“Enrique Morales. Leave a message.”
Alonzo waits for the beep, sits there for a cool 30 seconds to burn some blank space on the tape, then forcefully jabs the ‘end call’ button.
It’s been 11 days with no correspondence. 11.
3 or 4 days? Fine. Whatever. Enrique had shit to do, he had shit to do, it was no big deal. He hadn’t even really noticed.
A week? A little bit ridiculous, but still, not the end of the world. He’d called a few times, left a few messages. Not many. Maybe 5. 6. 10. Something like that. Not like he was keeping track.
But 11? 11 fucking days? Not even a text?
Who the hell did Enrique think he was?
His phone suddenly lights up, and Alonzo whips it up to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Hey, is this Dino’s?”
“This is the owner,” Alonzo replies, annoyed. “What do you want?”
“Hi, I’m calling about the delivery tomorrow. We’ve had some –”
“How’d you get this number?”
“Uh,” the voice on the other end crackles slightly, “what?”
“This is my personal number,” he stresses. “Not for business calls. How did you get it.”
“Uh, I don’t know, man, this is the number I was given for Dino’s.”
If Enrique was here, Alonzo muses, he would say Alonzo accidentally gave the guy the wrong number. Since Enrique isn’t here, and he would never do that anyway, he rejects the possibility.
“Lose this number. Call the office next time. What do you want?” he repeats. Halfway through the guy’s reply, he changes his mind – no, the guy really shouldn’t have called this number, and he deserves to be punished for it. Alonzo hangs up on him mid-sentence.
Assholes.
He wishes everyone would just drop dead.
No, he thinks, no I don’t. He sets up a line, just a little itty bitty one, on the table. Licks his pinky and dabs at the powder, taps it on his tongue. Tastes terrible. Makes his tongue go numb.
His phone rings again.
“Hello?”
“Listen, man, this is the only number I have –”
“You don’t got a phone book, sugar? Last time I checked, they were free. You can get one for free.” He holds his lightly powdered finger a half-inch from his eye. What would that do. Kill him?
“I’m just calling to say that the delivery –”
Alonzo hangs up again and makes his way downstairs.
---
“Listen, baby,” he tells the DJ, gesturing vaguely towards the ceiling, “this is terrible.”
The girl ignores him, continues jerking her head back and forth to the worst beat he’s ever heard in his life. He leans forward to tap her headphones, and she flinches, glares at him.
“This fucking sucks,” he repeats. “Change it.”
“It’s your playlist, asshole.”
“Change it.”
She shoots him another dirty look, then begins fading out into a new track. Bouncier, sunnier. He nods in approval, then pushes through the crowd towards the bar.
“Don’t,” the bartender warns, before he has a chance to slip behind the counter. “I’ve got it.” He obediently heeds the invisible barrier between back of house and house floor, impatiently tapping his nails against the sticky surface of the bar for the 45 seconds it takes for the double gin and tonic to make it into his hand.
“Samantha,” he says approvingly, bringing it to his lips, “you’re the only thing in this hellish place that works.”
“It’s just Sam now.”
“Of course, sugar.” He makes a mental note to hire another female bartender – not that he’d ever get rid of Sam, not in a million years, but girls bring in the business, or so he’d been told, anyway. It didn’t seem to make a lick of difference, judging from attendance before and after Sam had decided he was no longer a she. “How’s it been tonight?”
Sam shrugs. “Normal.” Alonzo watches him dunk glasses into the water, sanitiser, drying rack, smooth fluid motions over and over. “Bit quiet, but the show hasn’t let out yet, so it should pick up.”
“Show?”
“Some industrial rave set. Forget what they’re called. Think I told you about it the other day.”
He didn't, but Alonzo is too polite to point this out. “Excellent. Sam, you’re doing beautifully. I don’t tell you that enough. You’re a beautiful person.”
Sam doesn’t respond, just keeps dunking glasses. He’s just focused. It’s nothing personal. Alonzo knocks back his drink, checks his phone again. Missed calls, two of them, from the same number. He wanders out front, smiles graciously at the regulars extending their half-cut greetings. Pulls out a cigarette and sticks it in his mouth, redials.
No answer. He calls again. No answer. He calls again. No answer. He calls aga –
“I left you a voicemail, man.”
“Don’t listen to voicemails,” Alonzo mumbles around the unlit cigarette. “Tell me what it is that’s so important.”
“Your delivery’s coming on Tuesday instead of Monday. That’s all.”
Alonzo pauses, lets the cigarette fall from his lips to the ground, watches it roll under the rope, where it would either be crushed under someone’s heel or picked up by someone desperate enough to not mind the dirt. Maybe both. “Would have been a good thing to call the office about,” he says finally.
“You have a good night, sir,” the voice responds with barely hidden malice, and the call ends.
