Motive ; One Last Day ; Going Viral

by Dustin Stevens

  Playing the part of cameraman and self-appointed director, Quasi is festooned in an old fishing vest he found on a clearance rack. Of everything we purchased, it was the single thing I protested the most, though he was adamant about it. Kept saying that vests were what all the Hollywood guys wore when shooting, as if he has the slightest idea.

  “We ready?” he asks, his phone already out and in hand.

  I am not, but I don’t say as much as I begin walking for the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Last night, I had the same dream three different times.

  It played out like a scene from a bad movie, the two of us walking through the front door of The Deuce together. The moment our feet touch the wooden floor, the jukebox cuts out, every regular in the place turning to stare at us.

  The thought keeps coming to mind as we ascend the trio of stairs out front and walk inside.

  The first thing to greet us is the smell, a mix of fried food and beer. Traces of smoke are still present as an undertone, though apparently they are begrudgingly abiding by the new law to not allow smoking in a public place. The odor is so strong that it brings a sheen of tears to my eyes as we step inside, the place only a shade or two lighter than the parking lot outside.

  Measuring maybe a hundred feet in length and thirty in width, the door is located in the exact center of the room.

  To the left is a bar extended along the entire back wall. A bartender with a grizzled grey beard and a blue flannel shirt looks us over once as he moves about, a mirrored wall with every type of alcohol imaginable behind him. In front of the bar are a handful of tables, a few stray people cast between them.

  On the opposite end of the room is a pair of pool tables, most of the patrons in the place grouped up around them. Dressed in jeans and camo, a few of them glance our way as we enter, dismissing us just as fast.

  What little space separates the two ends is filled by a battered parquet dance floor, a solitary woman on it holding a tray of beer bottles.

  “Find a seat anywhere you’d like,” she shouts as she walks by, her words swallowed up by the music blaring from the corner.

  The back of Quasi’s hand slaps against my jacket as he turns and smiles, bobbing his head up and down. Just the sight of him brings a bit of hostility up within me, watching him looking like a kid on Christmas morning. It is already clear we don’t belong here, his antics only exacerbating the problem.

  The rate he’s going, we’ll be lucky to avoid a beating before the night is over.

  “Come on,” I say, walking past him and heading for the table furthest from the bar.

  I am keenly aware of the barkeep watching me the entire time, though I make it a point to avoid eye contact as I pull out a chair and slide down into it.

  A moment later, Quasi appears beside me, walking backwards with his camera extended out in front of him. He moves until he bumps into the table before reaching out and sliding the closest chair under himself.

  “This is great, just great,” he whispers, a jack-o-lantern sized grin on his face.

  “Will you put that damn thing down?” I hiss, leaning forward across the table and slapping his forearm.

  The movement works enough to get him to lower the camera, though it does nothing to dampen his spirits.

  “What?” he says, looking over at me like I too should be bouncing off the walls. “Just getting a few establishing shots.”

  “Establishing shots?” I ask, my face contorted. “Who are you?”

  “I’m your media consultant,” he fires back without missing a beat.

  The proclamation is certainly news to me, my eyebrows rising in surprise.

  “Media consultant? When did that happen?”

  The surprise is his this time.

  “You know of another former A/V Club President to help out with this project?”

  I know he meant the retort to be a scathing indictment of how much I need him on this, though it somehow doesn’t have quite the bite he was hoping for. I wait a moment for him to realize what he just said and how ridiculous it sounds, though that moment never comes.

  “That’s what I thought,” he says, holding the camera back up and using it to track the waitress as she returns across the dance floor, empty tray under her arm. Halfway across, she notices the camera, a frown creasing either side of her mouth.

  “Hey, I don’t know what you two are up to with this,” she says, wagging a finger at Quasi and his phone, “but this isn’t that kind of place. People come here because they want to be left alone.”

  Neither one of us says anything, both staring at her in a rapt trance that is equal parts awe and horror.

  “We work here because we want to be left alone, too,” she adds, an obvious warning to us both.

  When we first walked in the door, the fleeting glance I had was of a woman in her late twenties hustling drinks. Up close, she is actually a woman in her mid-forties, the harsh realities of her visage hidden by a mop of brown curls and thin overhead lighting.

  “We’re not here to bother anybody,” Quasi says, lowering the camera so that it rests atop his thigh. “This is just a big day for my friend here, and we’re out to celebrate.”

  The explanation seems to placate her a bit, her demeanor softening.

  The explanation came out so easy, with such candor, that I too was put at ease for just a moment. Not until I realized what he had said did things really sink in, sweat erupting from my armpits as I stare at them both.

  “Celebrating, huh?” she asks, jerking her chin up just a bit. “What’s the occasion?”

  My heart races as I try to concoct something on the spot. In a few minutes, I will undoubtedly be furious at my friend, but right now I am too focused on coming up with something believable. There is no way I can pull off that I am getting married or joining the Army. I’m clearly too old to be turning twenty-one.

  “He has never tried alcohol before,” Quasi says, thrusting the information out at her.

