I’m behind a fluorescent-lit bar. Something’s burning.

There’s no music. All I hear are the guests. They speak in fast-forward.

They’re ordering espresso martinis and Ramos Gin Fizzes. Long Island Iced Teas. Someone in the back wants a Sex on the Beach, but I haven’t seen peach schnapps in years.

Have I?

The women are dressed like elegant whores, smeared lipstick and runny eyeliner, with grating, vocal-fried voices, exclaiming, “Oh my God!” endlessly to each other. One stops, turns to me mechanically, and says, “Cosmo, extra pink!” before returning to her endless loop of “Oh my God!” Her eyes are pure white. No irises.

No pupils.

The men are blind-rich, with thick, slicked-back black hair, waving $10,000 wads, wearing creaseless silk button-downs and dangling Rolexes. They’re snapping in my face, slamming the bartop, yelling, “Hey, bartender! I need some service over here! Hey! Hello? This is coming out of your tip, buddy.”

There must be a hundred people, glaring or babbling. More keep arriving, though they all have the same face. Same body. Same soulless stare. Their eyes morph into mouths and start eating the air.

Stealing my breath.

The men slam the bartop, demanding service. The women shriek, “Oh my God!” louder and louder.

They’re touching my tools, grabbing my shakers and screaming, “Make us a cocktail! C’mon, Connor! That’s all you’re good for. You’re the barman, the servant, and I need some fucking service!”

Now they’re hurling my tools—shakers, jiggers, barspoons, citrus peelers. My paring knife flies past my temple, piercing the lowboy I’m ducked against. I cover my face. My fruit bowl comes next as they rocket lemons, limes, and oranges at me, howling:

“We need some fucking service, Connor! You’re the barman, right? That’s your whole identity. You’re not a writer. Hah! You’ll stand behind this fucking bar every night for the rest of your life and act like it’s your passion. Even though it’s eating you alive. It’s ruining your relationship, Connor. She’s gonna leave you, Connor! And there’s no way out. No fucking way out. So get shaking. We need service!”

I’m covered in citrus. Bleeding. I stand, brush off my apron. Tears pool in my head, but I’m unable to cry. I pick up my tools one by one and reorganize them. In silence. More bodies pile in and stare.

Once I’ve restored my mise-en-place, I greet my first customer.

“What can I get you, sir?”

“Ten espresso martinis with reposado tequila. Casamigos. The finest. If they’re too sweet, we’ll send them back and you won’t get a tip. Get to work.” The lead gentleman smiles at his friends.

They’re impressed.

I line up ten chilled coupe glasses and five shakers.

The crowd grows. No more talking. The only noise is me, working.

I spill a drop.

“Wipe that up. Now,” the lead gentleman says.

I do.

I finish building the drinks and ice my shakers. A rogue cube lands on the bartop.

“Pick that up,” the lead gentleman says.

I pick it up.

“Apologize,” the lead gentleman says.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

I shake, strain, and garnish the espresso martinis.

“Cheers, gentlemen.”

The lead gentleman takes a sip. “This is too sweet. Make them all again.” The gentlemen dump their drinks onto the floor. Then they smash their glasses. “But first, clean this up. You wouldn’t want someone to get cut, would you?”

I clean the floor, sweeping the glass, mopping the espresso martinis, while they stare, point, loom, and laugh.

Suddenly, I’m choking. Heaving.

“I thought you were the best? I thought you could tend any bar. Where’d all that confidence go?” the lead gentleman says.

I reach out. Gasp. Vision pulsing black. I can’t speak. The crowd is aloof as I fall to my knees. They just want their drinks. They file out the narrow exit. One man remains, watching me suffocate.

I want to see his face. His eyes. But I’m squirming on the floor, rolling around in spent citrus.

He walks behind the bar. Kneels. Takes the notebook from my apron.

Whispers.

“Gotta get back to work, Connor.”

—

I jump out of bed drenched in sweat, startling Giselle.

“Are you okay?” she says, reaching out, halfway in her own dream.

“I… Yeah, everything’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

I hold her hand until we both fall back asleep.

This is the final teaser chapter for THE BARMAN.

READ CHAPTER ONE

READ THE PROLOGUE

(Statue Park, Davis Square, Somerville, Massachusetts.)

July 3rd

We’re not all meant to be saved, I think.

Davis Square. Statue Park.

Television-snow clouds in the savage sky.

Brooding.

I haven’t slept in seven days. Not one fucking minute. My body hurts in impossible ways. As does my mind. Warped by 12 mg of Ambien that did absolutely fucking nothing. Seven days without sleep turns the world into an ethereal dreamscape.

So does Ambien.

My thoughts are run-on sentences. I’m sitting on a damp park bench. Letting the moisture soak into my jeans. Crying. Texting some sob story to my AA sponsor.

I’m fucking spiraling. Bawling my eyes out. About to ask a homeless guy to help me find Xanax so I can finally fucking sleep.

He calls me, tries to talk me down. Tells me to go to the hospital, call him back in an hour. Something about valerian root, which enrages me, but it comes out in tears. Searing, degrading tears.

Mania—though seemingly mandatory for me—is always humiliating.

A few bums are staring me down, wondering what the hell is wrong with me. One is screaming "Slaves!" at the normals as they walk in and out of shops clutching ice cream cones and coffee cups. I want to approach them and explain myself, but the words won’t come. I want to tell them I’ve been in their position, or a semblance of it, and beg for their mercy.

Convince them I’m not a cop.

Most homeless people think white men who shower are undercover police officers. A stereotype that works against my favor when scoring street pharmaceuticals. The paranoia accompanying homelessness is crippling. Add rampant drug abuse and severe mental illness into the mix and psychosis ensues. They smoke or shoot themselves into a frenzy and convince themselves cops care about them.

But they don’t give a fuck.

Nobody gives a fuck.

Not even the people who say they do. The activists. Donors. NPR contributors. Cardigan-wearing hipsters with obese cats and strong opinions on feminism.

Every cause is a fashionable sham led by cretins and cannibals.

Pick an idea and step in line.

Plants are the only true innocents left. Tarnished by pesticides.

And they watch us in disgust—

I’m suddenly on the Red Line.

I don’t remember paying my fare. Carrying my bike down the station stairs. Boarding.

Glowing faces surround me. Auras and glares. Astigmatism or insomnia. They’re all stuck in soul-swallowing smart phones. Lobotomizing themselves with gutless pleasure. Not a book in sight. I scan the car, squinting at the dead. Dread gripping my spine.

We’re fucked, I think as Charles MGH blares over the loudspeaker.

I’ll look around at Mass Ave. Maybe… Just maybe I’ll find some benzos. Which are apparently the only thing that will put me down. Hopefully. That or a bullet.

Perhaps the latter is more fitting.

All I know is that I have to fall asleep.

I take out my notebook, pen this poem:

RED LINE INSOMNIA

“Slaves! You drink your coffee
the way they want you to
drink it! Slaves! You walkin’ inta get
ice cream! Slaves!”
He fumbles a pack of cigarettes.
Lights up.
Chuckles. Smiles wide.
I’m jealous. He seems… happy.

Blink. Look up. Advertisement in the
subway.

“TO BE
A CHRISTIAN
MEANS TO FORGIVE
THE INEXCUSABLE
BECAUSE GOD
HAS FORGIVEN
THE INEXCUSABLE
IN YOU.”
-C.S. Lewis.

Must be why there are so many
pedophile priests, I think.

The train is one long
crimson dream. Astigmatism or
insomnia. Be honest or be a
liar. A miser of truth.

The Invisible Man crawls out
of my backpack and holds
my hand. “A mad killer might be
standing beside you.
You won’t know—Until it’s too late. . .”

He’s not beside me.
He’s
inside
me.

I am not inside me.
Not in here.
Nothing but
dust. Depleted soil. Hardened
arteries from impeccable
sorrow.

A woman sits across from me with
two kids. Eyes me. Casually.
Once. Twice. Her husband stands
and holds the pole. Three times.

I want to collapse. Third of
July and I’m staggering through
a different dimension, trying to
cop street pills to
blot out this hyperactive
brain.
Every thought amounts to
nothing.

I don’t even open the book,
just stare at its cover and
try to focus my sight. I
can’t.

I cry.

People stare.

I’d stare, too.

But with knowing eyes.

Nothing works. Things echo—hushed voices,
furtive movements, feet shuffling, swaying, tracks grinding,
a child crying—dull and
weightless.

I’m drowning.

I put the notebook away and close my eyes, letting insomnia’s relentless sensations consume me.

Wholly.

◆◆◆

He’s convulsing. Drenched in polluted sweat. Tattered backpack. Red Sox hat dipped in shit. Pinned blue eyes caged in cardboard skin. Rippled with trauma. Crooked spine warped from perpetual nodding.

What the fuck is he on? I think. I can’t quite place it. Probably a mix of xylazine-laced street dope, pressed benzos, and intravenous crack. He’s about to collapse. Splinter into a million little junkbox pieces.

