Things are All Right.

I kept thinking about how nice it would be to have been wealthy in the 1960's. A film star or a singer, or some sort of royalty. I could lay on the deck of my yacht in the Mediterranean and the sun would graze over me and into me and the sky would be the bluest of all the blues and further than ever and all I would see. The sound of the water lapping up against the sides of the yacht and the birds in the distance and my friends on the yacht speaking quietly to each other and laughing and smiling and that moment in time in 1966, at the height of my freedom, would be the moment that could sustain me for the rest of my life, or lives if I believed that sort of thing. Before the war. Before the moon. Before Woodstock and AIDS and Reagan and three button suits and the internet. Only me and the sun and the water. And the Beach Boys on a small radio nearby.

The Beach Boys are on the jukebox behind me. Marie is cleaning glasses behind the bar and I'm staring into my Tiki Tango. It has a lot of rum in it and is a sunset of colors. It's fine. A little sweet for my tastes, but it is fine. It's raining pretty solid outside and even though it is the early afternoon it is dark. A man sits a few seats from me and keeps checking his phone. He's older. Maybe retired. I think about how I'll be older soon and possibly retired and how it isn't really far from now. The idea depresses me but I think that it isn't a great problem because I'll only regret wasting my life for a few decades and then I'll die and won't care. I try to be optimistic.

I throw back the Tiki Tango. It's more than a shot or even a double but I'm drinking for free and have nothing to do. I set the empty cup on the inside edge of the bar for Marie and go back to looking at the short story I was writing and hating. I knew there had to be a way to finish it. I just needed the right drink and the right song on the jukebox and it would come. Until then I figured I'd struggle and suffer and cross shit out and rewrite sentences I'd cross out and rewrite later. 

Another man came into the bar and sat down. He was also older. he seemed healthy for his age, but I thought that that was only if he was as old as I thought. If he was twenty or so he'd be in a terrible state. I thought that I was nearly thirty and wondered why I used twenty as an example of youth and felt a sting of sadness again and knew I was ridiculous. 

"Another?" Marie asked. She leaned over the bar at me and smiled. She wasn't making much money today but no one had been a prick to her and that was enough sometimes. 

"Maybe just a beer honey," I said. 

"You don't like them?"

"No, they're fine, they're good, but I just think maybe I shouldn't have so much rum this early."

"They're too sweet for you aren't they?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Maybe."

"Men drink sweet drinks too."

"No they don't."

"Okay," she said. "What kind of beer?"

"Longboard."

"Oh, men drink Hawaiian beers?"

"Beer from the land of volcanoes and fucking hurricanes and belly dancers? Don't give me your shit."

"Oh, I'll give you my shit," she said. "I'll give you my shit and you'll like it." She leaned over the bar and pursed her lips at me and I kissed her. She took my beer out of the cooler, popped the cap off and handed it to me. "There' you go you big tough man you."

"Thanks baby."

"What can I get you?" she asked the man who had sat down.

I went back to my story. I was having trouble with a sentence that said everything I wanted it to but didn't seem to reflect the tone or urgency I was looking for. I assumed I would eventually not give a shit but decided to give it a few more minutes before I moved on. I read and tapped my pen against the notebook and sipped my beer and stared at it.

The two older men had begun to speak to each other and one laughed at the other. I looked at them and they were smiling. I smiled at this tiny and priceless moment of life and the two men spoke a while longer as friends and Marie would serve me beers and kiss me sometimes and I was doing okay with my story. I would grow old and tired and die and never be wealthy on the Mediterranean, but this life right then wasn't a thing to forget. Things were all right.