Angel (2007)

    There are those who drink as to socialize, and then there some who socialize so they can drink.   In the front of the bar, there sat, side by side, three of the latter type, males, of ambiguous age, except all of them looking very old.

            The one with long hair that is still black says to the one sitting in the middle,

“I’ve had a bad feeling lately.”

(The one in the middle does not show any overt signs of caring but, after a swig and a silence, grunts to bid him continue.  This one in the middle is wearing blue suede pants.  He appears to be the dandy of the bunch.)

            “It’s like, I’m not where I’m supposed to be.  I’m not who I’m supposed to be.  Like this has all been a mistake but yet I remember every minute of it and it all happened with my consent.”  This one is the talker, the artist, the dreamer.

            The one sitting on the far right, closest to the door, whose attention has been focused everywhere but his companions, suddenly shifts with agitation.  He is skinny and stooped, with spots on his bald head. But his glasses fit his face well and he is blessed with a wonderful voice.  “And what, do you suppose, you were supposed to be? A movie star, maybe?  You should be grateful you’re anything at all.  You should be grateful you’re not dead.”  He laughs at this with bitterness that surprises even him, and takes a big drink and signals, too grandly, to the barman for another.

            “I don’t know,” says the one with the long hair that is still black.  “I mean, I don’t know, it’s just that… It’s been so long since I felt anything.  Anything real, I mean.”

            “What, real?  We’re real, here, now”, placidly declares the one in the suede pants, which upon closer inspection are immaculate but a little tight in the seat.

            “No, you guys are great.  Really.”  He does not mean it, and they know he does not mean it.  They have no interest in being great and his opinion is not important.  He turns his stool towards them and puts down his glass.  His eyes have dense wrinkles and he speaks slowly.  “I just…  I just woke up three days ago with the feeling that things weren’t right, and I figured, I’ll just wait it out, and whatever’s the matter will go away on its own.  But it’s gotten worse, not better.  I don’t know what to do.  I feel like it might not ever go away.”

            “Maybe you have “depression”, sneers the one on the far right.  “All’s you needs another three drinks.”  He has already put quite a dent into his third.

            “Yeah, maybe.”, says the man with the long black hair uncertainly as he swivels back to face the bar, and the row of draft pulls..

            That was the moment when Angel walked in the bar.

            Dressed shabbily, and breathing steam from the cold, Angel wiped his nose with his fingers and then rubbed his hands together.  He tried to look around and take in the scene but was somewhat horrified that everyone was looking at him.  He chose to ignore this, however, and chose a random spot on the bar, on which he perched his elbows, eyes flicking up to the TV for a moment.  There was a long pause and nothing happened, and then the barman eventually came over to him.

            “How’s it going?”, asked the barman in an easy accent.  The barman, Victor, had lived in 22 cities over his life, including all the ones you’ve ever wanted to visit.  He was only forty and looked ten years younger, with burly, hairy forearms and a kind of great stupidity which he could turn on and off like a lightbulb if somebody crossed him..

            “Going good,” said Angel in a parody of gruffness which sounded harmless.  “Can I get a …” he suddenly looks at the draft pulls for the first time.  “Something I haven’t had before.”

            “I don’t know what you’ve had or haven’t had before”.  The barman looks at him.

            “What’s this one?”, Angel asks as he selects a pull with a bold yellow design.

            “Speckled Hen.  Sort of a lager, sweetish, from England.  You’ll like it.”

            Angel hasn’t listened.  He only cares that he hasn’t tried it before. “Yes, I’ll have one of those.”  The bartender sets it down in front of him.  “Five dollars.”  Angel counts out six singles and places them on the bar.  The first sip is slow and gingerly.  The rest are long and messy.  He takes four sips in the next minute, drinks exactly half of the pint, before he looks up again.  The barman is on the other side of the room.  He crosses over to where the barman is, near where the old men are, and asks, awkwardly, if he might play the piano.  He gestures to the large beat-up old upright tucked into a niche.  There is a silence while he waits for an answer.  Neither the barman nor the men care to be entertained.  But the barman sees the indifferent look on Angel’s face, and sees that Angel expects to be rejected, and for this reason he says okay.

            He turns off the music, which was Johnny Cash, and Angel scurries to the piano to fill in the bad silence.  He sets his beer on the floor.  He hits one chord and begins.  His fingers work the battered keys like he knew them already, even the false and silent notes in the high register, ringing gently.  He is improvising freely, as freely as speech, but then he realizes, at the same time as the men at the bar do, that he is playing one of the old songs.  He plays it and the song is filled with the smell of time, and old leaves, the way the song is meant to be played.

            At the bar, the barman is listening as he cleans glasses.  The man on the right is looking out the window, and the man in the blue suede pants is looking at the TV.  But the man with the long hair which is still black, and wrinkles at the corner of his eye, is looking at Angel’s back, which is rocking slightly as he plays (adding more filigrees now), and for a moment, the sad buzzing in his mind is not heard and later, he will realize he was happy for the first time in years.