Page 6 of Desperate Haste
He started Butcher and Block years before meeting me and staffed it with people working on getting sober. Whether it is from drugs or alcohol, everyone who works here is some kind of addict in recovery. Being in recovery himself, he knows what it’s like to live with an addiction and sets firm rules and expectations for all of us. You can stay and work as long as you want as you get back on your feet. If you relapse and refuse to get help, you’re out. There are no second chances. Since starting here as a server, I’ve seen my fair share of good people fall off the wagon and because of him, many of them managed to get back on the straight and narrow. Now I work as a part-time manager and lead bartender, and show a lot of our new team members the ropes when they first get started. If your vice is alcohol, you’re either a server, hostess, or you work back of house. If your issues land in the drugs department, like myself, you have the option of working behind the bar. As a bartender, part of your job is to deliver alcoholic drinks to tables as they’re ordered so that our servers who are working to be sober don’t have to interact with it. The staff here is a family and we take care of one another as such.
“Yo, Malcolm,” the voice of our closing bartender and other part-time manager, Alice, shouts from across the restaurant as she comes in. With it being Wednesday, I opened for the day and she came in after me to close. While we aren’t open past ten on the weekdays, I have plans to get to. “How’s it been today?” She scrunches her eyebrows together, causing the hoop in her left one to move and shake the dangly charm on it. I don’t know how the feeling of it batting against her head doesn’t drive her batshit crazy.
“It’s been fine. It was a slow start but a big crowd of out-of-towners came in after they got done on the course. They were loud, obnoxious, and already tipsy but we managed to get some real food and coffee in them before they left.” We’re located not far from one of the best golf courses in the area and get a lot of club members coming here after they’re done for the day. It’s not uncommon for middle aged men to come in here sporting polos and expensive loafers and act like pompous assholes.
“Blech.” Alice sticks out her tongue and makes a face. “Glad I wasn’t here to have to deal with it.”
I chuckle before finishing wiping down the glass I was cleaning and setting it under the counter. I shake my hair out and use a hand to tuck one side of it behind my ear. “They probably would have liked you as you’re more their speed than I am.” We both laugh.
“Okay, I gotta run. Benny and the boys are in the back, and Marshall won’t be in tonight. He texted me a few hours ago. If shit hits the fan, try your best to fix it before texting me.” I give her a cocky smile as I step out from behind the bar. While I have plenty of time to get to Kolbi’s, the last thing I need is Conrad on my ass about not showing up on time.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” She waves a towel at me as I head for the door. “Have fun playing your little game with your friends,” she teases. I flip her the bird jokingly and hear her chuckle as the doors close behind me.
Walking to my truck, I pause for a moment and look out on the water.
Living in Charleston, you can see some body of water almost anywhere. Whether it’s the ocean or a river or the marshlands, the entire city is chopped up into islands and inlets. There’s a saying amongst the locals that you can’t get anywhere in Charleston without going over a bridge. Even though I’ve lived here all my life, I’ve somehow never gotten tired of seeing the water. There’s something about the way it moves and flows that soothes me. More than a few times after a really bad bender, I’d naturally head towards water and wake up unsure as to how I got there. It was as if my body was called to it and would find it in my darkest moments, hoping it would save me.
Blinking hard, trying to let go of a past I want to forget, I turn away and step up into the cab of my restored Chevy truck. After swapping my work shirt for the clean one I’d tossed in the passenger seat this morning, I turn the ignition and pull away, heading for Kolbi’s.
* * *
Walkingdown the hallway of my friend’s restored historic Charleston single, I can hear the voices of my friends coming from the dining room. We haven’t gotten together for our weekly ritual of playing Dungeons and Dragons—or D and D as we like to call it—since before Hank and Bailey’s wedding. They were out of the country all of last week for their honeymoon and tonight is the first time we’re all getting together again.
