“Love is a puddle, if you ask me” you say to the ashtray as you stub out your cigarette butt. It is nonchalant punctuation to an errant sentence said to the air, apropos of nothing.
“Were you talking to me, then?” I say to the television hanging over the bar, but with a swivel in your direction. “‘Cause I didn’t ask.”
“No, I suppose you didn’t. Doesn’t make it any less true.”
“Truth is relative. Why is love a puddle?”
“Love is a puddle ‘cause you fall in it, despite the fact you don’t wish to and are tryin’ to avoid it. Hi. Name’s —”
“I don’t need to know. I’ll only forget it, at best.”
“Fair ‘nough,” you smirk. “That you?” you motion to the juke box.
“Naw, I ain’t been over there yet.”
“Huh. Well, good song.”
“Yeah.”
And so we sit, just two lost souls who happen to be sitting next to each other at a bar where the most exciting thing that’s happened as yet is the fact someone played a “good song” on the juke box. Love is a puddle. Love is muck. Love is mire, mucked and mired in mire and muck. Love is a puddle.
“Hey —”
“Hey —”
“You seemed to be drowning. Thought I’d be search-and-rescue.”
I take the last slug off my pint and motion for another and light a cigarette and lean back and try to take up as much of an expanse as my frame can encompass before responding: “The princess is in another castle.”
“Ahhhh… you’re beautiful. See, I knew you was tryin’ to be nonchalant, but I saw your eyes spark when you came up with that line. I see through you. I know. You’re beautiful, you just need time. Your eyes don’t.”
My hands play with my hair for lack of anything else to do, and I smile, but not in your direction, only to the wall, or to that guy, there, across the bar, that guy who will think I’m smiling at him and send me a drink despite the fact he’s merely a part of the background, for me, and I’ll probably have to explain that, later.
I take a sip off my fresh draught, a first sip, mostly foam. “Are you flirting with me?”
“Just callin’ it like I see it.”
“I’m not beautiful, darlin’. I’m just here.”
“I’ll drink to that,” you smile, as you raise your glass and I raise mine and we clink and drink.
The bartender catches our toast out of the corner of her eye and walks over and smiles. “Whatcha toastin’ to?”
I laugh. “Me bein’ here.”
And she laughs and turns her back to pull another beer. “Ah… he shoulda been here yesterday, then,” she winks in my direction, and you don’t see.
“Here’s how I see it,” I say as I take a second sip off this new beer provided by (I later learn) the guy at the end of the bar who will no doubt come and try to talk to me later. I glance in his direction and wink. “Saying ‘love is a puddle’ is a poor metaphor that only assumes everyone in the world is as clumsy as you.”
“What are you, a writer or something?”
“Or something.”
“Well, I reckon most people can at least identify with that, most people’ve slipped a time or two, so even if they aren’t clumsy, they know that feelin’ of fallin’ when you don’t intend to.”
“Nobody ever intends to fall. Don’t fuck up your shit by over-explaining it.”
You lean back and light a smoke, inhale and exhale. “You can’t control falling love, either. That was my point,” you wink. “And my other point was that you’re beautiful.”
I light and pull, exhale smoke to the television, and shrug in your general direction. “Thanks. That was my point.”
“What?”
“I love being told I’m beautiful, who doesn’t? But I ain’t gonna fall in love with anybody for sayin’ what I want to hear. I’ll fall in love with you if you tell me what I need to know. Not right away, but slow. Love ain’t a puddle, darlin’, love is quicksand. The more you struggle, the faster you fall, but if you just sit there, you can acclimate. You’ll be at peace before you drown. Slow.” I slug the last of my beer and slam and slide the empty glass on the bar before lighting another smoke, and you smile.
“That’s deep. I like you. Say, I didn’t get your name.”
“You didn’t need to. You wouldn’t have remembered it anyway.” I smile to the other end of the bar and raise my empty glass to the bartender. “You want another round? It’s on that guy.”
You follow my gaze to the other end of the bar and smile and nod.
Fresh draughts in hand you propose a toast. “To puddles!” you say as you raise your glass.
I raise mine to match yours, clink and say “To quicksand.”
The guy at the end of the bar raises his glass silently and offers a half-smile I catch out of the corner of my eye. Later tonight, I’ll follow him home.
