When I met the guy, I was living in a sublet room in a tiny rancher at the end of Zuni Street, working four nights a week and drinking the other three. The room was meant for a student, I think. My housemates were both getting their nursing degrees, and it was just that kind of place. Enough space for a queen mattress but to make it fit I had to give something up. I made rent bartending four nights a week, so I couldn’t really complain.
I worked on Colfax, in a bar you’d probably know if you’ve ever stumbled drunk between Downing and Logan. It was and is a mediocre bar, and I only pulled $140 a night because I was a mediocre bartender. I heard the shit hotter bartenders got and I knew if I was any better at my job i.e. being hot and pouring strong drinks, I would’ve punched someone and been out of a job anyway. It was an hour to the bar, all told, from Clear Creek to Union by train and then sweating with the tourists on a bus down 16th. Summer was easier because the ditch I crossed to reach the tracks was dry and the weeds were dead and bowed in the heat. In August, I slipped through the rusted chain link and walked along the freight tracks to Clear Creek station. The pitch stink of the railroad ties stuck to my shoes, but I had an extra pair in my backpack. I made the same trip twice a day, every day, even my days off. I thought if I drank alone at home it would make me an alcoholic, and I didn’t want my housemates, who as far as I knew were doing something productive with their lives, to know anything about mine. There might’ve been bars closer to me, but I don’t drive, and I found that riding the same way down to Colfax every day was the best way to make sure my stupid body got to work when it actually mattered. I saw him the first time in a barcade on Colfax, after the sun had gone down and only the ghost of the day’s heat rose from the sidewalks outside. He was wearing cargo shorts, a pink polo shirt and an expensive-looking watch. I pegged him as an asshole right then and there. I was in my favorite seat, right behind the loudest machine in the building. The idea was that no one would have any excuse for thinking I wanted to talk to them, but the noise didn’t seem to faze him. He sat down right across from me and dropped his water next to my forty. “-----------” he asked, and I smiled, shrugged and pointed to my ear. The message he got from that, apparently, was, “Go ahead, lean in as close as you can, I’m so interested in what you have to say.” The second time around, I felt his breath as he asked, “Haven’t I seen you working at that bar down the street?” “Probably,” I said, not bothering to raise my voice above the din. “Why?” “Don’t you get free drinks?” He seemed genuinely curious and I felt my hostility towards him blunted. “If I don’t pay for the drinks, that’s another point towards alcoholism.” I looked around the bar, mostly empty on a Tuesday night, and not much to look at even when the place was full. I’d told my co-workers the place was kinda sad earlier that week. “Trying not to waste my twenties.” “I mostly smoke,” he said. “Drinking makes me sick. But I like drunk people.” I swigged my forty. “I can’t do weed.” “Have you tried-” “It makes me paranoid. I think everyone's an actor. That they hate me but get paid to pretend they don’t. Every time, edibles, blunts, sativa, indica, whatever.” “That blows.” We sat in silence for a while. We might’ve talked about his work, but it was boring. Something to do with HR software. He seemed to bore himself. I didn’t expect to see him again. --- I only saw him three times, and I never gave him my number. The only reason I even know his last name is because it was on a mailbox in the lobby of his apartment building. In the ass-end of February, the drainage ditch disappeared under a snow bank, flush with the ground around it but deep enough to bury me to my waist if I stepped wrong. There was no snow on the tracks. One of my roommates graduated but said she’d stay until the end of the lease in June. He sat down next to me before I had a chance to get drunk, and judging by the way he slid into and then half out of the chair, he had already been there a while. He was wearing a navy blazer over a gray hoodie, sweats and sneakers. “Weed girl,” he said. “Sober guy,” I replied. “Who’re you here with?” I asked. “You,” he said. “And before that, no one, I guess.” “I’m moving to Rapid City,” he added. “Where is that, Iowa? I didn’t know they had HR in Iowa,” I said. “North Dakota. It’s gonna be the Denver of the Midwest. And Denver is the Silicon Valley of the Rockies, so.” “Well shit. It was nice knowing you. Why are you going out there?” “Fucking owner of the company built a water-powered AI or something. For managing HR. He already owns half the water that comes out of the Black Hills. Maybe it was South