It started as a joke, a favorite pastime, if you will. A girl would stumble up to the bar, leaning onto one of the stools for support, ready to give me her order, and I would just put a hand up, then peer into her eyes to make her think I had the ability to enter her brain, and say-
“Let me guess. Vodka with just a splash of cran?” and she’d look back at me as if I were some sort of wizard. I had learned over the years, that the fact of the matter, is that girls just don’t have a very broad taste in alcohol. Unless it’s spring break, and she’s on a cruise in Mexico-- Then she’ll branch out to tequila, and post about it all the next week with the caption “Remind me to never drink tequila again,” Puke emoji, laughing emoji, margarita emoji. However, over time, the joke got out of hand because the victim of my cheesy line would then run back to her other drunken friends and tell them that the bartender read her mind! I used to think it was hysterical, until one girl told her boyfriend about me, and he asked me to read his mind. He was a big dude and he kind of towered over me from the other side of the counter, so I choked, and used the only line I knew.
“Vodka with a splash of cranberry?” And boy would you be surprised at how fragile his drunk, little ego was.
“You think you’re funny, bro? Are you flirting with my girl?” His face turned red… cranberry red. And before I knew it, punches were thrown and drinks went flying directly into my face. To which point I noted-- he drinks scotch… on the rocks. Shortly after that incident, a sign appeared in the in the break room written in red pen, chicken scratch handwriting, belonging to none other than the boss who scribbled out my paychecks every week; a penmanship I had grown accustomed to. The sign read,”Guessing customer drink orders is strictly prohibited.” leaving me to find a few way to pass my nine hour night shift.
Maybe if I had been a bit younger, the idea of bartending would have seemed more appealing to me- A building crawling with women in skimpy outfits and tv screens displaying every sports event known to man. But I was beginning to get old and the hours of my shift felt like eternities, back to back, for nine eternities straight. I was reminded of this as I reached up to grab a bottle of Moscato on the top shelf, during the 6th eternity of my shift, as a crippling pain in my abdomen sent my arm flying back down to clutch the area in which the pain originated from.
* * *
“Alright, man. Here’s what I got for you.” the doctor entered the room with a stack of papers in his hand, shutting the door behind him. His casual mannerisms calmed me. If he was here to tell me I’m going to die, I thought, he wouldn’t be acting as if we were best friends. He sat in his chair and put on a pair of glasses that magnified the appearance of his eyes, as the words left his mouth. “Cirrhosis of the liver,” his eyes were glued to the test results in his hands, avoiding eye contact with me,”It’s in its late stages, meaning that the only option you have for an almost guaranteed survival is a transplant.” His eyes strayed from the page, and met mine. “I hate to be the one to tell you this. But we can go over the potential risks of the surgery if you’re interested, that way you will have an easier time making a decision….” his friendly aura suddenly changed from calming to disrespectful, as if my terminal illness was merely a joke to him. He continued talking, though I only caught pieces of the information he was giving me, for my mind was in a different place. I wanted to laugh. I was a bartender. My job was to pour poison down the throats of young adults with healthy livers, and yet I, the sober one in this interaction, was the one with the malfunctioning organs.
* * *
“You need some help, dude?” Ricky, the young new hire, came up behind me, reaching for the bottle I had failed to grab. I took it from him with one hand, still holding my stomach with the other. He was quite easy to get along with, but part of me felt a pang of jealousy toward him, as I couldn’t help but think that he was hired to replace me when I finally kicked the bucket.
“Yeah, you have a liver I could borrow?” He laughed, though I was only partially joking, and went back to serving a drink to a girl with fluorescent purple hair. He handed me her card to open a tab for her, while he mixed her first drink of the night. I read the name displayed on her debit card, which was covered in pandas, that read “Marlene Foster.” The name Marlene, in my mind, tasted like butternut squash. I had always had a way with names, in that sense. My doctor had once explained this sensation to me, during one of my many visits, as synesthesia, which is an ability for two senses to work in unison. Some people could smell numbers, or lable the days of the week in colors, but me, I could taste names. Ricky’s name tasted like peanut brittle, which is part of the reason I remained skeptical about him-- I hated peanut brittle. But Marlene reminded me of the days when I was young, and the euphoric feeling I would get when my mom called me inside for dinner, which consisted of squash, after I had spent my day on the swing set, working up an appetite. Over the years, I had gained a habit of judging people from the way their name tasted. Like once, I met a Justin whose name tasted like burnt popcorn, and then later that night, he got so hammered that he stood on one of the tables and started dancing. It was all fun and games until the leg of the table broke from under him, and the expense to pay for a new one came out of my paycheck for not “cutting him off” earlier. Moral of the story, never trust a guy who tastes like burnt popcorn.
