34. Adrian
Adrian
Finn had closed the bar until three. This was, by Barbacks standards, a seismic event.
With the exception of my dance performance, which would forever be a singular event in Barbacks lore, Finn closed the bar for exactly three things: deep cleaning, health inspections, and the one time a pipe had burst in the men’s room.
Rod had stood in the hallway watching the water spread while deciding whether this was his problem.
A voluntary Sunday closure for a staff meeting meant Finn had been thinking about this for a while and had decided it required the full attention of everyone in the room without the distraction of customers needing things. I came through the back at eleven-thirty with my coffee and my gym bag.
Benji sat perched on his usual stool. Jacks stood beside him, leaned against the bar with a glass of water and the upright posture of someone who had arrived even earlier than the rest of us and wanted credit for it.
Rod stood in the kitchen doorway with his arms crossed and a half smirk teasing his mouth.
All eyes snapped to me when I stepped through the door.
I should’ve turned and run.
“There he is,” Benji said, sounding more like a game show announcer than bartender.
“Hey, Adrian.” Jacks raised his water, his greeting warm and uncomplicated. He was clearly not yet aware of his role in what was about to happen.
Rod said nothing. This meant he was fully present.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Benji said.
“Nothing,” Jacks confirmed.
“Why are you all looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” Benji said. “This is my fond expression. I am regarding you with warmth and affection.”
I approached the bar as a lion tamer might an open cage door, setting my bag down and bracing myself for the attack to come. “You’re looking at me like you’ve been saving something juicy.”
“I’ve been saving several things, now that you mention it,” Benji said. “I’m deciding which one to lead with.”
“Okay,” I said while stepping behind the bar to grab a Fanta.
Benji’s eyes followed my every movement. “How’s the vet?”
“Fine,” I said.
“Good, good.” A pause. “You know, it’s funny. I was thinking about it this week. A man who works with animals all day seems very comfortable with the whole domestic situation—”
“Benji.”
“He’s probably very experienced handling something wild that needs a patient hand.”
“Benji.”
“You know, he’s probably good at building trust slowly, making sure the creature feels safe before attempting anything—”
“Benji!”
“I think that’s a very admirable set of professional skills,” he said innocently. “Don’t you think that’s admirable?”
Jacks was nodding along. “It really is,” he said. “Brendan seems really good at his job. Adrian said he’s great with Mofongo.”
Benji cocked his head at Jacks, shook said cocked head, then returned his gaze to me without shifting said cocked head’s position.
Jacks blinked, earnest and bright-eyed.
“Yes,” Benji said, after a moment. “That’s exactly what I meant.”
I pointed at him. “You’re disgusting.”
“I’m celebrating,” he said. “There’s a difference.”
Rod made a sound from the doorway that might have been a laugh and might have been commentary on some food delivery situation. With Rod, it was genuinely difficult to tell.
“I don’t get it,” Jacks said, looking between us. “What’s the joke?”
“There’s no joke,” I said. “Benji is being inappropriate.”
“About what?” Jacks repeated, then looked at Rod. “What’s the joke?”
Rod looked at Jacks for a long moment, then he looked at Benji and shrugged. Finally, he looked at me. I suspected he was composing something in the space between his first language and his second.
“The vet,” Rod said finally, “he knows how to handle the—” He paused and made a vague gesture with one hand that was somehow both completely unclear and entirely too clear. “The sexy giraffe, yes?”
Jacks blinked.
Rod nodded once, satisfied with this explanation, while continuing to do his giraffe-neck gesture.
Jacks cocked his head and blinked more rapidly, then his face went through approximately four distinct expressions.
“Oh,” he said.
“There it is,” Benji said.
“I—oh!” Jacks picked up his water glass and guzzled. “Okay. I—yeah. Adrian’s giraffe. Right. Okay.”
“He’s a vet,” Benji said, to nobody in particular. “He should be very skilled in handling long necks and such, excellent bedside manner.”
Rod snorted.
“Wait,” Jacks said, his face morphing back into its normally confused state.
“Yes, Jacks?” Benji asked.
“I thought Adrian referred to, um, it as an anaconda, not a giraffe.”
Rod barked a laugh.
Benji turned away and spit his drink.
I covered my face with both hands.
“What?” Jacks asked in complete sincerity.
“Both are accurate, from what I’ve gathered through years of standing beside him shaking the thing,” Benji said. “The only question remaining is how the vet handles his python.”
