enjoy your shit.

Living with divorce...

“Your ex-husband is here. It's not any of my business; just thought you'd like to know.”

I couldn't have imagined a worse text to read on my way to the show at the Argus. I had been looking forward to this show for two months-- since I had introduced the band to Greg to set it up. Now I was on my way there, ready to enjoy the show after a day of work, only to find out that the door guy just checked the I.D. of my ex-husband.

We hadn't spoken since the Talk six months before, which ended in our decision to divorce. Well, he would argue that it ended with my decision to divorce, and I would argue that it ended with his shouting “Have a nice life” and walking out of my room; but I suppose that's all just part of the game.

“He's really drunk; you probably shouldn't try to talk to him,” two bartenders informed me before I made it across the barroom to the door of the Underground.

“Great,” I replied dryly. “Let's get weird, then.”

I greeted James at the door. “Thanks for the heads up. I guess it's that kind of night.”

“And how.” He nodded and shrugged.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I spotted him immediately at the bar across the tiny room, and I paused. The bartender was handing him his tab.

“How have you been, man?” Lew greeted him.

The bartender looked at him confused. “Sorry, do I know you?”

“Lew... We used to come down here every week.”

The bartender shook his head, and suddenly caught my eye across the room. He glanced back at Lew, then to me.

“Ah!” he forced an awkward smile and shook his finger at Lew. 'Yes, now I remember you. Good.” He slid the tab across the bar and turned to the next customer.

Lew signed his tab, grabbed his drinks, and turned toward the stairs. He caught my eye, but turned to the next room and walked past me without a greeting. I sighed and walked up to the bar.

Steve reached across the bar and kissed my hand. “Your ex is here, huh?”

“Yeah.”

He refilled my glass.

I had prepared myself to boldly walk onto the dance floor, to enjoy the band that I had brought into this bar. This was my bar. If my ex was going to show up unannounced from out of town, he was going to have to understand that he was crossing into my territory and contending with my friends.

“He's really drunk tonight,” Steve said.

“I know.” I turned to glance into the next room, where the band was playing. “How's the show going?”

Steve shrugged. “The crowd is in and out. But the band is really good. That singer is incredible, some of the notes he can hit... And the drummer! Holy shit, he's amazing.”

I nodded absentmindedly and smiled. He was right. But, of course, I already knew these things, right? I listened to Charlie sing these lyrics over and over in a studio in Appleton, Wisconsin, recording an album a year ago, right? I got high with the band in the Northern Wisconsin cabin of that drummer's family last Spring, and I saw his baby and his wife and his uncle, and I saw him play in a loft in the woods until he seemed to melt into the drumset; yeah, I knew he was good.

I had drank Bloody Marys on Charlie's balcony and listened while he played this song in its infancy on his acoustic guitar in his bedroom. Right?

I took three steps, and I was in the doorway. I was looking at the backs of all of the people I used to know. I was looking at Lew's drunken arms dancing to the music. My resolve was gone. I could not be bold. Not after just two drinks.

The band was playing a cover of Butch Walker's Don't You Think Someone Should Take You Home. My heart jumped in my throat when I heard it, flooded with the sound of Frenchie's violin playing this song last Spring.

I hadn't heard Lew's voice since that last day. We were barely in touch online, sorting out credit card debt. We hadn't even filed for divorce officially yet. He had had the papers for months; I was still waiting for him to sign and return them to me.

Would he really not talk to me all night? What was he doing in my bar?

Charlie looked across the crowd and caught my eye over Lew's shoulder. I smiled. He turned away and continued to play.

“Hey!” a voice came from behind me. Cory was walking my way from the bar. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, I've been doing well. How are you? It's good to see you!”

“Doing good. The show's been pretty fun.”

“Oh yeah? Lots of people here?”

“In and out.”

“Yeah, that's what the bartender said...”

We never had had a lot to talk about.

I rattled the ice in my empty glass. “I better go get another. It was good seeing you.”

“You too! I'll see you around.”

I ordered another drink, then returned to my post in the doorway to watch the last song. Charlie's girlfriend was standing with a friend just a few feet away, so I stepped up to them and tapped her shoulder .

She turned and saw me. She didn't say anything.

I smiled. “Hi, Erin! How have you been?”

She didn't smile back. “Hey.” She turned back to her roommate and started a conversation.

I blinked, surprised, then stepped back to the doorway without a word. I took one more sip of my drink and gave up on the show. Who were these people, and why were they in my bar? I went back upstairs.

James had left for the night, and the bar was nearly empty now. I sat at a stool and ordered two shots from Greg.

He raised his eyebrows at me. “How did it go down there?”

“He didn't even talk to me. None of them talked to me. They're under his god damn spell, as always. I don't know how he does that.”

