9 Letters (10 page)

He put down the knife, rested his
hands on the bar, looked up at me. I’d never realized he’d
put so much thought into my life, or that this nineteen year old had
such an old soul.

“That’s what’s
wrong with you, man. You’ve had some shit go down, I’m
not saying you haven’t. But like, what you lost? Most of us
never even get that. What you’ve got staring you right in the
face? I’d cut off my left nut just to get a shot at one of
them. You’re the luckiest motherfucker in Kansas City and you
don’t even know it.”

All my life, I’ve never
liked talking about girls with my friends. Because guys don’t
talk honest about women with each other, they just front. I do it
too. It doesn’t do anyone any good. It’s
never
done anyone any good. And it’s plain disrespectful, is what it
is. But behind what Jake was saying, there was something true to all
of that. So, maybe, it was worth it to talk to him.

“You should ask Maggie
out,” I said.

“Yeah right.”

Jake wasn’t too much
shorter than me, but I had 40lbs on him, easy. He was in alright
shape, but he wasn’t the most classically handsome man and it’s
hard when you’re younger and less experienced than a woman to
think you’ve got much of a shot with her.

“Or don’t,” I
said. “But she might say yes.”

“Bad idea to date your
co-workers,” Jake said.

“Damn right,” I said.

At Rae’s table, they’d
graduated from beer to shots. I couldn’t get them top shelf for
free, but I got them well drinks. And damn if Rae didn’t knock
it back, no chaser, no mixer. She was a happy drunk, too. Alcohol
strips away inhibition, leaves your soul out and bare. A happy drunk,
they’re the best people. An angry drunk is hiding something
from themselves, has too much darkness. Rae was a happy drunk. Not
that I would admit to myself I was watching. As she got drunker, she
graduated from shooting me glances to holding eye contact.

For some reason, I stayed more
sober on my shift than I did most nights.

John Deere came up for drinks a
couple times by himself, and as the evening settled in he got pretty
drunk.

I don’t like to turn a man
down for a drink, even a man I don’t like, but policy is policy
and I cut him off after he tripped on a chair on the way to the bar.

He didn’t say nothing to me
about me not letting him order, just scowled again. His scowl was
carved deep on his face. I hated him for it.

People say you hate people the
worst when they reflect the things you hate about yourself. Maybe.
Maybe I hated John Deere because he was bitter and angry all the time
and I didn’t want to stay that way myself. Maybe I hated him
because he dressed like he worked outside, but he didn’t. And,
well, so did I.

But when he got back to the
table, he started saying shit to his friends. I couldn’t make
it out, but he was gesturing wildly. Slammed his fist on the table,
startling Irina.

I hadn’t realized until
just then, but Irina was pretty drunk herself. Eyes a little glazed
over, a little quick to laugh. And John Deere was yelling at her.
Just standing at the end of the table, staring at her while he yelled
God knows what awful stuff.

I caught John Lawson’s eye.
I swear everyone who works for Warren had the magical power to know
exactly what was going on in that bar at all times. John Lawson
nodded, and we both looked back at the table, and John Deere was
yelling. Irina was pulling back in on herself...not hiding in fear,
just retreating from the situation. The rest of the table was looking
around nervously as their celebratory evening slid into chaos.

John Lawson nodded at me again,
and I nodded to Jake, who probably nodded to Warren who probably
nodded to Maggie—who wasn’t even on shift, but she was
one of us anyway.

It was a team effort. Maggie went
to the front door, held it open and kept it clear. Jake held down the
bar, while Warren and John Lawson held a respectful distance just
behind me as I walked up to the table. Unlikely I’d need the
back-up, but a little extra threat never hurt anyone in situations
like these. Better to scare a man out of the bar than have to do the
same with force.

“Hey, buddy, it looks like
you’ve had enough to drink,” I said, going for friendly.

“You told me that at the
bar, motherfucker.” He spun around to face me, knocking Rae’s
empty glass onto her lap. In the same gesture, he threw maybe the
worst punch I’ve ever seen. I had half the inkling to just let
it connect, because it was so weak it didn’t seem worth
dodging. But it was aimed at my face, and you just can’t take a
punch to the face for granted. I pulled my head back and he missed.

