Last Call Is Not Yet

The next customer wanted a tequila soda and an explanation.

— Of what? Lena asked.

He looked around the room. “Why everybody looks like they’re waiting for bad news.”

— The sign on the door may have tipped them off.

He nodded as if that made sense, took his drink, and moved toward the television.

Mika had claimed the end of the bar with her notebook. It lay open beside the napkin caddy, its pages filling with names, numbers, and crooked arrows. A late-night café on Fulton. A restaurant back room on Mondays. A park bench someone had described as “usually dry.” A Mission bar that might have space for a small show if nobody expected miracles.

Darnell leaned over the page.

— You wrote laundromat.

— It has chairs, Mika said.

— It has machines that eat quarters.

— People can sit there.

— People can sit on a curb. That does not make it a meeting place.

Mika capped her pen. “Then give me an address.”

— I gave you one. Keep this place open.

Lena slid a beer to a customer and said, “Very actionable.”

Darnell ignored her. “A person ought to be able to walk into a room without making an appointment.”

— I know, Mika said. She sounded tired now, not sharp. I’m not pretending a notebook is a room.

The baseball crowd shouted at the television. Near the pool table, somebody shouted back.

A visitor in a green jacket had set his beer on the rail. He swung around too quickly, caught the glass with his elbow, and sent it over the felt. Beer ran across the table and dripped onto the carpet.

— Hey, Lena called.

— I’ve got it, he said, grabbing a wad of bar towels.

The older woman with the cane, who had been waiting to shoot, looked at the wet felt.

— You have certainly got it everywhere.

He turned on her. “Nobody asked you.”

— No one ever does.

Lena came around the bar. “Set the towels down and take two steps back.”

— I’m cleaning.

— You’re smearing beer into the table.

The woman lifted her cue a few inches, not threatening anyone, but ready to make a point with it.

— Cue down, Lena said.

The visitor laughed once. “She’s the one with a weapon.”

— She’s holding sports equipment, Lena said. You are standing in a spill and picking a fight. Back up.

He stepped toward the woman instead.

Lena moved between them. The smell of beer and lime came off him. Behind her, the room went still in that ugly, hungry way crowds did when they sensed trouble might become a show.

— Stop there, she said.

— I’m talking.

— You can talk from where you are.

Cal appeared at her shoulder. “You need to leave the table.”

The visitor looked from Cal to Lena, then past them, searching for agreement.

— This place is closing anyway, he said.

— That does not make you management, Darnell said from his stool.

The visitor’s face tightened. “Everybody here is crazy.”

— Possible, Lena said. Still leaving.

He muttered as he headed for the door. Cal followed him out, not touching him unless he had to. Lena crouched at the edge of the pool table with fresh towels. Beer had reached the worn carpet.

— You all right? she asked the woman.

— I’m fine. The table is not.

— The table has survived worse.

— That is not praise.

— No.

The woman handed Lena the cue. “You play?”

— Only badly.

— Then don’t.

Lena laughed despite herself. She wiped until the floor no longer shone, then put out a yellow caution sign. It looked too cheerful for the job.

By nine, every stool was taken. Workers in uniforms stood beside people in vintage jackets. A couple who had come to Trix years ago sat holding hands near the back. Two tourists asked Mika where people went after Trax closed, as if the city kept a second door somewhere.

At the bar, a man in a paint-splattered work shirt said, “They got forced out. That’s what I heard.”

Cal had returned and was counting change.

— Not what we know, he said.

— Lease ended. Same thing.

— No. Cal kept his eyes on the drawer. The owner decided it was time to move on. The long lease ended around the pandemic. The place stayed open month to month after that.

— So rent went up.

— We don’t know that.

The man gave a humorless laugh. “Come on.”

Lena set his beer down. “You can be mad without making up the rest.”

He looked at her. “Easy for you to say.”

— My job ends tonight.

That quieted him. Not kindly. Just because he had run out of room.

Cal closed the drawer. “Bars have bills. Labor, repairs, insurance, utilities. Owners have lives. That doesn’t give us a neat answer.”

The man picked up his beer. “Neat answer would be nice.”

— Sure would, Lena said.

Rafael came from the back in a black jacket sewn with small silver stars. His makeup was precise, but Lena could see where he had rubbed at one eye and repaired it.

Cal lowered the television volume. The baseball fans complained softly, then stopped when Rafael took the microphone.

— This is brief, Rafael said. You are all going to survive it.

A few people laughed.

— It is not a memorial. Nobody has died. It is also not a command performance. It’s a thank-you.

