Page 3 of Glad You're Here

The bouncer looked bored as he held out his hand for my ID. I didn’t know bars checked your ID before you even went in. I fumbled with my wallet and handed the guy my driver’s license with slightly trembling hands. He scanned it while I waited for lightning to strike the bar.

I was an idiot. I knew full well that Mormon God didn’t watch me with a fist full of wrath. Lately, however, I lacked the energy required to undo a lifetime of conditioning and fear.

I made my way to the crowded bar, my heart pounding in my throat. I’d spent considerable time researching how to order a drink at a bar without looking like an amateur. A thirty-three-year-old guy should know how to order a drink, damn it.

The bartender, a beautiful young woman with bright red hair, gave me a tired smile. “What can I get for ya?”

I blinked. She waited.

I cleared my throat. She raised a single eyebrow.

Finally, I blurted out, “Whiskey.” I didn’t mean to order that, but every drink name I’d researched momentarily slipped my mind.

“House okay?”

What did that mean? “Yep.”

The bartender nodded and poured me a glass of beautiful golden liquid, sliding it across the bar to me. “You opening a tab?” She leaned her elbows on the bar and looked at me expectantly.

I blinked again. “Uh, yep.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Mkay, I’ll need your credit card to get that started…”

“Right!” Wow, I felt stupid. I pulled my wallet from my back pocket and fumbled until I located my credit card. Ugh. I’d leave a good tip for being an idiot and taking up so much of her time.

The bartender quickly abandoned me, and I settled onto an empty stool. I stared at my glass of whiskey like it might sprout teeth and possibly murder me. I learned as a kid that this stuff would send me careening down a path of misery and sin. One sip, and I’d get drunk. Two sips, and I’d become an alcoholic. Three sips, and my life would be destroyed.

No. The life-destruction thing had happened all on its own without alcohol’s help. Three years ago, I made the unforgivable mistake of doubting my religious beliefs. That doesn’t fly with devout Mormons born and raised in Cedar City, Utah.

I gripped my glass of whiskey, determined to throw the whole thing back, refusing to think about all the people I’d be disappointing. But then Gina’s sobbing form invaded my head.

My ex-wife. I sighed and released the glass. Gina didn’t deserve what I threw at her one Sunday after church. She’d married the clean-cut, returned missionary who could marry her in the temple and create a picture-perfect eternal family. She never signed up for my crisis of faith. She didn’t sign up to be the single woman sitting in church while her apostate husband did God knows what.

Gina tried to be understanding of my disbelief and disgust with the LDS church at first, but in the end, she couldn’t wrap herself around it. How could someone have the fullness of the gospel and not want it? No matter how I tried to explain it, she’d refused to see the church through my lens as the abusive cult it was.

It was almost a relief when she finally threw out the D word. We finalized our divorce six weeks ago, and it took me that long to book a trip to Durango, CO. I’d never wanted to visit. I picked a random city on the map, knowing I needed to get the hell out of Utah for a while.

I first thought of Las Vegas. I was born and raised two hours from the city but had never visited. I almost reserved a hotel room at The Aria but changed my mind. All I could think about were the times my parents would sing hymns at the top of their lungs when we drove past Vegas on the freeway. “Look down, boys! Don’t look at the city! Remember Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt!”

They didn’t want me or my brothers to accidentally see some boobs and turn into salt. It was normal, loving parent stuff. Understandable.

I rolled my eyes and picked up my glass of whiskey. I’d never actually seen a good pair of breasts. Gina was as flat-chested as me and usually kept her bra on during our awkward, stilted sexual encounters anyway.

I mentally raised my glass to all the boobs I’d never seen and took my first sip of alcohol.

three

Thea

Whenever Jo wanted to drink, she called me and pretended we were best friends. In reality, she wanted to use me as a free drinking ticket at my aunt’s swanky bar. The Station was a big deal around Durango. It came up first in internet searches, so if that doesn’t speak to what a big deal it is, I don’t know what would.

I usually told Jo to fuck off when she called, but I wasn’t writhing in pain, and I felt strangely magnanimous tonight, so I said, “What the hell, kid. Let’s go drinking.” It might be my last time, after all. I hadn’t fully decided yet.

Jo and I were actual friends when we were kids. Then, the typical teenage tragedy unfolded wherein she turned hot, and I became the weird goth kid. It’s cliché enough to make me want to throw up in my mouth. Jo rose the ranks at our high school while I got high in other ways. Our sweet little childhood friendship died. She humiliated me and teased me. I made a voodoo doll that looked like her. You know, regular teenage girl shit.

Now we were both pushing thirty, and Jo’s charmed life had turned as pathetic as mine. She had three kids with two different guys — neither bothered sticking around— a soul-sucking call center job, a shitty apartment, and only me for a friend.

I kept telling myself it wasn’t the voodoo doll that screwed up her life. I didn’t believe in voodoo magic, and I’d only ever stuck a single pin in the doll’s back. I found it poetic at the time.

---