Greg raised his shot glass, so I lifted mine to meet it, and we drank the whiskey.

I slammed the glass to the bar, froze in that position, looked at Greg for a moment.

“They are just looking at me like I don't belong here. Like I am the one who's out of place!
What is going on here?”

The band was packing up and beginning to haul equipment upstairs. Lew followed the group into the back hallway. Then I heard Steve's voice from behind him.

“Hey, man! Wait!” he came up the stairs and tapped Lew's shoulder.

Lew stopped and turned around.

“What the hell is this?” Steve waved a receipt in front of him. “Three dollars? On a sixty-dollar tab; are you fucking kidding?”

Lew shrugged, without a word.

Steve shoved the receipt at Lew and handed him a pen. “That's like five percent, dude. That's shitty. Cross that out and make it a bigger tip.”

Lew scribbled on the receipt and handed it back.

“Six dollars,” Steve said, looking Lew in the eye. “That's still shitty, but better.” He turned and walked back down the stairs.

Lew followed the band into the back alley.

Greg gestured their way and said to me, “Steve doesn't ever call people out like that.”

I finished my drink, ordered another.

As Greg placed the drink in front of me, Lew walked into the bar through the front door. I picked up the drink, prepared to ignore being ignored, but he walked toward me. I opened my mouth to utter a greeting, but before I could say anything, he reached into his coat and pulled out an envelope. He raised it into the air and smacked it onto the bar in front of me.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Divorce papers,” he replied. He looked drunkenly into my eyes and waved a hand at the bar around us, at Greg. “Enjoy your shit, darlin'.”

I glanced to the envelope, then back at him, and nodded without a word. He walked away. He left with the band through the back alley. No one said good bye.

“I'm ready to put this behind me,” I said to Greg as we approached the door of the Compound at the end of the night. I shook my head. “I'm ready to leave this town behind me.”

going back and going home.

Part One: Friday, a night with the girls

The timing was perfect. Rent was due Friday, and I was out of money for the month by Wednesday. My sister called Thursday to invite me to Appleton for the weekend, and Greg and I were asked to stay at his mom's to house-sit while she was out of town the following week. I had ten comfortable days to find a new place to call “home”.

On Friday, I stuffed the clothes I still liked into a suitcase, and my journals, pictures, and a few books into plastic crates and loaded them into Greg's trunk. I tossed my toothbrush, my makeup, and a change of underwear into my oversized purse, already bulging with my computer, journal, planner, wallet, and Hot Water Music. I hauled my futon and bookshelves to the curb and left the rest for the landlord to donate to charity. Or, she could sell it to cover a fraction of the rent I wasn't going to pay.

After Greg headed off to work, I dropped my keys into the mailbox and slowly pulled the door shut behind me. It clicked shut, I sighed, and I turned to face the street. I took in the feeling of homelessness. I felt no different than I had yesterday. I was young-white-woman-with-a-loving-family homeless, not 'Nam Vet-homeless. I would be fine. I headed toward the Square.

Michelle would be in Madison in about four hours, to pick me up for dinner with our stepsister Ann, who is in the city for school. It was too early to go to the bar without any money; I wouldn't be able to score much for free drinks during Happy Hour, and I didn't want to put up with the politicians, anyway. I stopped into my favorite cafe. Jim could tell when I didn't have money even before I ordered, but he always served me a bottomless cup to keep me writing. I tipped him the $1.37 in change I had left in my purse and grabbed a table.

I set up my computer and awaited Michelle's call. I finished two short stories that I'd been fretting over for three weeks, submitted those and three others to yet another five fiction reviews, and drank three cups of free coffee. Jim poured another refill, and I began to scour online for writing gigs. I was tailoring my resume for a blog in San Francisco when Michelle called.

Michelle bought dinner for all three of us on State Street, and I talked them into having drinks afterward. They followed me into the Silver Dollar, which looks and smells exactly like the bars we grew up in up north. Ann bought three glasses of Miller Lite and offered Michelle Tums to settle her stomach from dinner.

“Is this what you call a 'dive'?” Michelle asked me as we walked in. Cash only, concrete floors, heavy wooden tables that hold the memories of years of beer-drinking and cigarette smoke.

“Yeah,” I answered. “It's the best in town. It reminds me of home.” She laughed and wrinkled her nose as the old-bar scent reached her. She slipped into the bathroom to wash her hands before we sat down, but she was freaked out by the old-school cloth-towel dispenser, and came out wiping her palms on her jeans.

We caught up on our lives over the Miller Lite. Michelle had just started a job at a new school in the Fox Valley, and she was enamored with the kids she was working with. Ann had just started nursing school in Madison, and she was worked to the bone between homework and her full-time waitressing job. They were each recently engaged to men that our whole family adored. I had just quit school and gotten a divorce, and I was loving all of the free time I had to write.

