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You ask around and no-one knows where they went or what they do
But you wonder, I know you wonder…
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People watching.
They came in and out like ghosts at a familiar haunt, some talking cheerfully with others, and some alone. The cheerful ones usually picked a table to sit at and left her alone, except that odd couple that sat at the bar every now and then, but the loners were the ones that interested her. The loners were the ones with the stories.
Whenever you’re alone, you can always go to a bar and you know for sure there will be company. It doesn’t matter what time of the day or night, if the bar’s open, there will be a bartender. Sometimes people came in during the wee hours of the night just to sit, and to ask Ruby to sit with them. It was better than sitting alone, they said.
If they were willing to talk, and if the bar wasn’t too busy at the time, Ruby would listen.
X
She met a baseball player named Sean who liked to talk about his girlfriend. He came in on late nights after games when he was feeling lonely and thinking about home. Ruby let him talk as much as he wanted, and watched his career grow over several months to the point where everyone was sure he would be on a professional team… and then he sustained a massive head injury during a game. It was all over the local news. She’d thought those were mostly for football players.
Sean left off somewhere one day. Drove away without saying goodbye.
X
A woman named Kathryn drove though looking for someone named Frederick. She cried into her beer for an hour at two in the morning, and wailed a drunken story about how he was lost and her history with him. Hopelessly in love, the poor woman. She was hitchhiking her way to Illinois thinking that he might have gone there for some reason.
Ruby walked her to the hotel after she seemed sober enough to go anywhere, just to make sure she wasn’t mugged in the dead of the night. Sometimes she wondered what happened to her.
X
One night she met a woman named Belle, who came in looking scared and lonely. Ruby asked if she wanted a drink, and she shook her head, asking instead for a very non-alcoholic kind of Coke. Ruby cleaned the bar as Belle slumped over her soda, dark hair falling in waves and hiding her face. It took only a short time for her to realize that she was crying, shaking with silent sobs. Belle kept her head down, trying to hide her tears, but she finally gave way to the hiccupping sobs and cried loudly.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, wiping her eyes.
“Hey, it’s ok,” Ruby’s sensitive side took over and she immediately rushed around to sit beside her. “You want to talk?”
“Not really,” Belle said. “I just didn’t want to go home and I thought maybe… I can’t afford to have any alcohol right now. Last time…” she trailed off, but one of her hands rubbed her forearm tentatively, and Ruby could see telltale scars running across the inside of her arm. Vertical marks. She’d tried to commit suicide. A
Belle looked at her like a frightened animal, big blue eyes waiting on judgment or a quip or something that would be just as hurtful as a blade. Ruby only nodded, and reached down to pull up her own sleeve.
White lines slashed horizontally across her wrist, marks from her teenage years. There was a black butterfly tattoo there now, covering part of them, reminding her every day of how much she’d done to heal.
“What’s the butterfly for?” Belle asked, sniffling a little.
“Butterflies are delicate creatures,” Ruby explained. “They’re small and fragile, and they can be hurt easily. I got it to remind me how every time I cut myself, I wasn’t just hurting me. I was hurting the people I loved… and nothing was worth that.”
After that night, Belle became a bar regular.
X
There was a man named David whose wife divorced him suddenly. His own fault, he said. Ruby slowly wheedled the story out of him, offered consolation and a listening ear, and only later did he confess how good it felt to get it off his chest. He bought a quarter horse from someone who came in one night, just on a whim. Then he left.
She’d heard he ran a ranch out somewhere in Montana, gotten married to a girl who helped him start it.
X
Emma came in one night, crying and raving about her tiny little yellow bug. They towed it, and she had no place to go. It might have been a car to the city, but to her it was the only home she had. She was out looking for someone, too. A man and a little boy, her son that she’d run away from before. Without her car she’d never find them. She fell asleep against the wall, slept several hours and walked out when the bar closed.
Ruby hadn’t seen her since.
X
Mr. Gold was a man with a bad right knee who could hold his liquor and his secrets, but after he lost count of the amount of whiskey he’d ingested his tongue loosened considerably. His wife ran off with another man, he said, and she took his son with her. She pissed off the entire town, made a complete fool of herself, and then left in the middle of the night without a single goodbye.