Dakota.” “Good luck. Can’t say I envy you.” “You should think about moving too,” he said, gripping my arm and staring at me with drunk earnestness. “If you’ve got somewhere to go.” “Why?” “I talked to my friends. Their companies are all moving too. Every single one.” “Bullshit,” I said. “The cat food factories, the breweries, they’re all moving to South Dakota?” “I mean, I only know tech people. But they’re going all over. Austin, Sacramento. I think one of them’s going to Singapore.” “It sounds like a conspiracy,” I said. “And not a very good one either, if y’all already know about it. I think the water thing is from a Bond movie.” He thought about that for a second, and I took the chance to play catch up, chugging the rest of my drink. “The water thing might be bullshit,” he said. “I dunno. But something’s happening.” “I think I’m gonna be fine,” I said, and ordered another round to show it. He shrugged again. “I’m just telling you. They’ve got bartenders in Kansas City. If you’ve got the money to move…” “Thanks for the heads up,” I said. “Really.” We stumbled out of the bar around 2 in the morning, and he handed me his phone to call an Uber to his apartment. I tapped in the address with one hand as he dictated in between dry heaves. When I asked if I could crash, he retched and gave me a thumbs up. I thought he would live in a glass-and-steel tower, but his place looked like a factory. Bare brick and high windows. It was only when we got out of the car that I saw the gym on the first floor and the balconies strung with garden lights. He spent the night sick on the bathroom floor, but when I woke the next morning he had already left for work. I didn’t bother locking the door behind me. It was a nice building. --- In May, the ditch flooded its banks with snowmelt, and I had to walk the long way round to the station, dodging cars on Federal. I was drinking a little less by then, so of course he caught me grabbing a sandwich before my shift. It was warmer outside, but I don’t remember what he was wearing. We ate in the sun. “I’m thinking of buying a house,” he said. “In Rapid City.” “I kind of assumed you already had,” I said. “Aren’t you moving soon?” “In June. I have the money to buy now,” he said. “I figure, you know, the way things are going, I don’t wanna wait till it gets bad, food or water or whatever.” I pictured myself killing him and taking over his life. Going on vacation with his friends to whatever the tech-bro equivalent of the Adriatic sea was. I might have to kill his girlfriend, too, when she got too close to my secret. If he had one. But his friends would probably notice if he suddenly had tits and a tattoo on the back of his hand. Or maybe they wouldn’t. “So where’s this house gonna be?” I asked. “I dunno. Out in the country. Somewhere with water,” he said. “But I think I’m gonna wait. It’s not all gonna happen at once. So wait until the pressure is on, then buy a ranch or something. Before the cities get really bad.” “Like Escape from New York? Have you seen Escape from New York?” He told me he hadn’t. “Ok, have you seen the Warriors?” “I don’t like old movies,” he said. “But I’ve seen Mad Max. I’ll watch anything with Tom Hardy in it.” “I don’t think Denver’s gonna burn to the ground any time soon. I don’t think we’re gonna have to sell our bodies for gas,” I said. “If that’s what you’re worried about.” --- One day in June, the city emptied out. I-70 and I-25 were choked for three days and three nights, red tail lights out to the horizon. I would walk the ten blocks down to I-70 with my roommates just to sit on the overpass and drink and watch the city bleed out. I heard from someone whose cousin was a paramedic that a programmer starved to death at an off-ramp in Golden. I did think about moving back to Nashville, but I also thought it would mean letting them win, whoever they were. Halfway through June I got fired, but I think that was a coincidence. I got another job at a slightly better bar a week later. I was only kind of bad at my job. The city only looks empty now from a certain angle. You can see the dust on the windows of the buildings downtown, and no one bothers to send cops to sweep the sleepers from the sidewalks out front. But people are still drinking on Colfax. I still pull down $140 a night. I live in a one-bed, about halfway up a glass-and-steel tower overlooking the river. What passes for a river out here. It’s not as nice as I thought it’d be. The hardwood floor turned out to be cheap laminate and the carpet in the bedroom smells chemical. But I make rent bartending four nights a week, so I can’t really complain. And on a dry day, when someone props open the door to the roof and the haze clears and the angle of the sun is just right, I can see the cut of clear land and the tracks and wires, branching out forever. |