  Both she and I respond in the same way, our jaws dropping open.

  “That’s what this is all about,” he says, waving the camera at her. “We’re working on a project so I’m here to get down his reactions to various things the first time he tries them.”

  My body temperature rises at least ten degrees as I sit and squirm, the leather jacket I am wearing becoming hotter and heavier by the second. I can feel the t-shirt sticking to my back as she turns and looks at me, raising her eyebrows expectantly.

  “It’s true,” I finally manage, “I had a beer once, but no hard alcohol.”

  The look of disbelief remains on her face a moment before a half smile becomes visible.

  “Hold that thought,” she says, disappearing through the tables without another word.

  I watch her go for a moment before leaning forward, my gaze aimed at Quasi.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “The truth,” he replies, shrugging with one shoulder.

  “Yeah,” I stammer, “but-“

  Before I have a chance to finish, she is back, a single shot on her tray. She walks over and slams it down in front of me, a few drops of the dark red liquid inside sloshing onto the table around it.

  “You serious about all this?” she asks. “Or are you two just some kind of perverts here, videoing people out for a good time?”

  I can feel my eyes get bigger as I look at the drink and back up at her. Why she think perverts would be videoing people at this random bar I have no idea, but right now I don’t have the clarity of mind to actually form the question.

  “Very serious.”

  “Then prove it,” she says, nodding at the glass.

  I glance from her to it, the alcohol looking like molten lava in a glass.

  “What is it?”

  “Fireball whiskey,” she says, a hint of self-satisfaction in her tone. “You finish that, I’ve got a few more for you to try.”

  On the opposite side of the table, Quasi lifts the phone, aim
ing it right at me. He is so happy that I suspect he may begin cackling with glee as I take up the glass.

  It feels warm between my fingers as I lift it and give one small sniff, the scent setting my skin to crawling.

  “Cheers,” I whisper, tilting it back and letting half of it slide down the back of my throat.

  It burns like hell every inch of the way to my stomach.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Sunday, March 4th, 2012

  5:14 am

  The concrete floor in the basement of Quasi’s house serves as a glorious, merciful ice pack against my skin. Lying face down in only my boxer shorts and the same black t-shirt, the cool relief passes through my clothes and into my body.

  My skin drinks in the sensation, sweat dripping off me in the half-light of the room.

  “How you feeling?” a voice asks, my cheek peeling itself away from the floor to rotate and face the other direction.

  There, perched on the edge of the couch, is Quasi.

  He is wearing the same clothes he was a few hours ago, the same goofy grin in place. Clutched in his hands is the white iPhone he has been carrying all evening, an object I am fast coming to loathe.

  “I hate you,” I whisper.

  Even in my own ears, the words sound jumbled. My tongue feels like an oversized piece of sandpaper, scraping against the roof of my mouth. My throat is raw and raspy.

  “That’s not what you said a few hours ago,” Quasi says, trying to hide a thin chuckle as he speaks. “You were professing love for me, Kathleen, and everybody else within shouting distance.”

  To my knowledge, my parents are the only people I have ever told I love.

  “Who the hell is Kathleen?”

  My eyes close to just slits as I lay my head back on the floor. I can feel beads of sweat running down my face and splashing against the concrete, though I have neither the desire nor the ability to do anything about it.

  “You know, Kathleen,” Quasi says. “The waitress. The one you were practically hanging on most of the night.”

  “Oh, shit,” I whisper, my eyes folding all the way shut. “Tell me I didn’t...”

  “Ha!” Quasi barks, sending a sharp stabbing pain through my head. “Not even. As close as you got was her helping me dump you in the backseat of my car after closing time.”

  A small groan escapes my lips, the most eloquent thing I can think to say in response.

  “Had a hell of a time getting you in here by myself once we got back,” Quasi adds. “Could have used her help. Thought for sure you were going to wake my parents.”

  My head spins as I lay on the floor, the entire house feeling like it is rotating on a turntable. I press my hands down hard in an attempt to gain some bearing, though the exertion only seems to add to the pinpricks dotting my body.

  “How long have we been here?”

  “Couple hours,” Quasi replies. “Every twenty minutes or so, you get up, puke, then come back to the concrete. You actually should be due here again soon.”

  I try to fold my features into a scowl, but the pose hurts too much to hold for more than a millisecond.

  “Kathleen called it the rule of three,” Quasi continues, his voice echoing like it was shot from a bullhorn through my head. “Said to let you expel everything three times, then give you some aspirin and start pushing liquids. Anything before that and it’s going to come back up anyway.”

  A smart remark about the experience Kathleen must have had with this sort of thing flits by my consciousness, dissipating just as fast. Trying to hold the thought hurts too much to even bother with.

  “What the hell did I drink?” I ask, shifting my head a few inches in search of a new cool spot.

  “Everything,” Quasi replies.

  Though my eyes are closed, I can still hear the smile in his voice, feel the obvious pleasure he is taking in all this.

