Ronald

“So, first time I see this guy, I think it was back in February… Look, I am trying to force myself to find other ways to describe him than the word Hipster. I run a gin-tasting bar, I am your classic hipster, and if I had a problem with what people call hipsters, I’d have started a different business. I don’t like stereotypes, I think they make us stupid. If I’m gonna judge someone, it’s gonna be based on my own thoughts, not a buzzword the media pumps out.

(…)

“But this guy, it’s like he looked up the definition on Urban Dictionary, then decided to kick it up 17 notches. He’s got a waxed beard, and a mustache waxed to a curl, like an old carnival barker. He’s got one of those working class British flat caps, a Soviet wrist watch, corduroy pants, a button down, striped suspenders with brass clasps, a blazer with the elbow patches, a pocket square, these formal dress shoes shining like a mirror, and—I shit you not—breeches!”

(…)

“I’m serious! It’s like the guy looked at a big chart just labeled “clothes worn in the past” and threw darts at it. He smoked clove cigarettes using a cigarette holder. One or two affectations is one thing, but pick a theme! Are you a dandy or a revolutionary worker? For god’s sake, at least pick a century! Just a walking provocation, but if you asked him about it, he’d just go ‘I don’t even think about what I wear.’

(…)

“Anyways, to make the stereotype even harder for me to avoid, the guy comes in every other day with a Moleskine notebook, buys exactly two drinks over two hours, and doesn’t tip great. And he spends those hours writing and writing, you can tell he’s actually getting work done because on Saturday he will have a black one, and on Monday it will be Olive Green. And he’s not sitting at the bar or anything, so we aren’t really chatting, but when he comes for a refill I ask what he’s working on, and he clams up, says ‘that’s confidential, you can never share a work in progress.’ So yeah, I start to get curious.”

(…)

“Like I said, I’m curious, but I take the role of the bartender seriously. Maybe it’s a bit sentimental, but I think we really are someone that people can speak truthfully to with an expectation of confidentiality. A secular confession. I wasn’t gonna pry, and I figured at some point he would end up staying a bit later, and I’d finally get to see what was going on there.”

(…)

“I was right about him staying later, but he never had any time for me. About three weeks in, one of my exes who still comes around starts to get interested in him. They hit it off, and before I know it, they’re making out an hour before last call. From that day on it was ‘when it rains it pours.’ Every girl in the bar: I’m talking coke-thin blondes, earthy yoga chicks, type-A yuppie gals… even Sarah, who runs the monthly Harry Potter bar trivia—all of them are watching him out of the corner of their eye. I got so used to the cycle, they’re sitting down, they see his notebook, they ask him about his writing, and then all of a sudden they’re going home together. It started to get… weird and competitive. And he has switched from every other night to every night. And I’ll talk to these girls, they’re my friends, and none of them had complaints. ‘He was very open about being poly, he’s just a cool, deep guy.’ And look, the guy’s not bad looking. But they’re acting like he’s a combination of Bukowski and Brad Pitt!

(…)

“Yeah, it was good for business. Really good. But also, yeah, I got a bit jealous. Everything started to feel surreal. I started wondering if it was just cool to overdo it with affectations, but I got laughed at when I tried to add something goofy. I started to have doubts about my current girl, I’d do anything to keep her away from the bar. I loved her very much, but something about seeing that fuckin’ guy pull tail day after day just made me harder. More bitter. So that ended with her coming in and making a whole scene, she leaves,  I look out the window— guess who’s sharing a clove cigarette.”

(…)

“I should say, there were men too. And I had my own moments… something about seeing someone have that kind of magnetism over other people… I don’t want to talk about it.”

(…)

“So yes, after months of dealing with this fucker take over my bar, I decided I deserved to now what it was he was writing about. None of the girls I talked to had seen his work either. So it’s near closing time, the bar’s practically empty, and he goes off to do God knows what in the bathroom with a girl wearing some kind of government agency lanyard. Normally I would have stopped it, that’s not the kind of joint I run. But this was my one chance. His notebook was on the table. I had to look.”

(…)

“Pages, and pages, and pages of Family Guy fanfiction. Just endless. Not terribly written, but, how did this guy make his money? You can’t sell that? Who was it for? It was honestly kind of cool, the way he approached the world and the backstory and the characters. Like how that Watchmen show did it, taking things beyond the scope of the—what am I doing here. So yeah, it was Family Guy. He even had his own cut-away jokes. Something as long and obsessive as that, if he was getting off on it, it would be one thing. But it never got erotic. I let my mind wander while I was reading, and all of a sudden heard a sound out of the corner of my eye. I got back to the bar before he came back, but the atmosphere was weird. He gave the girl the cold shoulder. The way he said goodbye to me… I had betrayed him. And I had betrayed my own morals. He knew I had read it, could tell the second he looked at me. I tried to put the notebook back “just so” but he peered at it, and his shoulders slumped. He didn’t blow up, he didn’t say anything. He just looked… disappointed. And that was the last time I saw him. None of the other bartenders I know have seen him. The girls seemed to blame me when he stopped picking up the phone, I have no idea how THEY would know. Maybe I just look guilty. Oh yeah, he had a land line, nothing else on the grid. That was three weeks ago, since then I’ve been scanning the internet, the papers, obituaries… shit. I’m not surprised to see you guys. What happened to him?”