Thirty Hours

Hour Four

"Can I ask you something?" I asked because I had to ask.

The time on my phone read 11:45 PM and I sat across from you at a high-top table in the bar. Between us sat my empty plate and two empty beer glasses, and your four empty beer glasses, four empty shot glasses, and plate, upon which a cheeseburger and pile of fries still sat. You had taken two bites of the burger and eaten five fries, mostly using them as a spoon to eat the side of mustard.

You slowly glanced up at me with a pair of hooded eyes and a half-smile. "Ye-eess..."

"Why do you drink so much?"

You snorted. "If your life was like mine, you'd drink a bunch too."

"What is your life like?"

You picked up a beer glass and tilted your head backward, intending to drain it into your throat, only to take on a look of mild disappointment when you found it was already gone. "My life is nothing. Kind of like this beer."

"You mean empty?"

You set the glass down with a harsh clack and pointed sloppily at me. "Yes. Empty. Exactly like that."

"What makes it empty?"

"You don't wanna know."

"Yes, I do. That's why I'm asking."

You squinted at me. "So is this an interview after all?"

"What else would it be?"

"I thought maybe you just wanted to get to know me better so we could, you know," you said, wiggling your eyebrows up and down.

"No. That's definitely not what I'm doing. I'm going to write about you. If that's okay with you."

"S'fine. Just make it mmmemorable."

"I'll do my best, but that depends on you. You have to tell me more about yourself. Tell me why your life is empty. Tell me why you do all the weird stuff you do. Tell me what else you've been arrested for. Tell me why you won't tell anyone your name. Maybe tell me your name. That sort of thing."

"Jeez, Seth McCollum," you wheezed. "Getting a little personal. At least buy me dinner first."

I raised my eyebrows. "I did. You didn't eat it."

"Ugh." You dropped your cheek into your palm and gave me a glassy-eyed gaze. "You are so cute. And really preppy. Did you go to college and everything? You look like you made perfect grades and have never made a bad choice in your life."

"I never needed to make a bad choice. My parents made plenty of bad choices and I learned from their mistakes. And, yes, I went to college. I graduated Magna Cum Laude from SMU with a BA in Journalism."

"I knew it. You're probably type A and all of that too. Your car looks like you just picked it up from the dealership and even your clothes seem impervious to wrinkling. Your hands are so clean right now it's like you ate your burger with a fork and knife." You lifted your own hands and stared at them before wiping them on your shorts. "How do you do that?"

"I'm just careful, I guess."

"What did your parents do that was so bad?"

I groaned and waved at the cocktail waitress for another beer. "They were irresponsible and it caused me a lot of problems."

"Such as?"

"They got married right after high school. Never went to college." The waitress set down the beer and I took a gulp. "Oh no wait. My dad spent a single year at UNT studying screenwriting before he dropped out. Then they saved up a bunch of money so he could spend a month in LA at a screenwriting seminar. They were planning to move out there permanently because he was going to write for TV and my mom was going to pursue a career in fashion design."

"What's wrong with that?"

I looked at you with a face that felt deadpan and you smirked. "She worked at a department store and that made her think she had the stuff to be a fashion designer. They spent the last of their money putting a non-refundable down payment on tuition for her at an overpriced, non-accredited fashion design college. They couldn't find work and came back as soon as his seminar ended. Then he worked for an electronics store and she got a job at a bank. They both still work in the same places, but now they're also a two-person band and spend all their free time playing gigs at local coffee shops."

"So? At least they're still around." You snagged my beer and took a large gulp. "I don't see what's so bad about that, Seth McCollum."

"It's bad because they barely make ends meet. They're in horrible debt. They live in an apartment and they're in their fifties. No retirement plan or anything. I'm going to have to take care of them in the not so distant future." I grabbed the beer back from you and swallowed some. "And not to mention, because they didn't plan for the future, I had to work while I was going to college and have a bunch of debt from student loans."

"Well," you said, sliding the beer back toward you and draining it, "nobody forced you to go to an expensive private university. You could've gone to community college or something."

"Yeah, well I wasn't going to get a second rate education just because they couldn't properly provide for me."

You glowered and shoved the empty glass back toward me. "You are not entitled to your parents providing you with an education. At least you have parents."

"Do you not have parents anymore?" I demanded, perching forward in my chair and completely forgetting about my admittedly trifling problems. "What happened to them?"

"I have to pee," you announced, nose turned up, as you slid off the chair.

I slumped backward and waved for the check, watching you grasp the wall like a rock climber and stagger down a long hallway. After paying, I waited by the restroom door and you reemerged several minutes later with a red face and teary eyes. You immediately threw your arms around my neck and dangled from me, trying to catch my lips with yours and surprisingly smelling more like lavender than alcohol.

"All right," I said, steadying you and pulling you to stand as upright as possible. "Time to sleep."

You managed to stay upright until we burst through the motel room door, whereyou immediately flopped on one of the beds and passed out. I stepped out of myshoes and threw back the blankets on the other bed, fully expecting to see anintrusion of cockroaches scuttle to the four corners of the room. The bedappeared clean, but I didn't have a black light and couldn't be sure I wasn'tabout to lie down on the crusty aftermath some previous guest's activities.I also had no change of clothes, toothbrush, or razor—honestly, the fact I'dput myself in this situation at all should have tipped me off right then—but Icollapsed on the other bed and fell asleep.