Chapter Text
“there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
a space
and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest
times
we will know it
we will know it
more than
ever
there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
and
we will wait
and
wait
in that space."
"Hey, kiddo, another beer."
The asshole with the raised arm who had just called me 'kiddo' was the biggest human scum I had ever encountered, and that was a lot to say considering I lived a five-minute walk from Skid Row. This part of Los Angeles was crawling with drug addicts, alcoholics, scumbags, assholes and morons, and I was used to them all, but this man was even more disgusting than anyone I had ever met before, probably because he did not realize what a scumbag he was. His dark brown eyes were so fixated on my boobs that I wondered if he would’ve even noticed if my head was chopped off. I imagined myself walking up to the table with no head, handing him his damn beer, and getting a "thank you, kiddo" directed at my nipples. The job at the bar disgusted me so much that I wanted to quit almost every night, but then I always came back the next day. I guess it was just another form of self-harm.
I walked up to them and placed the beers on their table and a bucket on the floor, which I knew they were going to need at some point. "Here you go."
"Thank you, now just bring me the bill before I have to drag this one out, will you?"
"What the hell did you say?" Hank seemed to wake up from his alcohol-induced slumber when he heard him. If he was proud of anything, it was being a "professional drunk" - as he put it - meaning that he never threw up over himself, or had to be dragged home by anyone. Except by the police, of course, but that was something else.
"Hank, cut it out," I said, taking the money the man had given me. "Uh... that's not enough, four dollars to go."
"Oh, uh... Bukowski, do you have anything?"
Hank turned the pockets of his jeans inside out in response, empty, and belched before he began to speak.
"Put it on my tab, come on, I'll pay you soon. Just tell Cole I'll pay him soon. But we’re not leaving yet, get me another beer, come on."
Fucking cheap writers. 'Poets' they called them, Hank laughed at that name every time it came up. 'Poet, that word needs redefining', he used to say. I agreed with him: to me, they were just a bunch of poor drunks I had to put up with for eight hours a day because I did not have a high school diploma and the only one who offered me a job was old Cole, probably out of pity because I had no talent for pouring drinks or talking to people. I hated people, and I was not very good at pretending otherwise.
Ever since Hank had become famous, all sorts of bloodsucking vermin visited the bar looking for a piece of Bukowski: a poem, a phrase on a napkin, a good word with his editors... Sometimes they just wanted to hear firsthand one of the many horrible stories he had to tell: how he was almost killed once, the fights he was involved in..., anything that he had written about in one of his autobiographical short stories. Everyone seemed to want him despite all the crazy things he wrote about, which was the weirdest thing.
I refused to call him Bukowski; that seemed too pretentious. He was Hank, old boozy Hank, who had sent his stories to the same magazines so many times that they finally published him out of boredom, and now all the rich wannabe "rebels" wanted to lick every hair off his ass. It was pathetic, and the first one to say so was Hank himself.
However, his company that night was even worse: William Miller, the scumbag. He was also a 50-year-old man and one of those so-called 'poets', and he had come all the way from Kansas just to get drunk with Hank. The poor devil struggled hard to keep up with his pace, Hank was really a pro. He had already spat into William’s beer three times and he hadn't even noticed, that’s how drunk he was.
I guess in the end it was just another shitty day at my shitty job, with the usual shitty customers, my shitty salary, and my shitty mood. That is, until she showed up.
It was about 1 a.m., and Miller had already drunk his ninth beer and had run to the bathroom for the third time to throw up, or 'make room', as he had said. Hank was asleep on the table, Cole was already gone, and I was behind the counter cleaning the last of the glasses. I was always the one to lock up - after all, Cole had a family to get back to, and I... did not. The only thing waiting for me was the bottle of whiskey Hank gave me every last Sunday of the month. I guess that was his way of taking care of me and our strange friendship, nothing meant more to him than whiskey. Somehow I thought that was quite sweet.
When the door opened, I didn't even raise my head. I was in no mood for another drunk, and all I said was, "It's closed." I expected a "Come on," a "Got a cigarette?" a "I just want to spend the night," but I would have never expected the response I got: silence. They said nothing at all, and that was what made me look up. I had never seen this woman before in my life, she certainly wasn't from around here. She was probably in her mid-40s and was dressed... Like a woman. Let me explain: her hair was perfectly curled, meticulously curled. Her make-up was perfect, eyes slightly rimmed with black, red lips and a red coat covering a tall and well-built body. Long skirt, high heels. She looked as if she had stepped out of a painting, a film, a photograph or some other work of art. Of course I was a woman too, but my hair was a mess, I was wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt and tight jeans tucked into my 10-year-old Converse. Anyone would have doubted that we belonged to the same species, including me.
