Birthday Boy
by David Blitch
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
I stumbled onto the streets of Manhattan. The cruiser was inching along behind me, making sure I had someplace to go. I began to walk eastbound until I spotted a bar. It was a new bar in a converted firehouse. I had heard about it. Being relatively near the foot of the bridge, it was a favorite of Jerseyites who preferred to stagger home. Going there at least would get the cop off my back.
The black sign advertising the bar flashed its name in a huge, brilliant, red hologram. Coming off the bridge, I found it hard to miss. It called to me: “Le Tragique.”
The door opened automatically when I stepped on the welcome mat. For an early evening, the bar seemed overly packed, but I found an empty café table in the middle of the room. The room was permeated with a blue-gray haze. I hadn’t known until then that the bar had both a liquor and tobacco license. The lighting was dark and brooding. Flickering holograms of the Eiffel tower, the Champs Élysées and Euro Disney stood at various locations in the room.
There weren’t any couples, just lonely people at little tables silently getting wasted. On stage was an out of focus hologram of Maurice Chevalier, complete with straw hat and cane, crooning a tune with the volume off. The only sound was from a poorly tuned radio playing some new-wave “Franco-Tango” music.
The scowling waitress in a red beret and a microscopic French maid get-up came over and tossed a basket of pretzels at me that she called “or derves.” “Good afternoon, Monsieur. What ya want?”
I ordered a boilermaker. I downed my shot and began to look around. My gaze was almost immediately affixed to a table in the corner that faced Broadway.
She sat there, chain smoking unfiltered cigarettes and ordering yet another drink; there were already four empty glasses on the table. She was dressed in black: pants, turtleneck, beret, and gloves. Her hair was unkempt; sticking out in all directions from under the beret, and her substantial makeup seemed to be melting off her face from tears. I looked her over for quite a while, because she looked so familiar.
It took a while before it clicked. I recognized her from the “Charge and Go” convenience store a couple of blocks from my house. She worked behind the counter and, every now and then, sold me my morning coffee and paper. I was taken aback because I remembered her as someone who always smiled. I tried to visualize her name-tag, and remembered it read: “Kelly.”
Something moved me to approach her. Maybe it was the familiar face. Maybe it was the ridiculous outfit. Maybe there was a strange, fatalistic sexual attraction. Maybe I felt like getting in trouble. Maybe she just looked more pathetic than I felt.
Cradling my beer, I stood across the table from her. “What ya drinking?”
Kelly didn’t even look my way. “What’s it to ya... Monsieur?”
“I just wanna buy you a drink.”
She glanced at the row of empty glasses, thought a moment and murmured, “Bumble Bee Stings.”
The latest quick and easy intoxicant: orange juice, vodka, Novocain and a synthetic strychnine derivative.
“One more of those might kill ya.”
“Oui, Oui. But who gives a flyin’ fuck? Wanna smoke?”
She pointed to a shopping bag on the floor next to her. “I got a whole carton to go.”
“Sorry, don’t touch the stuff, but a Bumble Bee Sting sounds good.”
I sat down without asking and she shot up, knocking over half of the empties.
“Do I know you, mister? I just wanna be left alone.”
She stumbled over on one knee as the purse that she had strapped across her shoulder opened. Out poured the contents including a stack of Birthday cards. I stooped down to help pick them up. I gathered them into a lose pile and handed them to her.
“Happy birthday, Kelly.”
“Oh yeah, the happiest day of my life. Hey, how do you know my name?”
“Let me sit down and I’ll tell ya.”
“Okay, mister, who the hell are you?”
“George, from Leonia.”
“Hey, I’m from Leonia. What a coincidence.”
I flagged down the French maid and got our drinks. We were silent for a while. I finished my beer and then started on the Bumble Bee Sting. Kelly continued her binge and lit another cigarette.
Finally I spoke up. “It’s my birthday today, too.”
“Oh yeah, well mine’s special.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s my last birthday.”
Kelly’s face turned to stone. She sat motionless while staring at me with a kind of hollow gaze that comes when hearing something incredible or profound.
“No... You, too?”
She began to cry and reached out to hold my hand. “Pal, how did we ever get into this mess?”
“We lived, but not long enough.”
“Nah. Not well enough.”
We stood up and fell into each other’s arms, two staggering fools crying like babies.
* * *
It was time to take a walk. We left the bar and found a coffeehouse on St. Nicholas Avenue.
As we stumbled through the door, Kelly commented, “You know, I’ve never really been a sloppy drunk, but this is a very special day.”
