[I know, its been forever. I'll try to do better.]
FROM CHAPTER THREE:
As I moved to the outside door, I glanced back at the bar, to see Glenn behind it, his head bowed deep in conversation with Danielle. Glenn was shaking his head from side to side in denial of something, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. And, didn't want to know,' I thought to myself, as I pushed open the door and walked outside into the cold. This better not take long', I thought, as I pulled my coat closer around my body.
CHAPTER FOUR
Outside, I stood in the parking lot, trying to look like I wasn't waiting for someone. The doors were all glass at the front, and if I was going to get stood up by Glenn, I didn't want people in the bar to see it happen. Fortunately, there were even less cars in the parking lot now than when I had entered earlier, so there was no one on the outside to comment on my loitering near the doorway.
It's an usual college town I live in -- small, very rural, and with a severe town-and-gown problem. The University was definitely the biggest asset to the city, but the city leadership -- and a good majority of the citizens -- seemed to really resent that. About the only quasi-university like environment was the one in which I now stood -- an area between the edge of campus and the city's aging downtown. A number of enterprising real estate developers had transformed the area into something approaching coolness: the rental units were all remarkably dense, but were scattered with courtyards and small pocket parks and actually, all the buildings had a great deal of architectural flare. It was the place you lived if you wanted to imagine that you lived in a college town, and didn't want to be confronted with the reality that, in fact, you didn't. In truth, most of the time, I very seldom ventured very far away from the area.
That being said, even this small patch of sanity in an otherwise strangely repressed town was incredibly dead, due to the break. Looking around me, I could see almost no cars parked on the street, and all the street cafes were obviously closed. None of the nearby apartments seemed to even have their lights on -- most of the students had packed up their bags and headed to their various hometowns days earlier. Standing on the side of the dimly lit street, glancing first one way and then the other, I saw no signs of life in either direction. And, it was getting cold. `Two minutes,' I thought to myself, as I began to wonder why I was standing here, shivering.
I heard the music get louder behind me, and glanced around over my shoulder to see if someone had opened the door to Sullivan's. Glenn, coming through the double doors, saw me look, and smiled. I let out what I hoped was not an obvious sigh of relief.
"I'm sorry," he started. "I had to convince Danielle that I was really just going for a walk."
"She didn't believe you?" Like I didn't already know the answer to that one, but I had to ask.
"No, not really. She could see you standing out here, so I think she was curious about when you and I ever hung out. She's....uh....sorta' territorial. And, its not just you, really. She's like this with all my friends."
"Huh. I'd probably find that a bit annoying," I said with a bit of frankness that I immediately regretted.
"You think I don't? It's just easier, you know.....to kinda' go with the flow with her. I mean, I do like her and all and we're always seeing each other, here and at parties and stuff, and so I don't really want to get her too angry." Glenn looked down at the street, and then back up to me, almost like he was looking for my approval. He smiled faintly. "I might need her to cover my bar shift sometime....", he joked.
"It's ok....I mean, sure, I understand. I some friends that sometimes do a very similar thing, and I let them get away with it, too. So, its cool." I heard myself talking, and was momentarily surprised at what I was saying. My first reaction is to comfort and mollify people, I suppose, and that instinct was kicking into overdrive around Glenn. "So where do you want to walk to?", I asked, intending to bypass this entire train of conversation.
"How about your house?"
"Huh?"
"Your house. Don't you live there?" Glenn pointed down a side street toward the direction of my house. "Is that ok?"
Now my head was spinning a little bit, and not from the boilermakers. I hadn't realized that Glenn knew where I lived, although I supposed he knew that I lived somewhere close.
"Is that ok? We can go somewhere else if that's a problem?" Glenn repeated his question with a concerned expression on his face.
"No, no, that's fine. I just didn't know that you knew where I lived, that's all. Sure, we can go back to my place. But, didn't you want to walk around for a while?"
"Man, its too cold to walk around, I wanna' set somewhere warm. Besides, I see you all the time up here, but I've never been to your place. I want to check it out."
