GLORIA
Oh my. Teddy. After all this time. Will I still be angry with him when I see his face? That was my first thought after Mrs. Lee told me Teddy was coming back to Jack’s to perform for one night only. Not, how will Teddy feel returning, the eyes of everyone in the bar on him, everyone thinking – as I did – why did he do it? Even after three years, I still think that. Why? Why, Teddy? I thought you to be a different man than that.
Teddy and I had talked, here, at my little, well-lit table in the corner of Jack’s. He would finish his set of songs, old Country standards, gently, almost lovingly, place his Fender guitar on its stand, then make his way to the bar first for his beer, then over to me. We never talked about his music, except the one time I asked him about that song he wrote and recorded that got him on the local radio. It was called “Curiousity,” and all Teddy had to say about it was that it was his way of figuring out the world. He watched people, he’d said, and saw them in his own way. That conversation could have gone on all night, but that’s all Teddy wanted to say about it. He smiled at me, finished his beer, and went back on stage to play his songs.
Everyone knew Teddy was not one for smiling. Even when he tried telling that one joke of his about a man, a Fender, and a duck walking into a bar. I thought, like everyone else, he did not find the joke funny. But he kept trying to tell it, maybe to finally get it right, to see if there was actually any humour in it.
Teddy struck me as someone who wanted things done right. There was a meticulousness about him. He was careful how he walked, and talked, sipped his beer. Watching him tune his guitar was like watching someone perform a ceremonial rite in slow motion.
They say for him to do what he did to that man he’d had to have been very precise with his punches to inflict that amount of damage. When I heard that I thought: yes, that’s Teddy alright.
Teddy was the only one who ever asked me why I sit alone at my little table in the corner. The only one to talk to me, really, except Mrs. Lee asking if I want another rye and ginger, or someone asking me if I’m going to use that extra chair at my table. I never use that chair. I always sit alone.
I chose this table, oh, I don’t know how many years ago now. It was well lit under a single ceiling light. The light was soft because of the dust and cobwebs it had to go through. I used to read here, even brought a notebook to write down thoughts and observations. The obvious question would be: why would I want to read and write and nurse drinks in a noisy bar and not at home? Because I’m a dreamer.
When I was a young woman, I saw myself as a writer. That’s what I wanted to be, what I was chosen to be. I had my visions of Hemingway and Callaghan, the beat writers and poets, and put myself in these visions. I would lug paperbacks to bars: The Tin Drum, The Sot-Weed Factor, Sophie’s Choice. Not quick, easy reads; I purchased them at used bookstores and loved their aged aroma and the feel of them in my hands.
Unfortunately, I could not shake from my thoughts people had something to say about me reading and writing in a bar, being a poser. I stopped bringing my books and notepads with me. Now, I look around at people with their faces buried in their phones.
Teddy had told me his sister was killed by a truck driver texting while driving. The driver’s inattention caused a multi-vehicle crash on a 401 off ramp. His sister’s car, small and unprotected, took the brunt of the crash. The truck sent it into two others. Teddy talked about the accident like it was the saddest thing in the world, until he got angry.
I’d seen Teddy get emotional over a song he’d been singing, but this, this anger, was something else entirely. His big, sweaty hands stuck to my table. His red knuckles matched the red rimming his eyes. He had difficulty breathing. He couldn’t focus on any one thing.
“She didn’t deserve that.” Teddy’s voice deep and sad. He had meant his sister, Teresa, did not deserve to die because of the stupidity and carelessness of others.
It broke my heart to watch Teddy, oh, I don’t know exactly what he was doing, but it seemed like he was recreating his sister’s fatal accident in his mind. Or he was trying to make sense of the unfathomable. Or he was switching places with his sister, Teresa, and the man at my table was a ghost, and had been for two weeks, when the accident had occurred.
“The driver got a slap on the wrist,” Teddy said. “One dead, three in hospital, and all he got was a slap on the wrist. Tell me. How fair is that?”
Teddy looked at me then and truly expected an answer from me. I had none. Just empathy and the sly notion Teddy could perhaps write a song about this some day—channel his pain into his music.
Three days later Teddy beat that man to a pulp. No one knew for sure, but everyone here speculated the man Teddy beat near to death was the truck driver who caused the death of his sister. The man – whoever he was – spent some time in the hospital’s ICU and had to undergo nearly two years of physiotherapy. He may have needed facial reconstruction. All this I learned from the gossip going around in Jack’s. People embellished, made stuff up to fill in the holes. So, I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t.
PAM
After Teddy did what he did to land him in prison, people in here started talking. Word out was Teddy beat the truck driver who caused the accident that killed his sister. Someone had watched it happen and heard Teddy say things. Not that I’m condoning it, but I feel Teddy was in the right to do what he did.
