This story was the result of a prompt from the best workshop in which I ever participated, For The Love of Writing. Administered by Stacy Taylor and Laurie O’Hare, two of the most brilliant women I know, it was probably the most prolific period of flash fiction writing I’ve ever had. Good times, and I miss it.
I never liked New Year’s. Since I work second shift in a shit hole, by the time I get off there’s not enough time to get a good buzz on by midnight. Not that’s it’s busy in this place, but the atmosphere is just the way I like it. I tell the bartender to line up the shots and I munch on the free pretzels in the crummy plastic bowl while his fat ass takes its sweet time.
I can see the piano dude is taking another break. Jesus, that guy breaks more than he plays. I wish I could work like that, but one fifteen-minute break at six and a lunch break at eight is all I get. I came in here right at the stroke of quarter after eleven, still dirty, sweaty, and smelling from the factory. One time, a girl at the bar slid over a bar of scummy soap from the bathroom and said, “Hey, give this a shot”. Some pick up line. This is the same chick that told Al she wanted desalinized water for her drink. I laughed fit to split at the look on Al’s face.
See that guy in the corner there? He’s always here. I look at him and see me sometimes, gives me the creeps. Always has a full ashtray and a full beer, keeps his eyes on the table like he’s looking for the answers to life. I asked Al what his story was and Al just snorted in his usual sensitive way and said,” He’s a closet ballerina.” I took that to mean the poor guy has a gender problem, but I don’t really want to know.
There’s not many more people here than on a usual night, even on this festive occasion. Looks like Al went the extra yard and hung streamers, and I can see some plastic champagne glasses on the back bar. The piano dude is back and he has on this funny looking party hat, all green and yellow. I wouldn’t wear that stupid thing even for all the breaks he gets to take. He’s taking the paper clip off the sheaf of music on the piano, must be we’re finally going to get some music in here. Oh wait, he has to take a call on his cell phone. I tell you, what a job.
I hate cell phones, how stupid is it to carry one of those things around? I bet they give you brain tumors and they sure do give me a pain in the ass. Nothing like putting the moves on a cute chick at a bar and getting put on hold while she answers her damned phone. There’s a nut cutter for you.
“I’m vacillating between a Rottweiler and a Doberman,” I hear the piano dude say into his phone. That pisses me off, and I yell “Hey! Vacillate this! Play some fuckin’ music, it’s New Year’s Eve for Chrissakes,” and I grab my crotch. He just looks at me with vacant eyes, and continues his conversation. The closet ballerina in the corner looks up, finally, with his eyes all squinted. I look at him with the don’t-even-go-there stare, and he goes back to studying his life’s lessons in the pitted and sticky table. What a life.
Al turns up the T.V. so we can watch Dick Clark’s balls drop. 3..2..1…big fucking deal. Al passes around the cheap glasses filled with cheaper champagne, and the few people that are here whoop it up. Me, I just want my double shot of JD – make that two. Nothing like bringing in a new year with a buzz on. They say the way you bring in the New Year is the way the whole year will go. I look around this dingy, stinking place and look down at the pitted and sticky bar. Maybe my answers are there, too.
Tags: flash fiction
14 Comments to “Bringing In The New Year (Flash Fiction)”
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I really enjoy the grasp you have on your craft, your flash flows with such ease. It sends me on bunny trails of thought and inspiration. Thanks for that.
~John
Johns last blog post..Failing To Plan Equals Planning To Fail
This is dark and funny at the same time (the idea of watching Dick Clark’s balls drop … why have I never thought about it that way before?).
I hope you have a wonderful 2009 and that I get to read more stuff like this.
Jennifers last blog post..January’s blog: this time this space
Thanks, John. What a nice compliment! If you’re interested, I have a small workshop with huge talent at The Story Board and new members are always welcome. It’s a little dusty, but I’ve been vacuuming and dusting.
Thank you, Jenn. I appreciate the good wishes, and I hope this year is great for you, as well.
I hope to give you more to read — the flash muse has been poking me. Feel free to check out TSB, also! I’d love to see you both there.
