Atheists Who Kneel and Pray

by Tarryn Fisher

  He nodded.

  “And she finally asks what’s going on with the two of you?”

  “Yes,” he nods, “but that was already established from day one. We were just having fun.”

  I sighed. “First of all, you’re a dick,” I said.

  He opened his mouth to argue, but I held up my hand to shush him.

  “It’s perfectly normal after seeing someone consistently for six months to wonder where the relationship is going.”

  “But, in the beginning—”

  “No,” I said. “That was the beginning. She’s not a robot. She’s a human being with feelings.”

  “Okay, okay.” He held up his hands. “I’m a dick. I shouldn’t have let it go on that long without having a discussion.”

  I nodded, both hands perched on my hips.

  “God, I need a drink after that. What do you have for whiskey?”

  He rubbed a hand across his face and I listed off our selection.

  “I guess it’s a little early for whiskey,” he said. “What about beer?”

  I pointed to the row of beer behind the bar. He chewed his lip while he studied them.

  “Can you say each of their names?” he asked.

  “What? Why?”

  “I like to listen to you speak.” He grinned. “I’m just trying to keep you talking.”

  “There are numbers you can call for that sort of fetish,” I told him.

  “One nine hundred girls, girls, girls,” he said. We both laughed. Obviously, we’d both seen too many late night commercials.

  “Your best IPA then,” he said. His voice was deep and his lips puckered around the letter ‘p’ like it tasted good.

  “You’re not a morning person,” he said, thoughtfully. “That may be a problem.” So many ‘p’s—I was staring.

  “A problem?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I am a morning person. So how will that work?”

  I set down the glass I was holding and dried my hands. He wasn’t smirking, I checked twice.

  “I’m not following.” My smile was forced—we both knew that. I moved toward the tap, flipped it forward. Beer foamed then turned deep amber. I slid his beer across the counter until it nudged his hand. A gentle reminder to shut the fuck up.

  “Our relationship,” he said. “Our marriage. You’re not a morning person. Who will make my breakfast?”

  I glanced around to see if anyone else was around to hear this, but it was just the two of us. Again. The guy was a loon. I’d let a loon duct-tape my splinter. He was completely serious too.

  I rested my elbows on the bar, adjusting my face so that I looked more amused than raged and leaned forward.

  “Are you drunk?” I asked. I hoped he was because then I could forgive him.

  He widened his eyes and shook his head like I was the one saying something absurd.

  “Are you on meds?”

  This time he pursed his lips. “For what?”

  “Being insane.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “I’m sound.” He reached up and tapped his temple. He was wearing fingerless gloves.

  I nodded. “Okay,” I said, slowly. “You’re just the type of guy who wants a woman around to make his breakfast. But only for six months, and it can’t get too serious.”

  I moved away, lifting my elbows from the bar and turning my back on him to survey the bottles of liquor that needed restocking. Enough with this guy, enough with all guys. You could order a dildo right to your mailbox. Men needed to learn how dire that situation was for them.

  “My asshole days are over,” he said. “I’ve only been in love for a few minutes, I’m not sure how to handle it. Besides, I broke up with Elizabeth for you.”

  I spun around to look at him.

  “Dude,” I said—and I’d practiced saying it just like the Americans—“You’re deeply in love with yourself. You’re also drinking beer at eleven o’ clock in the morning.” I pushed a menu into his hands, during which time he never took his eyes off of my face. “I won’t make you breakfast. Not ever. But, Jerry our cook will. He’s a little on the angry side, but his eggs are the shit.”

  “I like angry,” he said. “I like you. I’ll take three of Jerry’s angry scrambled eggs and a side of toast.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “You like me,” he said. “Just a little.” He held his fingers up and pinched the air to show me how little. I shook my head and he made his pinch smaller. I shrugged.

  “I’ll take it. I’m a man in love and I’m grasping at straws.” He had an excellent poker face. I was almost convinced. I felt a little sad for the girls who’d fallen for the joker—especially Elizabeth: the sincere eyes and the emotional lips. How many hearts had he fucked beyond repair?

  I busied myself at the computer, putting in his order. I could feel his eyes on my back, the sexual heat of someone wondering what your skin tastes like.

  “Hey,” he said when I brought him his breakfast and got him another beer. “Is that your newspaper?” He jutted his chin to where the paper sat behind me. “Do you mind?”

  “You could just look on your phone,” I said, with a small smile.

  “Nah,” he said. “Phones are bullshit, give me a newspaper any day.”

  I handed him my newspaper without looking at him. I didn’t want him to know that I actually did like him.

  “The Cheetos too,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything as I dropped my half-stale bag of chips in front of him. He winked at me and I rolled my eyes.

  “Cheesy,” I said.

  His mouth was already full. “Me or the Cheetos?”

  “Both.”

  And then we got lunch-shift busy. I only saw him once more to drop off his check. He didn’t leave his number like I expected he would, and I never learned his name. He was the guy in the beanie who wanted to marry me.