Then he followed up, which caught
me by surprise. He stepped forward and threw a jab—a decent
jab. The haymaker had just been to get the measure of me. I stepped
to the side, got his arm, put him in an armbar.

“You’re leaving now,”
I said.

He scowled that scowl, but I had
him in a joint lock and he was too drunk to do anything about it. I’d
handled worse. I marched him outside. His friends followed.

If he’d been there with
anyone but Rae, I would have thrown him down on the pavement, give
him some scrapes to remember me by. Instead, I got him to the
sidewalk and let him go with just a shove.

To her credit, Irina didn’t
look like she had as much interest in John Deere as she’d had a
few hours prior. She took him by the arm to steady him—he was
still complaining—and hailed him a cab, then told him she’d
catch the next one with Nicole and Eric.

“You all don’t got to
go,” I heard John Lawson saying. “Just him.”

“No, it’s alright,”
Rae said. “I’m really sorry about the mess.”

“It’s nothing,
ma’am,” John Lawson said.

Nicole, Eric, and Irina all
climbed into a cab. But Rae still lingered.

“Look at you, saving the
day,” she said, as her friends took off. We stepped away from
the curb. Maggie gave us a funny look and let the bar door close,
leaving us alone on the street.

“The least I can do,”
I said.

“Walk me to my car?”
She offered her elbow, and I took it, nervously. She was a head
shorter than me, and I didn’t know how to walk in time with
her. She let go after a few steps.

“Are you alright to drive?”
I asked.

“I had two drinks, and
stopped about an hour and a half ago.” She looked up at me and
smiled. “You’re sweet to ask.”

Maybe she hadn’t been so
drunk as I’d figured. Maybe I didn’t know if she was a
happy drunk just yet after all. Could be she was just happy.

“Just don’t want
anything bad to happen someone as nice as you,” I said.

Rae smiled. “I kept
thinking about trying to invite you over to join us, like on a break
or something. Figured you probably couldn’t, though.”

“You should have,” I
said.

She took me by the elbow just
then, and stepped up onto her toes. Our eyes locked and held.
Suddenly I knew she wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss
her. I wasn’t sure it was right, though. Right for me, right
for her, the right time, the right move.

Then again, to hell with it.

I cupped her face in my hands,
ran my thumb softly across her lower lip as her mouth parted and she
tilted her head back. Her eyes closed and I leaned forward—

Her phone rang just then,
startling her away from me. An irritated ringtone, like a sad
trombone. She didn’t even take it out of her purse, just huffed
an exasperated sigh.

“That’s my ex,”
she said. “I set my ringtone so I don’t even have to see
his name on the screen. Looks like he’s ruining everything, as
usual.” She shook her head and flashed an apologetic smile.

“Oh,” I said. There
was a kind of space between us now. The moment had passed. We resumed
walking down the street.

“He’s been kind of
harassing me since we split,” she babbled, trying to fill the
silence.

“How long has that been?”
I asked.

Rae looked away, suddenly
uncomfortable. “Hey, so, I had a nice night up until my friend
got too drunk in there, and I don’t want to make it any worse,
so...”

“So let’s not talk
about your ex,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said.
“You sounded excited about Eric’s job at the studio
though. You sing or something?”

“A little,” I said.
“And I like to play guitar.”

“That’s great. I’d
like to hear you play sometime.”

We reached her car just then, a
four-door sedan, about ten years old. Intensely practical. I could
appreciate that. We kind of stood there, her looking up at me, me
looking down at her. She was beautiful in the streetlight. She was
beautiful in any light. We met eyes, but we didn’t fall into
one another, not again. The weight of her ex was on her mind, the
weight of Emily on mine.

“Well,” I said. I
tipped my hat.

“Goodnight,” she
said, wistfully.

I started to walk away. I knew
she was waiting by her door, keys in hand, watching me go. I could
turn around right now, push her gently against the car, finish that
kiss we’d started.