"C’mon, man. Let’s go over here… It’s less sketchy," I say, envisioning frigid steel cuffs, pointing toward an empty street. I’m on the Suboxone-orange bike. Lost in the wasteland of Methadone Mile. The sun is gone.

The war is on.

A place like this should be impossible in one of our nation’s greatest cities.

And yet here I am, I think.

Here we are.

Overt drugs, death, and despair. On the sidewalk for all to see.

The normals just cruise by, noses up, checking their Instagrams.

Because filtered reality beats the truth every time.

I ride. The blue-eyed convulser trails limply, clutching his chest, gripping the chain-link fence lining the sidewalk, staggering along. Sweat pouring, soaking his battered body.

Rotting fiends—once sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, humans—are sprawled about. Zombified husks with necrotic limbs and jagged jaws.

"God, I’m so sweaty, dude… Shit," he groans. I continue leading him, asking: "You do have benzos, right?" wondering if this hunk of vermin even knows what a benzo is, he’s so skullfucked on toxic narcotics. He’s bleeding from his right arm, cratered with pus-filled track marks, half-gnawed by necrosis. Spike in one hand, neon orange cap in the other. As he walks, he’s attempting—and fucking failing—to cap the spike.

Jesus fucking Christ, I think. This insomnia’s gonna get me killed. Or arrested, which will force me into a torturous cold-turkey withdrawal. I should probably just kill myself now and get it over with…

Cops around every corner. Plain clothes undercovers. Lurking. Hunting. Sapphire sirens reflecting off shattered shards. Needle caps scattered like pebbles on the sidewalk.

He finally caps the spike, and I relax a little. But not really.

Not at all.

"C’mon, brother. Take those out, let’s do the deal… Lotta pigs around here," I say, and he starts rummaging his pockets, pulling out diseased scraps of paper and baggies of nightmare dust. Sweating. Hunching. Panting.

I need fucking health insurance, I think. But if I went back to the hospital begging for benzos they’d call me a drug-seeker. Either that or they’d give me one lousy pill for a thousand dollars and kick me to the curb.

But this shitbird will sell me ten.

"You sure you have benzos?" I repeat for the hundredth time, pissed, depleted, ready to bail. Head back to the sublet. Run a scalding bath. Find a sharp blade…

He pulls out a baggie of blue pills.

"What milligram are they?" I demand with quivering hands. Flashbacks slap my bald skull. Me, sick as a dead dog, covered in dope sweat, begging some scumbag dealer to hurry the fuck up and pass me the cure.

"They’re fuckin’… ones," he manages, spasms of heavily-cut cocaine jolting his heart, ripping the baggie open with his stumpy black teeth. "I gutta… I gutta count ‘em out," he mumbles, dumping the pills into his clammy palm.

That’s when another random junky approaches: "Hey brotha, ya need benzos? I got Xans, real fuckin’ Xans."

He’s black. Six two. Wrapped in bleach-streaked rags. Well-built for a junkbox. Presenting three Xanax footballs.

Old friends, I think. More flashbacks slap my psyche. Bitter tasting blackouts. A half-hearted suicide attempt. An ambulance ride with my arms leaking life. The sterile scent of Norwood hospital. Norcap Lodge. Haloperidol. Her saying, “I’m sorry, it’s over.” Ripping the pay phone off the wall.

Pond scum tears dotting skid-marked tiles.

The blue-eyed convulser grills the black junky. But he couldn’t intimidate anyone in his state. He can barely fucking stand. "We’re conductin’ business here, see?" he sneers, wobbling uncontrollably, counting the pills in his grimy palm. I’ll have to disinfect those when I get home, I decide.

"I’ll take the Xans, too, just gimme a second, okay?"

"C’mon, man. Just gimme ten. Ten bucks, man, c’mon," he replies, scratching his neck like he wants to tear it open.

"Forty-five," the blue-eyed convulser says, handing me ten pills. I stow them in my Van Gogh "Starry Night" tin and check my wallet. Thirty bucks. I fold the bills and hand them to him.

He doesn’t count them. Just wobbles. Sweats. Stuffs them into his pockets of death.

I’m ready to bolt.

A siren screams somewhere behind me.

"I need to go to an ATM," I say to the black junky, motioning toward the gas station ahead. "Will take me two seconds on the bike."

"Just gimme ten, man. I’ll just take ten," he pleads.

I start for the ATM when a cruiser rounds the corner. Blue lights flashing. Spotlight blinding.

"Shit, man," the blue-eyed convulser murmurs, falling against the fence.

I crank the power on my bike. Full blast.

And ride like my life depends on it.

Because it does.

◆◆◆

August 24th

I haven’t slept without Klonopin in over a month.

And now I’m addicted to benzos.

All because I couldn’t sleep.

But hey, Doug Stanhope called me.

I can finally die.

On that note—I should fucking die. I should just give up already and Thompson myself. I’m sure I could find a shotgun somewhere. It’s not impossible. I certainly have enough narcotics. Sixty pills from my mic bag would kill me right now. So why don’t I just get on with it?

Funny thing: Stanhope didn’t like how he was portrayed in the piece. Bingo, his partner, told me to turn the "interview" into something beautiful. Then I was struck by the worst insomnia of my life. Seven days. A new record. A new addiction. A new strain on my body and mind. And my spirit?

Well, that’s fucked, too.

We exchanged a few choice emails at the end of our correspondence. I think I used the words (I definitely used these words verbatim) "Suck my decently-sized Irish cock."

Not my finest moment. But not a lie, either.

The conversation I had with Doug Stanhope left me devastated. But only because of what I took away from it: celebrity is a myth, ego dictates life, art is subjective and meaningless at best. The world is chaos and luck. Chaos breeds chaos. Luck breeds luck.

Ad infinitum.

La ti da.

What I really learned: from now on, I will write like my life depends on it.

Because it does.

READ THE PROLOGUE

Read This First

(Note: This is the coda to “DOUG STANHOPE SAVED MY LIFE.” It takes place directly after “PART TWO, THE INTERVIEW.” If you haven’t read that, I suggest you do before reading this.)

July 2nd

Sleep never came.

That night, vacuous, screaming abstractions raped my brain, hour after merciless hour, cultivating nothing but dread.

Daylight broke my jaw. I checked the time: 7:28 a.m.

Panic. Fear. Absolute exhaustion. Fuck it, I thought.

I texted my boss. Something vague about insomnia. Said it was a fluke. That I’d be back fresh the next day.

That was six days ago.

I’ll probably get fired.

But I can’t work like this. Delirious. Drunk on over-consciousness. Slurring every word. Walking into things. Forgetting every thought that bulldozes through my malfunctioning skull.

I can’t even eat.

Ten pounds have dissolved from my pitiful frame. My limbs ache in impossible ways. My head is a maelstrom of horrific, paranoid delusions.

The blinds are drawn. My skin is pale.

I need a distraction. I put a movie on. Misery.

Fitting, I think.

But I can’t understand it. All I see is a trapped writer. Flailing. Begging.

Is that me? I think, perplexed. Something’s here. Inside me. There’s something inside of me that wants me dead.

All I want to do is sleep.

I crank the white noise, lie down, close my eyes, and wait.

But sleep never comes.

It

never

fucking

comes.

◆◆◆

A madman calls 9-1-1.

He’s taken 24 mg of Suboxone, 400 mg of l-theanine, 200 mg of magnesium, 15 mg of melatonin, 200 mg of CBD, 75 mg of CBN, 300 mg of CBG, and 350 mg of THC. Chamomile. Passionflower. Valerian root. Three joints. There’s more, but he can’t remember. Anything.

The madman’s hallucinating.

(—Pulsing, breathing shadows. The shadows are alive. So are the minacious eyes in the clouds. The sky. Sussurous leaves whispering sins of the past with the fleeting wind. Purplish fuzz. The cars are hibernating beasts. Willfully resting. Peach scratches and tangerine slashes. Treasonous, tainted power lines channeling death into every house. Telephone poles—totems of modern rot—)

I’m the madman.

I’m hallucinating.

"What’s your emergency?" The operator’s annoyed.

"I’m… I… Look, I’m kinda freaking out… I haven’t slept in seven full days… I’ve taken everything I have and nothing’s working. I’m… hallucinating… I don’t know what else to do, so…"

"So do ya want us ta send an ambulance?" She’s pissed. I must’ve interrupted Candy Crush.

"Well… I don’t have insurance… Won’t that cost a lot?"

"Ah, yeah, it’ll cost a lot." Fuckin’ idiot, she thinks.

"Maybe I should get an Uber."

"You do that," she sneers. "Havva great night."

Click.

I order the Uber. -$180.27 in my account. The driver reeks of fast food and flop sweat. I open the window. Quietly weep—

Emergency room. Mount Auburn. I’ve been here before.

It’s gone downhill. Budget cuts. Nobody gives a fuck anymore. About anything.

Especially healthcare.

I stumble through the automatic doors. The sterile fluorescents annihilate my eyes.

I approach the window. Sneeze guard. Small slot. I stand there unacknowledged for a year, then announce myself.

"Uh… hi." The voice is low. It echoes. It’s not my voice.

