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ERROL

“ W hatcha doing?” When I come downstairs on my way to work, I find Ran in the living room. He’s frowning at his laptop, a mug on the coffee table in front of him.

“Nothing.”

I take in his expression. “What’s the matter?”

He looks up from the screen with a sigh.

“ That is. I’m bored. Bored! I’m a grown-ass, twenty-nine-year-old man —I shouldn’t be bored.

I should be busy, I should be hustling —I should be working .

Or doing something at least. But I don’t know what.

I just don’t know…” He trails off and shakes his head.

“It’s like I said that first day when I ran into you, when I first came back a couple weeks ago.

I feel like I’m having a midlife crisis.

But I’m too young for that. And at the same time, I feel like a kid trying to figure out what I’m going to be when I grow up. ”

“That kind of makes sense.”

The rawness of his laugh catches me by surprise a little. “How do you figure? What about any of me sitting here just spinning my fucking wheels makes sense?”

I shrug. “You’ve done more professionally than a lot of people do in their entire careers.

You did it all on fast-forward and now you’re so far ahead of the game that you can’t really tell where you are.

Maybe part of the reason you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing is because there isn’t really a roadmap for where you’re at.

Have you thought about maybe just taking some time to figure out what you want to do next? ”

He sighs and rakes a hand through his hair. “That’s what I am doing. And badly, at that.”

“No, I mean deliberately. Not just feeling bad and unproductive because you think you should be doing something more or different. I mean tell yourself that you’re going to take some period of time just to think about what you want to do next.

You’re not slacking off because taking the month or two months or whatever to figure out what you want to do is the assignment. ”

“Huh.” His face takes on a contemplative squint as he looks at me. “How do you know all this stuff? When did you get your psychiatry degree?”

I grin. “For a lot of my regulars, Finn’s is their therapist’s office. Lot of times, it’s guys who probably spent their lives hearing and internalizing the message that they weren’t supposed to have feelings, or were supposed to keep them bottled up if they did.”

I can’t read Ran’s expression anymore as he looks at me. “You’re the most empathetic person I know,” he blurts out.

Nobody’s ever said that to me before. I just blink at him until my view of him blurs because I’m blinking through tears. For some reason, that just hit .

“Thanks,” I say, sniffling and wiping at my eyes with the back of my hand. “That —that’s really nice. I appreciate it. Oh, shit,” I say when I notice the time. “I’m sorry, I have to head out. I don’t want to be late.”

Ran stands up and stretches. “I can drive you.”

“It’s OK.” I wave him off. “I kind of look forward to the walk.”

Ran pouts. I hate admitting to myself how cute it looks. “Let me make myself useful for a change.”

God, he does need a hobby. But I don’t want him to think I’m ungrateful for his offer. “Actually, what do you have going on today?” I ask.

He sort of groans and swings his arm around the room. “You’re looking at it. Have to do a bunch of shit for the business transfer but that’s it.”

The idea hits me so suddenly that I run with it before I can talk myself out of it. “Come to work with me.”

“What?”

“Maybe you just need to get out of the house. A change of scenery might do you good,” I say.

“Bring your laptop. I’ll give you the wifi password when we get there and you can just hang out and get some work done.

Maybe meet some of the regulars.” The thought brings a smile to my face.

The regulars at Finn’s are as close to a family as I have.

He looks at me sort of quizzically, then glances down at himself. “Should I change? What should I wear?” The idea that he wants to look good when he meets what passes for my people makes me grin.

“Whatever you want. I’ll be proud to introduce you to them no matter what.”

He flushes pink in a way that makes my stomach flutter and mutters something about not knowing what he has clean before hurrying up the stairs.

I t is nice getting a ride. My usual twenty-minute walk takes all of two minutes. I direct Ran to park behind the building so I can let us in through the back door.

Ran grabs his laptop bag out of the backseat and locks the car. “You sure I look OK?” he says.

He’s in a trendy jacket with one of those tight, soft T-shirts he likes underneath. “Yep, you look sharp,” I tell him, and his cheeks go pink again. Wish I knew what was going through his head. I walk ahead of him to open up, glad he can’t see the stupid grin on my face.

