She didn’t hesitate much, maybe just a fraction of a second, before opening the door, walking back past the table occupied by a family of five, and towards the bar, next to the open kitchen.  

She had neatly avoided the used condom, and the slop of yellow bile mingled with bloated kibble on the sidewalk, regurgitated by someone’s over-heated, over-priced dog. Dodging mess was second nature now, as she entered her tenth year here. It was an anniversary that felt poignant, like a hard-earned Girl Scout badge. Filth was the city’s great equalizer, even in this neighborhood, which she had previously thought unaffordable to her. No one could avoid it. It flattened and democratized and ground everyone and everything until it all became one.

She hadn’t even waivered when his text had come, an hour ago, with an undertone of need that was embarrassing to both of them. Plans made in haste was something she’d long since abandoned, but this felt imperative and urgent. Besides, it was barely 6 pm, and it was a July Saturday night in the city. She told herself that at 35, she was still allowed to have fun. Recently, she had felt the shudder of middle age. Her body didn’t care that apparently city people stayed younger longer.

“We don’t know each other, but tonight we’re best friends,” was what he had said, loudly, over the first beer they had shared, fifteen years before, in either Rome, Barcelona or maybe Prague. They had travelled to many places then, until they did know each other. They had been best friends on nights like that, but hadn’t talked much in between those toasts.

A drink, maybe two, she persuaded herself tonight. Summer demanded it, and her boyfriend was out of town; he was always out of town. She was always working, and he was always out of town. It was how they stayed together.

There was a comfort to this particular bar since it was within the confines of her Brooklyn neighborhood, though she’d only been there once before. The smell of it conjured up every memory that she had ever had of mistakes, of men, and of New York. It was the overlapping scents of herbs and cleaning supplies, masked by salt, fat and booze, then topped by yet more cleaning supplies.

The same bartender was on duty, that had been there the first time that she’d gone in, the night she had taken her friend from out of town. Just one drink, she’d pronounced, a mantra oft- repeated and always ignored. She had left with a hangover, and he had left with a job that would pay him under the table.

Visiting friends at the places they worked was the breath of youth. She recalled many evenings sitting at bars that were no longer there, while friends she no longer kept up with, worked. Bars where she was served free drinks in exchange for the free coffees that she would then give them the next morning.

It’s true what they say about time. It dulls everything, including panic. She thinks back to those days with a tenderness that stings, rather than the dread that saturated her then, when living paycheck to paycheck would have been a substantial upgrade.

“Hey there,” the bartender said, when he saw her. A slight loosening of his accent? Irish, Scottish, Welsh? Or was it just affected for the benefit of girls? He motioned to one of the six vacant stools and ran a damp rag over the surface of one, that, for the next hour or so, would be hers. His hair was long and his shirt, the same he’d worn the first time they had met, the time he probably didn’t remember.

“Hi. I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Frankie’s friend. He’s working tonight, isn’t he?” She scanned the space for the face of his friend. She knew he was working. He’d asked her by text, to bring an assortment of toiletries (deodorant, toothbrush, Band-Aids, Visine) that she had tucked in her purse.

At that moment, his unmistakable timbre boomed over the Fleetwood Mac song from the back patio. “My name is François, and I’ll be taking care of you this evening.”

When she had met him, he had gone by Frankie. This flourish of an introduction, a lie, gave her pause. His accent, not American, was certainly not French. In fact, it was barely British, or at least not the Queen’s British, but rather from somewhere harsh and guttural. Yet, it reminded her of the best times of her life. So, why was she so anxious to see him? Was it seeing him like this, or seeing him here, in the city in which she had built a proper life?

She felt proprietorial about Brooklyn in the way that she did when her favorite books became movies. She always refused to see them, to avoid releasing her own experience into the world, for communal examination. She’d earned that, surely. She’d played by the rules and earned the money, and gotten herself a retirement plan, and a nice apartment in a building with a mailroom, and she had said goodbye to childish things. But here he was, her favorite childish thing, right here, in front of her. Right here, in her neighborhood where she was playing house, amongst everyone else who was pretending to be grown-up.

Frankie had been here, in New York, for almost a month now. He had followed a woman here - someone he had met in a pub, at home in Brighton. It was the kind of thing he did. Always was impulsive. But the woman had kicked him out, which was also the kind of thing that happened to him. So, he was staying at a hotel in Red Hook that booked by the month, week, hour.

Well, he couldn’t stay with her, could he? It was an unspoken request, or offer, that hung in the air between them, like humidity.  They both knew that that couldn’t happen.