  “Don’t you worry though, it’s all on film. You’ll be able to see yourself in action soon enough.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Friday, January 21st, 2015

  2:53 pm

  Three years removed, I can still recall the taste in my mouth that morning. I can feel it wedged beneath my tongue, filling the cracks between my teeth. A sour expression crosses my face as I try to muster some saliva, working the film away.

  “What was the final tally on the night?” Pearson asks.

  After nearly five hours with me, I can only speculate as to what she must be thinking. Upon first getting the call, she probably thought she would pop out for an hour or two, listen to a ranting lunatic just days away from having his life ended. I would no doubt complain deeply about every transgression done to me, appeal for a post-mortem that smoothed away every blemish I amassed in my time on earth.

  Never must she have envisioned sitting through stories of all-night drinking binges in bars not even worth mentioning.

  As a plus to either her professionalism or my own ability to weave a tale, she has stayed right along with me the entire way.

  “Pure numbers?” I ask. “No way of knowing. The only record that exists is the same video we’ve both now seen.”

  There is no need to pretend she hasn’t watched it in its entirety many times over. The online catalog was most likely the first and last thing she checked before coming here.

  “I just thought maybe...” she says, her voice tailing away.

  There are a couple of ways for the question to be completed, though her choice of letting it drift off tells me which one she was headed towards.

  “No,” I complete for her, “Quasi never mentioned a final total.”

  She glances up quickly over the edge of the screen, shame coloring her cheeks.

  “And I don’t remember anything past the second shot that was handed to me at the bar,” I say, “which was a blessing really. After the Fireball, she brought out a serving of the cheapest tequila in Tennessee.”

  I pause for a moment, my entire body shuddering at the remembered taste of it.

  “I’m pretty sure the first shot stripped away the outer layer of flesh in my mouth and esophagus. After that, the tequila came through and...”

  “Burned everything bare?” Pearson asks, a bit of a smirk audible in her voice.

  “Like Sherman marching to Atlanta,” I reply, nodding.

  Silence falls for a moment, Pearson recording what I’m saying, my own thoughts arranging themselves into a usable format.

  “If the video is to be believed,” I say, “after the tequila came Jaeger, Goldschlager, vodka. That’s when things got really interesting.”

  Despite having seen the footage, there is still surprise in her voice as she asks, “That’s when things got interesting?”

  I nod, though remain silent a moment.

  “That’s when they bypassed the straight stuff and started mixing shots for me. A Kamikaze, Three Wise Men, even something called a Tomahawk. I guess once they’d gotten five or six in me, they felt the need to go for an even ten.”

  Several gasps sound out from the opposite side of the plastic barrier, though I can’t see the look on Pearson’s face as she does so. Either way, it isn’t difficult to imagine.

  “Ten? As in 1-0?” she asks. “There were only four in the video.”

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding as I recall the heated debates Quasi and I had for three days thereafter about it. “And again, those were just the ones on film. True total is anybody’s guess. During the editing process, we decided to limit it to four though. We figured any more than that and people might get the wrong idea about me.”

  I realize now how absurd that notion is, especially given some of the things that came later, but at the time it fit.

  “How so?” Pearson asks, prodding me forward.

  “Well, the point wasn’t to show a guy getting stupid, sloppy drunk. It was to show someone going through some of life’s rites of passage. Four got the point across without celebrating alcoholism.”

  “Which would have been bad for the
image?” she asks.

  “Which would have limited fans,” I say. “Remember, that was the point. As Quasi loved to say, we were building a platform.”

  “Ah, yes,” Pearson acknowledges, her copper-colored crown rising in a nod of understanding.

  She sits in silence a moment before saying, “You’re lucky you didn’t end up in the hospital. Ten is a lot for anybody, but a complete neophyte like you...”

  This too is something Quasi and I discussed at length, to the point of all-out shouting matches. While I appreciated that he was trying to help, his role was as much to keep me from doing anything terribly foolish as it was to supervise capturing it all on tape.

  Another incident of my life and well-being coming under any real danger and I was quitting, end of story.

  “That’s true,” I concede, “and believe me, for most of the next day, I wished I had just gone to the hospital and gotten it all pumped out.”

  “But you didn’t,” she says.

  My gaze shifts from her computer to the mirror behind her, just the slightest sliver of my reflection visible over her shoulder.

  “That would have been cheating. I needed to go through the entire process. I couldn’t very well write about enduring a terrible hangover if I skipped the whole ordeal.”

  “Ah,” she concedes, continuing to transcribe, “so you suffered through...”

  “And Quasi took some video every step of the way,” I say. “At the time it infuriated me to no end. I felt like he was just using it as an excuse to get some dirt on me. After the fact though, I saw that he was right. It did make for better video.

  “For whatever reason, people were just eating it up.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Friday, March 9th, 2012

  11:10 am

  “Ten minutes,” I say, my bottom balanced on the edge of the bed as I bend over to tie my shoes, “and then we have to go. I told Marcus I’d be in at eleven thirty today.”