The night continued. My eyes felt droopy and my spirits were low. I was ready to go home, lay in bed, perhaps even wallow in self pity over my broken liver and my abruptly shortened lifespan. But instead, I was passing my hours by mixing drinks and tasting names. Jessica tasted like corn on the cob, and ordered a Manhattan. Gordon tasted like freshly cut grass, and drank whiskey sour. Caroline tasted like watermelon, and ordered… you guessed it. Vodka cranberry. Richard tasted like red crayons-- he asked for a bowl of peanuts and left without ordering a drink. But it wasn’t until a Mary Greenwall came into the bar looking for a bottle of water, did my sleepiness disintegrate, for when I read her name, no taste crowded my taste buds.
“Mary…” I read aloud from her card, hoping that repeating her name would bring a taste to my mouth. No luck. ”I like that name.”
“It’s a pretty common name..” She said reluctantly, “But I’m glad you like it.” I handed her the water she ordered, and upon her thank you, she turned to walk away. Yet for some reason, I heard myself stopping her, as the curiosity took over me.
“Stay awhile, Mary.” Her hair swung around as she turned to look back at me. She laughed and shook her head.
“It’s late, Mr. Flirty Bartender. I have a long walk home.” Though it hadn’t occurred to me that my curiosity would come off in a flirtatious manner, I figured I could use that to my advantage. Yet there was nothing special about her; Dark hair, dark eyes, a skinny figure, and wrinkled business clothes, as if she had spent most of her day in a desk chair. She was about as bland as her name, yet I was drawn to her, aching over my inability to make an initial judgment by taste.
“At least take a seat while you drink your water. I hear if you drink standing up, it makes you have to pee sooner.”
“And where exactly did you hear that?” she giggled, as she approached a bar stool and lifted one leg over.
“I don’t know, WedMD I think. I spend a lot of time on there lately, but I hear it’s not too reliable. My doctor tells me to stay off, but when its 2am and he’s too asleep to answer my question about why my left leg is tingling, WebMD is always there with an answer.” And again, she giggled, further proving that I had convinced her to stick around.
By the end of the night, the only thing I had learned about her was that she was a good listener, for when she gathered her purse and turned to walk out the door, I realized I had spent all my time talking about myself, and never really did learn why her name lacked a taste. Something about her was comforting. I didn’t mind talking to a total stranger about things as personal as my terminal illness, because she didn’t feel like a stranger. She felt like someone I had known my whole life. But my curiosity still stuck, for I had forgotten to find answers to my questions. As I bussed down the counter, getting ready to close the bar for the night, her head poked back in through the front door.
“Hey-- Don’t lose hope. I really hope everything works out for you.” And with that, she was gone, leaving me with the first hint of optimism I’d felt since my diagnosis.
I didn’t think much else of it until the following morning, when I woke up to a voicemail from my doctor, which said, “You got lucky, man. Call me back when you get this.”
And shortly after my call back, I found myself back in that same doctor’s office where I was first introduced to my disease. Only this time, the news I would hear, would exceed the significance of my first visit. Again, the doctor entered the room with a stack of papers in his hands, closed the door behind him, and sat in his chair where he put on the glasses that magnified the appearance of his eyes and said, “We found a liver match for you-- a local organ donor by the name of Mary Greenwall--”
I stopped him mid-sentence, “No freaking way, dude. I know her. I literally met her last night.” He just looked at me, then down at the papers in his hands for a moment, and then back up at me.
“But there’s no way you could have met her last night. She’s been in a coma for the last 3 months…” He paused for a moment, “She died last night.” I didn’t know how to process this information, but I knew I needed to find answers. So upon the ending of my appointment, I rushed back to the bar to look for clues—any trace of her. Credit card receipts from last night’s orders, security footage, I even dug through the garbage to see if the plastic bottle of water I served her was still there. It wasn’t. Nor was her receipt on record, and the tapes from that night showed not a single trace of her existence. I sat in the back office, in front of the screens full of security footage, baffled by my findings. And as I stared, it occurred to me that her name must have lacked a taste because her brief existence in my life lacked reality. She was my guardian angel.