Are the worst things in life those you’ve never done? She wondered.

But her apartment was too small, her boyfriend too jealous, and would be confused by this intimacy from a time when she was a different person, than the one he had gotten to know over the last three years.

Frankie appeared beside her.
“Pat, you remember my friend?” He asked.
“Patrick.”
She remembered that conversation from before; a power play.
“Right, right. You remember my friend, Patrick? She’s my best mate.”

Patrick offered his hand. It was warm. His eyes did that thing men’s eyes do when they swallow you whole. He smiled; a smile without baring his teeth. There it was: a glimmer of recognition. Despite herself, she was flattered. She felt it in her toes. He was precisely the kind of guy she would have pretended not to want, with the explicit intention that he would end up wanting her.

“We’ve known each other twenty years,” Frankie said. It was the kind of exaggeration that long-term friendship allowed for, and protected. They’d met through friends originally. Nowadays, a meeting like that would be called ‘organic’, but it used to just be the way people met.

He wrapped his arms around her fondly, and she returned the half-hug. What was that on his sleeve? Something damp, sticky. Perspiration? Something from the kitchen, an elbow in sauce, a dish-cleaning error? No, it was definitely blood. The metallic stench was unmistakable.

“She’s the reason I came to New York.” A lie, but another one friendship permitted. Besides, it felt nice for a moment to pretend that she was someone who people moved places for, even if they both knew it wasn’t true.

He was her vestigial organ. Out of sight but never quite out of mind. She had become concerned by his depression and far-away-ness. But he was holding down a good job now, so surely things weren’t too bad. Then again, he was, bleeding, while scraping ketchup off plates – in a sea of crimson.

“You ok?” she asked, glancing now at the bandages covering the whole of his arm. She withdrew her hand, berry-hued and gummy, also on the fine lace of her blouse, she noticed. She felt shame that she thought of the fabric first.

“Oh, yeah. Just took a bit of a tumble.”

“What are we drinking?” A glass of red wine appeared in front of her. All she could think about was red. She offered an Amex, but Frankie said it was on him. Later he would fret over this kindness, but right now it put him on equal footing, which made him feel better than he had in days.

“François,” Patrick said, “Can you go get more paper towels? Remember what I said, if these ever get low -” he motioned to the near-empty rack behind the liquor bottles - “you have to go to the basement to replace them.”

Patrick went on to explain the trials of New York City health inspections. He said it in a way that sounded like a brag, a point of pride. She wanted to say that she understood, but couldn’t find a way to say I used to do this, too without it sounding like now I don’t have to.

She saw then the full extent of her friend’s condition. Brow sweaty, eyes bright red, dark circles, greasy hair. They had the kind of dynamic where few questions were asked and trust was given freely, but she had doubted, since his arrival, that things were truly ok.

He sat next to her, swigging her wine in full-throated gulps whenever Patrick wasn’t looking. She sensed a conversation they must have had behind closed doors. She found herself afraid to share the wine with him, and wanted to keep their bodies separate, contained, and uncontaminated. Was this who she’d become?

“François, your five-top is ready for their check.”

A generational war over a check that was so little, when they probably had so much, was worthless than the fight. The younger man won, and the parents were clearly proud that their son could provide.

She sat and sipped while Frankie served; for her, Saturdays were really Saturdays. It was a luxury long taken for granted, to have the significance of each day being its own specific world.

She observed his patrons glance at the state of his elbows, and the blood on his shoes. Then came the casual avoidance of physical touch, of eye contact, and then came  the bristle. A sense of protectiveness welled up in her, as their impulse to assess danger, and to distance themselves was geared at her friend, this person she’d known since he was young and she was even younger. This person, who was like all of them, who moved to New York, even if he was a decade late for his sloppiness to be justified as Kerouac-esque.

“Sorry for the mess,” a mother said, vaguely gesturing at the crumbs left behind by her toddler, yet knowing it was not her problem, and much less her child’s. And didn’t she deserve that? After all, she took care of crumbs all day long.

“No worries,” said Patrick. “Someone will get that.” He called to Frankie, for it was his job to clean the tables. He was the one who would get that.

His shirt was bright with blood now, the cuts in his flesh opening with each movement, and the stain blossoming as quickly as a peony in June, across the fabric of what was his last clean outfit.

She glanced towards Patrick to see if he would recognize this, and to protect her friend, tell him to go rest. He didn’t.

“You can walk out of here anytime that you want, you know,” she whispered the next time he was at her side. And she wished that someone would say the same to her too.