Marine Park: Stories by Chiusano Mark

Author:Chiusano, Mark [Chiusano, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: dpgroup.org, Fluffer Nutter
ISBN: 9781101632031
Amazon: B00GAH3PW2
Publisher: Penguin USA
Published: 2014-07-23T04:00:00+00:00

FOR YOU

Because she is not with you, you get off the train, late one night, and you go to the bar. The bar is on Bergen and off Smith Street. You walk past it every day, on your way to the F train. On the way home at night you walk past it again, with the hordes of other people, all in their black jackets and suits, sometimes blue, for the women. You’ve done that walk with her, walked by the bar, though she refuses to wear blue. Sorry, Eamon, she’d say. You almost forgot that. Tonight you go in. It is a late night. The white bartender, as you come through the door, gives you the look that he gives to desperate people. We just had last call, he says. Can I get a drink? you say. I’m sorry, says the bartender. Just one, you say, as you slide into an empty stool at the bar, facing the newly exposed red brick. The bartender looks over his shoulder, and then he looks at the door, where a man has just entered, maybe Hispanic, a man who at first looks worn and weather-beaten and then you realize it’s just the coat he has on, and the style with which he holds his shoulders. Other than that he is a young man, your age, maybe, no more. The bartender leans close to you and says, Just one. I don’t want to create a rush. That’s fine, you tell him, as the man settles into the seat next to yours. I’ll have the pale ale, you tell him, and you do.

You sip the pale ale like you’ve never had a drink before, as if it were a religious ceremony. You look at the exposed brick walls. You still have your hood on, and your collar turned up, on the black coat you are wearing.

The bartender comes up to the man sitting next to you and his friends. Otro? he asks. Nada más, says the man, and the bartender says, No te preocupas. You snort, to show you’ve understood it, and because you have, the man sitting next to you says, You speak Spanish?

And you say, Solo un poco.

And he says, That’s good, that’s good.

And you say, De dónde son ustedes?

And he answers once again in English. From Arizona, he says. Pointing at the young man next to him, he says, Miami. And then the attractive woman at the end of the bar. Guatemala. She nods.

And you? the Arizona man says, in the English version of the y tu that you would have understood.

I’m from here, you say—from Brooklyn. Marine Park. Down that way. You point in a vague southerly direction.

Arizona looks surprised.

I’ve never met anyone who’s actually from here before.

You laugh and consider bringing up the E. B. White line that’s on the subway posters, but instead you just say, That’s the way it is.

It’s different from here, down there, you say. He nods. But not so different. There are more things to do in this part.

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