To Make It Beautiful to Live

Short Fiction

“Did you know your phone number is written on the ladies room wall?”

A slapper from the point rang off the crossbar and Chuck flinched. Could have been a two hundred dollar goal.

He turned to Lisa.

“Yeah...I mean I had forgotten, but now that you say it...I knew it was there. Guess I wasn’t currently thinking about it still being there.”

“It is,” Lisa said, “Right under a Queens of The Stone Age lyric.”

“That’s cool,” Chuck answered as the game ended. He lost a few bucks, but the timing was great. Lisa’s inflections were telling him that the phone number in the stall was a controversy.

“How many phone calls have you gotten from it?”

Chuck turned toward the bar, raised his left hand and made the heavy metal devil horns. 

Index and middle finger, the traditional “two” meant two beers.

His index and pinkie in the horns meant two beers, two shots and all his favorite bartenders knew it. 

ASL. Alcoholic Sign Language.

“I’ve never gotten a random phone call from it, not from a stranger anyway. Swear to Lemmy.”

He stared at Lisa, right in the eyes, to let her know he was telling the truth. If he was Cyclops from the X-Men he would have wiped out the entire block.

“Who wrote it in there? Because it’s not just a number...there’s info next to it.” 

Chuck twisted the end of a too-long mustache on a Van Dyke that was becoming a Rip Van Winkle.

He was not gonna lie. He was falling in love, or had fallen. Went cold turkey on the cocaine without Lisa saying a word. Jogged at least a mile a day to keep the gut in check, every 50 yards thinking that his fifteen-year hangout with Peruvian Loading Powder would reach up and grab him by the left ventricle.

“I’m not sure.”

Chuck was still making eye contact with Lisa and didn’t know Rose had placed the beers and shots on the bar until Lisa grabbed her tequila, said a curt “Cheers” and downed it. Her eyes returned, slightly glassier, to Chuck’s gaze.

“Assuming the information next to the number is factual…”

“It is, unless someone altered it,” Chuck said, wondering if his truest happiness since the band broke up was gonna disintegrate over some five-year-old scrawled Sharpie.

Lisa nodded, picked up her beer. Chuck was too much in the mood to guzzle his, so he left it on the bar, next to his shot, both of them cooing at him, but he was not going to mess this one up.

“So you did that...with multiple women. And one of them, out of...however many, wrote that on the bathroom wall. But you’re not exactly sure who.”

“That’s correct.”

“Is it good for your ego to know that your phone number and the description of that...stunt... is in there?”

Chuck thought about it. He wanted to reach out and touch Lisa, but it seemed like a bad time. Maybe the worst time.

“At first, yes. But, like I said, I forgot it was there. I don’t spend too much time in the ladies room.”

Lisa Garner took a sip of her beer, much daintier than her mind and her elbow wanted. Not once had Charles Francis “Chowder” Nibinski given her any little clue that he was lying. 

You’re a fucking probation officer, Lisa, you can tell when someone’s lying. And...he’s either a master, which is possible or…

“Was it part of the rockstar thing? I mean, I know it’s partly that. But I mean, needing that kinda thing for your ego?

“How did we meet?”

Lisa snorted. “You know how we--”

“No, I know, I wanna hear it from you.”

“You installed my cable.”

“Right. Did you know I had been in a band?”

“No.”

“Did I tell you I was in a band?”

“No.”

“When I asked you if you’d like to go to the midnight movie why’d you say yes?”

“Because you were super polite. Almost shy. It was ultracute. Why did you ask me out?”

“Because you have like five bookshelves and not one single stupid fucking inspirational saying framed on your wall. I didn’t really have to piss, ya know that? Only reason I asked to use the bathroom is because I figured you’d have one in the bathroom. “Eat, Pray, Love.” “Don’t Go to Bed Angry”. “Two Turnips is the Start of Great Soup” or some bullshit.  When you didn’t own one of those, I asked you out.”

Lisa laughed. It was like someone shot a Mylar balloon full of tension with a BBGun.

“Are those the only reasons?”

“No,” Chuck said. “No. The other reason is that you make Margot Robbie look like Neil Patrick Harris.”

“You think so? She’s gorgeous...oh my god, you’re so full of shit.”

Chuck reached out and took both of Lisa’s wrists.

“Totally serious. For real.”

Lisa gently slapped one of Chuck’s hands away so she could pick up her beer. He gripped tighter with the other hand, as though he would fall without touching her.

“So why was a big rockstar with his phone number written in ladies’ rooms nervous asking out a woman getting her cable installed?”

Chuck finally reached for his beer. He told himself not to, but he guzzled the whole thing. It wasn’t bravado or a parlor trick, it was nerves.

He swung back and looked at Lisa.

“Because I’m not a fucking rockstar. Rockstars aren’t rockstars, not really. It’s a…”

“Chuck, sweetheart...everywhere we’ve gone people call out “Chowder” like you’re their best friend. You’ve signed two autographs in the three weeks we’ve been together and been a guest on five podcasts that I know of. You’re a rockstar.”

“My band is done.” Chuck’s hand slid up Lisa’s arm like he was trying to crawl back into a capsized fishing boat.

“I’m a cable installer who used to be in a band. Nothing more.” 

He was holding Lisa, holding his gaze on Lisa. But his eyes flickered. His Cyclops powers were weakening.

 “Actually, I am something more.”

Lisa held her own gaze on Chuck with the same pokeresque scrutiny she watched her addicted probation clients. The sheet metal workers, the baristas, the accountants, and yes, the musicians whose careers had gone straight to the shitter and to rehab.

This was the confession moment. She had no idea what Chuck was going to confess, just that he would. Her mind pinballed from intravenous drugs to a wife and kids she didn’t know about.

Chuck pulled his tequila toward him but didn’t lift it.

 “I’m that scrawny kid who didn’t have any friends and got spit on on the bus. I’m that lonely kid who wrote songs on an out-of-tune bass about girls he never spoke to in real life. I’m that nerdy, scared, abused kid who only got to grow his hair out because his stepdad swallowed a 12 gauge and his mom didn’t give a fuck anymore. I’m everything I ever was before I was lucky enough to get in that band. Nothing got erased by seven years on stage. Nothing ever gets erased. It fades in and out, but it will always be there. Like that phone number in that bathroom stall. Someone can take a Sharpie and write over it, but it will always be there.”

Lisa Garner had met tons of liars in her life. Chuck Nibinski wasn’t one of them.