With that, the night made another big flip-flop in my brain. First, it was potentially bad. Then good. Then kinda' weird. Then good again. Now, definitely back into the weird-but-possibly good category. We started walking up the street and over, and across the parking lot west toward my house, which was just barely hidden behind some of the other apartment buildings nearby. I'd gotten lucky with my house-- there were only a few of them in this area, and I had one of them, and it was only minutes away from Sullivan's. Thoughts, racing through my head kept distracting me, but luckily Glenn wasn't saying much, but just keeping time beside me as we walked through the neighborhood. Did I make up the bed?' What shape was the rest of the house in' `WE'RE GOING TO MY HOUSE!', I kept wondering to myself as we walked.
"Do you like living over here? I wish I had an apartment somewhere nearby....", Glenn said suddenly, breaking the silence.
I looked over at him, but he had his head down, staring at the street as he walked. Small talk', I decided to myself. Uncomfortable silences must bother him too.'
"Yep. It's the only place in town to live. Convenient to all the bars and campus and the restaurants and stuff. You don't ever really have to drive anywhere, unless you want. And, of course, there's no chance of ever getting a DUI.", I said, chuckling out loud.
"That's good -- there's been a few times when you've left the bar that I've been really worried about you, but you made it home ok......" Glenn trailed off as he realized what he had said.
"How do you know I always make it home ok?" I asked, and suddenly, dreaded the answer I thought I was going to get.
"Uh, well, you were back in the next night, so nothing bad must have happened, right?" Glenn, said, in a rush, after a short pause.
"Yeah....", I said slowly, "that's true....."
"Well, ok then," Glenn sighed, almost in relief. "It's just, you know, we try to watch out for our regulars, you know, the ones we like....." Again, his voice trailed off.
Our walk had taken us down the street from Sullivan's, and through a back parking lot and onto a nearby, dimly-lit street. Like the other streets in the neighborhood, this one was also deserted, although it was normally filled with cars along the street and foot-traffic until all hours of the night. The short-cut through the parking lot had taken us directly to the front of my house, and I quickly moved to the front door, and started fumbling for my keys.
"This is your first time to my place, I guess.....", making conversation as I unlocked both locks on the front door, opened the door and turned off the suddenly beeping alarm panel. "Come on in -- the place is kinda' a wreck, so sorry about that....."
Glenn followed me inside, and started taking off his jacket -- the heat was up fairly high inside, so we were both warming up pretty quick. Out of the corner of my eye, as I was hanging up our coats, I could see him glancing around, and checking things out.
"This is nice. I mean, this is a really cool place......"
"Thanks. I like it. And, its convenient to most everything around, so that's pretty cool. Do you want something to drink? And sit down, or look around, if you want....." I made my way to the bar, and started pulling glasses down off shelves.
"Uh, do you have....what do you have?" Glenn, started, as he moved over near me at the bar.
"Whatever you like, really.....more boilermakers? Or something else? Make whatever you like, you know, you're the professional." I smiled over at Glenn, still staring at my bar.
"Do you realize that all these liquor bottles are in the exact same order as they are at the back bar at Sullivan's?", Glenn asked, with a really weird look on his face.
"Of course. That's why I put them in that order. I spend so much time watching all of you make drinks, that sometimes I'll come back here and make the ones that I haven't tried before. So, I try to make sure I have all the same basics that ya'll have." I was a little nervous about this conversation, as the entire night seemed to be centered on my obviously-growing alcoholism. "Beer is under the bar, in the coolers. Everything else is.....well....where you would expect it to be. But, I'll make you something, if you want, since you get to make me drinks all the time." I was looking at Glenn during this entire conversation, but so far, his eyes hadn't left the liquor cabinet.
"Uh, how about just whatever you're having. The boilermakers were good.....I don't mind more of those. And, uh, now we won't have Danielle to watch how many we drink," Glenn added somewhat nervously.
"Ok. Two boilermakers coming up," I said, also with a nervous laugh. "Don't forget that you've got to call her in a little while, about movies or whatever," I added, mentally kicking myself for mentioning it.