Not mine.

"What’s the problem?"

He’s rude. Fat. Too fat to be asking me about problems.

With a ketchup-stained Star Wars shirt.

"Insomnia… I haven’t slept in seven days."

"What?"

I yell, "Insomnia! I can’t sleep!" More echoes.

Not mine.

"Ya can’t sleep? Why can’t ya sleep?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn’t be standing here," I say, oozing weary fury.

"Ya been here before? What’s ya name?"

"Yes. It’s Connor Desmond."

I spell it for him. He waddles out from behind the glass, wraps a bar-coded plastic band around my wrist. "Can ya verify this information is correct?"

I look at my wrist. See my name. Date of birth. My old address. Where she and I first fell in love.

"Yes."

He hands me a clipboard. I fill out what I can, leave the insurance part blank. I know this visit will cost me hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars.

Desperation always has its fines.

(I took the above video in the ER of Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA)

I sit in the waiting room wondering why my brain won’t shut off. Feeling like pond scum on a scorching summer day. Baking in the sun. Vile and putrid. Feeling like a semi-decomposed cigarette butt. Something you step on without a thought. A crack in the sidewalk.

Stuffed with dirt.

A decade later, they call my name.

"Desmond? Connor Desmond?"

"That’s me."

That’s me, right? I think.

I stand, falter, and use a chair to steady myself. Head rush. I don’t know who I am. Who she is. Why I’m here. The fluorescent lights are too bright. I shield my eyes, study the floor. Move toward the pretty nurse in tight light blue scrubs.

Of course she’s beautiful, I think. That’s my Higher Power at work. Humiliation is a tool. Punishment builds character.

She leads me to a vacant room, slides a curtain open. Bleached bed. Pitiful pillow. Spotless sink.

It drips.

"Have a seat, darlin’," she says in a plush Southern drawl. "I’m your nurse, Claire. Canya tell me what’s goin’ on?"

I can’t look her in the eyes. They’re brilliant. I’m a rat. A virulent, worthless fool. She’s a green leaf drifting down an azure stream. With chem-trails cutting across the sapphire sky. Something royal to stare at, knowing you’ll never touch it.

Something to behold.

"I… I can’t fall asleep. It’s been seven days. I haven’t slept a minute… I’m… I’m hallucinating… I don’t know what else to do… I’m desperate," I say, fighting the static mania in my mind.

"Aw, hunny, that sounds awful. Must’ve been hard to get here," she says with sincere sympathy. Or Oscar-level acting skills.

Probably the latter.

"Yeah…" I trail off, examining the machines dotting the walls. Trying not to stare at her tits.

Or bury my face between them.

Get a grip, Desmond, I think.

"Well, I’m glad you’re safe. The doctor will be in soon, okay, hunny?"

"Okay."

I stare at her tits, then her ass as she slinks out of the room.

Goddamn, I think. I’m losing my shit.

◆◆◆

I fester on the hospital bed for a decade, contemplating plunging a blade down my throat. Shadow-men lurk in every crevice. Hissing.

Egging me on.

The curtain screeches open. The doctor’s in his early forties. Muscular. Veiny. Puke-red hair.

He sits backwards on the chair, crosses his arms, rests them on the rail.

"Can't sleep, huh?" he says. Insouciant. "Have you tried valerian root?"

"I’ve… I’ve tried everything. I don’t know what else to do," I mutter, utterly humiliated, unable to look into his judging eyes.

I am inferior.

This person is better than me.

"Has it really been seven days? Do you exercise?" he asks, swiping at his smart watch.

"I work out every day, eat a clean diet… I mean, for the most part. I work late nights, so it’s hard… I’m guessing you can understand that… I’ve tried everything I can get… Weed gummies, melatonin, magnesium… I can't remember the rest. I… I have to go to work, I’ve missed a week already, I’m gunna lose my job…" I’m staring at the floor again. About to burst into tears. Realizing how pathetic I sound.

Am.

"Yeah, sure. Seems like you’re at your wits' end. I’ll write you a prescription for Ambien. Do you take any other medications?"

"No," I lie. Just enough Suboxone to kill ten people, I think.

"Have you taken Ambien before?" he asks. I know the rest of our interaction is pure formality. I’ll be gone in ten minutes with the prescription.

He doesn’t give a shit about my trivial insomnia.

"No."

"Okay. We’ll send you home with one pill tonight so you can sleep. And I’ll write you a thirty-day supply. Just know that this is a temporary fix. You should see a sleep doctor."

"Is there anything I should know about this stuff… Like, side effects?" I say, playing dumb, well aware of Ambien’s bizarre effects. Sleepwalking. Sleep-eating. Sleep-driving. Sexsomnia. Amnesia. Aggression. Addiction. Death.

Just to name a few.

"No," he says, aloof. "Just make sure you take it with food."

"Okay, thank yo—"

The curtain swings. He’s gone.

Another decade passes. Me on the bleached bed staring at the scuffed floor tiles.

With bleached thoughts.

Claire returns and hands me a single pill and a packet of papers. "There ya go, hunny. Do ya got any questions?" she says softly.

Will you kill me? I think. Or maybe I say it aloud, because her face sours and she walks away.

I pocket the pill and leave.

Back into the void.

◆◆◆

FINAL PART COMING SOON

THE BARMAN AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO ALCOHOLISM

VILE SELF PORTRAITS AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO DRUG ADDICTION

BUY MY FUCKING BOOK

KEEP ME ALIVE AND WRITING

READ THE PROLOGUE

READ PART ONE

READ PART TWO

READ PART ONE FIRST

"Is this… Connor James McDesmond?" Probably a childhood friend prank calling me because of that vindictive story I wrote, I think.

"Yeah, it’s just Desmond, not—"

"Yeah, I got yer email… It’s Stanhope—" My heart races. Adrenaline and exhaustion form a terrible concoction.

There’s female laughter in the background.

"Wait, what? This is Doug fucking Stanhope?" I look down at my shriveled dick. My dirty bare feet. I have to record this, I think. I cup my balls, crack the bathroom door, check for roommates, then dash across the hall, cock swinging.

"Yeah… ‘Some of my recent guests were poet Jason O’Toole, writer Jerry Stahl,’" he quotes my email, laughing. "Jerry fucking Stahl… I met him and Ben Stiller once at a party in… I don’t know, I can’t remember… Did you really name-drop Jerry Stahl?"

"Yeah," I laugh, trembling, hitting record on my iPad. (The following is transcribed from the video I recorded.) I’m sitting bare-assed on my mattress. On the floor. "He’s a friend of mine. We talk all the time… I’m not kidding." I snicker, remembering my blunder of an interview with Jerry.

"I’m… I’m not doubting you," Doug says, unimpressed.

"I just got off a very, very long bar shift and this is a… this is a nice surprise. Thanks for calling me, man," I say earnestly, wondering how much dread I should bleed into the conversation.

"Oh… W-w-what bar? Where are you? I have no idea…" he stammers, disinterested.

"Ah… So, I was in Jersey City for the past couple years, um, but my girlfriend just broke up with me," I lie, as it was a mutual decision, continuing, "So now I’m back in Boston… Cambridge, spe-specifically… I work in Harvard Square… I’m a fancy type of bartender…. sophisticates…"

"Tell me how you would make a whiskey sour?"

"I would do two dashes of Angostura bitters, egg white, two and a half—"

"You won, you won. If you fucked up egg white, you would, I would’ve hung up."

"No, no."

"That’s my drink of choice."

"Aw, man. I make ‘em pretty good. I don’t drink anymore, though… I’m in the program."

"I mean, my drink of choice if I’m out… When I’m out… I always have my staples around… Why would I go out? Either you have personality, or you can make a cocktail I can’t make at home…"

Change the subject, I think. "Are you on tour still, or?"

"Naw, we… We’re home, but…" he says, trailing off.

"Where’s home?" I ask, knowing the answer is Bisbee, Arizona.

A female laughs in the background again. "Sorry, that’s Bingo, we’re… She’s texting someone else… Anyway… This is ah, Connor James Desmond," he says.

"Indeed."

"I’m talking to Bingo. I mean, he wanted me to call… Here’s where you fucked up… You didn’t… You replied, but without the body of the rest of our text feed, so I didn’t know… ‘Hey, tryin’ again’… Well, I dunno what you’re trying again to do… But I found it.”

"Well, I’m glad you found it… I’m glad you found it," I repeat, flummoxed. Am I really talking to Doug Stanhope right now? My brain flatlines. The edible reboots my system, but the screen’s still snow. Get a grip, Desmond, I think.

"So, uh… yeah," he says, filling the dead air.

"Would… Would you be up for an interview?" I ask.

"We’re doin’ it," he says, and I don’t realize that he means right here, right now. I still think this is a preliminary call. We’ll set something up later. A livestream. He’s just feeling me out.

"We’re doin’ it! Fuck yeah, that’s great to hear… That’s great to hear," I say, stoned and oblivious.