  He came back a few days later. I was working the dinner shift, and my hair had seen better days. He was carrying a guitar case, which he propped against the wall before taking a seat at the bar. As I walked toward him, he smiled, and I knew the guitar case was planned. Carrying a guitar around was almost as sexy as carrying a baby. He was wearing a leather jacket over a pink T-shirt, his jeans ripped at the knees. No beanie this time. I eyed his hair and tried not to smile. A hard side-part in light chestnut brown.

  “Who are you today?” I asked him. “You look like one of those punks from California.”

  “Hey now!” he said, shrugging off the jacket. “I’m wearing Docs, not Vans.” He lifted a foot to show me. “I’ve never surfed,” he told me. “And LA sucks.”

  I couldn’t agree more. I’d lasted in LA for a month before moving on to Miami.

  “I went on a date with a professional surfer once,” I told him. “He said that the only way to really feel alive was on the waves.”

  “People make me feel alive,” he said. “Licking the salt off of a woman’s body at the beach. That’s the way to tell if you’re really living.” He had a mint in his mouth, he’d held it still until now, and while his eyes narrowed, he moved it around the front of his mouth, which made his lips move in the most sensual way. I pulled my eyes away from his mouth and stared at the beer taps.

  “IPA?” I asked him.

  I had four other tables. I glanced around the room to see if they all looked happy. A table of women in their early twenties was laughing near the window, their pink fur and metallic coats draped across the backs of their seats, sweet fruit drinks at their elbows. For the moment they’d forgotten to be gluten-free and I didn’t hate them.

  “No,” he said. “That’s what I drink for breakfast. Jack and Coke.”

  His hair was still damp from a shower, and he smelled of cologne. I’d discovered in my first month of living in America that all of the men here wore one of three colognes: Acqua Di Gio, Armani Code, and Light Blue. He was wearing none of these. He smelled woodsy like pine and fresh dirt.

  “Oh, look at you,” I said. �
��Getting cooler by the minute.”

  He smiled and stole a cherry from the tray. I watched him put it in his mouth, pulling the stem from the fruit and setting it on the bar.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “You were planning our life together last time you came in and you didn’t even know my name?”

  He was a very still person, his movements paced. I’d noticed it the first time but now even more. Only one part of him moved at a time; right now it was his mouth as one corner turned up in a grin.

  “I like to do things slowly,” he said. “And out of order.”

  I slid his drink over. I was trying not to overthink that. He was playing a game with me.

  “I like your attention-seeking haircut,” I said. “What is that called? The jackass?”

  He laughed. “This is already the most abusive relationship I’ve ever been in and it’s all done with an accent, which somehow makes me enjoy it.”

  “I’m just getting started.” I walked away before he could say anything else, the table of sequined girls beckoning me over.

  For the next two hours, I made a point of ignoring him, only stopping by once to take his food order and refill his drink. I was a reactive person; it took a certain chemistry to lure me out of my shell. I didn’t like that he was doing it. I was here to take a break from all that. A break from men—especially artists. Mostly artists. I ignored him, but he didn’t ignore me. Every time I turned around, he was watching me, an almost thoughtful expression on his face. His eyes, a mossy green, were used as weapons. They were honest eyes, and so you trusted him, all the while he undressed you with them.

  “Yara,” I said. I was hoping to distract him, make him stop looking at me like that.

  “What time do you get off, Yara?” he asked.

  I was stacking plates on a tray so I could carry them to the kitchen. I licked my lips, not wanting to answer the question.

  “Where are you from?” I asked.

  He shrugged with his lips. “Here and there. I’ve been living in the city for about a year. How long have you been here?”

  “Couple months,” I said.

  “Did you come straight from the UK?”

  I shook my head and a whole section of my hair sprang out of the clip holding it together. It tumbled over my shoulder and his eyes widened.

  “No. I’ve been traveling around. Chicago, LA, Miami, New Orleans, New York, and now Seattle.”

  “Trying to find a place you like?” He took a sip of his drink. He looked distracted.

  Wouldn’t that be something? Finding one place I liked.

  I shook my head. “No. I’m just experiencing. I already have a place I like. What’s your name?” That was a boundary crossed, asking a man his name. Then you had it to use, to think about.

  “David,” he said.

  “David,” I repeated. “That’s a nice, solid name. And your surname?”

  “My surname,” he mimicked. His smile came late, a few seconds after his words. It was slow spreading and warm. “It’s Lisey.”

  “David Lisey,” I said, nodding. “Are you a musician?” I nodded over to his guitar case.

  “I am. How did you guess?” he teased.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it’s your asshole haircut.”

  “I’m not an asshole,” he said. “I’m a heartless romantic.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  He thought about it. “I believe. But without the proof.”

  I rolled my eyes. It made me feel juvenile to roll my eyes, but there it was. Men always brought out the best in me.

  “You fuck girls without getting to know them and hope to fall in love.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Is that the wrong way to do it?”

  “I don’t know, let’s ask Elizabeth.”

  “Ouch,” he said.

  I pursed my lips, rearranging my hair back into my clip. Did he look disappointed?

  “Are you in a band?” I asked.

  I wiped the counter as I spoke: circle, circle, circle. He had long fingers with calluses on the tips. You couldn’t see them, but when he’d reached for his drink our fingers had brushed. I imagined they’d feel scratchy if they ran along your skin.