Looks good, Netta. Happy new Year!
Susan Helene Gottfrieds last blog post..Susan’s Promo Tales: Where I am
I posted a little sneak peek of my book on my blog. I’d love to have some feedback from everyone!
Jenn Astles last blog post..Tina Fey Gets Her Period
Netta,
That is impressive! Who’d have “thunk” you’d written this piece? You’re so versatile. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I could see the scenes very vividly as you had described them.
Best wishes for 2009!
Tasha
tashabuds last blog post..In Support of Roy–The Struggling Blogger
Happy New Year, Susan. And thanks!
Hi Jenn! Visited you, and left a comment. Nice work
Thanks, Tasha. I’m so glad you enjoyed it. I’ve written quite a bit of flash, there’s some on the sidebar thingy over there -> I’d love to have your opinion.
Thanks, everyone, for stopping and reading. Appreciate it
Of course I did, especially the part about vacillating…the very same thought came to my mind just a second before I read what you had to say next. Pretentious Piano Man, pfft.
Jenn Astles last blog post..Tina Fey Gets Her Period
Yep, Netta, that was good times for sure. We were all quite prolific and creative, and downright silly. I miss it also! Here’s mine from the same prompt (with the elements that had to be included)
Your setting is – A piano bar
Your time is – New Year’s eve – any year.
Constants – the following words must appear in your story
vacillate: 1. To sway from one side to the other; oscillate. 2. To swing indecisively from one course of action or opinion to another; to waver.
desalinize: To remove salts and other chemicals from.. (sea water or soil, for example)
Variables – Follow the instructions provided
Characters – at least three of these:
A baptist preacher
A Hare Krishna
A ballerina
A nurse
A bartender
A chimney sweeper
A factory worker
Objects – at least four of these:
A bar of soap
A dish of pretzels
A looking glass (hand held)
A 9 volt battery
A bear claw (not the delicious pastry)
A cell phone
A portable CD player
A paper clip
A casino chip
Milos
I stand at my usual post behind the bar hustling Tangaray and tonics and dirty martinis while watching the pretty and not so pretty vacillate to the music. Sinatra’s voice squeezes through the speakers and floats softly through the dim blue light of the smoky bar as murmured conversations blend together like the drinks I mix.
It’s a sad truth, much to the owner’s disappointment, that Milo’s is the last place most people would want to spend New Year’s Eve, unlike 70 years ago when society’s best crammed inside it’s tiny walls. We’re off the beaten path of Uptown, situated in a back alley like some sort of forbidden, forgotten speakeasy, a quiet, invisible symbol of days gone by. Nowadays, with the onslaught of noisy techno clubs filled with their physical and chemical ecstasy, piano bars have simply fallen out of vogue. We’ve an odd assortment of customers: the down and out, the lonely, and the once was, all who slip in unnoticed to drink away their pasts.
Mike, our piano player, is taking one of his three breaks, schmoozing up the modest young nurse who is a regular every evening after her shift at the hospital down the street. They sit at the far end of the bar, their foreheads together, talking in secret whispers. Story is that about five years ago, she came home one night to find her high school sweetheart-turned-husband beating her baby girl to death. He quickly turned his fists on her, battering her so badly that she hung by a suture to life. Now every night this is her home and she comes in here to quietly sip her rum and coke and forget about the daughter she’ll never know. Mike reaches for a pretzel from the dish on the bar, gently placing it to her pouty lips. She bats her dull brown eyes and accepts it hungrily, as if it’s a valuable token of his undying love.