"Yeah… It… it took me several days to like… get back into like, ‘All right, I’m at home’… And I felt you were being aggressive with, like, ‘Hey, I’m tryin’ again’… Like, c’mon, that’s what fuckin’ spam does—" he says, referring to the email I sent before my shift.

Spam, I think. Of course. "I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be aggressive," I say, smiling, revealing my mossy teeth to the barren, skid-marked wall.

"Like, ah, ‘I wanna help you boost your numbers on Instagram,’" he says.

"Naw, I’m not that type of guy."

"I know, I know—"

"Oh, you’re saying that’s what I sounded like…"

He ignores me. "… Which is what I’m writing about, fuckin’ drunk dials… If I’m not in the mood to talk, uh, you’ll just get a shitty interview…’

"Well, I mean, I’ll take that chance."

"Livestream on my Substack… I don’t even know what these words mean." I picture him squinting at a dusty monitor. Cocktail in hand.

"Substack’s an app—"

"As, as Andy’s grown into a Hunter Thompson I’m growing into a Charles Bukowski," he says, referring to his friend, comedian Andy Andrist.

"Bukowski’s my favorite writer, man, so I’m, I’m, I’m totally fine with that."

"Goddamnit, I wanna drunk dial Jerry Stahl… If you were recording I would," he says, and I consider telling him that I am in fact recording.

"Jerry would not like that," I say, chuckling. "Jerry… he hates talking on the phone."

"Exactly, that would explain the art form of the drunk dial… I’m also edibling a bit—"

"I am, too! Like, it kicked in right when you called me."

"They call that marijuana maintenance in the program!" he scoffs.

"Yeah, I’m gonna be honest, I’m… I’m not a fan of the program… But, um, I’m just trying it again. I tried it years ago… But, I dunno…"

"Well, I thought it was great you brought up Jerry," he plows ahead, ignoring me, blitzed. "Talking to Ben Stiller as Jerry Stahl… There’s something Hedberg about that… ‘I’d rather smoke real pot with a fake Peter Frampton." I’m cracking up to fill the silence. Feels like the world is about to delete me. "… What’s the one he was on… That… that one movie… They cut his line, it’s just him at a poker table—"

"I dunno."

"‘I got to smoke fake pot on a movie set with Peter Frampton. I think it’d be cooler if I smoked real pot with a fake Peter Frampton.’"

We’re both laughing. I barely know who Peter Frampton is.

"‘Thirty-two-year-long trail of piss, shit, vomit, bent needles, smashed bottles, and vile words,’" he continues reading my email.

"Yeah, did that work? I guess it did, I guess it worked—"

"It worked for Mishka Shubaly until he found out that was just like, a weekend…"

"No, I mean did it work—"

"Anyone can spin anything into something great or awful."

In that moment, this piece forms.

"Yeah, I guess you’re right."

"I was sure I was gonna be dead at thirty-three, but then, then I thought, ‘Oh, maybe I have a Jesus complex,’" he slurs.

"Yeah. Maybe I do, too, shit."

"I’m not a fatalist! I’m a fuckin’ self-worshipping fuckin’ idolater!"

"That’s kinda what the program’s telling me. That’s the gist of it: I’m obsessed with myself."

"Wow… ‘In short, I’m expecting you to ignore this email’… ba-da-ba, ba-ba-ba… ‘If you do, I’ll send all of my questions ahead of time for your approval’—" Bingo howls in the background.

"Yeah, I’m not a journalist, by the way," I say.

"You can’t ask me that, it’s crazy—"

"What?"

"No, I would love to see the, the guest that said, ‘Okay, here’s the questions I won’t answer.’ Like, unless you're like P-Diddy…" Bingo and I laugh. "Like what guest… Like, what would you ask that you’d think, I should ask him first before I ask ‘em on the air? What question would I deny?"

"I dunno. Probably none."

"Like, how dare you ask me about Girls Gone Wild! It was an unrequited love! You’re trying to break me down like Barbara Walters!"

I’m cracking up from nerves. Weed. A lifetime of shame. Life-threatening exhaustion. Wishing I had the energy to be clever. "Listen, I’m not a, I’m not a journalist, I just started… asking people, random people that I never in a million years would think would answer me or talk to me, I just started asking them to do interviews—"

"And you know what I’m doing?"

"What?"

"I’m ruining it for the rest of them." Bingo laughs, and I follow. Nervously. "You’re kicking off this—I don’t even know what a Substack is, but—you kicked it off with poet Jason O’Toole and a painter. He’s got a poet, a painter, and a guy who’s also in AA who happens to be famous—"

"Well, yeah, I thought Jerry would, would give me some… clout, I guess? I mean, I figured you’d know who he is. Most people nowadays—no offense to Jerry—but they don’t really know who he is."

"I only know him ‘cause I hate Ben Stiller.”

"Oh," Bingo says. Her voice is cheerful. Cherubic. Fragile. Doug’s is raspy. Slippery. A droning monotone. He hides everything behind his words, his humor. All of his emotions are jokes.

"And, just, just his face… I’m just, ah, like it’s one of those, I don’t like his, I don’t like that kind of ‘I’m completely a dimwit all the time,’ which is kinda what Louis CK did on his show, where he’s always like the buffoon. Well you can’t be the fuckin’ giant fucking comic and be the loser guy all at the same time, so I hated that loser guy, I’ve always hated that character, but his face is… I have a bad problem with fucking hating people because of their faces, because I have a face like that—"

"I mean—"

"Like how do you have any self-confidence, Sebastian Maniscalco… I just look at my face every morning and I like… I brush my teeth against their will. Like, you think that’s gonna make it better?"

I burst out laughing.

"I’m right there with ya, brother. I’m bald at thirty-two. I was bald seven years ago."

"Yeah, but, how much pussy did you ever get ‘cause of your hair?"

"All of it! Exactly all of it. I don’t think I’m ever gonna get laid again."

"Do you think you got more pussy from shootin’ dope?"

"Yeah, probably," I say.

"Yeah, of course," he laughs.

"At least I was interesting back then, ya know? Now I just…" I trail off with forced laughter. "Now I just, ah—"

"Well fuckin’ thirteenth step, baby! C’mon, don’t listen to the AA boys! You’re interesting to a fuckin’ twenty-si—three-year-old… ‘Oh, I had a Xanax addiction, I have anxiety!’ And people don’t know what anxiety even means!"

"No, they don’t. Everybody has anxiety now."

"Oh, you shoot heroin and Xanax at the same time? Let’s go fuck in a toilet!" he blurts.

"That was actually my thing. I would.. I would shoot dope and take Xanax. That was, ah… the best combination. My favorite combination. Ya know, blackout for a coupla days…"

"My favorite combination is MDMA and whippits!"

"Can’t say I’ve ever been a fan of the whippits, man."

"Well, when you’re fucked out of your head on MDMA… It’s the most like, vivid… More than any kind of acid hallucinations, like, just... closing your eyes and full... ya know, lucid cartoons making themselves, creating themselves beneath your eyelids…"

"I’ll have to try it sometime," I say sarcastically, knowing my molly days are over. "I’ve done plenty of X, but I can’t say I’ve done whippits on X. I’ve done some truly fucked up drug combinations," I add, and years of needles, pipes, smoke, powder, pills, blood, sweat, and sperm flash behind my eyes. I was shamed, ostracized, and traumatized for my vices, I think. Doug was enabled and celebrated for his. He made a career out of it. The only difference between us is time, money, exposure.

And talent.

This thought crushes me.

"Well, it’s kinda like how a cigarette complements a whiskey."

"Yes. Yes."

"A whippit by itself is just stupid. Didja ever, I don’t know, I think there was a name for it, that was, where you used to—"

"The canisters?"

"I’m a little bit your senior, but—"

"Yeah, a little bit—"

"But you make yourself hyperventilate, uh, and then have someone choke you out, and then.. pass out." Bingo murmurs something in the background. "Yeah, oh yeah," Doug agrees. "Yeah, that was, that was early days. Probably has a lot to do with the brain damage."

"Yeah, that’s… That’s a little old school for me… Jesus," I say, laughing. Unable to muster anything else.

"Yeah, that’s another bit I’m trying to work out… 'When we were kids, we had to go out and make our own fun, we didn’t have gadgets to stare into. Yeah, but what did we do for fun? We vandalized shit. We broke stuff, we broke the school windows during summer, we threw fuckin’ bricks over overpasses. If I had a kid, I’d want him staring into a gadget!’"

"I don’t know about that, man. The kids are not okay today. They’re another breed, and they’re fucking assholes, too—"

"You’re one of them!"

"Well, yeah, but I—"

"Yeah, yeah… Looking back, I remember bein’ fuckin’ almost twenty-nine on an airplane going, ‘That’s the same as thirty, that’s the same as dead.’ So I get where you’re at," he says sincerely.

"Yeah, maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re right."

I am fried.

"Plus—you live… When you live life weird young, ya go, ‘All right, what are ya gonna surprise me with?’"

"Yeah, I just feel like, ah, I aged probably ten years… all those years I shot heroin and was homeless and fuckin’… Ya know, it was a long time, and I… It started when I was like eighteen, so—"

"Wow," Bingo says. The tears rise, but I hold them back. I let them settle.

