Olive You

“I’ll have a dry Martini with two olives,” Greg said flatly, not looking up at the bartender.
The bartender quickly moved to start up the order, leaving a thin layer of his Eternity cologne hanging in the air. Greg sniffed. It was a Tuesday night and not many people canvassed the dive bar on the dark corner of 2nd and Charles. Greg always had taken amusement in the bar’s dopey, but fitting name, 2nd Dive. Tonight it seemed anything but amusing.
Greg had not been here in over 2 years. And he had not taken a drink in even longer. He was still wearing his suit from the funeral. The woman for whom he had given up drinking for, who had given him light in his dark life, the woman who he was going to marry, the woman who made him laugh until his face hurt was dead. Laura had died instantly as the plane hit the water. She was flying to Sacramento for good, deciding a week earlier to make the final move into Greg’s apartment.
The bartender slid the Martini in front of Greg. Greg didn’t look up when the bartender handed him a napkin. Greg noticed there was a tiny crack in the bottom of the Martini glass. It ran from the left side of the flat bottom to the middle of the neck. He wondered if it could break in his hand. He wondered what the shards of glass would feel like slicing through his skin. He remembered when Laura had cut her finger on a picture frame. She had told Greg to get her a band-aid as cool as ever. Greg remembered feeling panicked and was thinking of calling an ambulance. He had always been a dramatic person. She had told Greg, “it is only a nick on my finger, it won’t kill me.”
Greg took a sip of his drink, the alcohol taking a welcoming journey home down his throat. He shut his eyes as a warm sensation tickled at his forehead. He hadn’t felt that tickle in a long time now, and his body did not forget it. He took another drink, his eyes still closed. Greg could almost feel each molecule of alcohol travel into his skin, warming as it went. He started to hum to himself.
“You ok,” said the bartender quietly.
Greg snapped his eyes open and for the first time met the bartender’s eyes. “I’ll take another Martini, I’ll be sitting at that table. Greg motioned to a dingy table shrouded in dank light, furthest away from the bar. The bartender smiled and went to make Greg’s Martini.
Greg walked to the table, remembering everything good about alcohol and nothing bad. He sat with his back facing the bar. As he set his drink down the bartender sat the other one down before quickly walking away. Greg was grateful for the bartender’s unintrusiveness. He took the last sip of his first Martini and glanced at the second. He noted that this glass did not don the crack as the first one. His thoughts were back to Laura.
It would not kill her. She had always had these ways of making things seem so easy. To her, life was fun. Greg longed to feel the way about life as she did. He thought he did too as he got closer and closer to her in the past two years. Greg sucked the two olives off of the woody toothpick and chewed as if he was eating something much tougher. His teeth smashed together in between the bits of olive and minced pimento. Laura had told him that his teeth would fall out of his head if he didn’t stop chewing like that. Greg chewed even harder.
The only thing that Laura was not easygoing about was his drinking. They had met at a bar, had dates at bars, and one time even had sex in a bar. It wasn’t until Greg had spent the night at a hospital twice in one week for binge drinking that Laura decided to talk to Greg about it. After weeks of turmoil and shared screams, Laura finally had told Greg that she was going back to London where her parents were. When she had been getting the last of her stuff from Greg’s apartment, her plane leaving in just two hours, Greg had tried one last attempt to win her back. “Baby, its just alcohol, it won’t kill me. Stay please stay,” Greg had pleaded with her.
“That is just it Greg, it will,” she blandly said as she had headed out of Greg’s life.
Greg shut his eyes once again while he sipped. He breathed and at the same time wished that he didn’t have the privilege of doing so. Laura didn’t. His throat felt dry despite the liquid he was feeding it. He felt drunk now even though he had only had one and a half Martini’s. Greg took another sip welcoming haze that was unfolding in his brain. He wanted to forget Laura.
After quitting drinking, Laura and him had talked on the phone every day. She had visited and they had laughed. Greg couldn’t believe that he had stopped drinking and was just in awe of the loving stabilizing power Laura had over him. He had everything he needed. Laura had planned to move permanently to Sacramento into Greg’s apartment.
The funeral seemed years ago to Greg as he sipped the last bit of his drink. The crack in the first glass caught his eye once again. He stared at it as if it might offer something to say to him. He remembered Laura and her cut finger. Through the blanket of drunk Greg realized why he had quit drinking. Laura had taught him that it isn’t the cut fingers that kill a person, it’s the way you go about fixing the cut finger that can kill you.
Greg stood up and shook a little. He was attempting to shake the two Martini’s that he had just finished. He vowed right then that he would never touch a drink again. Life isn’t worth dying over he thought to himself as he lifted the two olives clinging to the toothpick to his mouth. He sucked the first one off and chewed as he walked to the bar to pay his tab.
He mouthed the last Martini-doused olive and gave it a suck. Instead of sliding off the toothpick, the olive stayed put, allowing the red pimento to lunge into Greg’s throat and down his windpipe, blocking the precious air that Greg just minutes ago bitterly breathed. Greg stood there not breathing, the bartender with his back to him did not notice. Greg’s mind raced as oxygen retreated. He thought about alcohol and picture frames. He thought of cracked Martini glasses and amusing bar names. He mostly thought of Laura’s finger. He fell with a thud, his toothpick tink-tinking as his head met with the floor. Greg’s last thought was, “it won’t kill you.” The bartender turned away from his cash register and saw his only customer huddled on the floor, a pool of dark liquid slowly inching away from his head. Years later 2nd Dive would finally paint over the blood stained cement floor.