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Lucky Duckling

Chronicles: The Epic Lizzie Showdown

By Will PBPublished 3 years ago 10 min read
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Not all heroes wear masks, but when I do I'm staying safe in 2022.

Will Pryor-Bennett

Vocal+ Moleskine Contest

Lucky Duckling

June 15th, 2022

Tonight’s the night, man, I can feel it. I’m going to have two drinks, and then I’m going to walk out of this bar. Lads and Lassies- Irish Pub- on 78th and Amsterdam, in NYC. Nice place: L-shaped bar with about 20 stools, a little raised stage in the southwest corner (somebody knows feng shui), hardwood floors, warm colors, warm overhead lamps, and craft beer. That’s what I love most about writing: I don’t have to defend craft beer. It’s my life, my story, and it doesn’t matter.

Tonight, like nearly every other night, the bar is filled with loud and happy people. There’s a crowd outside, too, smoking cigs on the sidewalk. Oh, it’s been a summer alright. I haven’t had this much fun since I dropped outta high school. I landed on my feet, though. I sell airplane machinery for commercial airplane contractors. Now I know all about airplanes and cross-media marketing. But the mystery that still eludes me… is the unknowable Lizzie.

Lizzie is the bartendress at Lads and Lassies. She does the night shifts, 5pm to 2am on the weekends, like a blockbuster movie. She’s a blockbuster, alright. She was born for Nights and Weekends. Everybody deals with Lizzie differently. Some guys play pool at the lone pool table that isn’t even regulation size and they don’t give it up the entire night even if they lose. Some people sing karaoke. And some, like me, do what they came here to do: drink (and write).

That’s how Lizzie ended up sitting in the hesitant, lukewarm lap of my life. You see, I’m proud of what I do. I’m proud of myself. I bench 170 lbs. I do my whole workout in 45 minutes. My last relationship ended amicably. I make myself salads for lunch and put them in a plastic container. I don’t need to drool over some chick behind some bar to fill some unfillable hole in my soul or whatever like that. When she first started touching my shoulder, it bothered me. And suddenly I was getting 3 drinks instead of one.

The real reason that I keep coming here, to this bar, is the open mic night. I got really good at the acoustic guitar during quarantine, and now… I’m almost ready to express myself. I have this little black book and I was coming to Lads and Lassies every Wednesday at 5pm- 2 hours before the open mic- to write my songs in it. That was back in March, before I stopped writing songs in this little black book and wrote the words “Chronicles: My Epic Lizzie Showdown.” I figured this bar could be for me what the Gaslight was for Dylan: the place where I started out and tested my skills. I could learn what the audience loved about me. Crazy, right? Maybe, but from the looks of things, some other people had the same idea.

Open mic is very competitive right now. Every Wednesday, the electric guitar player (who hosts open mic) solos over his drum machine like George Clinton just whispered something in his ear. There’s no awkward clapping after an insincere slam poem, it’s all finely tuned, passionate works of art with the power to bring people together and make them cry. So stage fright is a problem. The other problem is being so drunk I can’t perform well onstage. Did I mention Lizzie?

June 22nd, 2022

Take a look at the lesson

The lessons that you learned

Because you’re on your way

And there’s a price to pay

For every penny thatcha haven’t earn-

3rd drink: margherita with notes of lilac

I hate you Lizzie

June 24th, 2022

She doesn’t even have to be the one serving me. Sometimes I seek out the other bartender, his name is Frank, and he’s 6’7” ex-military. There will be 4 people at the bar after a hard week, nobody knows me, so I’ll order a tequila shot with a lime. And I swear to you, every time ex-military-man Frank pushes that shot towards me with his massive left arm, Lizzie walks by and touches him on the shoulder. And I know myself enough to know that in my pre-tequila state, I might get jealous of this super-calm gentleman that I can never match physically (I’m 5’7”). I say to myself, “Stewart, you’re not here for Lizzie. You’re here to make connections, and make sure these people are cool. You want them to like you as a person so when you finally blow their minds at open mic, they don’t shy away from your greatness.”

The next thing I know, I wind up squaring off with whatever reject has been hogging the pool table all night, and Frank will be too busy singing metal into the karaoke machine to notice what’s going on. One time the guy hogging the pool table happened to be the runner-up for the 2021 Golden Gloves Amateur Boxing Competition. I only lived because we had a mutual friend.

June 27th, 2022

Yeah, I had 4 drinks at the bar the other night. Danced with 2 different women. One gave me their phone number and is already not answering. So I’m drinking my apple cider vinegar and spiking my water with cardamom, talking to trusted high school friends, and preparing to return to the bar in a week or so when the regulars will be cool with me again. We’re all synced up, we know each other’s forgiveness periods.