They’re not going anywhere.

"Yeah, so it was… I spent like.. all the formative years while everyone was in college, I was doin’ drugs… and fuckin’… Yeah, chasin’, chasin’ a needle," I falter. One heavy tear hits the floor. But I shelter the rest.

"What do you do now?" Bingo asks.

I consider explaining everything.

I don’t.

"I don’t do anything now… I mean, I take uh, I take weed gummies. I don’t drink. I quit drinking like six years ago, ‘cause I took alcohol just as far as drugs. I was a bad drunk. I was an asshole. And, ah, ya know, I’m a bartender… I’ve been bartending for… ten years now, and the whole time I was either shooting up or drinking behind the bar."

"Oh, wow," Bingo says.

"It’s very easy to do drugs in the industry, ya know? Everyone’s on drugs in the restaurant industry."

"That’s so.. so Bourdain of you to say," Doug sneers.

There’s something romantic about artistic dipsomaniacs. The beautiful fuck-up. The misunderstood art freak choking on his own profundity. In the nineties, Stanhope was an underground legend. A comedic deity for the working-class misfits of the world. The anti-hero, epitomized.

And here we are, talking.

We’re here, right?

"Do you feel honored?" he mocks.

"Yeah, I do. I'm sitting naked on my bed right now… The shower’s still running, I was literally about to get in the shower—"

"Goddamnit, I was gonna ask ya what you’re wearin’!" Bingo and I laugh. "Does your debut novel, VILE SELF PORTRAITS, start with a vile self-portrait?" We crack up. "Why is it a fictionalized recount of your addiction?"

"Uh… I didn’t want my parents to sue me. I don’t really... Well, I portray them—"

"Sue you? Wait, you have money?" he asks, astonished.

"No, no. My father’s just, ah… different—"

"Litigious?"

"That’s one word for it… My father has put a gun to my head... That’s the type of man he is."

"Woah," Bingo says.

"So, ah, yeah.. I just didn’t want them to.. be able to fuck me over in any way, or, like, try and get it unpublished—"

"Okay," Bingo says.

"I didn’t want any legal issues with them, that’s really it—" I repeat.

"Okay," she repeats.

"And some of the rehabs and detoxes I talk about are real places, so I didn’t want—"

"Yeah, when I wrote stuff, the hardest part was dealing with the fuckin’ lawyers afterwards… Changin’ names… On one of them I… My first book, they said I had to change a bunch of names… Like, if I change Frank Miller’s name to Tom Thompson, there’s some Tom Thompson out there that’s gonna be accused of this! Like, what, what does it matter?"

I look at my phone—twenty minutes. Twenty minutes talking to Doug Fucking Stanhope, I think. I rise, walk into the bathroom, and turn the shower off. This will take as long as it takes, and it will mean something in the end, I tell myself as a sharp pain stabs my knee. My body aches. I am still in this awful room. Still alone and afraid. Still not okay. This conversation is superficial. I want to know if he has something—beyond money—that I don’t. If he knows something I don’t.

"Did you just walk out on the street to score?" he jokes, Bingo cackling in the background. It wounds me, but I laugh anyway.

"No, man. I just turned the shower off."

"Sorry, I forgot you’re naked—"

"I didn’t!" Bingo says.

"I feel uncomfortable and, uh—"

"No, I’m not naked anymore. Jesus, man. I was literally walking into the shower, gimme a break… I’m glad you called, though. It was a long night at work—"

"Go get in the shower. I don’t have much to say. I just wanted to get this off of my mental to-do list."

"Well, thank you. Uh, when do you wanna do the interview?"

"I thought we just did it."

"No, that wasn’t it."

"Just remember the best parts of it."

"No, not a chance. You gotta do it. You said you were gonna do it, c’mon," I plead, so tired I forget who I’m talking to. Who I am. My status in life: a nobody barman. Doug Stanhope’s: a legendary stand-up comedian.

"No, I just, I thought I did it already."

"That wasn’t an interview!"

"That was a fuckin’ great interview as far as I’m concerned."

"I thought it was pretty good! Have him ask you a question and see how it goes?" Bingo suggests.

"Yeah," I acquiesce.

"Ask a question," Bingo says, cackling, and the tears come back. They’re laughing at me, I think. This is all just a joke.

I am a joke.

"Why do you do comedy?" I ask solemnly.

"‘Cause… for money."

Bingo cackles again. "For money, I guess. Good answer!"

"Okay. I mean, yeah, sure," I mutter.

"Yeah, that’s the answers you’d get if we did this durin’ the day when I was sober and... ‘Oh, I have a three p.m. Zoom call with Connor O’Connor’—"

“Did you get the name right?” Bingo asks.

"Yeah," Doug says proudly.

"Good job, baby!"

"No," I mumble.

"Desmond Child and Rouge!" Doug says. Bingo laughs. "You don’t even get that reference."

"I don’t get it, but I thought it was cute," she says.

"I don’t get it either. It’s good, though," I say. Just to agree. Because I’m a fucking hack.

Doug then rambles about Times Square, a forgotten movie released in 1980 that, according to him, has one of the best soundtracks ever made. He and Bingo have a Boomer moment trying to get YouTube to play on the television, and I fake-laugh through all of it, wretchedly tired, waiting to ask him my last question.

"It’s Bingo and me’s anniversary, but we can’t remember when it actually is!" Doug says, and they laugh in intoxicated bliss.

"Well, congrats, man.”

Stanhope starts singing "Pretty Boys" from the Times Square soundtrack, and that terrible feeling hits—everything’s wrong and it’ll never be right. Futility cradles me. "For pretty boys on my TV screen, teeth so white and hair so clean, pretty boys sing and play guitars, pretty boys get to be big stars!"

"I got a question for ya, man."

"Yup. Go ‘head." He zones in.

The music fades.

"Are you happy?"

"No," he says, gravelly, as if confessing.

"What’s the question?" Bingo asks.

"Am I happy?"

"Oh, you’re tough. He has to hang out with me all the time, so I wanna hear the answer."

"I think the answer was no, didn’t you say—"

"Yeah, I think I told you the answer about you being thirty-two, feeling like you’ve already done everything and everything’s boring. You can’t go have some fuckin’ white wedding when you’re forty-five and go ‘Oh, yes, you know what, I can’t wait to get a promotion!’ or whatever people look forward to. You’ve been through shit—"

"I mean, I’m in a pretty fucked up place, man. I just uprooted my whole life like a week and a half ago."

"Yeah… Well, you have your moments."

"I’m in a sublet in Medford with a mattress on the floor and nothing else in the room. I have my moments, sure. You could say that. But… you sound happy—"

"Oh my God. Do you have any idea how much I envy that? Bingo and I talk about that. Let’s just get rid of all this shit. Do we even need this?"

"Do you mean that, though?"

He doesn’t. Not a fucking chance.

"Yeah, let’s fuckin’… I would love to be in assisted living," he jokes, diverting.

"Assisted living?"

"Yeah, we talk about it all the time… Let’s fuckin’ get outta… Fuckin’ weeds, again? I don’t wanna do this, I wanna live in assisted living in a concrete structure."

"You really mean that, though? I don’t believe that."

"Well, that’s the point. If you’re anything like me… You feel like that right now for an hour, then you feel despondent about something an hour later, then you’re really jazzed to do something, and then, ‘Oh, that would be a great project,’ but you go, ‘I’ll never get around to it,’ and I know, I’ve been around too many decades."

"Well… I don’t know. Sometimes it’s hard to bring myself to write… I think what we do… I mean, you’re a writer, too, but what you do on stage is a little different than writing… Or, is it?"

"I mean, it changes… all the time. I’m staring at notes just from tonight. Business things, social media things I don’t wanna do, jokes, ideas."

"So do you keep notebooks?

"Yeah."

"Yeah. Do you have a fuckin’ massive stack somewhere?"

"Yes, I do."

"It is massive," Bingo says.

"Yeah, you keep ‘em all?"

"Yeah."

"My ex has all my notebooks—"

"What’s her number? We’re callin’ her next," Doug says, breaking the tension right on cue.

"No, don’t do that. She’s gotta get up early," I say.

"Oh! That was the best answer you coulda said ever!" Bingo exclaims. "That is sad and beautiful at the same time."

"That was pretty fuckin’ poetic," I agree.

"Don’t worry about her getting a good night's sleep, let’s drunk dial her!" Doug says.

"Nah, she’s.. It’s not her fault. She’s not like you… you or I…"

"Do you want us to kill her?" Bingo asks.

"Kill her?" I pause. This bitch is nuts, I think. "No, please don’t."

"Okay."

"You or me, not you or I. I hope someone fact-checked your novel. I only have the GED after nine years of education, but I don’t say you or I," Doug snaps.

"Well, I edited the novel for seven years… I don’t know, man. I’m fucking stoned. It’s twelve-thirty, I worked a ten-hour shift, what do you want from me?"

"I’m fuckin’ high and drunk," Doug says, smug.