He dials Enrique’s number again.
“Enrique Morales. Leave a message.”
“Enrique, darling, the animals have gotten this number. I’m going to have to get a new one. If you don’t get this before then, don’t bother calling.” He hangs up.
Not that I have to tell you. You’re doing a great job already.
He wonders, not for the first time, if Enrique is dead. It had been a ridiculous thought after 3 days, but after 11 it was beginning to seem more plausible.
Surely Annette would have called, though? and he realises suddenly, with a pang of guilt, that he hasn’t spoken to Annette in awhile.
How long? 11 days? More? And are you dead, Alonzo?
He pulls his phone out, dials her number.
“Hey!” She sounds ecstatic, drunk. “I was just about to call you.”
“Were you?”
“Yeah! I mean, well, like earlier, I was thinkin’ about it.” Her connection is fucking terrible, and he can barely hear her over the music pounding in the background of wherever she is. “How’s it going?”
“Great, baby. Fantastic. Listen, I was wondering –”
“Hey, your service is shit, Alonzo. I can’t fuckin’ hear anything you’re saying.”
“Oh.” He moves to the other side of the queue, nods coolly at a woman he doesn’t recognise who calls out his name. “This better?”
“Man, let me call you back. Wait! I’ll see you –” The connection drops. He swears under his breath, tries calling back.
“Hey, this is Annette Osorio. I’m not here right now. Leave a message or whatever.”
“Annette, darling, I seem to have lost you. Call me back when you get a chance.”
He heads back into the club.
---
Alonzo returns to the bar, waits patiently this time, but when Sam finishes pouring the row of shots for the bachelorette party he turns to grab his coat off the hook. Alonzo raises an eyebrow.
“Going somewhere, handsome?”
Sam shoots him an inquisitive look. “Yeah?” Alonzo waits again, patiently, oh so patiently for him to elaborate, and he watches as Sam’s body finally sags in realisation. “You forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“I’ve gotta go pick my parents up from the airport tonight. Told you like, 3 weeks ago.”
Alonzo searches his memory, no trace of this conversation.
“Reminded you a couple days ago, too.”
No trace of that conversation, either.
“You said it was fine, man,” Sam says with a hint of irritation.
“Well,” Alonzo replies soothingly, “then I suppose it’s fine, sugar.” He wonders if he can get away with asking for one more drink before Sam hits the road, but decides against it. “Who’s covering for you?”
Sam finishes shrugging into his coat. “You said you’d take care of it.”
For fuck’s sake.
He can practically see Enrique’s disapproving look.
You drink too much, kid – an admonishment that he’d laughed off easily at the time.
Maybe you don’t drink enough, baby.
Well, he wasn’t drunk now. “Fine, baby, absolutely fine.” Maybe I did take care of it, he thinks hopefully, glancing at the clock. Just past midnight – probably not. “You have a nice night.” Sam walks off without a word, and Alonzo can’t help but feel just a tiny bit aggrieved this time, because it really is generous of him to let his bartender walk out in the middle of a shift like that.
Whatever. Whatever. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s under control. “It’s fine,” he says to himself as he gets up from his seat and rounds the corner of the bar. “Absolutely fucking groovy.”
---
“This is only like, half full,” the girl complains, holding out her margarita. Alonzo snatches it from her hand, takes a sip, and hands it back.
“Now it’s less. Be grateful for what you have.” He glances back at the clock.
It had only been about 30 minutes, and he already wants to kill everyone in here and then himself.
“Hey,” someone else yells, “I’ve been waiting for like, 10 minutes.”
“You can wait another 10 now.” Alonzo drops a glass, curses. Fucking glass all over the floor. Where the hell did the bartenders keep the broom? Surely they had one? He doesn’t see it.
“Fuck you, you one eyed cunt.”
“On second thought,” Alonzo said, “you don’t have to wait any longer at all, sweetheart, because your time in my club has come to an end.” He motions to the doorman, who heads over – the guy grumbles, calls Alonzo a string of nasty names but leaves more or less willingly.
Alonzo pours the next row of shots, spilling about a third of the liquor on the counter, pushes all but one towards the group of college students in front of him. One for me, one for thee. He knocks it back before they’ve even touched theirs.
He’s starting to get dizzy.
You drink too much, kid.
“Fuck you,” he mumbles aloud, stumbling out from behind the bar. A series of complaints rise up from the people crowded around; he waves them off. “I’ll be back. Stop whining.”
He steps into the staff bathroom, collapses against the wall, pulls out his phone. He doesn’t have any of the other bartenders’ numbers in his phone – he’ll have to go back upstairs and look them up. Up. Stairs. The idea is grotesque. He covers his face with his hands and groans.
“Enrique Morales. Leave a message.”
