Today starts the same as any other day, I wake up way too late, I go to class, I go to work, and I sleep. I repeat this cycle for five years until they hand me a useless degree that doesn’t help me find a fucking purpose in life.
For some reason, a couple of months after I graduated, I stayed doing the same thing that I had been doing for five fucking years. I work as a bartender in a run-down college town, Baton Rouge. I graduated from Louisiana State University with a writing degree, telling me I'm so great at writing emails. The only difference from my normal schedule after graduation is that I work mornings and nights at the bar and am the manager. Today is like any other day; I get to work early in the morning. I have to drive my bike, and there is no motorcycle parking anywhere near my work, so naturally, I just put my bike in the back. Nobody says anything to me, it's too early, and I’m the only one who comes in and opens up on Mondays. I fuckin’ hate my life. As I’m pulling into the parking lot, I see a nice car parked out front with the engine on. I have no idea what the car is; it is way too far out of my reach to even consider a car. I barely pay my rent with the money I make from this dump. The windows are so tinted in the car, how the fuck do they see while driving at night? Whatever. I guess it's some rich asshole who wants to start drinking at 9 am on a Monday. That kind of money would be nice to come by. The only reason I went to college was that it was paid for. These fuckers piss me off so much, I walk over to the front door, walking my bike with me, and I begin to unlock the door as I hear a car door shut. This jackass wants to drink, and we aren’t even open yet. “Listen, man, we aren’t open yet. Give me like 20 minutes, and you can come inside,” I say, sighing. “You’re telling me an old friend can’t come in early and drink whenever,” he scoffs. I turn around quickly, confused about who it is. His stature is tall and built, and his chiseled facial features are defined by his dark brown wavy hair; he's wearing aviator sunglasses and an extremely expensive-looking suit, tan jacket, and tan pants with a light cream-colored undershirt. “Jamie? What the fuck are you doing here?” I staggered backwards, leaning against the door. “What do you mean? I got to come to see my favorite fuck up now and then,” he laughs, “We finished filming for our most recent movie, so I wanted to come to see you”. This jackass, I haven’t seen Jamie in about 2 years. Jamie is my childhood best friend; I should call him my brother. His parents died when we were about four years old, and my mom took him in and raised him as my brother. He got the life insurance claim after he turned 18 years old. Since then, he's been investing in companies managing stocks and, most importantly, producing movies. “So you gonna let me drink free or what?” he laughs, slapping me on the back. “Yeah, right if anybody is paying, it's you bitch” I joke as I open the door and bring my bike to the back. He follows behind me trying to help me with my bike, “You still driving this old Honda around? Why? Just get a new one or get a car man.” “You know damn well I can’t afford a new bike, get your head out of the clouds and come back down to earth” I can’t stand rich assholes but he’s the exception… sometimes. He always thinks money solves a lot of problems, but he forgets that not everyone has a near limitless amount of money like him. “Let me buy a new one then, I can’t have my best friend in the whole wide world riding a piece of shit that could fall apart with a kick!” I turn to him, “Dude, I love this bike please Stop trying to throw money at me like your hoes. No matter how much you throw I’m not taking my clothes off for you”. He laughs loudly, “You say that until I start throwing money at you.” Sometimes I wonder if he bats for both teams with the jokes he makes, no… with all the different women I see in his arms, there's no way. Finally, I can get my bike into the fucking back and out of the way.
