Six nights- early mornings, really, Penny pulled out of work, headed west on Vargas, saw the throng at Cilantro-Down.
She knew she was lucky-her mom would call it blessed-that the bar had a great after-work crowd that dwindled about ten, and a young, hip, generational wealth crowd that wandered in about ten-fifteen, half-stoned already, nothing better to do with granddad’s money than drink cheap beers, top-shelf bourbon and tip the staff heavy.
But six nights was getting to her.
She grumbled to herself nightly, only slowing her frustrated mumbling when she saw the guitar guy.
There were two reasons she didn’t stop at the city’s favorite late-night taco stand.
It was full of the same patrons she had just run out of patience for at Livingston’s Seagull Lounge, and it was helmed by two Polish twins whose grandfather owned Milerky Jerky.
She heard from everyone the tacos were great. But she wasn’t buying tacos from Polish trust fund brats, not now, not ever.
It was the guitar guy that made her think.
He was there six nights a week, same nights she was at the Gull.
He was seventy years old, easily.
He always smiled. Penny couldn’t say that about herself. She couldn’t go an hour without grimacing at someone. She didn’t hate herself for it. Five to close at a busy bar will test you.
But mostly-not always-but mostly, the young trendoids and edgelords and zeitgeisters-had their backs turned to him.
They put bills in his guitar case, she saw that too, as she waited to turn left at Vargas and Artesian, the shortcut to the freeway.
But she smelled the disrespect, through her car windows, up into her nostrils.
Guys at the Gull either flirted with her, flat out propositioned her, or disrespected her.
If her mom heard one one hundredth of the comments, blessed is not a word she would use.
Any night she could pull a ripcord on her patience and get some second shift electrician to pummel one of the little prep school rats, but that wouldn’t solve-or change-anything.
She knew she was transferring her own frustrations onto the plight of the guitar guy.
If he wasn’t happy, he wouldn’t be there. But still…
Since it had gotten warm out she promised herself she would stop and talk to the guitar guy.
And every night lurking outside Cilantro-Down, with their backs to the guitar guy, Penny saw some Hawthorne or Hobart or Calvington who had opened a conversation with quantum mechanics and drank themselves into telling her her tits would look great on their boat. So she kept driving.
The guitar guy was her inspiration-if he could be out there six nights a week for what couldn’t be more than sixty bucks-she could do another year at the Gull for about 400 a night.
He was also her MacGuffin, her mystery briefcase, her Maltese Falcon.
The car behind her honked as she saw a bill get tossed into the case with zero eye contact.
Penny pulled off, vowing that tomorrow she would stop and talk to the guitar guy.
Three more tomorrows passed, three more late nights passing the Polish taco stand and the crowd of hungry drunks before Penny now or nevered and pulled over, across the street and down a block, nearest spot she could get.
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