The Other Guy

You know “that guy”, the one who walks into a pub like he owns the place. He nods at the door man, smiles at a passing waitress who actually smiles back, and slides effortlessly onto an open barstool that you’d swear was occupied a moment before. He easily exchanges pleasantries with the barkeep and orders something offbeat, but simple and strong enough to shed any association with metro-sexuality. He’s new here, but you’d never guess it.

I’m the other guy, the Jerry Lewis to his Dean Martin. I enter cautiously, checking my fly, my breath, the shirt stain I just discovered and hope no one notices. I make for the bar and order a Guinness, as if the selection will afford me a measure of credibility. My heart is racing now, fearing exposure. Yes, I’m the expat, the table for one, the shaky stool at the end of the bar that always seems to be in the waitress’ way. That’s the trouble with traveling alone, you’re terribly, awfully, endlessly alone.

I hear myself speak that last line and search frantically for the adverb police. Christ, you’re pathetic. Relax already. I take a sip and realize that my beer is half gone, nervous drinking I guess, anything to calm the beast.

I order some food and try to melt into the background. The kitchen is slow. It’s a drinking bar after all and the menu is mostly for show. I fidget constantly, careful not to let my gaze linger too long. I’m intense despite myself and more than once my apprehensive glance has been confused for a come on or an invitation to brawl – once both simultaneously. Biker girls are as tough as they look.

The T.V. is on, but I’m not a sports guy and the German Nascar coverage with Chinese subtitles does little to convert me. Thankfully my food appears and I polish it off with another drink. That makes three. I was supposed to quit, cut down at the very least. Am I getting too fat, too slow, too unlike the person I was when things were fine? It’s hard to tell as my nerves fade into a hazy, confident paranoia. Now I’m certain they’re staring. I smile occasionally hoping for forgiveness or a morsel of conversation that never seems to come.

The guy beside me randomly mutters something about the market and the fellows he’s blaming for its decline. Jokes whiz through my brain, both sides of the debate hacked playfully to pieces by sarcastic one-liners. Still I stay silent. Too risky. Not my crowd, my room, my night.

The barman’s eyebrows ask the obvious, but I’ve had my fill. The jitters are back and I’m longing for escape and the sanitary sanctuary of night air and newly pressed sheets. I pay the tab and head for the door, looking back briefly as I often do. Dean has a beer in one hand and a dart in the other. A local boy is brandishing a fist full of fives and a hopeful smile, but his girl has one too and it’s aimed at Mr. Martin.

Author’s note: I write fiction. I imagine even my restaurant reviews are littered with embellishments. So worry not – things are cool. The next story might feature an East Hungarian Shot-putter named Sven. That doesn’t mean I’ve sold my neck and developed a hankering for goulash.