"All right. Hey, you’re probably smarter than me, Doug," I say. The anger floods. The sadness flows. He’s been slurring nonsense for thirty minutes, I think.

"No, that’s why I called you back."

"Huh?"

"I called you back… You didn’t have your equipment going…"

"What?" He’s wasted. This is all just a bit to him, I think.

"You wanted to do a thing, and I called you, and you didn’t have your equipment going, you had the shower running instead of the podcast equipment!" Podcast? I think. The downers must be kicking in.

"I… I—"

"Bother me in a coupla weeks."

"You want me to bother you in a couple of weeks?" I repeat, confused.

"Yeah… I mean, I might blow you off, but…" His tone shifts. Annoyance.

"Okay, fair enough. I’d prefer it if you di—"

"I mean, this isn’t going to do anything for your career or mine," he says bluntly.

"That’s not why I wanna do it.. at all."

"Well, that’s why it was more fun to call you when I was high and tippled."

"All right… Can I write something about this?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Well, maybe I’ll just do that then."

"I toldya earlier, start takin’ notes."

"I’ve been recording the whole time. For posterity, ya know?" I say with a smirk.

"No, it’s all good."

"Cool. So I’ll just write something about this and… that will be our… this will be our interview, I guess."

"That would be beautiful," Bingo says, and I wonder how.

"Yeah, I missed a little in the beginning, but I have thirty-three minutes of the conversation, so—"

"That’s when Jesus died, so I’m gonna have ta hang up on ya now at thirty-three!"

The line dies.

Silence.

I’m Connor Desmond again—a thirty-two-year-old barman. Drained after a ten-hour shift. Sitting on the floor of my sublet. Alone. Missing her even more. What was the point of that? I think. Perplexed.

Destroyed.

I look out the window. Into the night. The streetlights sing lullabies to themselves. One flickers. I am that streetlight. Burning out, ready to be replaced, I think.

Dark clouds. The trees shiver. The leaves sulk. The air is heavy. Cranky.

It’ll rain tomorrow.

He’s got it all, I think. The career. The house. The loyal fanbase. The crazy broad who validates his purpose and hangs on his every word like it’s the cure for pain. His art pays his bills. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. And he’s miserable. So what’s the point? You give it all away, all your time and energy, for what? To leave something behind? To say you did something? Then you’re dead. And they’ll say, "He told jokes," or "He wrote stories." And that’ll be that. Things are, then they aren’t. That’s life. There is no point. Just rot and regret. We’re fucked. We live and die just to decompose in the dirt.

Fertilize the earth.

For future generations of dust.

With that thought, I get up off the floor, stagger into the bathroom, and twist the shower knob. Steam fills the room and fogs the mirror. I wipe a streak and reveal my bruised blue eyes. I hope I sleep tonight, I think.

I have work tomorrow.

Read the PROLOGUE: TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

Read PART ONE: GET TO WORK

Read my novel, VILE SELF PORTRAITS

Read “AN OPEN LETTER TO BAR GOERS EVERYWHERE”

BUY MY BOOK

P.S.—Thanks, Doug.

My electric bike is neon orange.

Same color as Suboxone strips.

I’m flying down the road at thirty miles an hour with no helmet, music blaring. Poison The Well. The Tropic Rot. "Exist Underground."

"So hurry up now boy,

Start sweeping and gluing,

Get to work,

Get to work,

Get to work!" Jeff screams as I almost clip a 2013 Prius. Kamala sticker and all.

I could die at any moment. I’m more afraid to live.

I am a fading fiend. A farce.

Harvard Square teems. July radiates its hellish heat. I get to work, three and a half miles away, in eight minutes and thirty-six seconds. The people of Cambridge glare in disgust as I whiz by. They all support Ukraine, but not the homeless rotting right in front of them.

I walk in, clock in, and say hello to one of my new co-workers. We’ll call him Ethan. He’s twenty-five. Life’s still interesting. The world hasn’t fucked his face yet.

It will.

It’s hard for me to relate, so I act. Like someone else. So far, it’s working. But that mask will wear thin…

"Hey, brother. How are ya?" I say, forcing a dented smile.

"Hey, man." He’s timid. Oblivious. Never stuck himself with a needle. Never stolen to eat. Good for him.

The manager appears.

"Just you two tonight," he says. "Air conditioner’s broken upstairs." Thirty seconds later, he vanishes. I won’t see him again until closing, I think, gratefully. Nobody likes managers. Not even managers.

"Looks like it’ll be slow," I say, stripping pour spout covers off liquor bottles. I stack the covers and stow them, start refilling my juices and syrups. Our menu has thirty cocktails, each with different house-made ingredients, meaning I have about forty in total. Strawberry, watermelon, mint, honey, agave, lemon, lime, Meyer, mandarin, citric, orgeat, passionfruit, lavender, grapefruit, pineapple, vanilla, demerara, grenadine…

I could go on.

I set up my well, meticulously sequencing bottles, getting cubed and crushed ice, shocking mint, picking lavender and basil, peeling citrus, refining the peels into beautiful, ultimately worthless garnishes. Mixology is just alcoholic pageantry, I think, repulsed. Ethan’s cutting lemons, limes, oranges, and grapefruits with his headphones on, and I’m okay with that, because I have nothing to say. What I do have is five silver Boston shakers, two metal mixing glasses, three Hawthorne strainers, three mesh strainers, two teardrop barspoons, two Japanese jiggers, a cutting board, a paring knife, a muddler, tongs, a peeler, and a torch. The shakers gleam in the waning sunlight sweating through the windows. Ten bottles of bitters. An absinthe atomizer. A few tinctures. Dehydrated fruits.

These are the things that keep me alive.

Two hours pass in a whir of nothing. The scene is set. The doors are about to open. There’s a line forming. Hawaiian-shirted tourists with tumorous guts and crusty lips. "Looks like I was wrong," I say to Ethan, and he frowns.

I slip upstairs to the bathroom. It’s at least 105 degrees up here. I’m pouring sweat. I splash cold water on my face and stare myself down in the mirror. My greasy bald head. My crooked jaw. My scraggly beard. A few gray hairs. I’m getting old, I think.

I’m hideous.

I open my phone case and take out a torn Suboxone wrapper. One more milligram should get me through, I think. I rip off a piece, tuck it under my tongue, sit on the toilet, and gaze at the floor. Time stalls as it dissolves.

I rinse my mouth. Brush my teeth. Fix my apron.

Then head back downstairs to play bartender.

◆◆◆

We’re busy.

Full bar. One open table.

Ethan taps frantically at the computer, prints three tickets, and hands them to me before scurrying off to run food.

Okay, two smoked old fashioneds, one Summer Days, one Psycho Killer, one Sazerac, and a Boozy Bumblebee. What a shitty name…

Mixing glass. Seven.. eight dashes of Angostura. Four of Regans’ orange bitters… Good. Jigger. Three ounces of Michter’s bourbon, two of Sazerac Rye, and a half of demerara. Good.

Summer Days. Rinse the jigger. Boston shaker. Two ounces of La Venenosa raicilla, three-quarters of Nixta, one of lime juice, half of prickly pear purée, quarter of agave syrup… Good.

Rinse the jigger. Psycho Killer. Maybe someday. Boston shaker. One and a half of Diplomático Mantuano, half of Hines cognac, half of Giffard coconut, quarter of Swedish Punsch, one of watermelon juice, quarter of lime juice… Good.

Mixing glass. Sazzy. Eight dashes of Peychauds. Two of Angostura bitters. Quarter ounce of simple syrup. Three-quarters of Bhakta cognac, two of Whistle Pig rye…

I turn around and Ethan’s smoking two rocks glasses, having trouble with the torch. "Other way," I say. The torch spits fire. Three it girls are parked in front of my well. Chubby. Caked in concealer. Sucking down skinny margaritas like they shit gold bricks.

"And bitch, my sex life is amazing!" one shouts, and I want to scream in her face: "Shut the fuck up, bitch!" But I don’t. I just block them out and finish the tickets.

Bumblebee. Stupid fucking name. I guess it makes sense, though. Rinse the goddamn jigger. Boston fucking shaker. Two of Barr Hill gin, quarter of Montenegro, quarter of dry curaçao, one of lemon juice, three-quarters of honey syrup, and two dashes of Ango.

"This guy’s like a chemist. I wonder what school bartenders go to," another says as I ice my tins and start shaking. I smirk, picturing myself darting a shaker into her face at full speed. Like a fucking professional quarterback making the touchdown pass.

Glorious.

"I don’t think it’s that hard. All you have to do is get drunk and make drinks… Sounds like my fucking dream job! It’s not that hard, right, bartender?" the behemoth with the sex life says. I introduced myself when they sat down, but I’m still just "bartender" to them.

Nothing.

I flash a murderous smile. "Naw, not at all!" I yell over the commotion, shaking and stirring simultaneously, eyeing my fruit knife.

"See, I toldya! I don’t think they make a lot, though. Wouldn’t wanna date one." She whispers that last part, but I hear every word. "Might fuck one," she says audibly, scanning my frame.