I might have initially stumbled into this job, but it turned out to give me a place and a sense of purpose I hadn’t had before. Just out of high school, I didn’t have a car or marketable skills, but Gran made it clear that I had to start paying bills if I expected to stay under her roof.

So I set off on foot towards town. Finnegan’s Wake was the first place I came to that had a Help Wanted sign in the window.

Behind the bar, Guy Finnegan turned when I walked in.

He gave the white streak in my hair and my faded black sweatshirt a blatant once-over as I approached.

I half-expected him to throw me out rather than ask, “Can I help you, son?” in a two-pack-a-day rasp.

When I told him I needed a job, one corner of his mouth ticked up. “Ever been a bartender?” I shook my head. “Y’ever pour a drink before? Draft beer? Shot? Ever make a mixed drink? Know how to work a soda gun?”

He fired questions at me and I kept shaking my head, until he leaned his elbows against the dark wood and gave me a sharper stare. “Son, why do you want this job?”

My only hope was honesty. “I need the money and I can walk here.”

Guy’s eyebrows went up as he made a noise in his throat.

Maybe I jogged a memory of a time in his younger years when he had no choice but to sink or swim, because he threw me a lifeline.

“Come back at noon on Friday. I don’t really need a barback, but you can work as one over the weekend and shadow the bartenders. I’m sure you can pick it up.”

At first, Finn’s was a crucible: I was terrified of talking to people, and I didn’t understand why people asked me questions and acted like they gave a damn what I thought. What I thought had never mattered before.

So it was a shock to realize after a few months that I was good at being sociable.

I was even more shocked when I realized I enjoyed it.

The thing about dive bars is that the people who warm those stools on a regular basis see themselves as part of a family.

Finding community among retired linemen and old bikers might not be perfect, but what family is?

Finn’s regulars are a colorful bunch —sometimes sentimental, sometimes frustrating and always opinionated.

At first I was intimidated, then puzzled by how readily they welcomed me into the fold.

Eventually, I figured it out: These old guys all have stories for days.

Some are long-winded, most are exaggerated for comedic or heroic effect, some are petty or funny or boastful — the best ones are all three.

And every single one of Finn’s regulars, to a person, had heard them all often enough to know every detail.

I was a brand-new audience.

R an looks around in curiosity as I lead him through the storage area, past the walk-in and through the kitchen.

I flip the master switch to throw the fryers on.

Somebody will want fries the minute they walk in — probably Mikey.

I’ll call it “breakfast of champions” and tease him about it, and he’ll tell me I’m a punk kid who could learn a thing or two from an old guy like him.

It’s a whole routine.

I realize there’s a nervous fluttering in my belly. I really, really want Ran and the regulars to get along. I get him settled at one end of the bar, after steering him away from a stool in front of the taps that Bruce thinks belongs to him.

I’ve got some stuff to do in the kitchen.

By the time I come back, a few of them are in their usual seats.

I can tell they’re showing off for Ran, trash-talking louder than usual.

“Bullshit! Last time you told that story, you said it happened on a fishing boat, not a yacht,” Bruce is heckling Mikey when I come in.

Frankie’s just settling into his regular barstool. “Was a fishin’ boat,” he concurs in a mumble. He’s the oldest of the bunch, I think. The hair he’s got left on his head is nearly all white, as is his grizzled beard.

Mikey stops waving his hands around long enough to push his wire-rimmed glasses back up his nose. His gray hair looks like he’s already been running his fingers through it. His hair is his pride and joy — seeing as how he’s the only one of the regulars to still have a full head of it.

“Errol, would you tell this old codger he’s going senile?

” Bruce jabs a thumb in Mikey’s direction.

Bruce might not always be the guy who starts a debate, but he’ll be damn sure to get the last word in.

His flannel shirt looks looser than usual on his skinny frame.

I make a mental note to duck into the kitchen a little later and ask AJ, who’s cooking today, to pretend to screw up an order of wings so I can ask Bruce if he wants them.

Everybody knows it’s a charade, and everybody always plays along.

This crew might be crotchety and cantankerous, but we all look out for each other here.