Page 113 of Blue Collar Babes

SUNSHINE AND DAISIES: KAREN CIMMS

ONE

JACK

I swing a leg over a stool at the far end of the bar and drop my tired ass onto the rickety wooden seat. A frosty mug appears, and I mutter my thanks. O’Brien knows it’s all he’s likely to get from me.

The first sip rolls over my tongue. Ice cold and bitter. It’s the second-best part of my day; the first being the jolt of caffeine I need each morning to motivate me for another mind-numbing, body-aching day. The beer goes down easily. Before I can signal for a refill, a second Yuengling appears. In all the time I’ve patronized his place, O’Brien and I have exchanged less than a dozen words, yet the man gets me. I don’t need much these days. A roof over my head, food in my stomach, a cold beer at the end of the day, and to be left…the fuck…alone.

That’s why I come here after work. No one bugs me. No one wants to chat. There’s no pool table. No dartboard. No jukebox. Nothing but serious drinking and minding your own business. Nobody cares who I am, where I come from, or why I’m here.

With my finger, I trace a drop of condensate as it trickles down the side of my glass. Burns and scars dot the landscape of my hands. Thankfully, none as serious as the third-degree burn I got not long after I started at the weld shop when a white-hot piece of slag fell into the top of my work boot and got wedged there.

I’ve suffered plenty of breaks and sprains over the years. You don’t play football at an elite level without racking up some bumps and bruises along the way. But the pain that day had been next level.

Wish I could say the scars you could see were the only ones, but I have a scar on my heart deeper than the one atop my ankle.

I curled my right hand into a fist, then uncurled it and stretched my fingers wide to relieve the tightness. My pinky had an unnatural bend. It broke when I’d gotten sacked during the National Championship game my junior year of college, just one day before my life turned to shit and I flushed all my dreams down the crapper.

The pain and stiffness are chronic reminders of that day.

It’s been years since I touched a football. Sometimes I wonder if I could still throw a perfect sixty-yard spiral. Not that I’ll ever find out. I don’t even own a football anymore.

That part of my life is ancient history.

The closest I get to a game these days is when I’m stretched out on my second-hand sofa in my two-story walkup in the worst part of the city. My best days are in the rearview mirror.

A beam of golden sunlight splits the room as the door to O’Brien’s swings open. I blink against the assault, and when my eyes adjust, a girl is backlit in the doorway like she rode in on a sunbeam. Her hair is a deep auburn, and her bright yellow dress is covered with red and pink roses. A grin stretches across her face.

She’s so out of place that I blink twice, convinced the sun—or the Yuengling—is playing tricks on me. But nope, there she stands, her eyes searching the room. Besides me, the only other patrons are two old men who inhabit the stools nearest the door nightly and some growly bastard perched on a stool midway down the bar.

Her eyes land on me and her smile grows. I don’t know this chick, but the way she’s looking at me, you’d think she’d spotted a long-lost friend. She beelines toward my end of the bar, calling a cheery hello to O’Brien and each of the regulars before plopping down on a stool one over from me.

She casts her sparkle on me, and I experience a duality of responses. On one side, I feel like a slug who’s been doused in salt. My skin feels tight and uncomfortable. On the flip side, something buried in the darkest recesses of my soul is unexpectedly drawn to her light. You’d think she’s towing the sun around behind her, and when she opens the purse slung over her shoulder, I expect sunbeams to shoot out of it.

Some cold, barren part of me stirs at the warmth. The rest of me, though, wants her to turn around and get the fuck out.

Clearly, she doesn’t belong here.

O’Brien ambles over, sizing her up as she swivels her stool from side to side like a kid at a lunch counter.

“What’ll it be?” he asks, his voice gruff and gritty.

She tips her head up toward the ceiling as if the menu is printed on the stained acoustic tiles and hums before bringing herself to a sudden stop.

“I know,” she sings. “I’ll have a lemon drop martini.”

O’Brien looks at me, his face scrunched in confusion. I shrug and focus on my beer. I’d planned on having my usual three before heading home, but maybe this is my sign to cut out early.

“A what now?” he asks.

“Lemon drop martini?” Her response is more of a question than an answer.

He squeezes the back of his neck. “Does this look like the kinda place that makes froufrou martinis?”

I can’t help it. I snort.

“No?” She actually seems surprised. “I’m sorry. How about a regular martini?”

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