Jesus Christ, I think, eyeing my fruit knife again, contemplating homicide.

It’s gonna be a long night.

◆◆◆

A closed restaurant is so calm.

Ethan’s gone. The lights are off.

Just me and these aching feet.

I step outside. Soggy, sickly heat seeps into my skin. My nose runs from withdrawals. The cycle restarts itself earlier and earlier during a taper. Every day’s a countdown to The Sickness. It’s just like heroin, minus the spike.

But there’s still time for that.

I fish a pack of weed gummies from my backpack. The only good thing I got on the Vineyard. 75 milligrams each. I pop one, put in my earbuds, hit play on Deadguy’s "Doom Patrol," and crank it. The screaming starts:

"I will not suffer your persistence, the smallness of your mistakes

Your jealousy abandoning, you worship it, of all your sins

I will not suffer you, suffer you

Suffer, suffer you…"

Suffer, I think, unlocking my bike. I tear through Church Street, bang a left, cut across Cambridge Common, and cruise down Mass. Ave toward the Star Market by Porter Square. The lights are all green in my head. I blink and I’m there.

The sign glows. An oasis.

After I lock my bike, I check my wallet—$6 left. Fuck, I think. Soup again.

Two junkies are slouched by the entrance, begging for change. Sunken cheeks. Scabbed arms. Gloomy eyes.

"Spare a coupla bucks on the way out, bud?"

"I need some donations myself, friend," I reply. I’ll be with them soon, I think, as the doors slide open.

Fluorescents expose my pale, veiny skin. Purple swamps below my eyes. Every blemish on my oil-slick bald head. Every nick from shaving with that shitty disposable. I’m a monster. A fucking monster. I always said I’d find my wife before I went bald. I thought I did… What the hell will I do now? I’m thinking this while staring at, into, through, cans of soup. I remember something useless about Warhol. Grab a can of lentil vegetable. Self-checkout. Collect the change.

I give it to the junkies on the way out.

"Hey, God bless, man!" one says with an edentulous smirk as I stagger off.

Back into the night. The world. The bike.

I blink.

I’m at the sublet, bracing myself before I carry the bike up two sets of winding stairs. Seventy pounds of awkward metal. Dead weight. I’m struggling. The front tire nicks the wall. The bike stops, but I don’t. The phone mount gouges my forehead.

Blood gushes.

"Fuck," I say aloud, finishing my climb, securing the bike, rushing into the bathroom. The gash isn’t deep, but it’s a bleeder. Perfect way to end my day, I think, as blood splatters the sink. . .

I’m naked. The bleeding’s stopped. I dab the gash with toilet paper. In the bathroom. My briefs and t-shirt are strewn across the filthy floor. The toilet’s stained with someone else’s shit. I am surrounded by filth.

I am filth.

The shower’s running. The gummy’s kicking in. I’m looking at my hideous reflection in the mirror as it fogs. My misshapen skull. My dead eyes. My gray teeth. I used to be so handsome… What a pathetic thought. And my body… I work out every day and still look like a bitch, I think, flexing my biceps, knowing I’m weak.

Worthless.

I floss. Brush my teeth. Fluoride first, then hydroxyapatite. I grip the sink. Stare myself down. Ready to knock myself out.

That’s when my phone rings.

NO CALLER ID.

Spam, I think, about to decline the call.

But loneliness wins.

"Hello?"

Read the PROLOGUE: TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

Read my novel, VILE SELF PORTRAITS

Read “AN OPEN LETTER TO BAR GOERS EVERYWHERE”

BUY MY BOOK

I wake up to a loud bang overhead. It’s six in the morning. I fell asleep at three. Long shift. Everything hurts. I think of her. Another bang. I reach out.

But she’s gone.

Marvin’s getting ready for work. His room is above mine. He’s a normal guy. Twenty-four years old. Sinewy body never tainted by the street. Educated. Bright-eyed. Ready to take on this terrible world with a repulsive aplomb.

Just a normal guy who keeps normal hours.

My head pounds. My body aches. I’m already in withdrawals. I never should’ve touched Suboxone, I think, hearing another bang, then another. I roll over and feel around for my mic bag. It once held the SM58 I bought from a Berklee student for $25 (with her), but now it’s full of drugs. I find it, unzip it, and fish out half a pill from the corner. Clonidine. Stolen clonidine. Lee, my other housemate, left an old script in the bathroom. So I took a few.

I took fifteen.

I wash it down with coconut water, my only solace. I’m drenched in dope sweat, alone in this closet-sized room. The sun taunts me. The bed frame was missing pieces, so I’m literally on the floor. There’s no furniture besides a scuffed bookcase holding my computer monitor, perched atop a pile of pillaged paperbacks. It’s a makeshift lighthouse at the front of the room. Blinking. Glowing. Looming. My nightstand is a cardboard box. A thirty-five-pound kettlebell keeps the door closed. I torture myself with it. Swing it around, jack my heart rate to 170. 180. 190. See if it’ll pop.

But I’m still here. (Unfortunately.)

Whoever created buprenorphine deserves a firing squad, I think, trying to remember a time when I wasn’t addicted to drugs. No, I deserve a firing squad, I decide, half a smile searing my cheeks. I dig into the mic bag, fetch a Suboxone strip (cancer yellow, Alvogen, 8 mg), tear the wrapper with my brittle teeth, rip a sliver of Agent Orange, and tuck it under my tongue. Around 0.5 mg. Enough to push me back to sleep. To stave off the sweats and the shakes.

But not enough to dream.

I close my eyes and turn over. Marvin drops something heavy onto the floor as a blinding shard of sunlight breaks through the window. I cover my face with a pillow and briefly consider asphyxiation.

Then I fall asleep.

◆◆◆

I open my eyes and the sun cackles.

Pain. Arthritis is forming in my right wrist from shaking cocktails. How many drinks have I made? How many mornings have I ruined? How much sloppy sex have I caused? STDs? Morning-after pills? How much regret have these hands borne?

I check my watch (the one she bought me for Christmas): 8:45 a.m. Fuck, I think. Not even three hours. I’m losing my fucking mind to insomnia. It’s hard to sleep after a busy shift. The Fibonacci thoughts plague me, branching infinitely. Someday they’ll kill me.

Soon.

Being the new guy always sucks. I got this job last week. Hell, I got this room last week. Interviewed the day I arrived and started training less than twenty-four hours later. Jersey City feels like a dream. The Vineyard feels like a hallucination. Like I was never there, I just imagined it, and I didn’t even imagine it all that well.

The colors are contaminated.

First, I lost her. Our apartment in Jersey. My life. In a month. I took a bar job on Martha’s Vineyard with housing and we said our goodbyes. I thought I could make some decent money and evade misery. Change of scenery. R&R. Sandy beaches. Rich tourists who tip over twenty percent.

But it was a disaster.

Another booze bag chef stiffed me. The horrors of the restaurant industry. I shoveled him bullshit while I packed and plotted my escape. Left him an empty room and a letter of resignation signed: Fuck You.

Escape is a sublet in Medford, Massachusetts with three clean-cut college kids. Not bad. But only until September. I’ll be kicked to the curb by the end of the summer.

So here I am, thirty-two, still in the same place I was when I was twenty. Minus a spike.

But there’s still time for that.

My feet hit the floor. Dust. Crumbs. Hair and feces trailed from the bathroom. My vision is a rickety projector, each frame pronounced, cigarette burns perforating my parasitic psyche. My knees shake, a mixture of yesterday’s 5k sprint through hell (it was ninety-eight degrees outside) and 300 single-arm kettlebell swings. I grab the half-empty coconut water from the floor, chug the rest, and sigh.

The room’s a mess.

I’m tearing from The Sickness. Involuntary cries. I check my phone: nothing. No calls. Texts. Not even a fucking email. Just spam.

That’s all I’m worth.

Headphones. Daïtro. French screamo. Laissez Vivre Les Squelettes. I don’t understand what he’s screaming, but I know he means it. I approach my computer, hit the keyboard a few times to wake it up. The screen stays black. This keyboard’s shot, I think, unplugging it, then plugging it back in, smacking at the weary keys.

The monitor flickers to life.

I type in my password (her name), check my email, my stagnant Substack, yesterday’s drivel, and my recent drafts ("THE KID," "PATRIOT PLACE," "OFFICER WILSON," "THE ENTITY," "KANYE WEST IS A FUCKING HACK," "LESLEY UNIVERSITY," "GROCERIES," "CHEF JOE"). I settle on "THE KID" and start reading it aloud. Tweak a few words. A comma here and there. It’s done, but I’ll rewrite it anyway.

I’ll make sure.

I pause, listen for signs of life in the kitchen, lumber to the stove, and boil water for coffee. #2 filter. Mesh strainer. Same kind I use for cocktails behind the bar. I wet the strainer, place the filter, and grind the last of my beans. The water boils, so I turn the heat off, wait ten seconds, and pour it over the grounds.

I drink. Black. Who can afford milk?

