"Jim Morrison the Bartender"

“I mean it as a compliment. He was a stud, you can tell.” He is pretending to look across the pond but I know he’s only seeing his stupidity—the big mound of emotional quicksand he’s just stepped into.



“You go to our apartment?” At night, when we kiddies are sound asleep and you can do things with my mother that only my father should be doing?


“You mean to fix things? Sometimes, what does that have to do with the price of tea?” He scratches the stubbles on his chin. “I was talking about the wedding picture of your dad and mom.”


“When the hell would you see something like that?” I demand. He stands up and hands me the remainder of his bread.


“Have a nice dinner, Amelia.” He is all sad and serious, like I am his pupil and I’ve somehow failed his test. I watch him move languidly back to his apartment, the weight of the world in his walk.


“Wait!” Tears prick the back of my eyes. “I don’t understand. My mother showed you her wedding pictures?”


“Just one, just the one she keeps with her all the time.” His voice is like soft gravel. I can easily let myself be touched by it, falling into it like a warm blanket. Those eyes, that butterscotch voice—maybe this is what my mother sees in this funny-looking man.


“I didn’t think she kept anything of him.” I cannot look at him with the bitter taste in my mouth. I cannot let him comfort me. “Now I see she just keeps everything from me.”


“It’s not like that. I’m just the bartender. She can tell me things because I’m the outsider, ya know?” He is trying to look in my eyes but I keep them focused on his ugly boots, the tufts of grass growing through the pebbled sidewalk.


“Are you the outsider?”


“For now, I am.” He smiles. It is that goofy, Ronald McDonald grin that is like nails on a chalkboard for me. Only now, it doesn’t bother me so much.


“But you want to be inside?” This is not really a question for either of us.


“Maybe,” he smacks the side of his mouth and winks.


“No exchange of bodily fluids though, right?”


He makes a squeaking noise and pantomime’s wiping an invisible window again. “Wish your mom a happy birthday for me, Amelia.”


“Why don’t you do it yourself,” In spite of my tight chest, I am smiling.


“So you want me there?”


“On one condition,” I say.


“I told you, I don’t eat poisoned food.”


“Darn.” I snap my fingers. “Promise me you’ll tell me things you learn about my dad?”


“It’s a deal kid.” He shakes my hand and I am struck by how soft it is. Already, I am comparing them to my dad’s large, calloused ones. Dad’s hands were made for fixing and building and protecting—all for the people he loved. What could these kid-gloved hands do for my mother? Could they promise never to hurt us and hold mom up when she couldn’t stand on her own? So far, the only thing I know that they’re good for is holding a snapshot of everything wonderful about my parents. And this alone is reason enough to let him into our home.


I only hope that Mr. McGee’s heart is as soft as his hands.