09.17.2001
"What do you think," I asked.
"I think you've got a chance in three," Peter said. Peter was a dull fellow who liked to talk about uninteresting subjects but he was the bartender and I hadn't paid my tab in over a week yet he kept pouring so I pretended to care.
"'A chance in three?' You're kidding me," I said as I leaned over the sole video game in the bar and stared intently at the screen. "I've got this." I punched the button and rolled the ball embedded in the console and my character on screen gave the white dot that vaguely resembled a golf ball and easy put. The stats said that it was ten yards to the hole but on screen it wasn't more than two inches. The dot rolled easily on the green then suddenly dipped and past the black dot I aimed for.
"I told you," he said.
"You told me nothing," I said and surrendered the controls to him. The previous evening I had beaten him badly at pool and was bitter that I couldn't take him in every form of entertainment. He was much better at the golf game than I was and drove the ball closer the hole than I did and then sunk his put easily.
"See," he said grinning. "It's all about control."
"Dumb bastard," I called him and sunk mine after my player appeared again on screen. We were playing nine holes and I was already five over par going into the sixth hole. We were playing for drinks but I didn't have any money so he was going to end up paying for them whether he won or lost and we both knew it.
We finished out the game, him perfectly at par and me twelve over which was far better than were I to play the game for real. He poured me my scotch and soda and himself a shot of Jack and added both to my tab which by then ran to three checks written on the front and back.
"Josh wants you to pay up soon," Peter said.
"Is that right," I asked holding my drink up to eye level, saluting him before taking a large sip. I'd figured that it was coming, I just hoped that it was going to be a few more days so I could put together a little bit of money to pay off half of it and extend my credit for another week.
"He says that if you don't I'm supposed to keep you from coming in unless you've got cash," he said. Peter couldn't care and we both knew it but the difference between him and me was that his boss could fire him if he didn't follow orders and I would just have to go to another bar for a drink.
"When does he want the money by," I asked.
"He says he wants it today or tomorrow or you're going to be cut off."
"Cut off?"
"You know, like no more," he said as though I didn't understand already. "Josh isn't happy about this arrangement."
"Josh isn't happy," I said polishing off my losing drink and tapping the bar for another.
"Do you think you'll be able to pay," He asked as he refilled the glass. I sensed a feeling of general concern coming from him which, to a certain extent, I could understand given that I was his best customer and damn near the closest thing he had to a friend. I was in there every evening.
"Well, I don’t know about today or tomorrow," I said lighting a Chesterfield and picking the tobacco off of my tongue. "But if we can work something out to extend my credit a few more days I might be able to put together some scratch that Josh could stick up his ass."
"You're never going to get very far with him saying stuff like that," Peter said looking both ways.
"I don't know what he wants from me. I'm the only customer in this place, ever. You'd think he could cut me some slack."
"He just wants to make sure that he gets paid for his drinks. Any leads on jobs?"
"No, but if Josh wanted to hire me to wash dishes," I offered. "I could work off my tab."
"I don't think he'd go in for that," Peter said. I finished off my drink and tapped the bar for another. "If you can't pay, I can't serve you Chuck. I'm sorry."
"What the fuck," I asked. "I told you that I'd pay, just not in Josh's timeframe." I leaned down to pick up my coat that had fallen from the high back chair I sat on. The phone rang and Peter went to answer it. I was angry and ignored the exchange on the phone instead kicking the jukebox to see if I couldn't shake any loose change out of it. As I headed for the door, Peter called my name and I walked back to the bar, reassuming my seat. "What?"
"Hold on," Peter said into the phone. "Josh says that if you want to mop the head he'll give you a break on the tab."
I thought about it for a minute, considering the shape that the bathrooms were in, and shook my head no. There was no way that I was going to put myself through that. There was no telling what kind of strange dieses I could pick up. I didn't have much but I had my health.
"Come on," Peter pleaded as I lifted myself up off my seat.
"How much," I asked. He relayed my question over the phone.
"He says he'll give you fifty bucks."
I added it up in my head and, with some rough math, decided that it was less than half of what I owed. "No. Tell Josh he can go fuck himself if he's not willing to go half. I'll come back with the money." Peter translated it into something more suitable.
"Josh says he'll give you half off but you need to mop the main floor too."
I shook my head again. Between the bathrooms and the main bar area, there were enough health code violations to shut the place down. It was a hole of a bar and that's why I chose it in the first place. No one would bother me with the things I didn't want to hear about. The floor, though I had no intention of cleaning it, was one of the things that attracted me to the place. It looked like the original hardwood flooring from when the space was built in the early part of the century but then warped and worn by years of beer, neglect, and vomit. To clean it now was a moot point and even if I did there would have been little evidence of it to which Josh could stick me for all of what I owed him. Still, I could do both in less than half an hour.
"Josh wants to know what you want," Peter asked with the phone resting against his chest.
Josh wanted to know what I wanted. Clearly the money had reached a purely theoretical stage. We were no longer speaking in terms of real dollars and cents but about a persons obligation to pay back what they owe in some form deemed acceptable to both parties. "Tell Josh, I want two-thirds of my bill erased and he has to take your word for the fact that the place has been cleaned."
Peter nodded slowly taking it in and after it sunk in repeated my terms to his boss. "Okay," he said into the phone after a few moments and then hung up.
"He said that he'll go for it but that you'd better clean it really well," Peter told me. I nodded and went behind the bar to grab the mop and bucket. The bucket was filled with murky brown water so I dumped it out and refilled it, adding soap dishwashing liquid to the mix to give it an air of sanitation even if it wasn't going to matter. I had to give Peter a show so he could tell his boss that the job was done to the best of my ability.
I mopped the bathrooms first, pushing the wet end of the stick all over the urinal and toilet rather than scrubbing them with my own hands. It left both with white streaks where the dirt had been removed displaying a hint of what the fixtures had been before being installed in that dump. I then got every portion of the floor and made sure to get the corners where the dirt was caked. I removed almost nothing – a pressurized water hose was what was really needed – and then moved out to the main floor. After twenty minutes of grunting and wetting everything down, I pushed the bucket back into the corner I pulled it out of and sat back down to my place at the bar.
Peter grabbed my tab and tore up the first two pages, tossing them into the waste bin beneath the bar. I tapped the hard wood and lit another cigarette while he poured me another drink.