He saved me one night, from being assaulted. A drunk stranger in my bar hit on me all night. Wanted to get me drunk. Total creep. I seen it before, but this guy was persistent, or stupid; it was like he looked right through me when I told him no a billion times. I started giving him pop instead of booze; still charged him for the booze because he was such a dickhead.
Long story short, he waited for me in the parking lot, made his move when I wasn’t looking. Hands and lips all over me. Teddy was there. Yanked the guy off me by his collar, thrashed him around like a dog with his toy. I had to tell Teddy to stop, even though I didn’t want him to. The guy left, staggering around like a broken robot.
That was the only time I saw Teddy get like that. I offered him a free beer back inside the bar as a way of thanks. Teddy said no. For some reason, I started talking to him about my dead husband, Derek. Teddy listened. Watched me put back shot after shot of tequila. Listened to my sad verbal diarrhea without a word. He knew I needed to talk about Derek.
No one in Jack’s knows that side of Teddy.
I can feel their vibes, hear it in their voices: people here have a bad opinion of Teddy. They fear the unknown, like what he’s capable of, what he might do. They’d say different. After a few drinks, their true selves come out.
ROGER
Gloria thinks she’s something special because she’s the only one Teddy talks to. I mean, he sits at her table and actually talks to her. He talks to us from the stage. Tries to tell that stupid joke.
Trouble with Gloria is she’s got this ego. Sits alone in the corner like she’s queen of us all. Looks around the room when she’s talking to Teddy to see if we’re watching. Saw her once reading a book like she’s a hippie smart-ass too good for us. But she’s here. In a bar. Drinking. We all are. We’re all the same.
Mrs. Lee told me to stay away from her. I says, why? She says ‘cuz of before. I says, what before? I didn’t talk to her before. I never talk to her. Yeah, you did, she says. And you pissed her off so leave her alone. I don’t remember doing that. Wonder what I said to piss her off. Prob’ly told her the truth. She’s no better than us.
I’ll bet Gloria’s one of those women who drove her husband away. Hard to live with, nagging. Fuck. Fuck! I want my baby back. My sweet, sweet Susie. I’ll change. Told her I’ll change. Give me another chance. Come back to me. Susie, Susie, Susie.
Mrs. Lee’s finally going to give me my whiskey. Makes me wait. Does it on purpose. We’re all the same and yet some like to mess with lives. Their problem is, they think they’re better so they do shit that makes them different. All in their heads.
The only one different is Teddy. He’s not like one of us, that’s for damn sure.
GLORIA
There he is! Oh my, Teddy! Look at you! Lost a hundred pounds, I’ll bet. Wonder if he’s found himself a girl. He has that same guitar with him. That old Fender.
He’s not looking at anyone. They’re looking enough for him. Staring. So am I.
I want to go to him. Hug him. Tell him I missed him. Teddy looks like a new man; different. Like someone who went into a dark place and came out the other side a different human being, an evolved one.
Teddy heads straight to the stage.
I know he’s aware of all the eyes on him. Roger, particularly, is throwing burning daggers. Roger has a beef with everything and everyone. No doubt he has a skewed opinion of Teddy. That perpetually soused brain of his swollen with explanations of Teddy’s actions: what he did and why he did it. He doesn’t know Teddy; the big man is nothing but an entertainment to him.
Roger thinks I was once a married woman. Drove my husband away by being a nag. Life is straightforward for a guy like Roger. You become an adult, get a job, get married – same sex, of course – live happily ever after. He should know different from all the terrible things he’s seen as a firefighter. Never saw that kind of man in him. He’s a broken man.
Aren’t we all broken in some way?
The single stage light with the yellow gel exaggerates the blue of Teddy’s eyes. He reaches up to angle it down toward his waist. He sees them. Everyone. In their seats, standing at the bar; waiting. He understands they want him to say something profound, friendly, provocative. He never was one for talking.
They need him. He can see it in their sad, eager faces. With just a few words, he can give them something they can call their own and later share it with anyone who will listen. It’s not much. And he will not give them much, although they all want to hear about his incarceration, all about the event that put him in prison.
Gloria is crying. Sad, lonely Gloria who, for years, used writing and reading as her connection to the real world. Teddy likes to think he showed her life is full of beginnings. Endings however small, are never what they seem.
Roger narrows his eyes over his glass of whiskey. Teddy always knew Roger as an angry man. Roger thinks the whole world has done him wrong. Roger is responsible for Roger. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Teddy is proof. Pay the price. Forgive yourself. Move on.
Pam pretends she’s Teddy’s friend, but keeps a distance, safe inside her world of work, home, work, home, the death of her husband, day after day. Teddy once told her she was the most centred person he knew. He knows now he was wrong.
People can change or stay the same, or both. Teddy is certain of one thing, and he knew this as he beat the truck driver responsible for his sister’s death: we all need each other.
He taps the microphone with an index finger.
“Hello everyone. My name is Teddy. So. A man, a fender and a duck walk into a bar.”