Time to open this damn bar, I know what he and I are drinking this morning. A fucking beer, I’m not shaking anything over ice yet. I bring out two bottles of whatever our cheapest beer is and pop them open. The owner is nowhere in sight, that drunk asshole. There should be a law against alcoholics owning a bar. I have to wipe down all the bottles, take off the caps, clean my tools, and count the money in the drawer. Looks like Angela did an amazing job closing last night, no matter the kind of night we have, she always makes it so easy to open up this stupid fucking bar. Fuck. I need to not be so negative all the time. I do love this job, it pays my bills and works perfectly with my schedule. “Hey! Weirdo! You gonna stop spacing out and pour my drink or what?” Jamie yells in my face. “Fuck off,” I retort back at him. “How bout that drink then? We got something to celebrate after all!” “What do we have to celebrate you, alcoholic?” I ask as I start to open up two cold beers. “Finally got to be an actual producer and not just a financial contributor! I even get to help with auditions!” he chirps loudly. “Since when do you care? You only ever produced movies that would end up being a huge success. You're just a money-greedy whore, you don’t give two shits about production or anything,” I scoff at him. “Hey man, I’m serious, this is a huge step for me! I get to help with this movie and make it my baby. Who knows, your name could even be called to play a part”. I laugh loudly in his face, me play a movie part? Yeah fuckin’ right. That would be a dream come true, but I don’t deserve that kind of reward. Fuck, I don’t even know what I’m going to do in the next month. Acting? So far out of the question; it’s make-believe. “C’mon, man, be for real. You can’t get my hopes up like that,” I laugh him off, but in reality, that would be my lifelong dream come true. Please tell me it’s true. Please tell me it wasn’t a joke. Please… I need a win… “You totally could if you tried. You were amazing in high school. I don’t even know why you didn’t do it in college”. “Jamie, that was so long ago, and it was in theatre; this is big-time acting. The movies, man! No way I could do that. I’d probably just fuck it up as I did back then." Please tell me I’m wrong, tell me I could. “Why do you do that? You’re such a negative prick on yourself. Dude, you were great, take the fucking compliment”. Why is he upset with me? I was just telling him the truth. Am I wrong? I was terrible. I can’t do that. What did I say to piss him off? Does he think I was good or something? He’s probably just saying that to make me feel better. “D- Do you think you could…” He looks at me with a stupid, confused look, “Do what? Get you an audition? Yeah, dude, I practically run the fucking shit”. I know I can’t fully rely on Jamie. He is my best friend, but he isn’t the most reliable person I know. I hope he isn’t just saying all this to mess with me. “If you can get me an audition, I guess I have no choice but to take it,” I take a sip of my beer. I hate beer, so bitter and disgusting. Any alcohol, really, I am thankful I’ve been a really big drinker. I hate the feeling of being drunk or drinking in general.
“It is nice to see you, man,” Jamie sputters. “You don’t have to be sweet now. I can tell you are just being nice to me because you want something. What is it?” Jamie looks a little flustered, his hands look tense, and his leg is bouncing more than usual. “Well…”. I don’t think I like where this is going. I can’t even imagine what he's going to say. Please just don’t tell me you're a dad. That would be the funniest thing to happen to someone like Jamie. “I- I uh… Do you think you could come with me back to LA?” “...Are- Are you serious?” Jamie looks upset by my response. Why the hell is he shocked by my response? Why would he even ask me to come back with him? “Dude… Why are you asking me to come back with you? I’m not upset or anything. I’m just thrown off by you asking me”. “Well… I hate to admit this, I’m super lonely. I have barely any friends, well, any I can trust, and mom lives back in Texas. I can’t do this without some kind of support,” he says softly. I can’t imagine why he would need a support system. I mean, I’ve been doing this well my whole time on my own, and so has he. He has been on his own this whole time and hasn’t mentioned anything before, so why now? I stand across from him behind the bar, not saying anything. I look blankly into his eyes, and he has a concerned look on his face, almost like there is more to this, but he just won’t say. I sigh loudly. Can I move to California? Is there anything here holding me back from going? I don’t have a girlfriend, and I barely have friends outside of work. I don’t think it’ll be a problem, but something in my gut is telling me no. Why? Jamie would never do wrong to me, so why can’t I move with him? “Sure… I’ll move with you.” Why did I say that? A slow smile starts to form on his face, “Really? You’ll go with me?” Why did I say yes? Almost all of the signs are pointing to no, so what in the world am I doing? “Yeah man, I’ll need to move all of my stuff though,” no, stop talking, “I don’t know if I can afford that”. His face is so expressive, it’s like the first time a child experiences Christmas. Maybe this much joy is a good sign that it’s underneath it all. “Dude, don’t even worry about moving everything. I’ll hire a company to move it all. Your lease on your apartment was about to come up, right? This is perfect timing”. “Why do you know that?/ Who told you?” He had a shocked look on his face, his eyes widened as if he wasn’t supposed to know that. “Oh, you talked to mom… Oh… You talked to mom… about this. About me moving with you to California.” A silence fell between the two of us as I gazed upon him with a frustrated look. It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. Why does it bother me that he was talking to mom about this/ That should be a good sign that he didn’t want to burden me, yet all I feel is annoyed with him going to my mom about this.