“I want to dance,” Michelle said suddenly. “Do you know any good clubs around here?” she asked me.

I raised my eyebrows at her over my pilsner glass. I shrugged. “Pretty sure Argus has a DJ tonight in the Underground, but I think he's just playing iTunes. People will be dancing, anyway.” Do I know any good dance clubs. Of course, if you get drunk enough, you could dance anywhere, and I knew how to get drunk at the Argus.

We finished off the pitcher and allowed the Tums to take effect, then made our way across the Square.

When we got to the Argus, we went straight downstairs without ordering drinks. It wasn't very courteous of us, but they were buying, so I was in no position to insist. Downstairs, the DJ was leaning against the bar chatting with a pair of girls in short skirts while auto-tuned Top 40s played through the speakers. There were half a dozen gay couples dancing together on the tiny dance floor. I exchanged a glance with each of my sisters. Michelle shrugged, and Ann pulled out her camera. We stepped into a corner and started dancing.

Ann snapped her first picture of us, and Michelle started posing. To the electronic beat of the music, she would freeze, eyes to the ceiling and hands behind her head like a superstar. They giggled. Michelle pulled me next to her, and I flashed my best superstar smile with my hands on my hips. I rolled my eyes as Ann laughed at us both. We posed back to back and fluttered our eyelashes.

For a moment, I was swept up in memories of our childhood, the three of us traipsing through summers of Make-Believe, bicycle rides, park swings, and hide-and-seek. So close in age but not similar in any other way, the three of us had been typically inseparable each morning and intolerable after a day of indecision and competitive games gone wrong. As teenagers, we were simply the unremarkable trio of colorful, giggling girls wandering through the mall each weekend. By the end of high school, we'd gone our separate ways, coming together a few times a year like this in an attempt to maintain our bond and recapture those lost moments.

Ann's camera flashed again, and I blinked, then caught Steve's eye as he stood behind the bar across the room. His smile mocked me as he poured a PBR from the tap. I covered my eyes with my hand and turned away.

After about fifteen minutes, I was tired of dancing and posing and shitty music. I dragged them back upstairs. Ann bought a round of drinks, and Michelle started plugging the juke box and playing music that reminded us of middle school in the nineties. I never want to be reminded of middle school, least of all when I am almost-sober in a full bar on a Friday night. I finally begged her to stop, and we settled around a table in a corner where I could see most of the bar, but not the big-screen TVs.

I sat back and observed the barflies as my younger sisters started to talk about wedding plans. After a few minutes, Greg came over to our table with a full drink. It was pink.

“That guy over there with the black hair wanted to buy this for you,” he said as he slid the glass in front of me with a wink.

I laughed and wrinkled my nose at the drink.

“Vodka-grapefruit,” Greg said, raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “I wasn't about to advise him that my girlfriend prefers whiskey.”

The three of us laughed and glanced over to the bar to spot my admirer. We smiled and waved at him and his friends. Before Greg turned back to the bar, I gave him a kiss and thanked him for the drink.

The guy with the black hair slumped in his chair and gave Greg an incredulous look.

“Sorry, man,” Greg said with a shrug as he walked back behind the bar.

“Are any of them single?” the guy with the black hair asked.

Greg chuckled. “I think those two are engaged--” he pointed at my sisters, “and my girlfriend--” he pointed at me, “is actually still married.”

I sipped at the bitter drink and chased it with my whiskey-Seven.

Michelle and Ann were only halfway through their drinks by the time I finished both, and they were starting to slow down.

“I think we should be getting home,” Michelle told Ann, who was hosting her for the night in her apartment across town. “We're leaving Madison at seven tomorrow.” She looked at me.

I looked at the clock. One a.m. Greg was my ride, as well as my bed for the night; I would be here past close. Alone and bored, apparently, as they went to bed.

They each sipped their drinks for a few more minutes, then pushed them aside unfinished and left. I grabbed the half-full glasses and found a seat at the bar. I gulped down Michelle's Malibou-Coke, winced, then washed it down with Ann's Miller Lite.

Greg's roommate came in around two a.m.

“Thank god!” I slurred to him. “I need to talk to someone who knows how to hang. My sisters left already! I thought you would get to meet them. Man.”

“Are they cute?” he asked.

“They're engaged,” I answered.

One of the barflies ordered shots for himself and me, and Greg poured one for himself and for Nate as well.

Nate left at close, and I scooted to my usual place at the bar to wait while Greg cleaned.

Nate turned before he walked out the door and waved to me. “See you tomorrow?”

I shook my head. “I'll be out of town. But I'll see you at home tonight.” Home. “At your place,” I corrected myself. “I'll be staying at your place tonight.”

barfly shots.

scenes captured downtown sometime after sober