He could live without her, he’d said, but not without his son. Milah was nothing to him anymore, not after what she did to him, but his boy was different. His little Bae, his pride and joy. He couldn’t bear a life without ever seeing his son.
Ruby found that there were two main types of late night loners at the bar- the kind that wanted to drown their pain and the kind that wanted to drown in their pain. Gold was of the second type. All the people who simply wanted a drink would usually be there late, but not one and two in the morning, not in the odd hours and the silence and the beer like these were.
Mr. Gold became a bar regular, too.
X
It was a full month of Mr. Gold becoming a bar regular before Belle dropped in.
It was snowing outside, and she bustled in shaking from the cold, brushing white flakes off her coat and walking over slowly to perch on a barstool. She looked at Mr. Gold uncomfortably, as if she wasn’t sure why he was here or if she was hallucinating. It was past one in the morning, after all. Belle was usually the only one around during this time, especially on a weeknight.
Tonight, though, had been too much for him. He usually came in on Fridays, days when he would normally be home from work in time to eat dinner with his family and tuck his son into bed, and then on Saturday mornings he’d make breakfast and they would go fishing if the weather was right or find something to do at home if it wasn’t. Today, though, was special. It was Bae’s birthday, and he hadn’t even gotten a call all day, nor had his many calls been answered.
Belle was here because she needed to talk to Ruby.
She was twenty-nine and supposed to be independent, supposed to be recovering, but her father wasn’t helping her. He kept her on a tight leash, scared he would lose her but not allowing her to make any decisions for herself. He treated her like every day would be another day when she would try to kill herself, and she couldn’t take it anymore. Belle didn’t need to be stifled, she needed to be loved and set free, she needed others to trust in her just a little so that she might be able to trust in herself again one day.
Ruby sat a glass of Coke in front of Belle with a soft, sad smile, and held up her left arm, flashing her butterfly tattoo. Belle mirrored her action, revealing a simpler butterfly on her own arm, drawn in fine-point sharpie. She hadn’t cut herself in over four months now. Soon she would get a tattoo like Ruby’s butterfly, so she would have something permanent. Belle was healing… but the healing was slow and painful, and she knew that butterfly wouldn’t last the night if she didn’t get out and talk to someone soon.
So she’d come to Ruby.
Ruby, who had been there through everything in the past four months since they had met, who had helped her more than anyone- more than the psychiatrist who said he understood, more than the friends who said they were sure it would get better, more than the family who tried to pretend that it didn’t happen. Ruby, who went out shopping with her and invited her over on weekends to watch cheesy romances and eat popcorn until they wound up throwing it at each other. Ruby, her bartender turned best friend.
But the other customer made her uneasy.
The man a couple stools down looked at her curiously, swirling the last bit of whiskey in his glass. His warm brown eyes were clouded from the alcohol, though he was sober enough that his speech didn’t slur when he spoke.
“Soda for you?” he asked, eyebrows raised. Belle shrugged. It would certainly look odd to anyone who didn’t know her.
“I don’t drink anymore,” she said softly. “It doesn’t dull the pain, it only makes you forget for a little bit… and then it’s worse than ever.”
They didn’t speak for the rest of that night.
Mr. Gold started coming in on Tuesdays.
X
Ruby watched from a distance as the odd pair became more comfortable with each other. She and Belle still met for movies on the weekend, but at the bad the atmosphere was different.
It only took so long before they opened up to each other.
“Why do you drink so much?” It was Belle who asked the question, a kind of simple, innocent curiosity burning in her eyes, and it was enough to make him answer. He found himself spilling out his story to this beautiful brunette woman, and very slowly, a kind of pressure seemed to drain from his chest.
“So it’s your wife? You’re here because of her?”
“My son,” Gold whispered, shaking his head. “She took my son with her when she left, and I… I can’t imagine living without him.”
“I’m sorry,” Belle reached out hesitantly to touch his hand. Ruby tried not to pay attention as she cleaned glasses from the corner, but her eyes widened despite herself. Belle didn’t touch people, not after what she’d been through at her home. It had taken two weeks of coming to the bar every night for her to even shake Ruby’s hand, and now she was willingly touching Mr. Gold after a month of sporadic meetings.
Ruby smiled to herself.
This could be a good sign.
X
One more month passed. The butterfly on Belle’s arm stayed intact. Gold downed less and less whiskey each time he came.
