***

The bar in Charlottesville was pirate themed and served college kids, bachelorette parties, and old men regulars. For three-to-five days I was a high school dropout, just out of rehab, working on my GED while debating whether to go to community college or try my luck out in Hollywood. By the way, would any of you have any meth?

“PBR,” an old man regular said, slapping a few coins on the bar. “However many this gets me.”

In two days I had already discovered that Kimberly, her wench name Beatrice, was selling pills on shift, and Bart the Bar-back, his real name Justin, was popping said pills. The bouncer, Benito de Barbossa, aka Greg, thought he might be a homo. I figured if I could just get enough dirt on Eleanor the dishwasher then I could submit my report and drop my scalawag name, Horatio the Horrible, and head home a day early.

Eleanor’s real name is Eleanor by the way. She’s sixty-five years old, a widow, and lives with her daughter. She takes sewing classes on the weekends. One slip and that bitch was going down, I told myself.

“It’ll get you two,” I told the old man, thumbing through his change. “Not including tip.”

“Fuck your tip,” the old man said. He ran his fingers over the corners of his mouth, smudging the white gunk through his beard.

“So just one then?” I said. The old man waved me on until I set a pint in front of him.

“So is this a full time thing?” he asked, and took a drink.

“Eh, I just started,” I said. “But who knows. Hopefully.”

He pulled at the collar of his shirt. “I mean the pirate thing.”

I looked down at the sash around my waist, and the boot I wore that made my leg look like a wooden post. I brushed the fake dreadlock out of my face, and tucked it behind the stuffed parrot on the padded shoulder of my ruffled shirt.

“It’s just pretend,” I said.

“I pretended to be broke once,” the old man said, finishing his drink. I took his glass and turned to refill it. At the end of the bar Beatrice flirted with a patron, which meant she was doing a deal. As the old man’s mug filled, I watched a group of girls in the mirror over the tap. They all wore necklaces made of plastic penises and took shots of tequila. One of them wore a tiara that spelled BRIDE. Behind them, college kids with eye patches and pirate hats stumbled through a game of pool. No one paid attention to the TV over the pool table, to anchor Brock Davisis on IN-Side Rumor.

After he finished his segment about a man whose to-scale model of San Francisco, built entirely from salt cubes, was destroyed by a flood in his basement, he reported on a man who traveled the country, from business to business, pretending to be a new employee so he could make friends with his coworkers and then squeal those coworkers’ inner most thoughts and secrets to their boss, who paid this man to do this.

A plump little woman named Megan came on in tears, saying how after she told this man about her abortion she got fired from her secretarial job at her Baptist Church. I knew this woman’s name was Megan before it came up on the screen.

A picture came on of the man in a reflective mesh vest and a yellow hardhat, flanked by four similarly dressed workers in front of a bulldozer. One of the workers, whose name I knew to be Jeff before the program said it was, gave his interview from a jail cell.

Then a picture came on of the man in front of a minor league baseball field, a cooler hanging by a strap around his neck, licorice and peanuts pinned to his hat. Three other workers in similar outfits stood next to him. All of them gave big thumbs up. One of the workers, whose name I knew to be Jamal, gave his interview from a homeless shelter.

Then a picture came on of the man in drag, his thonged butt cheeks out, his face turning over his shoulder to blow kisses to the camera. Other drag queens posed like they were spanking him. You could only imagine what they said to get the axe.

“Is this your friend at work?” Brock Davisis asked his audience.

“Hey, isn’t that–” the old man said, but when he turned to me I was already heading out the door, the mug still under the tap, the tap still pouring into the overflowing glass.

***

The earliest flight out of Charlottesville was through Omaha, and the earliest airline flying out was a particular regional airline I was familiar with. Flight attendants spilled drinks in my lap and then didn’t give me anything to drink at all. All my in-flight magazines had their pages ripped out. This, of course, was only after the ticket agent, whose name I knew to be Mike, came on the PA system to say the flight would be delayed while the flight attendants, Stacy, Tiffany and Juan, cleaned the aircraft. Loud banging came down the ramp, and when I boarded my chair was broken. When I passed Mike at the gate, my picture was taped to his computer, my eyes poked out.

In Omaha I checked the voicemail Beth left during my flight. She told me about Sam. She said I’ve turned into a real asshole. That she didn’t know me anymore. She didn’t say if she saw IN-Side Rumor or not. At least from Omaha to Austin I only got the seat in the back, next to the toilet that wouldn’t flush.