“Oh my god, they’re so cute,” I hear the voice of Kolbi’s girlfriend, Magnolia, exclaim. She had moved in with him earlier this summer after a major fallout with her family. She comes from a prestigious family from the city and when she chose my friend over them, they cut her off completely. Unfortunately for me, I know what that feels like.
As I make my way into the dining room which sits just off the kitchen, I can see that everyone is here already. Hank, Kolbi, and Conrad are in the kitchen popping the tops off a couple of beers while Bailey and Magnolia are sitting at the dining table looking at Bailey’s phone.
“Look who finally decided to show up,” Conrad scoffs from the island where he stands with my other two friends on either side of him.
“Oh shove off, Connie, I’m not even late this time,” I retort, flipping him off as I head for the fridge. Every Wednesday we meet at Kolbi’s place for another round of Dungeons and Dragons. We’ve been at this specific campaign for well over a year and a half with Kolbi as our Dungeon Master and the rest of us playing whatever story he spins. While my friends and I play, the girls tend to hang out on the couch and watch a movie or talk.
“What’s up, brother?” Kolbi asks, offering me his hand and pulling me in for a bro hug. At well over six foot five, it still shocks me how he ended up with such a tiny person like Magnolia. She’s not much more than five feet tall and watching them kiss is like watching a giraffe kiss a mouse. He’s happy though and that’s all that matters.
“Not much, how are things? Hank, welcome back, buddy.” I turn to Hank and pull him in for a similar embrace. I’ve been friends with these three idiots since third grade, so getting together like this is more like seeing family than seeing friends.
“Thanks, we’re happy to be back. It’s weird, you would think after being away for eleven years I would be used to being out of town. But by the end of our trip, there was nothing I wanted to do more than come home.” Hank had served in the United States Army for most of our lives, enlisting as soon as we graduated from high school. When he landed back in the lowcountry, he quickly met the girl of his dreams and made her his wife.
“You feel that way because you have something worth coming home to now,” Bailey hummed, slipping under his arm and breaking into the small group we formed. She has a ribbon tied in her blonde hair and looks at my friend as if he hung the moon.
“You’re right, hermosa?*, I do,” he replies, planting a kiss on the top of her forehead.
“Can we start, please?” Conrad grumbles, heading for the table. Being the perpetual grouch of the group, Hank and Bailey’s cuteness is lost on him.
“I’m ready whenever everyone else is,” I offer, grabbing my beer and heading for the table. We all settle into our chairs and as we lay out the game board and set out the die, Magnolia steps up to the table holding a ceramic platter.
“Does anyone want a cookie? I made them earlier after work.” She gives us a hopeful smile but there’s a tinge of sadness behind her eyes. Hank grabs one off the plate and takes a bite.
“Damn, this is good,” he announces. Following his lead, I grab one and take a bite. As the sugar and butter hit my tongue, I nod in approval. Theyarefucking good.
“You guys like them?” Her voice lifts. “I tried to follow a recipe I remember Ms. Ruthie teaching me. They’re not the same but…” her voice trails off and her chin drops. Kolbi stands from the table, takes a cookie, then removes the plate from her hands and sets it on the counter behind her.
“They’re amazing, flower. Thank you for making them.” When he leans in and gives her a comforting kiss on the cheek, I watch as her eyes close and she seems to steel herself from something. Sensing a need to shift the focus away from whatever’s happening between them, I look towards Bailey who is now standing behind Hank’s chair, resting her hands on his shoulders.
“Have you talked to Ophelia?” I ask as nonchalantly as I can manage. While I will never admit it to anyone other than myself, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since the night we shared after the wedding. There are more nights than I would like to admit where she’s drifted into my dreams and I’ve woken up hard and wished she was there to help me along.
“Ophie?” She raises a brow at me. “Yeah, I mean, I called her when we landed but I haven’t talked to her much more than that. She’s always busy with work so I try to let her call me.”
“Is she seeing anyone?” For some reason my question makes her laugh.
