Features Overview
The union meeting just ended and out of the exiting crowd, a younger man sits with his back to the bar, just down from an older woman whose breasts are touching the lacquered ridge. She adjusts the position of her plastic cane and holds up the end of a smoldering cigar, showing the man and the inattentive bartender her possession.
“You see this?” she asks.
“Yeah.” the man replied, with his eyes fixed toward the wood paneling on the opposite side of the room.
“You know the cigar shop on Christopher and sixth?”
“Yeah.”
“Well.”
“oh yeah?”
“yeah.
I get this there. eleven bucks.”
A bit of ash falls to the sawdust floor and she finally retracts her arm to take a drag.
“You going to pick that up?” the bartender interjects.
“Yeah.” she replies.
“So like I was saying. Eleven bucks.”
“Oh yeah?”
“yeah.”
“When?”
“When what?”
“When are you going to pick that up?”
“That? That’s nothing.”
“Okay. I’ll hold you to it.”
“Well, eleven bucks is a lot of money, isn’t it?”
“Yeah wouldn’t you say eleven bucks is a lot of money?”
“no. No it’s not.”
The bartender opens a small refrigerator at the end of the bar with a tinted glass facade. A green light emerges behind a wall of domestic bottled beers and the woman with the cigar puts her arms once more, to shield the light.
“Anyone need another round?”
The two shake their heads.
“You guys don’t drink enough to call yourselves customers. And I still say that eleven bucks is too much.”
“No, it’s not.”
“oh no?” the man at the end of the bar replies.
“no.
this lasts me a day and a half.
sometimes, two, if I’m busy.”
“oh yeah?”
“yeah.
a day and half.”
“A full day and a half?”
“what’re cigarettes these days?
fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, twenty bucks at some places.”
“oh yeah. you’re right.”
“i know I am. I know I’m right.
and how long does a pack last ya?
a day? day and half, maybe?
a day and a half if you’re busy.”
She pauses and adjusts her positioning in the chair. She releases some of the floral fabric caught under her bottom from the extra material of her day dress. The pointed end softly touches the sawdust floor.
“this is eleven bucks.” she concludes.
“oh that reminds me. Are you going to get that?”
“What’s that, Hon?”
The bartender points to the ash on the sawdust.
“I’ll get that!”
“oh yeah. Eleven bucks isn’t that bad.”
One of the last remaining union workers from the Local 67 exits the bathroom. He walks along the lacquered bar and waves goodbye to the group of three. As he throws the front door to the bar open, he leaves behind a wake of intense sunlight from the outside world. The woman with the cane lifts her arm in defense.
“you see. I have COPD.”
“That’s nothing.”
The man at the end of the bar looks to her for the first time, in confused. She returns the gaze, also for the first time.
“you know, emphysema, coughing, wheezing, stuff like that.”
“oh yeah.”
“yeah.
it’s not good.
that’s why two years ago I quit smoke.
after fifty year. done.”
The bartender rolls his eyes in disbelief.
“oh yeah?”
“yeah!”
She looks forward.
“my doctor says I’m showing real progress.
better every day.
I got ‘more breath,’ he says.
‘More capacity.’”
“oh. well, thats great.”
“yeah.”
They drink. She takes a drag of her cigar.
“I’m seventy-one years old today.
Did you know that?”
“oh yeah?”
“Happy birthday.” the bartender offers.
“yeah. I look pretty good, don’t I?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
“My second husband thought I looked good.
he used to say to me, ‘you’re looking pretty good, babe.’”
“oh yeah? what happened to him?”
“Hey, I’ll pick up that ash.
Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh. He died.”
They drink