Christmas Eve in the Drunk Tank by Jeanne Sharp
This fucking guy.
I kept my head pointed at the pint of ale in front of me, but my eyes couldn’t help skidding to my left, to where he was standing. I knew if I caught more than a glimpse of his face I’d be in deep trouble, so I let my gaze flicker past him and then back to my beer. Shifting on my bar stool, I lifted the glass and took a long swallow.
Silence. He was still there, patient and cocksure, as if he had all the time in the world and no reason to think I would do anything other than melt right back into his arms. It was unnerving.
His arms. They were robust, tattooed. And they had always held me the way I liked to be held: like he was in danger of drowning in open water and I was the one thing for miles that he could grab. I glanced down at his left forearm, covered by the sleeve of his black pea coat, and thought about the words that were tattooed on the skin underneath. They were Irish: faigh bás ió sheasamh. I still remembered what they meant, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud at the hypocrisy. My eyes traveled upward, taking in his broad shoulders, his neck, the two-day stubble on his sun-creased face, his still-inviting lips, and then… oh, fuck… his hazel eyes, seemingly lit from within. Now I was in for it.
Slowly, a shit-eating grin crept across his face, punctuating his expression with two deep dimples. I remembered him telling me how much attention those dimples got when he was a kid, earning him the nickname mejillas (cheeks) from his junior high school Spanish teacher since there was no word in Spanish for “dimples.” That must have been the reason it was so hard to find a photograph of him with anything other than the barest smirk on his face, the corners of his mouth turned up the tiniest bit -- just enough to hint at a smile, but never enough for those blithe divots to reveal themselves.
“Hey.”
The sound of that one syllable electrified me from the inside out. I didn’t realize until that moment just how much I had missed hearing his voice, and suddenly the bottom dropped out and I was falling. I sucked air into my lungs - almost a gasp - and managed to float.
“Hey yourself,” I rasped. It was all I could think to say. I wanted a cigarette, but I hadn’t smoked one in decades. Was this how the condemned feel? I watched as he looked me up and down. It had been months since we’d spoken, even longer since we’d seen each other, and yet I had every detail of him memorized. Twin urges squared off inside me: I couldn't decide if I wanted to deck him or kiss him. I didn’t think either course of action would have surprised him.
“It's been a long time,” he observed. I heard the traces of New Jersey still in his voice; the accent barreled forward and reverberated in my ears the way cheap whiskey burns in the throat.
I managed a half-smile. “Not nearly long enough,” I replied.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, letting the insult go by.
“How is that your business?”
“I was just wondering.”
I shrugged and turned back to my pint. I widened my eyes at Sadie, the bartender, and, picking up on my distress signal, she hurried over.
“This guy bothering you?” she asked, rearing up to her full height. Between her big hair and high-heeled boots she was as tall as he was, and she shot him a warning look.
He took a step back.
“I just wanted to say hi,” his tone was calm.
“And you did. Now you can go.” Sadie smiled. “Have a nice night.”
I raised my glass in his direction, my bitchiest smile twisting my face. “Sláinte!”
He turned on his heel and stalked out of the bar.
I looked at Sadie. “That was a close one.” Tears burned in my eyes and I gulped the last of my beer. Before I could set down the empty glass, Sadie had brought me another one.
“Thanks, darlin’.” The southern accent I’d acquired during my decade in South Carolina crept into my voice, as it always did when I drank.
“You wanna talk about it?”
“Not especially. He's just a ghost.”
She looked worried. “And you’re haunted.”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
It was Christmas Eve. The Pogues’ Fairytale Of New York was pouring out of the jukebox at St. Elmo, one of the oldest dive bars in Arizona. Soon, I'd stumble up the crooked streets of Bisbee to my little house on Temby Avenue and collapse into bed, finally anesthetized enough to sleep, but not before I finished this latest beer Sadie had put before me. As I drank, I contemplated this guy’s sudden reappearance in my life.
