Her name was Destiny and she told me I didn’t have long to live. Carpay something, she said, which I didn’t really get at the time. Car payments? House payments? The car’s paid off, by the way, but not the house. “Carpe diem,dumbass,” one of my buddies told me later. “Everyone knows that.” But I didn’t until he told me and then I saw it everywhere, even in a Budweiser commercial. Which should have been reassuring, but wasn’t. Finally got back to Cleveland for business and I looked the girl up again. An average bar, not a dive, not too upscale either. More men than women, some regulars in suits who looked like they didn’t show up at the bar until after work. And this bartender called Destiny with dark curly hair and hoop earrings. Youngish, nice smile.
*
My name’s not really Destiny but I don’t like to give customers my real name. One of my boyfriends got a tattoo once, “My Destiny,” and wanted me to get the same one too. Turned out I couldn’t afford it and he wasn’t. I nod like I remember this guy in the bar tonight but of course I don’t remember some guy who was here once, passing through on a business trip, a year ago. I guess I made quite an impression. I mean, none of us has long to live. I don’t remember what I said exactly, but I had to laugh at the car payments. “Carpe diem,” I said. “You know, ‘gather ye rosebuds.’” He didn’t know, gave me a blank stare. Here I am working off my student loans for my B.A. in English in a bar where no one understands even minimal literary references. It’s sad really.
*
So now she’s saying none of us has long to live, but that’s not how I remember it. Scared the shit out of me really, the more I thought about it. I got the doctor to check everything—ticker, prostate, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, you name it. “For your age,” he said, “you’re not in bad shape. You could work on that cholesterol.” Seems like everything these days is “for your age.” Listen, guys my age keel over all the time. I look at the obituaries. Can’t seem to help myself. Doc finally gave me meds for anxiety.
*
Well at least he’s got insurance that pays for doctors and meds for anxiety. I’ve got a college degree and nada, no benefits, no doctors, no meds. Nearing the big three oh, “Time’s wingèd chariot” at my back, and here I am living on tips, working on the “Great American Novel” in my spare time. Or working on a little American novel, bartending in my spare time, however you want to look at it. Sometimes I want to do a Bartleby, say, “I would prefer not to.” I could tell fortunes instead, with a name like Destiny. Apparently I’ve got a knack.
*
She laughs and says, “Maybe I’m clairvoyant like Madame Sosostris with her bad cold and wicked pack of cards,” and really this chick could only be called enigmatic. I guess if your parents christen you Destiny you grow up kind of weird. “You know what they say instead of ‘last call’ across the Atlantic?” she says. “They say ‘Hurry up, please, it’s time.’ Sinister if you ask me.” So nobody asked her, and I don’t know whether I’m feeling less spooked or more spooked. I thought she’d be able to tell me more. The dark bar, the bartender named Destiny, everything the same as last year, it’s like she’ll be here forever, the same guys will be here forever, I’ll return every year, and the news will never be good.
*
If I had a nickel for every guy who hasn’t heard of T.S. Eliot’s Madame Sosostris or Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus I could retire from making drinks. Maybe it’s time to look for a different bar, a “clean well-lighted place” filled with writers who’d get me. But writers don’t have money for tips, there’s that to think about. They’d probably be gloomier and more angst-ridden than this guy, who’s definitely looking pale. I kinda like him, though. Don’t really know why.
*
Maybe it’s the bar. Moe’s. There is no Moe, Destiny says, and even that seems like a bad sign. Maybe I’m going to die here some year. I won’t be able to stay away. But Destiny, really, it’s like you can’t avoid it.
*
Guy leaves an extra twenty for me on the bar. I hope he doesn’t get run over by a truck on the way back to his hotel. He’s that shaky. Carpe diem. I mean live it up, have another drink, don’t have a year-long panic attack. I could say “all the world’s a stage” and the last act for us all is gonna be “second childishness and mere oblivion.” But I don’t. The guy’s already depressed.
*
“Gather ye rosebuds,” she says as I leave, kind of unsteady on my feet, but doing okay for my age. “Google it.” Why would I google rosebuds? “Are you going to be here next time I’m in town?” I ask her. “Unless I get famous,” she says. I figure she’ll be here, wiping the counter, telling some drunk coming on to her, “Watch out, buddy. I eat men like air.” Like it’s fate or something, me seeing her again and again.
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Biography: Jacqueline Doyle lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to her flash chapbook The Missing Girl (Black Lawrence Press), she has published flash in Wigleaf, trampset, The Pinch, Bending Genres, Fictive Dream, FlashFlood, and Ellipsis Zine (twice). Find her online at jacquelinedoyle.com and on Twitter @doylejacq.
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Image: pexels.com
