By nine p.m. the bar already smelled like wet pretzels, lemon rinds, and that pink disinfectant that burns your throat. I stacked pint glasses into crooked towers, waiting for one to topple so I’d have an excuse to sweep instead of pour another vodka soda.
Marco leaned against the jukebox, pretending he knew how to fix it. He said the sound cut out again on “Sultans of Swing,” which he swore was a crime against art. Rita, dragging a rag across the counter, said nobody under forty wanted to hear Dire Straits anyway. They argued like this most nights. I liked it. It meant I didn’t have to talk.
Nisha wasn’t here again tonight. Which meant the band kept eyeing me for the last song. Probably “Hotel California.” I only did it once. Now they think I’m the understudy.
The record-label guy was there that night. He leaned over the bar, said I had “real potential.” At one time that might have mattered. Now he just drifts in and out. Hanging around. Waiting for me to care again.
The band plays covers. Stones, Petty, sometimes the Clash. By the end of the night it’s always the Eagles. Really anybody can do that.
A couple argued about karaoke, though we don’t even have a machine. They yelled about who got the next song, knocked over a chair, then stormed out. Later I found a subway token under their stool. A free ride home. I slipped it into my pocket.
The woman from earlier came back from the bathroom with mascara streaks like war paint and ordered another gin and tonic. I admired her commitment.
A guy in a shiny shirt leaned over the counter. He told me he used to intern at a record label. I didn’t ask which one. He said I had “something special.” I poured him the cheap whiskey and thanked him like he’d knighted me. He winked and left a two-dollar tip, which is more than usual. Maybe he wasn’t completely useless.
By midnight, Marco said if the trains weren’t running he might just sleep on the pool table.
The guys from the band packed up and drifted to the bar for free drinks. At the other end of the room, a man with buggy-whip arms tried balancing a lit cigarette on the rim of his glass. He said it was a trick he learned in Reno. The ash collapsed into his beer before anyone cared.
A woman kept asking if we could play Madonna, and when Marco told her the jukebox was broken she started singing “Like a Virgin” anyway, off-key but determined. Nobody told her to stop. Rita said, “Could be worse. Could be Springsteen.” Then she went back to wiping the counter.
I put on my coat and waved at Rita to lock up after me. She nodded, already scooping ashtrays.
Outside, the city glistened from some rain I hadn’t noticed. Neon bounced across puddles, taxis hissed by, a siren pulled its long note through the air. I walked to the station, humming one of the songs they always play, something about rollergirls.
At the turnstile I dropped the token in and pushed through.
The train screeched in to the station, mostly empty. A couple leaned against each other near the door, laughing softly after too much night. A few people were stretched across the benches, coats pulled over their heads. They’d ride until morning.
The lights flickered as the subway bounced along, windows rattling in their frames, keeping time.
Nine stops. Still here. Still moving.