“I’ve decided to blow up Dino’s. I’ve strapped the bomb to my chest and the clock is ticking. If there’s anything you’d like to tell me before I go, you’ve got 5 minutes.”
He hangs up, pulls the little baggie out of his pocket and shakes out a line on his hand, spilling half the coke on the floor. The phone rings.
“Got your attention?” he asks, snorting.
“Lonnie.”
“Angie.” He sobers up a bit. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I’m going to bed.”
“Okay? So?”
“So, I need you to not do what you’ve been doing the last couple nights at 2am, and call me a hundred fucking times in a row. I got a kid now, remember? Wakes her up. Wakes my wife up. Pisses off everyone in the house, and maybe that’s why you do it, but I need you to fucking stop.”
“Angie, I haven’t – ” What the hell was this? “I’m not calling you. When did I call you? I haven’t called you.”
“Not yet, but you’ve been calling, and I really can’t have it tonight, alright, Alonzo? I fucking...Jesus. I’m sorry.” He suddenly sounds sheepish. “Look, I’m sorry. I just got my own shit going on right now. I know you’re upset but you can’t keep calling me in the middle of the night over it. Isabella’s been giving me hell.”
“Well, Isabella is a cunt,” Alonzo says carelessly, and he hears the the hardness comes back into Angelo’s voice.
“You watch your fucking mouth. That’s my wife.”
Alonzo laughs bitterly, drunkenly. “Your wife. Your wife. I was gonna be your wife, once. You remember?” Before Angelo can respond, he continues, “whatever, Angie, whatever. I won’t bother you, all high and mighty in your beautiful little palace. Me and all the animals will stay in our nasty little gutter away from you and your precious wife. Sweet dreams, baby.” He hangs up.
He’s been calling Angelo?
About Enrique?
Maybe he does drink too much.
He feels a bit sick, suddenly, and stumbles into a stall to puke up the contents of his stomach. Feels a bit better afterwards, a bit more sober. He washes out his mouth about 30 times and then heads back out onto the floor.
Accosted as soon as he exits the bathroom. Animals. Animals.
“Listen up, beautiful people,” he announces, “I’ll give $500 to anyone who agrees to man the bar for the rest of the night. 3 hours. $500. Any takers?” A few of the patrons look at each other, but nobody says anything. “$1000,” he offers, and suddenly they’re interested. He points out two of them. “You, and you. Don’t try anything. We got,” he waves his hand around vaguely, “cameras.”
Enrique’s voice in his head as he heads for the door.
Sometimes I think you purposely come up with the stupidest fucking ideas ever, just to test your luck.
Well, you have to admit, it’s very good luck, Enrique Morales. It brought me to you.
---
There’s a little alley round the back of Dino’s, and it’s quiet there. Good place to make a phone call. One more, he thinks. For the road.
Before he does, though, he plays the only voicemail he has saved on his phone, one he’s played so many times he can recite it from memory.
“Hey. I’m only gonna say this once. So if you wanna hear it again, don’t delete this shit.”
He can hear static on the other end as Enrique shifts.
“I got shit to do, alright. I’m a busy man. I can’t be at your beck and call every minute of every day. Jesus, you and Annette both. You drive me fucking crazy sometimes. But look.”
There’s a pause.
“I’m not ignoring you, or mad at you or whatever. I’m just busy. I’ll call you back when I can. Alright? You hang in there. Talk to you soon, babe.”
And the message ends.
Alonzo plays it again. And again. And again. And like always, it never really makes him feel better.
Sure, you meant it then. But that was then, and this is now. This time, I’ve finally pissed you off. This time, you’ve finally given up on me. This time, you’re finally gone for good.
It's not like that. Never gonna be like that. I'm not Angelo.
A sob hitches in his throat, and he shoves his fist against his mouth to try and hold it in. Once he’s composed himself, he dials the number. One more time. Just one more time.
“Enrique Morales. Leave a message.”
“It’s been 11 days.” Alonzo leaves that hanging in the air for awhile, because it feels like that’s it, that’s all there is to say, but of course it isn’t. “Where are you? It’s a long time. I don’t like it. I want to talk to you. I miss you. Please call me back. I miss you. I don’t like it without you. I’m not,” he starts laughing, “I’m not any fucking good by myself. Please come back. Please call me back.”
He can tell he’s about to start crying again, so he pulls the phone away from his ear to hang up.
The screen is black. Dead.
“Fuck. Fuck! Fuck!” He smashes the phone into the floor. “Shit!” He makes to throw the phone, reconsiders it – takes his lighter out of his pocket and hurls it instead. “Fuck!”
He buries his face in his arms, stays like that for a long time.
I wish I was dead. I wish Dino’s really would blow up. I wish you were here.
“Yo.”
Alonzo looks up, cautiously.