“Once in a lifetime,” I agreed.
We ordered a pot of coffee with detox in it and began to get acquainted.
Kelly had lived 23 years and 189 days. She, too, was unmarried. Because I had gone to the Catholic School in Englewood and she, to public school, we had never met, except in the Charge and Go.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and cooled it off with a little cream. She offered to pour one for me as well. I accepted and had mine black.
“I spend all day making pot after pot of this stuff,” she said. “You’d think I’d be tired of it.”
I drank my coffee feeling a bit awkward about witnessing and then getting involved in Kelly’s catharsis and about the hug, in particular. It just wasn’t like me, hugging someone I really didn’t know except for a name tag. Why had we flung ourselves at each other like that? I almost felt like I needed to apologize, but Kelly showed no signs of regret.
The detox was beginning to take effect. I felt much more clear-headed and thought I saw it in Kelly, as well.
Kelly began: “Knowing when you’re gonna die is supposed to make life so much simpler. You know exactly how long you got and you can plan your life and career accordingly.
“You know what I wanted to be when I was a kid? An astronaut. I mean, I always had the grades. Straight A’s mostly. Know how old you are nowadays when you actually become an astronaut? Twenty-five!”
I chimed in, “I always wanted to be a doctor, but who in their right mind would spend the money to train a doctor who’d practice maybe two years? So instead I make pizzas. I wanted a wife and kids, a big family, but who’d marry a guy with a mid-life crisis at thirteen?”
Kelly reached across the table for my hand. “You know all your life. You know what cards you’ve been dealt and you think you’ll be prepared, but then the day comes, and you just freak out. It wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t just so damn lonely.”
I nodded in agreement.
“They tell ya, your family is there to help, the church is there, but if it isn’t their time yet, they just don’t know.”
I told Kelly the whole birthday party and bridge experience.
She looked surprised, “Excuse me for saying this, but your Mom is a real bitch.”
“Yeah, but she’s been through a lot. She came from a big family: four brothers and two sisters are gone. All she has left is that moron Tony. Dad died last year. That’s a lot of last birthdays. We all gotta do what we gotta do when the time comes.”
“Yeah, George, that bridge thing was really a brave thing to do. Stupid but brave. Grab death by the balls. Don’t go quietly into the cruel night and all that. But I’m glad it didn’t work. What ya gonna do now?”
“Sit in a coffee shop and drink coffee is as far as I’ve gotten. And you?”
“I’m gonna be a fairy princess.” She leaped out of her chair and did a pirouette. “Think I got the time?”
Time passed slowly as we drank our coffee and giggled at nothing in particular. I loved the way Kelly wrinkled her nose right before she made a point and spouted out long, poetic run-on sentences that meandered to and fro in their whimsy.
I loved the way she engaged me, leaning forward as if to tell me a secret. I adored her eyes, the way they seemed like mirrors, so reflective that I could see things in myself that I never dreamed were possible.
I imagined myself as a gallant knight on a shiny white horse. I was galloping away as fast as I could, when I spotted the fairy princess. But for a moment I halted my retreat, or was it an advance? I gazed into the fairy princess’ sweet eyes and beckoned her. The fairy princess met my gaze and then, with no effort at all, lifted off the ground, pirouetted above me with the stars and the moon playing all around. She landed behind me on my steed. We shared the saddle as we rode off to adventure.
Soon the coffeepot was empty and we were both sober. We held hands across the table.
“You asked me what’s next. I’ve always wanted to travel — some place fun and exotic. An African safari, the Amazon, the North Pole, Tibet, Tahiti... “
Kelly’s beamed. “Oh I love the beach, we went to the Jersey shore all the time. We made sand castles, found hermit crabs in the tidal pools.”
I realized that our plan had one hitch. “Do you have your allotment card?”
She shuffled through her stack of cards until she found the one with the picture of the White House. She pulled out the plastic and crumbled up and tossed the rest.
“Where’s yours?”
“Back in Leonia, on the dining room table I guess. We won’t need it right away. Mom will express it; she’s anxious to get rid of me.”
We stepped out onto St. Nicholas arm in arm.
“Shall we make it Tahiti, then?”
“Sure. But hey, how did you know my name?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get to that. We have all the time in the world.”
“What do you mean?”
I held her close and we kissed, not for a moment, but for a long time. “Love conquers all,” I said.
The moon reflected majestically off the Hudson River as we headed westbound and descended into the Eighth Avenue subway, looking for the downtown “A-train” that would take us to JFK airport.
Copyright © 2024 by David Blitch