He looked around the room, taking it in without pretending it was one family.

— To the people who worked here. To the people who came in after work. To the people who came in before they were ready to go home. To those who danced, watched games, lost at pool, lied about losing at pool.

The woman with the cane raised her cue.

— You have no proof, she called.

— I have witnesses, Rafael said.

Music started—slow, spare, almost too quiet against the bar’s hum. Rafael sang one verse, then another. He did not try to fill every inch of the room. A woman near the door wiped her face. The tourists stood still. Someone by the television checked the score and put the phone away.

Near the back, a young man called, “Do the wig toss.”

Rafael kept singing.

— Come on, the man said louder. Do the old one. Make it a real last night.

The music thinned under Rafael’s voice. Then Rafael stopped.

Cal reached for the sound system. Silence landed badly.

Rafael looked toward the back. “No.”

The young man spread his hands. “I’m saying people want it.”

— People can want things.

— Everybody’s sad. Give them something fun.

Rafael stared at him for a moment. Without the music, he looked less armored.

— I gave what I came to give, he said.

The young man scoffed. “That’s it?”

— That’s it.

Lena started around the bar, but Rafael lifted one hand without looking at her. Not asking permission. Asking for a second.

— I’m not doing another number because you want the room tidier than it is, he said. Find your coat.

The young man’s friends pulled him down onto a stool. He did not argue again.

Rafael set the microphone on the bar and walked through the back door.

Nobody applauded. The unfinished music seemed to stay in the air.

Lena stood beside the sound system, angry at the heckler, angry at Rafael for leaving her with the room, angry at herself for thinking he should have stayed.

Cal said quietly, “Let him go.”

— He had a closing number.

— He had two songs. He gave one and a half.

— That is not the same.

— No.

At the bar, Mika had shut the notebook. Darnell watched the back door.

— That boy didn’t want a song, he said. He wanted a souvenir.

Mika looked at him. “And you don’t?”

Darnell’s jaw moved once. “Don’t start.”

— You keep saying a list isn’t enough. Fine. It isn’t. But you act like anyone trying to do something with their hands is ruining your memories.

He took a slow drink. “You weren’t here when half of us had to explain ourselves before we got through the door anywhere else.”

— I know that wasn’t my life.

— No, you don’t know.

— I said I didn’t.

The words sat between them.

Mika looked down at her burned wrist, then at the notebook. “After a long shift, I came here because I could sit down. Nobody wanted me to buy another entrée or explain why I was tired. That’s all I’m saying.”

Darnell looked toward the television, which was now muted.

— My ride canceled, he said.

Mika blinked. “What?”

— My ride. Canceled.

— I can get you another.

— I have legs.

— At this hour?

— I said I have legs.

She pulled a page from the notebook, wrote quickly, and slid it toward him.

— My number. The Fulton place is on there too. They have coffee, tea, whatever you hate least.

— I don’t drink tea.

— Then don’t. The address still works.

He folded the paper and put it in his shirt pocket.

Cal found Lena at the ice well.

— Jo called, he said.

— Who’s Jo?

— Mission bar manager. Needs somebody. I gave her your name.

— You gave out my number?

— I gave her my number. She asked whether you were looking.

Lena stopped filling a glass.

— And?

— And I said yes.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Richmond.

Cal nodded toward the narrow hall by the restrooms. “Go.”

— I’m in the middle of—

— You are standing still with ice melting in your hand.

She went.

The wall beside the restroom was painted a tired cream. On the other side, glasses clinked, somebody laughed too loudly, and the bar kept needing things.

— Hi, Lena said when the call connected. This is Lena Ortiz. Sorry I missed you earlier.

She listened, one hand pressed against the wall.

— No, tomorrow won’t work. I’m closing tonight. A pause. Monday afternoon? Yes. I can do that. I’ll bring references.

When she came back, Cal had finished the ticket she had abandoned.

— Interview? he asked.

— Monday.

— Good.

— It’s an interview.

— Yes.

She looked toward the back door. Rafael had not returned.

Mika reopened her notebook, but this time she did not write. Darnell held his folded slip of paper without putting it away.

— Next week, Mika said, mostly to the page. Maybe the café. Maybe somewhere else.

Rafael’s silver jacket remained visible through the cracked back door, hanging from a chair where he had dropped it.

Darnell said, “Maybe nobody comes.”

Mika nodded. “Maybe.”

Lena checked the clock. Last call was still ahead. The room was crowded, sticky, and uncertain. It had not become a plan just because somebody had found a pen.