A guy standing there, dressed like a hobo. Wide brown eyes, inquisitive – a scar curved along his cheek up from the corner of his mouth.
“You good?” he asks in a raspy voice, hanging back a little.
Alonzo swallows. “Fine, baby,” he says, his voice similarly hoarse. “Absolutely fucking groovy.”
The guy nods. “You got a cigarette?”
Alonzo wordlessly pulls two out of the pack, puts one in his mouth and hands the other to the guy, who takes it and nods again. “Thanks.”
“The lighter’s,” Alonzo gestures, “over there somewhere.”
“I got one.” He pulls it out of his pocket, lights his cigarette – leans in to light Alonzo’s. “They won’t let you in either?”
“Pardon?”
“The club.”
“Oh.” Alonzo laughs a little. “No, they let me in just fine.”
“Lucky. Told me to keep walking. Not dressed right, I guess.”
“No,” Alonzo agrees, “you’re not.”
“Whatever. I never used to do much clubbing anyway.” He takes a long pull off his cigarette. “So what? You get a bad phone call or something?” He indicates the smashed phone with a tilt of his head, and Alonzo feels miserable all over again.
“Or something.”
“Girlfriend? Or,” he hesitates, looks Alonzo up and down, “boyfriend?”
Alonzo shrugs. “Just some guy,” and his voice breaks, and he takes a drag on his own cigarette. It tastes like shit.
Nasty habit, baby. Ruins your skin. Ruins your teeth.
Alright, kid. Like what you’re doing is so much better.
“Well, he probably don’t deserve you anyway,” the guy says, and Alonzo smiles slightly at that.
“Thanks, sugar. You’re very sweet.” He cocks his head. “You want in? I can get you in.”
“Nah. I should probably get going.” The guy finishes the cigarette, flicks it into the alley.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” He gets up. “Thanks for the smoke.”
“No problem, sweetheart.” Alonzo watches him for a moment, then says hopefully, “Maybe I’ll see you around?”
The guy laughs softly. “Probably not, man. You take care, though.”
---
“Alonzo!”
Annette crashes into him before he has a chance to process her presence, wrapping her arms around his neck. “It’s so good to see you! I missed you.”
“I missed you too, baby.” He squeezes her tightly, more tightly than he intended – she grunts a little in protest. He loosens his grip. “What are you doing here?”
She laughs. “What are you talking about?”
“You, um.” He pauses, thinking. “You live in Miami now?”
Annette lets go of him, pulls back to search his face. “Alonzo, I told you I was coming up here, remember? We talked about it like, yesterday. You said meet me here after the show and we’d go party somewhere.” She looks concerned. “Are you okay?”
“I’m – ” Fine. Absolutely fucking groovy. “You heard from Enrique?”
Concern fades. “No, not since he got arrested. I’m gonna try and visit him while I’m up here, but I dunno if I’ll be able to before I gotta go back.” She raises an eyebrow. “You wanna come with me? He’ll probably be happy if we’re both there.”
Alonzo had thought the night air had sobered him up a decent amount, but it must not have, because what Annette’s just said doesn’t make any sense. “Arrested?”
“Yeah, he –” She looks irritated all of a sudden. “Jesus, do you not listen to a single fucking word I say? I told you when it happened. Like a week or so ago. He got done for beating up some guy or whatever.” She kicks at the ground. “He’s going to be in there for a million years. That lawyer of his is a useless goddamn crook.”
“A million?”
“Okay, not a million. Like, 10. I dunno, you’ll have to ask him.” She peers at Alonzo again, the concern creeping back in. “You really don’t remember me tellin’ you? We had that whole conversation about it. He’s going to that prison from that news story, the one with the escaped guy.”
“I don’t watch the news, baby. If something happens that –”
“– you really need to know about, trust you, you’ll know about it,” she finishes. “Yeah, you said the same thing over the phone. Only it’s obviously not true, if you forgot about Enrique.”
Alonzo considers this for a moment, does the math in his head. Arrested. So he isn’t being ignored after all. Relief starts to set in, before his brain catches up with the rest of the news –
Going to be in there for a million years. Like, 10.
His heart sinks again.
I’m not any fucking good by myself.
You’re too hard on yourself, babe. You’re smart. Wouldn’t be bothering with you otherwise.
You just drink too fucking much.
“So what?” Annette says. “We gonna party or not?”
Alonzo takes one last look at the bar – the people he got to cover seem to be handling themselves fine, everybody seems happy. Club’s finally hitting its peak, now that the show’s out and its attendees are streaming in to keep the night going strong. The music is loud and vibrant, people dancing and laughing and enjoying themselves.
Everything’s under control.
Absolutely fucking groovy.
“Sure, baby,” he says, taking her hand. “Let’s party.”