Enbalm

I sat at the bar, waiting on my beer and watching the college football game play out on the big, flatscreen TV. The bar was pretty much empty. Well, it was a Monday afternoon, after all. Most people would be headed home to rest before the next day’s work, unable to afford any of the heavy drinking that the majority of them came here to do. But me, I liked a quiet drink before heading home. It was a good place to decompress after a hard day’s work at the construction site, and that happened to be what I needed on that particular afternoon.

Jay was just handing me my beer when the door opened and a young man slunk up to the bar and took the seat next to mine. His voice was quiet and meek. So quiet, in fact, that Jay struggled to hear it. He seemed to space out as he ordered a whiskey on the rocks and stared off into space. A couple of college kids started a game of pool, bantering around the table with hearty laughter. Alabama scored a touchdown on the screen.

I gotta admit, I was a little miffed to have company. It had been a long, hard day. I had to deal with a newbie on the job, who for the most part couldn’t even hold a hammer properly, let alone operate any of the heavy machinery.

All I really wanted to do was have a nice beer before I retired home to the wife. Not that she’s so bad, really, it’s just that our apartment is pretty damn small and it’s nice to have a little time to myself. A few moments to clear my head and quiet my own grumbing, otherwise I’d head home complaining. My wife, she hates that. Too much negativity, she’d say. So I had to get it out here, in the peace and quiet of my own thoughts. And when a guy sits right next to you at an empty bar like this, it means he wants to talk, and, quite frankly, I wasn’t feeling like it that day.

But as I waited and watched Alabama throw a touch-down again, I took closer notice of the guy. He looked rough, real rough, like he’d just caught his wife in bed with the milkman or something. His face was haggard and pale. He kept running his hands through his red hair, pale red and a little too messy. He stared down hard at the oak wood counter. Most importantly, he was knocking his whiskey back as though his life depended on it. One, two, three shots, all down the hatch. Bottoms up.

Now, truth be told, I’ve always been a bit of a lightweight. All the other guys in construction used to give me shit for it when we went out for drinks after work. It really sorta bugged me, you know? Tough as nails around the job site, but shit at holding my booze. So, you see, I couldn’t help but notice this guy chugging away his liquor without a second thought.

Despite my earlier reservations, I felt like I had to talk to this guy. I mean, he looked like he really needed it. Looked like something was really eating away at the poor chap. And I like to think of myself as a personable fellow. Warm and engaging, that’s what my wife calls me. I felt like I had a responsibility to my fellow man or something. That was my trouble.

So I opened my mouth. Why did I have to open my damn mouth?

“Rough day at work?”

“Erm, yeah.” He was still staring down at the counter as I started the conversation. His hands played around nervously with his glass. Man, I thought to myself, I hate that. Fidgety people.

I should’ve just stopped right then and there, but the poor chap looked like he was gonna snap at any minute. I kind of really felt sorry for the guy, couldn’t just leave him to sit and stew like that. “Well, everyone has days like that.”

“Not like this.”

I waited quietly for an explanation, but it became pretty clear that he wasn’t gonna give one to me. Well, screw him. I had a family to get home to. A little family, but it was mine all the same. I was about to give up for good and head back home, actually, when he decided to start talking to me again.

“There will be more.”

His tone was really strange, much calmer than the rest of him, which was shaking like a leaf.

My thoughts were still toying around with thoughts of heading home. I bet if I asked my wife she would cook me my favorite food, spaghetti with thick sauce, homemade, not the shit you buy in a jar at the store, I thought. She’s good to me like that, always treating me to the little things. Things that I should appreciate more, I know. So, I tried to end the conversation without doing something I’d feel too guilty for. “Well, why don’t you just quit, then?”

“Not many people can do what I do.”

I felt a little stab of annoyance. I sized him up. He was wearing a black suit and tie, crisp undershirt and shined up shoes. Real expensive. Probably some fancy salaryman, calculating figures for a Fortune 500 company, too good for the likes of a manual laborer like me. Now I really wanted to get the hell out of there.

“Well, if it’s such an important job, then you must be an important man for doing it. Let me guess, something that takes a lot of scholarship, a lot of preparation. Not something your everyday uneducated chump like me can do probably? Well, I don’t think you’d have gone through all that work to get where you are just to fail. A bad day is a bad day. Accept it and get on with your life.”

I don’t like to brag, of course, but I like to think that I know what to say. When someone’s upset, when someone’s looking for advice, I know what to say. This guy, he just needed someone to lift up his beaten up ego. Usually confident in his abilities, but still sort of sensitive and delicate to small things. Definitely not the sort of guy I try to spend a lot of time with. A stumbling block in his so carefully chosen career that’s made him question everything about himself for perhaps the first time. Preen over him for a while and he’ll be back to normal.

While I was thinking this, Mr. Important Salaryman started to nod to himself, his eyes growing wide. Suddenly, he stopped fidgeting with his glass-- thank God for that – and he let out a sign. He looked lost deep in thought again, lost on the train tracks of his own mind. I caught Jay’s eye in the hopes of paying the tab and getting the hell out of there.

“Three bucks.”

“For a beer? You’re fuckin’ kidding me, you bloodsucker.”

It was our usual banter we did before parting ways, but I could hear a stressed edge in my own voice today. I handed over a fiver and stood up to go. As I turned away from the bar, Alabama fumbled the ball and the man grabbed me by my arm.

“Hey, for what it’s worth, thanks a lot. That really helped.”

He looked at me with such honest relief that I couldn’t help but feel my thoughts soften towards him just a bit. Probably not such a bad guy after all, I thought. Just a little different than me.

And that’s ok. The world needs people like him, too, after all.

I was about to go when I stopped and thought for a half a minute. I stared at that long red hair, toying with something on the tip of my tongue.

If I could’ve anticipated his answer, I never would have asked the question.

“Say, just out of curiosity… what is it that you do, anyway?”

He looked over at me with a sort of rueful smile that had just a touch of pride. He bottomed his final whiskey and I watched it drain into his mouth. The taller of the college fellas won the pool game. Alabama had the ball back.

“I’m a mortician.”

“Oh, so--”

“Today I embalmed my first child.”