He clicked open the slot for Mr. Stein’s niche and the drawer poofed some dust in the air– his father left him his watch, and he carefully removed it from its ancient recess and shoved it into his coat pocket. The columbarium was wide and open and dark and cold; he felt like it was a stone-etched labyrinth that was full of grieving souls and reborn ones. He slotted the niche back into place and made his way back to his car. He saw men of all types, he saw men that clearly only went to the columbarium because other people wanted them to– to satisfy some social criterion that if they would not they should just as well buy a slot for themselves and their standings. He nudged past a small mass of younger men who reeked of wood alcohol; they huddled around their improvised vigil ornamented with beer cans and birthday candles.
Nearing his truck, he tugged on his coat pocket to feel the weight of Mr. Stein’s presence again, and he noticed that whatever memories he had seemed hollow to him; the man was dead, and he was hanging on to something he knew he should not be hanging on to. Producing the watch, he flipped it open to see it still worked– it was four o’clock in the morning.
He drove off from Chapel Street to Boulder Avenue to call it for the day; he drove without radio, without air conditioning, without braking or flooring– he drove in complete and utter silence with the hum of the engine his only reminder he was still driving. The streetlights became green wisps and the shy asphalt some beaten path. George’s shined iridescent slicks on the road and lights, and he decided that one drink would not hurt. Pulling in, he again felt his chest and reminded himself why Mr. Stein was gone, and that there was nothing he could do about it.
Some routine vagrants and vagabonds clumped around the entry and blankly observed him with yellowed faces and glossed eyes.
The bar welcomed him with the familiar grossness and indecency that were all a man could ask for when his spirits were shot. He threw his overcoat to a corrugated coat stand and tucked his wide-brimmed cap under his arm in case the ceiling was leaking in his favorite seat, again. General hostility but also a general closeness between each and every man, each man so apathetically married to themselves and ignorant of the other’s world, and they still crowded around in each other, not in a fraternity or familial brotherhood but acceptance that they were all lowly, and that no one judge another because they would have to judge themselves, first.
Dalton was fidgeting with the broken tap when he demanded some dollars for his unresolved tab and turned him his usual. He could still smell uncooked root and sediments at the bottom of his cup, so he drank it. The ceiling did, indeed, drip so he threw his hat atop his head to not feel the cold, sharp reminder of the outside.
“It’s raining?”
“Yeah, it’s raining.”
They both paused for a moment and stared into their drinks.
“Busy day?”
“As busy as people want it to be.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Dalton took a swig of his steely flask that read The day I’m caught sober, is the day I’m caught dead. The cheap lights glinted off the single plastic button of his waistcoat– I swallowed some roots. His mind grew weary, and he could no longer tell the malaise of his drunken stupor apart from the whorling fume of body odor that filled the room.
Damn it, John.
What do you mean damn it?
I mean damn it is what I mean.
If you can’t help yourself, then I surely can’t help you.
What’s your problem? You against me now? After all we’ve been through– just like that?
Yeah, just like that.
He placed down his empty glass and saw a drop of rainwater run from his brim into the cup. His hat had grown heavy with water on top, for some reason only now he recognized the pressure of water in the center of his scalp. He carefully peeled off his cap and emptied the water into his glass. The sediment was mostly gone, some of it remained and slightly dissolved in the water, but still bobbed atop with its stubborn presence. The water grew dark, and he could not take his eyes off the glass– he not only saw just the sediment but the water, too. He hesitated for a moment, and just absorbed the image of the glass in front of him– a liquid that did not drag down the sediment, no, a liquid that upheld the sediment, almost with a personable pride.
He let the water trickle onto his hair, and he left his cap on the counter. He chugged the drink, and it felt more refreshing than anything else he had ever had in his life.
Leaving some dollars in his place, he ran outside into the street and felt the pouring of rain onto his skin– the wonderful pressure that pricked every part of his skin and the coldness that freshly screeched into his lungs. He went slack-jawed as he opened his mouth up into the sky and felt as if all his burning grief had cooled away and his mind was washed anew.