Back to the lighthouse with coffee in hand. I stand before it and give "THE KID" another hour or so, then recheck my email, scanning for Doug Stanhope’s name with delusional optimism. I wrote him two weeks ago to request an interview (verbatim):

INTERVIEW REQUEST

To Mr. Doug Stanhope,

My name is Connor James Desmond, and I am a writer, among other terrible things. I'm reaching out to request an interview with you, as I'm conducting a livestream series on my Substack with artists I admire.

Some of my recent guests were poet Jason O'Toole, writer Jerry Stahl, and painter Chase Langford, just to name a few.

I'll cut the shit: you're a bad motherfucker, and I like your style. No fluff, no bullshit. Just the truth as you see it. You've always been unapologetically yourself, which is rare, and I deeply respect what you do on stage. You're also a great writer, and I'd be honored to chat with you. (That'll be the extent of my sycophancy.)

Me? I'm a nobody, a faceless poet who used to shoot dope in supermarket bathrooms before spraying my blood across the ceiling. My life is a thirty-two-year long trail of piss, shit, vomit, bent needles, smashed bottles, and vile words. Writing is my only purpose, and I've recently started interviewing people as a way to deal with my interminable loneliness/suicidality. My debut novel, VILE SELF PORTRAITS, which I released in January of this year, is a fictionalized recount of my heroin/booze addiction.

In short: I'm expecting you to ignore this email, but I'd be remiss if I didn't send it. If, by some Christ-like miracle, you do accept, I'll send you all of my questions ahead of time for your approval. They usually last forty-five minutes to an hour, depending.

Let me know.

Feel free to call or text me.

C. James Desmond

551-396-2895

episodesinsapphire@gmail.com

cjamesdesmond.substack.com

thebarman.substack.com

You’re probably thinking: Why is some unknown hack with no degree or credentials asking relatively famous people for interviews? And the answer (to pretty much everything I do nowadays) is loneliness.

Doug replied:

Ask me again in a couple weeks when I'm off the road.

xoxo

stanhope

I’ll never hear from that dipsomaniacal bastard again, I think. He must’ve scoffed at my name drop of Jerry Stahl and had no clue about Chase Langford or Jason O’Toole. This is another one of my pathetic attempts to connect. To be seen. To soothe my self-inflicted solitude. How many words must I write. Speak. Hear. Just to outrun the thought of her?

Fuck it, I think. There’s virtue in persistence, right? Besides, if I stop pushing, stop running, I’ll collapse.

I draft another email:

INTERVIEW REQUEST TAKE TWO

Hey Doug,

Just wanted to follow up and see if you're still down for an interview. I know you said you were on the road, so let me know when you'll be back home and we can set something up. Like I said, it would be an honor to chat. Feel free to text me if that's easier.

I'm a lonesome nobody, I would never publicize your number.

I'll just shit my pants and cry tears of obscene joy. ;)

Many thanks,

C. James Desmond

551-396-2895

Tears of obscene joy? What the fuck is wrong with me? I think, my finger hovering over delete. I check the time—12:30 p.m.

Fuck.

Work.

I have to get ready for work.

I click send.

Mic bag. 4 mg of Suboxone. Sublingual.

Bathroom. Shower. Razor. Toothbrush. Clothes. Watch. Shoes. Backpack. Bike.

Gone.

READ PART ONE: GET TO WORK

Read my novel, VILE SELF PORTRAITS

Read “AN OPEN LETTER TO BAR GOERS EVERYWHERE”

First of all: fuck you.

For leaving shitty tips or no tip whatsoever.

For saying, "If you’re really good, I’ll give you a little extra!"

For the vitriolic reviews on Yelp and Google.

For going after our jobs because you didn’t get your way.

For the water with lemon.

For saying, "Can I get a little less ice?" thinking it means more booze.

For the rude comments you mumble under your breath knowing we hear every word.

For not making eye contact with us because we aren’t worth the effort.

For the rich drunks who discuss millions and tip with cents involved.

For waving and snapping in our faces.

For expecting everything and giving next to nothing.

For taking pictures of us while we shake and stir for your Instagram stories, then treating us like human scum.

For ordering Long Island Iced Teas.

For ordering "the strongest drink on the menu."

For making us cut you off instead of being somewhat responsible adults.

For causing a scene when we tell you, "I’m so sorry, but I can’t serve you any more alcohol."

For deteriorating before our very eyes, then staggering back for more like methadone patients awaiting their morning fix, wide-eyed and slurry, drooling slightly, limbs heavy, saggy cheeks lusting for the floor.

For expecting us to clean whatever mess you leave.

For vomiting in our bathrooms and lying about it to our faces.

For saying, "I’d like to speak with the manager, this is ridiculous," when you are the ridiculous one.

For using us as props to impress your grotesque girlfriend.

For saying, "I’ll leave you a nice tip, my man," and leaving one crumpled five-dollar bill that smells like hell and looks the part.

For the late nights when you have "just one more" seven times while we stand there physically and mentally destroyed, and you notice, but you love the feeling of control, so you stay for as long as you’d like, and we get home at three in the fucking morning while you eat lethal fast food and have slovenly sex with some ugly cow who vehemently hates you.

Second: I’m not your fucking therapist.

I don’t care about your kid’s recital, your ugly wife’s nagging, your boyfriend’s cheating, your generalized family horrors. Quite frankly, I don’t give a single fuck. I’ve got my own issues. My own bills, my own nagging woman, my own family trauma that ruins me every time I open my eyes. But you forget that. You forget that I too exist on the other side of the bar. That sticky slab only separates us physically. We share the same world, hit the same potholes, feel the same fear. Our hearts beat with the same plastic-tainted, pesticide-laced blood.

Here’s a hard truth: the bartender you go to when you fight with your significant other, when you’re depressed and lonely and feeling bad about yourself, who consoles you with booze and slips you a free shot occasionally, who you tip over 20% every time—they are not your friend. They are impeccable actors capable of Hollywood stardom, and you’re paying their electric bill. Sure, if you were to ask this same bartender, "Hey Bobby, we’re good friends, right? I read this article online that says this is all a sham…" Bobby would reply, "Of course! That guy’s full of shit, don’t worry about it!" with pseudo-enthusiasm.

And you’d continue paying his electric bill. . .

I believe it should be mandatory for every human being on Earth to work in a restaurant for at least a month.

Why?

Because every beating heart in existence needs to experience the horrors of customer service.

Those who have never done so are the worst to deal with. They’re the ones who commit the atrocities I’ve described in the above paragraphs. To a normal person, these are the futile complaints of a man-child who’s made too many mistakes in life, mistakes that caused him to perpetually work in restaurants. Bartending, like most restaurant work, is seen as a stepping stone, not a career. Something you do on the side to make extra cash. It’s certainly not considered a respectable profession. You’re the drink pourer. The plate setter. You are, for the most part, nameless, and you learn to respond to, "Hey bartender!" (This is also the name of a great documentary.)

My future mother-in-law once said to me: "How hard can it be? You pour beers, shake cocktails, and leave with cash every night. Sounds like a party!"

It was a party. In my early twenties, I thought bartending was the greatest job imaginable. I was, of course, a rampant alcoholic, and I used my job as an excuse to drink and do drugs. I’d wake up in the late afternoon with a mind-bending hangover, shuffle into the shower and wallow for an hour under scalding water, then stumble to work, stopping at the packie to grab my daily damage—a sleeve of Evan Williams bourbon nips, two off-brand vodka nips (think Rubinoff, but worse), and a bottle of Minute Maid Fruit Punch. I’d take a gulp of the Fruit Punch to make room for the vodka nips—my morning pick-me-up. After that, I’d guzzle a large Dunkin’ Donuts (this was before the lame name change) iced coffee mixed with two bourbon nips. An hour later I’d be behind the bar, shaking and stirring with ease.

Ah, the good days.

They didn’t last long.

I’ve been a barman for over twelve years now. Seven years in, I quit booze and the glamour was instantly gone. I was forced to face the grim reality of being a somewhat sober service worker in his late twenties with no college degree and zero experience doing anything else, save a few grueling manual labor gigs. My alcohol addiction morphed into a kratom and cannabis addiction, a combination I still haven’t kicked, one that steals a sliver of my soul and liver with each passing moment. I quickly learned that without alcohol, I had to be high on something, otherwise I couldn’t act. And if you can’t pretend everything is okay when everything is completely fucked, you won’t last long behind the bar.

While working in a restaurant isn’t seen as a real job (unless you’re at a Michelin-starred spot with secret sex dungeons and "genius" chefs), there’s still a massive, ever-growing population of us who know nothing else but the trenches.

I dedicate this publication to them.

DESMOND’S PROPER OLD FASHIONED

4 dashes of Angostura bitters

2 dashes of Orange Bitters

1oz Four Roses Bourbon

1oz Rittenhouse Rye

0.25oz Amaro Averna

0.25oz Demerara syrup

Combine all ingredients into a mixing glass. Add ice. Stir until chilled and diluted. Strain into a chilled rocks glass over a big cube. Express an orange peel over the glass, then tuck it in and go fuck yourself! Cheers!

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VILE SELF PORTRAITS