I pushed the thought away.
Decided I’d open another letter when I got home.

First, back to my late shift,
serving drunks.

I pulled into my driveway, walked
up to my door. Took a deep breath. Opened the door. Expecting chaos
and destruction…

Nothing was ruined.

King heard me come in, trotted
down the stairs to meet me. He had an old shoe in his mouth, one of
my old trainers I hadn’t been able to bring myself to get rid
of. And sure, it was chewed up a little, but it wasn’t nothing
compared to what he’d done before.

“Who’s a good boy?”
I asked, crouching down. My muscles hurt from standing, and I
realized I wasn’t used to coming home quite so sober. King got
his slobbery face into my arms, and I was happy like that for a
moment.

Funny how when you’re
happy, when you’re not used to being happy, the tears well up
behind your eyes just as bad as when you’re miserable. But I
pushed them down, gave King a good tussle, and went for the kitchen
table and the letters.

Sat down in the chair, felt it
reassuring and solid beneath me. Unfolded my knife, cut open the
fourth envelope. Refolded my knife. Put it back in my pocket. I
poured a shot of whiskey, but the night had been too strange and too
long to cap it off like that. I sipped off the shot glass, instead.

Unfolded that letter.

“Well, I hope you’re
feeling a little bit better.”

I had been, until I read Emily’s
words. She’d drawn a heart over the “i” in “bit”
and like a sad sack I just let myself get lost in self-pity. Let
myself remember that she’d never draw another heart again, that
her heart would never beat again. That I’d never again hear it
beat so fast, my ear against her breast after morning sex.

It comes in waves, I told myself.
You let them wash over you, you trace their departure in your mind’s
eye. The first or second wave of any given attack, those are the
worst. The worst was over, though. It would always hurt, would always
feel wrong that she wasn’t at my side, sharing my life, but I
was starting to feel like each day I got a little bit stronger. Just
a little bit. And that meant the waves would come less and less.

That’s what my mom told me
once. And she’d lost my oldest brother in the womb. She maybe
knew what she was talking about.

Back to the letter.

“If you want to keep
feeling a little bit better, you’ve got to work with your
hands. It’s the only thing that keeps you happy. Maybe you
don’t need the stress of contracting right now, but hear me
out: I think you should go volunteer. Get out of the city and commit
to something. I bet there’s still plenty that needs fixing in
the wake of those tornados up north. Been a year and something by the
time you read this, but I bet you dollars to donuts they still could
use a man like you.”

I set the letter down a moment
and leaned back in my chair. It was perfect. It was exactly the kind
of thing I’d never have thought of. Emily was always thinking
about other people. That was my wife, bless her heart.

“So I spent some time last
night looking into it and I think you should join Heartland Habitat.
Good people, God’s people. Volunteer with them. Do some good.”

I liked that idea right off. I’d
thought about building, but I’d always get caught up in
logistics: how I was going to get customers, how I was going to
afford new tools. Or how I’d have to work for my dad. All
stressful. But this was simple. And it would do some good. Get me
away from all the distractions in my life. I had a couple days off
anyway, since Warren had me on a kind of unspoken suspension of two
shifts a week instead of my usual five or six. I think it was as much
to keep me away from Maggie as it was to keep me away from the bar.

“Hey King,” I said.
He looked up from where he was lying on the floor. “Tomorrow,
how about we get out to the country?”

He yawned, settled his jowls
back onto his paws and closed his eyes.

Looked an awful lot like a yes
to me.

Sure, my eyes were open and I was
walking, but I didn’t
really
wake up until the smell of that venison hit my nose and told me life
was worth living. Better than coffee. But I made myself plenty of the
black blood of the earth to go with it, because better than coffee
doesn’t mean a man should do without coffee.

The sun wasn’t more than
halfway over the horizon, and the pale morning light lit up my house.
Even though I hadn’t slept more than a couple hours, I was
doing pretty good, feeling pretty good. I think you can build up kind
of a reserve of sleep. It’s not one-to-one, but I’d spent
a year pretty depressed and getting plenty more than the six, seven
hours I really need. I could do a night without.