  “Yes. I sing. I play too, but mostly I sing.”

  “Sing me something now,” I said.

  He didn’t even hesitate. His mouth opened and right there in the bar, surrounded by a dozen or so people he sang the chorus to “When a Man Loves a Woman.” His voice was husky and deep; an intimate voice. The girls with the fur jackets turned around in their seats to watch him. I felt his voice. It moved something in me. But, I wasn’t going to do that again. I was done.

  I didn’t have time to respond. The doors to the restaurant opened and a group pushed into the bar in a loud clatter of voices. Regretfully I walked to greet them, leaving David Lisey on his bar stool staring after me, a slow molasses grin spreading across his face.

  Nope. No more artists.

  We got another late rush after that and for a while, I forgot about David Lisey who stayed rooted to his bar stool nursing the Jack and Cokes I poured for him. He watched me, and sometimes he watched the television, which was showing highlights of a Seahawks game. And even while he watched, I knew he wasn’t entirely in the bar, he was somewhere in his own head. Occasionally I saw him pull out his phone to send a text, and that’s when I watched him. One of the servers, a girl named Nya, stepped over to talk to him. They knew each other, not well, but there was familiarity. From the corner of my eye, I watched as her hand strayed to his arm, over and over. She was laughing in that whorish, flirty way girls do when they want to fuck you. The hostess came to get her. Her tables were looking for her. I made my way back over to check on David Lisey. Maybe I also wanted to know what Nya was saying.

  “My band’s playing at The Crocodile tomorrow, Yara. You should come.”

  “Is Nya going too?” The moment the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. Now he knew I’d been watching.

  David’s eyebrows crept together as he tilted his head to the side in mock exaggeration. “I didn’t take you for the jealous type, but I like it.”

  “Ha!” I said—then another—“Ha.” Then I took my tray of dirty dishes to the kitchen where I let my face burn red from embarrassment.

  “Hey Yara, wait up,” Nya called to me. She was waiting at the line for a cook to hand something over. A plate slid through the window and she turned and yelled, “Pick up.” I lingered in-between the doorway to the kitchen and the rest of the restaurant waiting to hear what she had to say.

  “That guy at the bar—David Lisey.”

  “Yeah?” I said too quickly.

  “Are you into him?”

  “No. Why?”

  She switched the tray of food from one shoulder to another. “Because I am,” she said, before walking away.

  Nice of her to check. When I got back to the bar, David was sitting backward on his stool watching a couple make out at a table near the window.

  “Creepy,” I said.

  “Shh,” he shushed me. “I’m writing a song.”

  I made him another drink and watched the back of his head. And then he suddenly turned around and said: “So what do you say? Will you come?”

  “I thought you were writing a song.”

  “You think you’re good at changing the subject, but you’re not,” he said. He took a sip of his drink. “You made this stronger.”

  “You think you’re good at pretending to be about me, but you’re about you,” I told him.

  He shrugged. “Aren’t we all?”

  “Maybe next time.”

  I busied myself covering the garnishes with Saran Wrap and setting them in the fridge. The bar had emptied out in the last hour, spitting the last of my customers into the freezing rain where they dashed off down the sidewalk. I had the urge to run with them, disappear into the mist. David was the last one left. I glanced at him as I counted down my drawer. He w
as less drunk than I expected him to be, smiling at me and tossing back the last of his drink, his eyes bright and alert under the bar lights. I tried to talk myself out of liking him. Maybe I was lonely. Am I lonely? I considered myself a loner, perfectly content to drift through life as an observer rather than a partaker. I had a friend here, just one. Her name was Ann and she lived in the apartment below mine.

  I wondered if he was going to make things awkward, hang around until we locked up, but he stood suddenly and slipped his arms through his jacket sleeves.

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll be on at ten o’clock. I’ll sing to you some more.”

  “How many girls have you said that to?” I called after him. But he was gone, and my manager was standing in the doorway looking at me funny.

  Relentless. There’s something about a relentless man. You couldn’t ignore them. If they asked long enough, eventually they wore you down. Women looked for that, persistent interest. An investor. We were, in ourselves, an entire universe. We felt too much, talked too much, wanted too much—the anti-simple.

  “You didn’t come to my show, Yara.” —David, at the bar again.

  I watched him as I poured a beer. He was disheveled today, his hard side-part not so hard, and he had dark half moons beneath his eyes. He came twice a week now, sometimes in the morning, sometimes late at night. Whatever time of day he came, his eyes never left me.

  “No,” I said, simply.

  “Why not?”

  I looked around the bar. Did I have time to answer that? I had four tables.

  “Why do you want me to come?” I asked. I watched him think about it for a minute as he rolled his glass between his palms.

  “So I can impress you.”

  “Why do you want to impress me?”

  A man at a table nearby was looking around, searching for his server. I pegged him for a ketchup guy. He wanted a side.

  “I’m obsessed with you. I’m fascinated by the fact that I’m obsessed with you. This has never happened to me before.”

  I smiled. I didn’t believe him, of course, but it was fun to hear.

  “Yara, can you explain this?” He sounded distressed.