He had a name. Tommy Cassidy. Thomas Michael Cassidy, Jr., to be precise. For a time, he’d had my body and (mostly unbeknownst to him) my heart, although he hadn’t known what to do with the latter. Not that I blamed him; I didn’t know either. I had tried to tell him what I felt for him, but within months he was gone, to a government contract job overseas. I tried to keep in touch but I realized after a while that I’d let my tendency toward emotional masochism get the better of me: the connection meant far more to me than it did to him. And so I had faded away. I couldn't bear to watch, even from afar, as other women paraded in and out of his life. My brain understood implicitly what his modus operandi was when it came to the opposite sex, but my heart… that obstinate little muscle… wasn't getting the message.
It still didn’t get the message. We had almost nothing in common except for mildly compatible taste in music and a fondness for good beer… not exactly the foundations upon which great love stories are built. But I loved him with all my heart, all the while knowing that if he needed convincing, that could only mean it just wasn’t right... for either of us. I hated the part of myself that even now would have done just about anything for him.
My vision was blurry from tears and my nose was running. Typical. I stared at the surface of the bar and noticed the mouthful and a half of beer still in the bottom of my glass. I downed it, slapped a few bills on the bar, oozed down off my stool, and headed for the restroom, my eyes downcast so no one would see my red nose and wet cheeks. Not that any of the regulars in here would have noticed, anyway. A college friend had once insisted, “you don’t buy alcohol, you rent it,” and I needed to make a payment.
I slipped into the cruddy bathroom, did my business, and washed up. I paused to fix my face and I stared hard at my reflection through the layers of grime on the mirror. My lips, pink and plump, curled in a half-hearted smile. I wiped my nose and shrugged, straightening the leather moto jacket I had put on that night to stave off the evening chill, and made my way back out to the bar.
“Merry Christmas, Sadie!” I called out, slurring the words a bit.
“You too,” she replied. “Get home safe!”
With a drunk nod, I breezed out through the front door. Concentrating on the placement of my feet on the uneven sidewalk, I began picking my way up Brewery Avenue, heading for the old city park and eventually Opera Drive, which would lead me to my street. I hadn’t gone twenty feet when I heard -- and felt -- the rumble of a nearby motorcycle engine. At first I didn’t think anything of it -- St. Elmo had a reputation as a biker bar and it would be unusual not to see or hear a few motorcycles in the vicinity, even on Christmas Eve -- but then I raised my head and looked around, panic-stricken.
Sure enough, it was Tommy on his Triumph Bonneville, just sitting there a few feet ahead of me, engine idling, watching me.
I shook my head and kept walking. He cut the engine.
“Hey!”
“No.” I was almost past him now… just a few more steps. He got off the bike and stepped into my path.
“Tommy, I swear to God…” I began, but that was as far as I got. Before I knew what was happening, his arms were around me. Apparently, he was still lost in open water and I was convenient flotsam. I ducked and spun away from his embrace, but he managed to keep hold of one of my hands. That turned out to be a good thing, because my little maneuver combined with the amount of alcohol I’d consumed suddenly made me very dizzy. I lost my balance and stumbled backward, coming to rest against his broad chest. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close, and his lips brushed against my ear as he buried his face in my long hair and inhaled.
“You need to slow down,” he entreated, his voice a growl.
I couldn’t speak. The world was still spinning. A strangled sound escaped my throat.
“When was the last time you ate?” he asked, slowly turning me to face him.
I flinched as our eyes met. “I had dinner earlier.” It was almost true: I’d eaten a slice of leftover pizza from the Screaming Banshee before heading to the bar that night.
“Come on,” he urged. “I’ll walk you home.”
“That’s not necessary,” I murmured, waving him off.
“The hell it’s not,” he replied. “You can barely stand up.”
He was right, but I sure as shit wasn’t going to admit it. Guiding my right arm across his shoulders, he put his left arm around my waist and began ushering me up the street. Again, I protested.
“Really, I’m OK,” I insisted, trying to wrench myself free of his grasp. “I may be blotto, but I can see myself home.”
“I’ll feel better if I know you got there safely,” he replied, tightening his grip on me. I fumed. Just who in the hell did he think he was? I knew the answer: a slightly arrogant ex-cop with an overdeveloped sense of chivalry.
“Happy Christmas, your arse, I pray God it’s our last!” I bleated, channeling the song that had been playing on the jukebox.