“Benji!” I huffed.
“Sorry,” Benji amended. “Bedside manner conversation. He’s a doctor, remember?”
“Jesus, Benji,” I said.
“Gentle with the nervous fawns, is he?”
“I will leave.”
“You won’t,” he said. “The meeting isn’t until noon.”
“I will stand outside until noon.”
“It’s November,” he said. “It’s sixty-eight degrees. You’ll be fine.”
Rod, from the doorway, added, “His giraffe shrink. Poor neck.”
Benji burst out laughing.
“Neck?” Jacks said, his nose scrunching.
“I hate you all,” I said. “Not you, Jacks. You’re adorable.”
“Aw, thanks,” Jacks said. “You’re adorable, too, in a hot dancer kinda way.”
This had Benji doubled over.
Rod vanished from the doorway, though I was fairly certain I heard him laughing from the kitchen.
I finished my Fanta in the time it took Benji to compose himself. Rod had returned and was munching one of my pastries from the day before. Jacks, well, he was still standing there, sipping his water, probably wondering why I had a giraffe and where I kept it. Bless him.
“Your vet brings you coffee?” Rod asked between bites.
“Yes,” I said cautiously.
“He sits, watches you work?” Rod asked.
“Sometimes, yes, on weekends when the clinic is closed.”
Rod considered this while chewing a particularly large bite. Then, through a mouthful of dough, he said, “Good man. For you. And your giraffe. Hope he has nice neck, too.”
There was a brief silence.
Then Benji lost it again.
Jacks decided to wade into the water again by asking, “Can I pet his giraffe? I hear they’re friendly.”
Benji nearly hyperventilated.
Rod spat pastry.
“Yes, Jacks. We’ll take you to the zoo so you can meet the giraffe. Brendan gets special access normal people don’t get. Benji would certainly never get through the gates.”
“Special access!” Benji blurted, making me regret trying to be nice. “I bet he does!”
Benji pulled his napkin out, added something, then folded it and crammed it back into his pocket.
“What was that?” I asked. “You made a note. Was that my napkin?”
Benji winked. “Your keeper is a keeper. Take the compliment, Adrian.”
“God, I hate you.”
“I’ll think about it constantly,” he said. “But we don’t have to talk about it.” He picked up his coffee with the serene satisfaction of a man who had accomplished what he came to accomplish. “I do have one more question.”
“Fuck, Benji. What now?”
“Professional curiosity.”
“No.”
“When he does the examination—”
“I am so leaving,” I said.
“—does he use the stethoscope, or is there some special device—”
I hopped off my stool.
“Sit down,” Benji said, laughing again. “I’m done. I promise you’re safe.”
Reluctantly, I sat.
“You’re not really safe,” he said, “but we can take a break. Seriously, we’re happy for you . . . and your giraffe or snake or whatever you crazy kids call it in your moment of ecstasy.”
Thank God, the back door opened and Dante strode in, a mountain of muscle squeezing through a door made for mere mortals.
He was early, which was his standard practice, carrying his current book with unhurried ease.
He gave the room a nod, then found his position near the wall, back rigid against it, book held loosely.
Benji watched him settle, then looked at the bar for a moment in the way he looked at things when he was deciding something.
“How’s Mark doing?” he asked, not to anyone in particular, more to the room.
The temperature shifted, the way it did when the subject changed to something real.
I knew the shape of Mark’s story. Everyone did. Wes had left six months ago. There’d been no fight, no conversation, no slammed door. Just a note.
He loved Mark. He was sorry. Mark deserved someone who could stay in one place.
Wes had known for a while that staying in one place wasn’t something he was built for. He was kind and honest and devastating in the way that truly kind and honest things could be.
Mark never discussed it.
He had come to work the following Thursday. He sat with his laptop in his corner booth. He had been coming to work that way ever since.
“He’s here every night,” Jacks said. “He eats, runs the numbers, closes out.”
“He’s functioning,” Benji said. “That’s different from okay.”
Rod said nothing, which was its own acknowledgment. It was the silence of a man who had heard something true and was letting it settle. Dante hadn’t moved from the wall. He appeared to be looking at his book, though his eyes weren’t moving across the page.
Benji glanced at him once.
Only once.
“He’ll be all right,” Benji said, in the tone that closed a subject gently rather than sharply. “Mark’s built for the long haul. He just needs time and a good man who won’t leave.”
The room accepted this and moved on because there was little else we could do.