Bad Apples

“Kashmir” played over the house speakers. My mind drifted to the streets of Marrakesh, a place I had never been. The heat, the vendors, and the bodies there, squashed together, probably smelled worse than the bar I tended. But how would I know? I’ve never been anywhere. 

The Christmas lights brightened the often low lit pub. Gossamer’s wasn’t the kind of place you drank at if you wanted to be seen. With the lights out, it’s less dangerous — at least, that’s what Cobain will say over the JBLs before the night is through. I trust him. So what if he blew his brains out. If he could write songs like that, he obviously knew something that the rest of us didn’t. 

I’ve been tending bar here for the past ten years. I didn’t make it at State. Moved home after a semester. Hated it. Can’t stand basketball either. It’s all anyone wanted to talk about up there. State used to have a music scene, but it kind of fizzled out by the time I got there. 

Gossamer’s smelled like Pine-Sol. Even though smoking in bars was banned some years ago, the phantom bouquet of tobacco and musk always tickled my nose a bit.

Mike-Mike, Gossamer’s twenty-something barback, was the only one here. He threw darts in the corner with a laser-like focus. Mike-Mike wasn’t going to have much to do tonight. 

I blamed the Christmas lights for Gossamer’s slow nights. I mean, if you come here to not be seen, the lights don’t help that much. 

“Mike-Mike, you want another?” I yelled across the empty room. He up-nodded and motioned for me to put a pint by his table. 

I walked across the room, placed the pint on the table, turned around, and then ran smack dab into a mink coat. 

“Watch it, asshole!” she said. Under any other circumstance, she might have been pretty, but here, man, the piss in her eyes blurred any beauty that would have otherwise not have gone unnoticed. 

“Excuse me,” I said. 

Mink girl took a seat at the far side of the bar. 

“Whatcha drinkin’?” I asked.

Mink girl ignored me and scrolled through whatever was on her phone. 

“Jasmine!” a different girl wearing silk haute couture said, barreling into the room. 

“Hey, Mal,” Jasmine said. “Where’s Tommy and Jimmy?”

“Right here,” either Tommy or Jimmy said moments later, barging into Gossamer’s. 

“Squeeeee!” Jasmine said. She ran from the bar and hugged Tommy and Jimmy simultaneously. All four jumped up and down in excitement. 

“What y’all drinkin’?” I asked. 

Tommy or Jimmy glided to the bar and threw a $100 bill at me. The bill landed on the floor behind the bar. “Four shots, top shelf,” he said. As I poured four shots of Rip Van Winkle, Jasmine, Mal, Tommy, and Jimmy laughed and carried on. 

The four huddled and whispered something to each other and began to laugh even more. Mal pointed at Mike-Mike. Tommy or Jimmy tip-toed across the room. He snuck up behind Mike-Mike, who was still throwing darts. Tommy or Jimmy then grabbed Mike-Mike’s pants and pulled them down with all his might. Mike-Mike stood there with his jeans and underwear piled at his ankles.

“Good one, Tommy!” Mal said. Tommy laughed and stumbled back to the bar. Mike-Mike turned around to look at them, pulled up his pants, and turned back around to focus on his darts, unphased. 

“Hey, guys, c’mon, that’s not cool,” I said. 

“What do you know?” Mal said. “I mean, if you knew anything about anything, you wouldn’t be bar tending, would ya?” The four guffawed, hemmed, and hawed, admiring their cleverness. 

“Where y’all from?” I asked.

“Not here!” Jimmy said, laughing, the others following. “Four more, douchebag.” Jimmy threw another $100 bill over the bar and it landed in the sink. 

I pulled four shot glasses from the dishwasher. Dammit, Mike-Mike hadn’t run the dishwasher yet. The glasses were crusted with God knows what. The shot glasses smelled of something awful. I poured the Rip Van Winkle into the dirty glasses and slid the shots in front of them. They downed the shots with gusto.

“Hey, bar guy, can I get a chardonnay? Here’s my ID. You didn’t check it when I came in. You’re a shitty bartender,” Mal said. I scanned the ID. Mallory Jenkins was 26 years old and lived in Connecticut. I poured her white wine and slid it to her with her ID. 

Just then, I recognized Mallory from high school. She was top of her class and a Junior when I was a Senior. I remember the spring that I came back here from State with my tail between my legs, she was voted most likely to succeed by her graduating class. It was all over the newspaper how she was going to do important things. She went to State and, from the looks of it, did well.

“Two IPAs and another chardonnay,” Jimmy commanded throwing two twenties at me. Mal and Jasmine scurried off to the bathroom together. I placed the drinks on the bar. 

“How do you stand this shitty town, bra,” Tommy said at me. He shook his head and took a swig of beer. “Under Pressure” by Bowie and Queen rattled the speakers. 

The girls returned from the bathroom, rubbing their noses. “Oh my God! Where’s my phone!” Jasmine said. She looked at me and said, “You stole it. He stole it, Jimmy!”

“Did you steal her phone, dipshit?” Jimmy said at me. He reached over the bar and grabbed me by the shirt with both of his fists, pulling me off the ground.

“Oh, here it is. Here it is. It was in my coat. Haha,” Jasmine said. Jimmy looked at me and threw me backwards and into the sink. 

“C’mon guys. We gotta keep crawlin’,” Jimmy said. Jasmine, Mal, Jimmy, and Tommy strolled out of Gossamer’s. 

“You OK, Mike-Mike,” I asked. 

Mike-Mike threw darts like nothing had happened. “Yeah.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. 

“It’s OK. I didn’t run the dishes yet.”

“I noticed.”

“I prolly should have, seeing as what we had in those shot glasses last night.”

“What was in there?”

“Ipecac concentrate.”

“What’s that?”

Mike-Mike said nothing but pointed out the front window of Gossamer’s. Through the light dusting of snow, Tommy burst out of the door of Corrigan’s, the bar across the street. He fell into the street and barfed everywhere. 

Jasmine followed, running uncomfortably until stopping all of a sudden, huddled over. “No!” she cried. She took off her mink coat and threw it on the ground, sobbing. When she turned to walk toward Tommy, her butt and back were stained with diarrhea. Then, she threw up, too. 

Jimmy ran out next. “You guys OK?” he gestured. He gagged and then vomited. Then, he fell on the ground. He grabbed his ass in pain and moaned. 

Mal exited Corrigan’s last. “What . . . what is happening?!” she screamed. Mal slipped on Tommy or Jimmy’s barf and fell face first into Jasmine’s shit stained mink coat. Brown liquid oozed out from under her silk dress. Then, she spewed on Tommy, Jimmy, and Jasmine. 

Mike-Mike returned his focus to his darts. The four helped each other up off of the snowy street. They huddled together and wobbled away, drenched in vomit and shit. 

“She was most likely to succeed,” I said to Mike-Mike. 

“Which one?”

“Does it matter?”

I gathered up the empty glasses, loaded them in the dishwasher, and felt gratitude for all the places I had never been.