BARKEEP

I stepped into the hushed establishment. Burnished and scarred wooden floors and walls, a bar lit only by a few scattered neon beer signs and a tiny TV on mute. No tunes from the jukebox. It was quiet. Smelled like dust with a side of spilled beer and Lysol. But it was just what I needed, a respite from the torrid sun. A place where I could sit at the bar, uninterrupted in my reflection.

The barkeep glanced up from his newspaper as I pulled myself up onto a stool at the end of the bar. One of those spinning stools, if I were so inclined. But I wasn’t here for entertainment.

“Draft, whatever you got,” I signed. “Oh, and a shot of bourbon. House is fine.”

He tossed down a cardboard coaster and a draft mug. Tongued his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. Slapped down a shot glass and filled it with Old Crow, and walked back to his perch and his paper.

I closed my eyes and drew a long swallow of tepid beer. It was just cool enough to soothe my burning throat. None of the other stools were occupied, and Barkeep wasn’t interested in conversation. Suited me fine. I watched the flickering images on the TV, slugged back the bourbon, then covered my face with my palms. God, I was tired. Beat up. Done. I’d had enough. I could evaporate and no one would notice, or care for that matter.

Time passed, not sure how long. I felt something softly brush my knee, and I opened my eyes. My beer was empty, and there was a blonde, well-turned-out dame sitting on the stool beside mine. Not the kind of gal I’d expect to see in this place. Gal. Yes, she sure was a gal, or a dame, with her Veronica Lake-swept hair and her pearls and her red lips. I side-eyed her hoping she wouldn’t notice, but she caught my glance. Oh why. I wanted silence, not conversation, but she swung her stool towards me and asked, “Hey, penny for your thoughts, fella. In deep contemplation, wasn’t you?”

I tried to ignore her. She kept on, putting her gloved hand on my forearm. “I know you, don’t I? I mean, I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

“I doubt it.”

“Are you sure, because you look like—“

“Hey, I’m not here to talk, thanks, so if you wouldn’t mind—“

“Well, I’ve been looking for a guy like you for a while, so I’m not about to give up now. Can I buy you a drink?”

I closed my eyes. Please, please go away. In truth, she looked familiar to me too. I think I might have met her before, in another bar, in another city. Maybe New York. California. My troubles had been chasing me all over the country, and I was tired of running. Please, lady, just leave me alone.

“Barkeep, get this guy a drink,” she said. “And one for me, whatever he’s having.”

One coaster slapped the bar, then two beers and two shots of Old Crow.

“Cheers, mon ami. Down the hatch, so they say,” she said as she clinked her shot glass against mine. “Now, tell me your troubles.”

I gripped my glass and turned away from her.

“Come on, it can’t be that bad. There’s always a way out of trouble…maybe you just need a change of scenery. Hey, barkeep, how about the rooftop? Door locked, or can we go up?”

The bartender looked up from his news and nodded. “Open,” he mumbled.

“Pal, let me take you up to the roof,” the dame suggested. “My little piece of paradise, I call it…not too many folks know about it. There’s a bit of a breeze, and a darned pretty view.”

“Nah,” I responded. “I really just want to be left alone. Invisible, like.”

“That’s swell,” she said. “But come with me. You’ll see. You can be alone and invisible all you like up there.”

Realizing she wasn’t about to relent, I swung off the bar stool and stood up.

She turned and unfolded her legs from the stool, smoothed her skirt with her hands, swept a tendril of golden hair from her forehead.

“Grab your beer. I’ll show you the way.”

She led me to the back of the bar, where there was one bare lightbulb hanging at the landing. I followed her, watching the curve of her hips and she gracefully negotiated the dim stairway. We climbed one, two, three flights until we came to a metal door.

The daylight assaulted my eyes as the door scraped open. Oh, this was wrong. I could hardly see through my squinted eyelids. Then I stepped across the threshold onto the warm tar roof. It could indeed be classified as an oasis, though it did nothing to lift my spirits.

“Cheers to a new adventure, pal,” the gal said as she turned to me and raised her beer glass. “I guarantee you’re gonna like it up here.”

“Why did we come up here?” I sputtered. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“You needed to see the view,” she said. “You needed to see it from the edge.”

She took my hand and led me over to peer down to the street below. “See? What a spot. You can see everything that’s going on…the river, the trees, the cabs and all the life transpiring beneath us. It’s pretty impressive, this perspective, don’t you think?”

“I suppose, but—“

“You wanted to be alone, to be invisible. And here you are. No one knows you’re up here, and they wouldn’t care anyway, am I right?”

“Well, yeah, but you’re here…”

“But really, who am I? And does it matter?” she asked. “Here, put down your beer and step up onto the ledge. You only really experience the view when you’re on the edge.”

I stepped up, with only the very tips of my brogues over the metal frame. “It’s different here,” I offered. I really didn’t know what she wanted me to say.

“I like coming up here,” she explained. “When I want to be alone. Invisible. I always think, just one step, and over I’d go. Ever wonder how it would feel to just step out into the air?”

I turned to search her face, to see if she was playing me. Was this dame for real?

In the revealing sunlight, she was older than I’d previously thought. Ashen, sort of. Lots of makeup, not particularly well applied. Her hair, not the golden flax I’d noticed, but grey and thin.

Her eyes caught mine. “Surprising, isn’t it?” She was standing close to me on the ledge. I looked down to discover she was barefoot, and her toes were wiggling and dancing as they nudged the top of the building. She reached out and took my hand, her chalky fingertips in my sweaty palm.

“People say that when you step off the edge, you remember all the good things, all the things you loved, all the wonder of your life. You’re cleansed by the time you land, and you land at peace. You can see it in the expression. All problems solved. Evelyn told me. Heard of her? She was a beautiful one.”

My jaw dropped with recognition. Evelyn McHale. Jumped off the Empire State Building in 1947. Everybody knew her. How could I be standing here, with my toes on the edge and such a lovely view, alongside a shape-shifting dame who spoke to someone who’d been dead for seven years?

OK, I’d had more than my share of troubles, so many times I’d just wanted to evaporate, disappear forever, but never had I seen this perspective and now I—

A slight shift of her hand in mine, and I lost my footing, weaving backward and then stumbling forward into air. I turned my head to the dame, to reach out for her hand, but I was alone, invisible, which was just where I wanted to be.