘We’re both liars.’ the doctor said. 

The bartender came by and gave the doctor two more bottles while taking away the first ones. He finished his last sip from the glass, poured in one of the new bottles. He reached into his jacket pocket. Retrieving his notepad and pen, he checked off the next item on his agenda. 

‘Who are we drinking to now?’

‘Ron Jacobson. 78. Retired. Father of three, grandfather to eight. I told him he would wake up and hug his grandchildren again. That was a lie.’

‘To Ronnie Jacobson’

‘To Ron Jacobson.’

‘And this actually works? It helps deal with the pain and the guilt?’

‘100%. Keeps me sane for the whole rest of the year. Probably would still be married had I discovered it sooner. They say that mourning and grieving is a process. But what they leave out is that it is, by necessity, a painful process. Whether it's emotional or physical, you need to feel some hurt just to make sure that you can still feel something. That you’re still human.’

‘Hey, I don’t want to give you the wrong idea, ok friend, I feel something for these companies and workers. I really do. I’m not here dancing on their graves or anything.’

‘Never said you were. You seem like a good man. I was talking more about myself’

‘I mean I do feel bad, I really do. It’s just … I have numbers that need to be met and a job I gotta do. I really wish they made it. I really do.’

‘Then here, give it a try’

The doctor slid one of the buffer bottles over to the consultant. The consultant picked it up looking puzzled. 

‘If there was one company you wished had made it this year, but didn’t for whatever reason, what company would that be?’

The consultant paused and thought about it for a moment. 

‘Cameron Automotive. Owner’s a great guy; loved his employees. In fact, he would give them a turkey every year at this time for their family gatherings. He got undercut by cheaper parts from overseas made possible by the last trade deal. No fault of his own. Went into debt to pay my consulting fee hoping I had the right answers. I didn’t.’

‘To Cameron Automotive’

‘To Cameron Automotive.’

The consultant stumbled back to his hotel room later that night. He made his way to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. He felt good. He helped that poor doctor make it through a good chunk of his agenda. Got through a bit of his own agenda as well. 

His smile and satisfaction left very quickly as he vomited into the bathroom sink. The rest of the night did not go much better. The consultant suffered a lot that night. In  the morning he felt something. Not just the headache, or the nausea or the general weakness. He felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

He felt human.