He laughed. Not a chuckle or a smirk, but a full-on belly laugh, as loud as a klaxon and as rich as neon lights. It ricocheted off the walls of the narrow canyon from which Bisbee had sprung. He had to stop moving and catch his breath. I watched him, a drunken smile slicing my face, as he turned to me. I saw teeth. That motherfucker never smiled with his teeth — he insisted it was a sign of aggression in the animal kingdom. I figured he’d just hated his dimples.
“I need to tell you something.”
“Dazzle me.”
“I fucking love you,” he announced, pulling me closer. For a moment, I let his warm, rich voice and those lovely words penetrate and take my senses for a spin, but I jerked myself back from the edge just in time. He couldn’t mean that. He always had a stable of three or four women he was sleeping with; ‘love’ was a word he reserved for certain beers, certain whiskies, and certain bands.
“I hate it when you lie,” I countered, twisting away
“Who says I’m lying? Stella, I never met a woman who wasn’t totally replaceable until you showed up.”
I rolled my eyes. For a long moment, we just looked at each other. His arm was still around my waist, although I’d managed to widen the distance between us.
He was still so beautiful. A little time-worn, sure (he was somewhere north of 50, after all) but breathtaking nonetheless. There was more silver-gray in the stubble on his face than I remembered. Sadness, or maybe just exhaustion, seemed to linger around the edges of his deep-set, dark eyes, but they shone out at me, even in the dimness that swirled between streetlights. His smile was… kind. Almost tender. And those goddamn dimples. Shit.
I took advantage of his momentary distraction and wrested myself from his grasp. I made it a few feet before he caught up to me again, catching me around the waist with both arms.
“Not so fast,” he entreated.
“Can’t you take a hint?” I wanted him gone, but I dreaded his absence at the same time.
“Can’t you accept a helping hand? Come on, trust me.”
I snorted. “No,” I snapped. But I didn’t pull away again.
He drew me closer.
“I missed you,” he murmured into my ear. I could feel myself starting to melt, so I kept walking. We were on Opera Drive now, heading uphill toward Temby Avenue, and the street was getting steeper with every step. I focused on putting one foot in front of the other, trying to ignore how much I loved the feeling of his arm around my waist, his warm, masculine scent, and the fact that he was well within kissing distance.
The city was quiet. I still couldn't quite believe that they didn't roll the streets up at night in Bisbee. The old copper mining town had been saved by a combination of aging hippies, artists, and historic preservation fanatics. For a town with a population of just over 5,000, it was as cosmopolitan as many larger cities I’d visited, brimming with interesting restaurants, art galleries, and even a brewery. The cars here featured bumper stickers reading “Mayberry On Acid,” or “Keep Bisbee Weird,” or “We’re All Here Because We’re Not All There.” I had made my escape from Tucson when the opportunity to work as the general manager of what was arguably the finest restaurant in town had landed in my lap. Looking down from Temby, I could glimpse the colored lights that were strung across Tombstone Canyon. I turned back to Tommy and gazed into his eyes
“I've missed you, too.” Even though it was against my better judgment, it felt good to be so honest.
I collided with the kiss I knew would come as soon as I told the truth.
His lips traveled to my neck, and I gasped as the stubble on his face grazed the tender skin there.
“Come home with me,” I whispered.
He growled in assent and I knew right then that the memories we'd make tonight would far outweigh the emotional hangover that was sure to find me in the morning.
I pulled away from him.
“I love you, too,” I breathed, raising a hand to caress one of his grizzled cheeks. “I never stopped.” My voice cracked as another sob forced its way up my throat and I swallowed hard to shove it back down.
He nodded, and we started walking again. There was always a point with him where words no longer mattered, where the look on my face told him everything he needed to know.
“This story is actually the beginning of a novel I’ve been working on since 2016. I’m unhappy with the novel in general and I’ve been struggling with what to do with it. I think the beginning is pretty strong, though, and I’ve submitted it to a few publications. One publication actually picked it up to publish but then went dark before that could happen.”
Jeanne Sharp (she/her) is a writer who has done everything but write for most of her adult life. To pay the bills, she has worked for 24 years in the nonprofit space. She lives in Tucson, Arizona (on Tohono O’odham land) and can be found on IG at @that_jeanne