"Nope. I got out of that. I told her I was going to be busy, that something had come up."
"Oh." I said, not sure how to respond. `Shorter is less likely to get me into trouble', I thought to myself, as I finished pouring beer into two chilled mugs, and then topping them off with shots of whisky. "Here you go," handing Glenn his drink and a bevnap. "Have a seat."
"Can I look around first?" Glenn asked, sipping his drink, and smiling at me. "I haven't seen everything yet."
"Sure." I started toward the entertainment center, as Glenn started poking his head into the adjoining dining room and kitchen. "What kind of music do you want to listen to?" I yelled into the side of the house, where Glenn had obviously found the laundry room, the kitchen, and the doors to the outside courtyard.
"Anything is fine....whatever you listen to. Is this courtyard all yours?" Glenn yelled back, as I hit the random play on the cd changer and played with the volume controls. Grabbing the stereo remote, and my drink, I walked to the back of the living room, and drew back all the curtains on the patio doors there. My house was in a type of an `L' shape, with the courtyard surrounded on two sides by the house and by a fence on the other two. The annuals planted outside in the english-style garden, normally very nice in the spring, summer and fall, had finally begun to die due to the cold weather. Noticing Glen standing outside the doors leading from the hallway off the kitchen, I walked out the living room doors to join him, both of us with our drinks in hand.
"It normally looks a bit better out here, but the cold is beginning to kill a lot of stuff. It looks a lot better in the other parts of the year, especially when the crepe myrtles bloom." I stood beside Glenn, slowly sipping my drink.
"I think its great -- I never knew this was back here `cause you can't see it from the front....." Glenn started, and then trailed off.
`Huh.', I thought to myself. "Have you been by here before?", I asked, keeping my voice very light and casual.
"Uh....well, not really." There was a long pause. "Well maybe sorta'."
"Huh?", I thought again, this time saying the word aloud.
"Well....uh.....sometimes, if you have a lot of beer at Sullivan's, and there's another bartender there on duty, sometimes.....uh......we'll just kinda' follow you to make sure you get home ok. Its really no big deal....I mean.....we've done that before for other people too....." Glenn stammered himself quiet.
"Oh." That was the only thing I could think of to say, although I could feel my face turning red, both from the cold and from embarrassment. "Yeah, I guess I drink to much sometimes. I've got to start cutting back on that....." I began, embarrassed and unsure how to respond.
"No, no..." Glen said, cutting in on my sentence. "Its not really like that. I mean, we just want you to get home ok, and you know how traffic is around here, and its not like it's a long way, and it's always nice to get out of the bar and take a walk during a shift and besides we.....well......we.". Glen stopped, and took a big gulp of his drink.
"Ya'll what?" My mind was still reeling over people following me home from the bar to make sure I didn't get killed in the street.
"Well, we....uh....we all like you." That last part came out in a rush, the words falling all on top of each other. Another gulp of beer.
"Well, I like ya'll too." I started, uncomfortably. I wasn't sure where this was going, but I guessed they had been doing me a favor, even if I hadn't know about it. "Although I'm not sure that everybody up there is crazy about me," thinking about Danielle and our interaction earlier in the night.
"I....uh." Glenn stammered out the two words and then stopped, and took another big sip of whisky-enhanced beer. For the first time since we'd been outside together, he turned and looked at me. Looking back, I was shocked -- he was redder than I was, and had the most frightened deer-in-the-headlights look I'd ever seen on a person.
"I...uh," he began again. "I like you a lot." As he said those final words, he quickly looked away, concentrating on the decking of my patio. I could hear --and see, in the cold weather -- his breath, coming fast and furious. He stood, next to me, one hand holding a now half-empty drink, the other hand tucked until a jacket armpit for warmth. His head down, and tilted away from me as well, I couldn't see his facial expressions. But I heard his breath sounds change, and suddenly sound more violent, and he moved his free hand away from his jacket and up to his face, rubbing at his eyes. It hit me, suddenly, that he was crying.