“Why do you have a butterfly on your wrist?” he asked, reaching out to touch the design tenderly. Belle’s eyes fluttered against her will at the gentle motion, almost a caress, but she forced herself back to the present, reaching out to roll up the rest of her sleeve so he could see the while lines running up her arms.
“That’s why,” she said simply. “I don’t want to go back to that. It’s there as a reminder. The last time I drank…” shewaved her arm, hoping he would get the point.
Gold opened his mouth to say something, but Belle interrupted him.
“Please don’t,” she whispered. “If you’re going to say something about understanding… don’t.” In that moment, Mr. Gold first realized how broken she was. Healing, but still a long way from recovered.
“Belle,” he said, taking her hand in both of his, “I can’t pretend to understand what you’re going through, but…” Her eyes flicked up to his, curious and uncertain.
“What?”
“If you’ll let me,” he said carefully, “I would love to know you.”
X
Belle came in crying that night, one year after the first time they met at Granny’s Pub.
Gold was already there, as usual. He was waiting on her, but as soon as he saw her he noticed her blotchy skin and red-rimmed eyes he walked over quickly, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Belle, what’s wrong?” Gold asked. Belle simply shook her head, gazing down at the floor. Ruby was nowhere to be found, presumably off taking care of something in the back for Granny.
“I- I just…” she fumbled around for words like she always did when she was upset. “It’s nothing, really, just… personal trouble.”
“It’s not nothing,” Gold insisted, guiding her over to a nearby booth to sit. “Was it Greg giving you trouble again?”
“No,” she shook her head. Greg was her ex-boyfriend that had mistakenly followed her to the bar two weeks before. Mr. Gold may have walked with a cane, but it was far more useful as a club when it came to warding off unwanted attention.
“Alright,” he sighed, reaching up to stroke her hair almost involuntarily. Their little touches had increased over time to something more than friendly but less than either of them wanted it to be. “If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to, but… just know I’m here, alright?”
Belle bit her lip and nodded. This was slow, this… whatever they had. It was good, it was… right. It was just what they needed, something with space to breathe and learn and heal. After knowing each other for an entire year, things were so close between them that they had started planning times to meet at the bar that weren’t in the wee hours, to sit and talk about normal things.
Tuesdays, though, they still met at 1AM, and today was a Tuesday.
“Belle?”
“Yes?”
“Um, would you…” he began, but trailed off. “I don’t know how to ask this.”
“What?” her brow furrowed in confusion.
“I, um… bugger,” Gold shook his head and closed the remaining distance between them, kissing her softly. Belle was surprised, but not… unhappy.
“Is that… ok?” Gold asked.
“Yes,” she nodded, smiling softly at his uncertain expression, and he visibly relaxed. There was such a difference between his embrace and anything she’d ever felt before. Damn the age difference
“Let me take you out,” he whispered, hand straying through her hair. “Give you a proper date, start like we were supposed to and not… drowning our sorrows in alcohol.” Belle giggled, almost against her will.
“I’d like that,” she smiled. He kissed her again, a little more firmly, enjoying her rare smile whenever they broke apart.
“But are you sure everything is alright?” he asked, still worried. Belle blushed scarlet.
“I was… it was you, actually,” she mumbled, her fingers toying with the ends of his hair as she spoke. Gold pulled a face, shocked. “I thought that- well, we’ve known each other for a while- I thought it was one sided and I was just a little discouraged. I didn’t think anyone would ever want me.”
“That’s impossible, love,” he pulled her in close, wrapping her in the kind of affectionate hug that only a few people had the privilege of sharing with Belle. “You are beautiful and brilliant, and I’ll never let you go.”
A tear slipped down Belle’s cheek, but this time for a very different reason.
X
“What did you give those two, Red?” Granny asked, chuckling.
“Why? What’s going on?” she took off towards the kitchen door, skidding to a stop just before crashing into it. She peeked out the window in the door and smirked at the sight of her two most faithful customers wrapped up in each other’s arms.
“So? How drunk are they?” Granny came up behind her, watching with a wary eye.
“Gave them the specialty,” Ruby said. “Hope on the rocks.”
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Where do they go?
They come here
To drown in their sorrow and cry in their beer
They’re in need of a mind bender
I’m a bartender, and at the end of the day I’m all they’ve got
Hope on the rocks.