Inspired by a Song

inspired by a song

“You said you'd sleep with me once he was gone.”

Tommy was getting belligerent. Leo could only stare into his beer as Tommy berated Kelly about a conversation they had God knows when. Kelly wasn't belligerent, thankfully, she was merely disgusted.

“ You need help,” she declared, slamming her empty glass on the bar.

“No,” Tommy insisted, “Those were almost your exact words. 'I'll sleep with you once he's gone,' or maybe it was 'I won't sleep with you until he's gone,' but it was something like that. You said these words. I know this. You said it.”

Jay had just gotten busted with a large amount of heroin on him, and had gone to jail. Somehow, miraculously, his appointed lawyer argued that he was only carrying, with no intent to sell.

Leo was shaking with discomfort. “Can't we just drop this?”

“No way,” Tommy insisted, “I was there. She said this to me. Something like that. She said it.” He turned to face Kelly. “You said it. I was there. You said this to me.”

Kelly was getting livid. “You think this will make me sleep with you? This is your fucking argument? Semantics? What the fuck is this? You're sick.”

“No, I'm not,” Tommy stated calmly, “And I don't care if we sleep together or not. But you're calling me a liar, and I'm not lying. You're lying. You need to realize this. You said this thing.”

Kelly finally got another drink from the bartender. She gulped hard at it before she started yelling. “You are a pathetic fucking junkie. Why are you here? I said I'd fuck you? I must have done some of that cheap shit you're on if you think I'd ever even consider for a moment fucking a pathetic junkie ass like yours. You can fucking go home and jerk off, but you'd probably nod off.”

Tommy remained calm. “Whatever cheap shit I'm on, your prison-ass boyfriend sold it to me. Maybe if he didn't deal whatever cheap shit he gets from those crack addicts in Kenso he wouldn't be in jail right now and we wouldn't be arguing about this.”

Leo wanted another beer, but he could sense that the bartender was afraid to come to their side of the bar. He was drunk, he was junked up, but even he knew this was rough conversation to be had at three in the afternoon.

He turned to Tommy, hoping to distract him. “How did we get on this topic anyway? I mean, does anyone remember how this came about? I think we should just drop it and go.”

Tommy stayed calm, but there was something about his calmness. It just held there, and at any moment it would crumble.

“ How does any conversation start?” Tommy said, “Someone says something. Somebody hears it. In this case, I heard something that she insists she didn't say. She refuses to accept the fact that I am seldom as lost as she is and that SHE SAID THESE THINGS!”

The bar stopped. Even the hard-core drunks who'd been drinking since eight in the morning stopped and stared. The bartender started over to them, but stopped. Kelly was frozen with anger. Tommy merely gulped down the rest of his bottle of beer. Leo was terrified. “I'll be right back,” he said.

Leo locked himself in the dilapidated bathroom up the stairs from the bar and leaned over the sink. He threw cold water on his face and dried himself off with his undershirt. He tapped out some heroin onto the back of the toilet and rolled up a dollar to snort it with. He was halfway through the lump of heroin when the door broke open and one of the drunks from the bar downstairs was standing over him.

“ You have to go!” the drunk insisted.

Leo looked at him. “Yeah, okay, I understand that, but give me a second.”

He lent down to finish off the remains, but as he was doing so, the drunk grabbed him by the shoulder. He threw him off, but in the scuffle the remaining heroin scattered off of the toilet back and onto the floor. In the background, he heard someone yelling “Get him out of here!” He wasn't sure if they were talking about him or not, but he didn't want to find out. He ran out of the bathroom, leaving the drunk moaning on the floor.

Leo woke up, just for a moment. He ran down the stairs. He had no intention of stopping before he got outside, but he slowed down slightly when he saw the broken bottle on the bar. Then he realized that Kelly was standing between him and the front door, screaming at the top of her lungs. “He'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'm no fucking whore! I'll fucking kill you, you fucking faggot! You just wait until he gets out! You won't even live that long! You fucking die! I'm not a fucking whore!”

Leo knew he was rushing, almost running, but everything around him had slowed down. He could see everything clearly. The bartender hiding her eyes behind her hands, the elderly drunks pretending they weren't staring. The broken bottle of lager, half of it on the bar and half on the floor, the blood mixing with beer on the bar. The terrified man trying to keep Kelly from running out of the bar after her prey. He thought he could just shove her out of the way and storm past her out the door, but her elbow still caught the back of his head on his way out.

He collapsed onto the sidewalk, smashing his chin into the asphalt. When he hit, he bit a small amount of his tongue off. Thankfully, he was high enough that he barely felt any of it.

Leo was on the sidewalk. Tommy was pulling at him, trying to get him on his feet. Leo opened his eyes and saw that Tommy's face was covered in blood. As the afternoon sun burned down upon them, Leo was convinced he could see shards of green glass mangled in Tommy's hair.

Suddenly, Leo wished he were sober again.