The Last Time I Saw Richard - Chapter 3.
I laughed long, and I laughed hard. Roswell’s? This was just too much. Forget Kerouac, we had officially entered Timothy Leary territory.
“Richard, man? Seriously. You know I love you like a fucking brother and that I am always up for your crazy adventures, but you’re freaking me out here. Dragging my ass all over Manhattan on some wild goose chase? Chain-smoking like a motherfucker when in all the years I’ve known you you’ve always hated cigarettes and anyone who smokes them? And now. Now what? We’re standing here in front of this X-Filesy reject of a bar, and fuck me if I’m going to follow you down the rabbit hole, man.”
Richard’s face went slack and pale. His eyes went hollow, as if he’d just witnessed something unspeakably terrible. His gaze was fixed on a point directly over my shoulder. I turned around to see what had caught his attention, but at that moment he spun on his heel, threw open the heavy door and took several steps into the gloom of the bar.
His back to me, he shouted, “Red herring bullshit motherfuckers. Gullible cocksucking dipshits. They think I’m stupid, but I’m not stupid. My eyes are wide open and if you listen to me, if you listen and believe, yours will be too. I need your help, yeah, but I also want to save you, man.”
Not for the first time that evening I was ready to bail.
But the look in his eyes – simultaneously unfocused and frantic – forced me to reconsider. His hands quaked whenever he lifted one of those foul cigarettes to his lips, and the little muscle at the hinge of his jaw bulged in and out, in and out. He was a total fucking wreck, but he was also my friend, and leaving now would be like turning my back on a drowning man.
And then a long-buried memory floated lazily to the surface of my mind. Of a time when I had been the one in trouble, and Richard, the inimitable Richard, had been my savior. It was years and years ago, ancient history, and not a story I ever tell. I think of it so infrequently, in fact, that even I do not recall all the details. I was very young, and had dived headfirst into a beautiful woman who ostensibly loved me back for a while, but then tired of me, I guess. She never said. For longer than I’d care to admit, I got drunk and stayed that way. Jack Daniel’s was my poison of choice, and… Well. You get the picture. Then late one afternoon, after a particularly ugly bout of binge, I came to in the back of Richard’s car. My mouth was dry and my eyes were burning and not even Phineas Gage would have traded heads with me at that moment. Richard had driven my sorry ass hundreds of miles North of the city, and parked right next to a waterfall. Without a word, he dragged me under the cascade, where we sat with the water pounding down in front of our heads for a very long time. I may or may not have bawled like a baby. The water roared with such force I could not hear myself scream. And when I was done, the two of us – waterlogged jeans and all – got back in his car and drove back to New York. We never spoke of the incident.
I owed him.
I followed him into the dingy bar. His reek was, I swear, nearly visible. His body odor had been tamed by the shower, but it had been replaced with the stench of his infernal cigarettes.
At first glance, Roswell’s was not unlike every single other dive bar in New York City. Long and narrow, dimly lit, sawdust on the floor, the unmistakable reek of stale, spilled beer. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, sure enough, I could make out a pool table at the back. There were a handful of customers, a bartender and one waitress, a sleepy-faced blonde whose glory years, no doubt, had coincided with those of Stevie Nicks.
Richard slid into the booth furthest from the door. The waitress materialized and – unasked – set a bottle in front of each of us. She smiled brightly at Richard; he merely nodded. She left.
Richard raised his bottle to his lips and swallowed deeply. I watched his Adam’s apple move up and down, up and down. His silence began to unnerve me, and tucked away in our corner, the only sight I had for distraction was a framed photo of Elvis, his arm casually thrown around the shoulders of a man I did not recognize. The King’s brilliant grin, rosy cheeks and not-yet-porkified physique signaled Blue Hawaii-era, give or take a few years. Just as I was realizing that the photo was not only candid but signed, Richard cleared his throat and began to speak.
