Andre couldn’t even say what he was missing out on. People populated the bar’s wooden deck. Conversations, here polite curiosity, there intimacy, everywhere boisterousness: a warm ambience in minor protest against the gloom. Moments prior, considering where his head was, he decided against having Maria order him another drink, a beer this time, what with work the next day being an obstacle to the good times he imagined. Every day he had off approached in his mind as pure possibility, another chance to….something, he couldn’t exactly say, least at the end of the day, when whatever it was he hoped for ultimately, inevitably, failed to happen.
With Maria inside, Andre sunk into the margarita he’d practically chugged. He spent many afternoons on this deck, reading Flaubert or Henry Miller, but that was a few years ago now. Since getting a promotion, and therefor working twice as much, he no longer had days to fill wandering about town, fancying himself a flaneur. He needed the money, of course, so there was never any choice about accepting the position, but that only made it worse. In the months leading up to the first round of pandemic quarantines, Andre managed to establish a growing network of acquaintances and drinking buddies. But then the lockdowns, the mandates, the shuttered establishments: major buzzkill. By the time things uneasily reopened, he was working forty hours a week and much less inclined to spend Tuesday night making an ass of himself at karaoke or following strangers home for half-remembered trysts.
Was that what he missed? In a sense. On certain nights, girls kept scantily clad long past sunset by the summer heat, the World felt a great carnival, norms upholding the order of things apparently dissolved, much as his inhibitions were by drink. This of course wasn’t true, another rosy reminiscence. But sitting there, Friday afternoon becoming evening, Andre pined for the nights when cute bartenders served him drinks for free, and every new face could potentially change his life forever.
Not that he always used that free time to good ends. In fact, by any karmic accounting, Andre blithely allowed minutes, hours, days of freedom to slip by him entirely uncapitalized. Structure was good; obligations keep him honest. Whatever romanticizing he might do by idolizing bohemians belied what he knew to be true of himself, namely that he didn’t trust himself. Benjamin Franklin cliches floated through his head. Early to bed, early to rise. Idle hands are the devil’s playthings.
There are those who believe the Devil to be man’s true steward, for he taught us that even divine prohibition may be ignored.
This week though, Andre merely slept off his sour mood.
Leave a Reply