In the back corner sits Svetlana Samsonov, Prima Ballerina extraordinaire. At least she used to be like about 100 years ago. She sits sipping her Vodka and drunkenly gazes at her wrinkled skin and faded youth in her tiny looking glass. She is barely able to hold in her knarled hand. Her portable CD player is constantly at her side, headphones always on, as she listens to the Russian composers she used to dance to so freely and gracefully, and unencumbered by the betrayal of her now crooked body. Her and her brother, Ilya defected to America nearly sixty years ago when Svetlana was still a teen. Ilya had himself been a talented ballet dancer. He had seen to her education and nurtured her career. But when she was twenty-five, she committed a sin in Ilya’s eyes by falling in love with a lowly chimney sweep named Carl. By day he swept chimney’s, but by night she dressed him in fine silk suits and they sat at the same back table, sipping champagne and publicly necking into the wee hours of the morning. Then one New Year’s eve fifty years ago, Ilya could take his sister’s distraction no more. He confronted them at that very table shouting, “You are descended from the great Czars of Russia. I forbid you to continue this unclean love with a filthy commoner.” Ilya pulled from his breast pocket a knife. Svetlana jumped to her feet sending her glass crashing to the floor and Carl quickly retrieved a large piece to arm himself in defense. Just as Ilya struck Carl in the chest, piercing his heart, Carl slashed Ilya from ear to ear. Both men fell dead in a crimson pool at Svetlana’s feet. For years she tried to continue with her life, but her dancing was never the same. Her heart was as dead as the two men who had dominated her life. Now she sits every year at that same table with her twisted body and broken spirit, wishing for her lost youth.
It’s almost midnight and time to send Cindy around with the complimentary Champagne. Just as I place the last one on the bar, Pastor Roberts slams a casino chip down on the dark wood in front of me. “Give me a Margarita, Harriet. Desalinized.”
“Excuse me Pastor?”
“Hold the salt you silly woman.” He slurs.
“Pastor, you know we can’t take that chip as payment.”
He grumbles unintelligibly, wobbles a bit, and reaches into his pocket for some bills. I give him his Margarita, no salt. It is obvious the good pastor has already begun his New Year’s celebration.
Pastor Roberts had a good life as the leader of the Sugaw Creek Baptist Church, preaching to a wealthy congregation of over 1000. He had enjoyed the fruits of his work with a big house next to the sanctuary, a large family car, and a more than generous expense account. By all reports, he loved and doted on his wife and two boys. But then he met Sarah Mitchell, a follower, ten years his junior, with hazel eyes topped by long black lashes that she batted indiscriminately. He very quickly went the way of Jimmy Swaggart. But if adultery wasn’t enough, Sarah also had a love of money and the Indian casinos. Soon she and Pastor Roberts could be seen holding hands and nuzzling necks over the crap table. His dance with the shapely devil lasted only a few months before the congregation caught wind of their leader’s wicked weaknesses. Even before they could fire him, his wife left with the kids and moved across the country. And as often happens with temptresses, the pastor’s defrocking left Sarah unfulfilled when the excitement of doing something naughty turned into a simple fling with an ordinary single guy. He comes in here often trying to spend his occasional earnings, but he spends his days on street corners, harassing strangers like an airport Hare Krishna, and trying to force the Word of God upon them.
The countdown begins and the morose revelers raise their glasses to their lips in reluctant anticipation. “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4,3, 2, 1, Happy New Year,” the bar half-heartedly rumbles in unison. New Year’s is a time for new beginnings, but to the patrons of Milo’s, we are the refuge from their melancholy lives and the best of times that have already passed them by.
Wow. I’d forgotten how good we are. We really need to get back to it, girly-o.
I love the snapshots of your characters — you have made them interesting, relevant and believable. Really good work here, lala. We think so much alike it’s scary — heh!
Thanks so much for posting this.
I had forgotten about both of your stories (you and lala, of course). I wonder if I wrote one…I really can’t remember to tell the truth but if I had to guess I’d say yes.
These are good little works and I miss that time and place, too. Well, most of it anyway.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Now, write some more, eh?
Loves….
It’s so good to see you here! Yes, I’m sure you did write one, and I’m equally sure it was magnificent.
Bittersweet, I know, but it was really fun, and I hope you remember most of the time fondly. I know I do.
You have a profound effect on all of my work, girl, in the most positive way. I hope you know that.
<3
dark, but cool. lala’s is cool, too, albeit in different ways. two talented ladies who should write more.
Aww, thanks, Big D. I plan on writing more — I’m rusty and out of shape, but I love it and I miss it.
Thanks for stopping by.
It means a lot.