June 29th, 2022

I just made $20,000.

July 2nd, 2022

It’s 10 am on a Saturday. I’m in the kitchen of my one-bedroom apartment, smoking and listening to jazz and sipping a double espresso I just bought from the café on the corner. I live on 68th and Madison, in case this thing is ever found. I do lose notebooks sometimes. Hopefully I hold onto this one forever. I want to remember every detail of this year, 40 years from now.

The 20k was in the bathroom. The men’s bathroom, sitting in a zipped-up black duffel bag. I was so drunk, I can’t believe I noticed it. There could’ve been a thousand guys in that restroom that night, who didn’t notice it at all.

It’s probably drug money. It’s not uncommon to be playing pool in Lads and Lassies on a sunny Saturday like this one and hear one of the regulars, Bruno, yell out, “I’m rich and I sell drugs!” It was 11 pm Wednesday night, and the open mic was raging. I walked out with the duffel bag strap slung over my shoulder, strutting like after a win with my high school lacrosse team.

The next day, I called sick out of work. It was like a day before the long July 4th weekend, I’d just gotten a huge win for the company, I honestly don’t think my boss even cared. I wish I could’ve just told him I’d found $20,000, but that’s not the world I live in. I went to that pond in Central Park and started feeding hella ducks. I bought like 3 loaves of bread to feed the ducks with and set the loaves next to me on the bench facing the pond. About 90 minutes into it, I had to admit to myself that I was in love with Lizzie.

Let’s take it back to the now- the Saturday, the smoking, and the jazz. I’m going to do it. On Thursday of next week, when this weekend’s fireworks are a distant memory, I’m going to cash in on all 3 weeks of my vacation time. I’m going to buy a motorcycle and ride around the country, with my acoustic guitar on my back. I’ll play every open mic in every half-decent bar and I’ll only have 2 drinks a night, and only on nights when I play. I’m going to ask Lizzie to come with me and, if she does, I’ll buy one of those sidecars most motorbikers reserve for dogs and we’ll listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd on the radio as the wind rushes past us at 65 mph. Your mind holds all the keys to the Kingdom of Life. If you want to unlock the gate, all you gotta do is ask.

That’s what I’m gonna do. I’m going to ask Lizzie to see the U.S. with me. And I’m going to ask her at the worst possible time…

July 4th, 2022

I’m sitting on the sidewalk with by back up against the front wall of Lads and Lassies. An illegal display of fireworks is bursting in the night sky. Lizzie is sitting next to me, smoking a cigarette. Nobody’s searching for the 20k. No gunslingers in sunglasses, no final showdown with Bruno, which I half-expected. For once in my life, I’ve gotten away with something that has anything to do with money.

When I first ran up to Lizzie, I guess I really thought she knew me better than she does. I thought she was a magician. But even someone whom you’ve seen balance a serving tray with 14 martini glasses on it while she jumps over six football lovin’ hot-wing-eaters is still just a human deep down, with all the human frailties that come with humanity. Tonight, I answered the question every man wonders; can you get a random woman to love you if you have 20,000 more dollars.

Lads and Lassies was a madhouse when I ran in- there were football jerseys and spilled drinks and lime wedges everywhere. Lizzie was wearing the shortest black shorts. Her legs were tanned to perfection. I ran up to her and said, “Lizzie, let’s do it, let’s get out of here.”

“What? What are you talking about? No,” Lizzie tried to move around me.

“Lizzie,” I said, grinning, “I found 20,000 dollars. I found it here, in the men’s bathroom.” Lizzie’s eyes went wide.

“You found fuh--? Here?” Lizzie asked. I wish I could describe what she was thinking. Her facial expression was incredible. You probably have to wake up next to someone for a solid 20 years to even guess at something like that. Lizzie’s shoulders fell, even while holding up that serving tray. “Well I’m not gonna just run away with you if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Lizzie.

“Why not!?” I whined, because I’m really not as mature as I think I am. Maybe I don’t deserve the 20k I found in the men’s bathroom at Lads and Lassies that’s lying crumpled all over my bed from when I was playing in it earlier. So I pressed and pressed her for all the spare 30 seconds that she had, and in that moment, I saw Lizzie for the hard-working woman that she really was. As tired as a mummy on a treadmill, she looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Stewart. I’m married.”

So I guess I’m taking my trip alone, I wish I hadn’t stressed Lizzie out so much. I’m going to buy a 3rd drink tonight. That’ll make up for it. I’m really looking forward to my trip, although I have to pick good bars where some drunk punk isn’t going to smash my guitar for fun. I’m Irish-American, I’ve had a drink in both countries, and I’m just going to say it: Americans suck at drinking for fun. Debatably, they can’t even do it.

comedy
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