"I’m coming to pick him up, his wife told me he would be here."
She pointed at Miller. She had a beautiful English accent that confirmed she was not from around here.
"Well, there you have him, although you'll need two more people to carry him out."
As if expecting exactly that answer, she grinned and moved closer to William. I could swear that I had never seen a body move so gracefully in my entire life, so much so that I was almost ashamed of my own posture, so I stretched my back a little.
"William, get up you piece of shit, and go to the hotel. Sally's waiting for you."
Even when she cursed, the words sounded so elegant, so carefully formed by her lips. I tried hard not to stare at her and seem as nonchalant as possible, but still my attention was inevitably on her in case she needed help. You never know what a drunken man is capable of, but she did not seem to be afraid of him at all.
A grunt was all she got in response, and her boot bumped surprisingly hard against Miller's leg, making him groan. I suppressed my laughter.
"Fucking bitch, who the fuck do you think you are, tell my wife to leave me alone."
The next kick was much harder and elicited a cry of pain from Miller that woke Hank, who threw up a second later on the bucket I had placed on the floor earlier, and then fell asleep on the table again. If there was one thing Hank had mastered, it was not throwing up over himself, even when he was half unconscious. It was a kind of gift.
"Fuck you, you fucking old wanker. I am keeping this." She said as she took the cigarette case from his pocket, putting one between her lips. "Watch your mouth, because the next kick will land in your skull."
She turned and her footsteps came towards me. Shit. Shit.
"Do you have a lighter?"
"Um, yeah."
I handed her my Zippo, but instead of taking it, she approached me so that I could light it for her. I did, and after she had taken the first puff, she looked at me as if she had really noticed my existence for the first time. She looked at me up and down, I could see her studying me as if she had never seen anything like me before, almost as if she was tearing open my skin and seeing all the little wounds that made me who I was. I wanted to dig a hole in the ground and disappear.
"Why do you work here?" She finally said. Her voice was low-pitched, deep, smoky. Fuck, it was painfully sexy.
"Um... I don't know, I just don't have any other option."
"You could do better than this." She pointed at the table of the two men.
"I'm not really interested in anything better."
She took a few seconds to reply while her eyes were fixed on mine.
"I don't like being lied to."
"Why would I lie to you?"
"Everybody lies."
She blew the cigarette smoke in my face, and I swear that at that moment her breath alone in my mouth made my whole body tremble.
"I don't have to lie to you, I don't know you."
"Do you actually know anyone?" She leaned forward, shifting the weight of her upper body to her elbows on the counter, shortening the distance between us. Her perfume intoxicated me completely, it was a mixture of sweetness, freshness... Ah, I could not describe it. It was too unique. I propped my hip on the counter and leaned slightly towards her, as if her mere presence was a magnet for my body, and the shorter the distance between us, the closer I had to be to her.
"Do you always speak so profoundly and enigmatically?"
"Only when I’m interested in the answer."
At that moment the phone rang. I complained inwardly that I had to interrupt the unexpected intimacy we had created and went to the other end of the counter to pick up the receiver. "Hello, Cole's Bar, this is Jackie... Oh, hey Cole. Yes, I'm almost done. Oh yeah, everything's fine, just a normal night. Okay, I'll see you tomorrow, take care man." I hung up and returned to where I had been standing, although the atmosphere between us was no longer the same. She had turned to look at the two poor drunks when William burped. He was leaning back in his chair with his mouth open, and Hank was sitting in exactly the same posture as he had been for the last couple of hours, asleep across the table. The scene was just pathetic. "Men," she murmured in a condescending tone.
"Do you have a pen, Jackie?" She asked, turning her attention back to me. I couldn't help but think how sweet and special my name sounded coming out of her mouth, as if no one had ever pronounced it that way before.
"Uh..." I searched through the tangle of papers under the counter and finally found one. I handed it to her as she reached for a napkin and then wrote a phone number on it. "Whenever he knows how to breathe and walk at the same time, call this number and say his name.”
I took the napkin and nodded. She kept her gaze on me for a few seconds, as if she expected something from me. As if she had realized something and was waiting for me to understand it too. She just had this intelligent look in her eyes that completely hypnotized me and made me feel like a teenager who does not know what to say or how to act around a pretty girl.
"Have a nice evening, darling.”
She turned and walked to the door as I was saying a lame “you too”. She looked back at me and her lips were twisted into a half smile.
"I most likely will."
And then she left. That was the first time I saw Lilith Ritter.
That was when my life began.