Memento Mori

It was New Year’s Eve in Manhattan, 1999, and someone was about to die. Albert slammed his hand down on the bar, body already wavering back and forth. He slumped his elbows onto the bartop in a vain attempt to make himself look more sober while he gave an upward head nod whenever a bartender looked in his direction. Albert’s glossy-green paper hat and glasses shaped in the number “2000”, with eyes looking through the second and third “0”, had removed all hopes of him looking any more sober than he was nearly forty-five minutes and six shots of bottom shelf booze ago.

The noise in the bar was deafening. A cover band played an approximation of several popular hits of the 1990’s while bar patrons crowd around in several tight cliques, laughing and yelling to compete over everyone else, who were also yelling and laughing.

Heather, Albert’s nearly year-long girlfriend, leaned in close to his ear and yelled, “Babe, can we leave?”

“Leave? It’s not even noon… uhh…” he squinted his eyes tight and checked his watch, trying to keep the numbers on his watch face from moving long enough to read them, “Midnight, yet.”

The bartender acknowledges Albert from halfway down the bar and holds up one finger, but Albert responded with two. The bartender didn’t hesitate and grabbed two freshly washed glasses from the rack, poured gin from an unbranded bottle in both, club soda from a fountain gun and then twisted two of the saddest looking lemons from the bin under the bartop.

The bartender leaned toward Albert and yelled, “What name is the tab under?”

Albert grabbed the drinks and, before pushing himself off the bar, yelled back “Heather Farro!” and turned away from the bar, seemingly, bumping into almost everyone nearby. It was at this moment, Heather had noticed a woman pass by wearing a red sequin halter top, conveniently low enough to show the maximum amount of cleavage, and it seemed Albert took notice as well. He paused for a moment, staring at the woman as she stared back at him only for a moment. Albert turned and hobbled back to his clique. The woman glanced at Heather and the smile she had plastered on faded into what Heather commonly referred to as “bitch face”, before averting her eyes elsewhere.

The bartender pointed his finger in Heather’s direction and shouted something like Anything else?, but Heather was too distracted to hear his words correctly. She made a hand flat down, cutting motion rapidly across her neck, causing the bartender to nod, spin around to a box holding dozens of credit cards. The bartender flicked through the cards and pulled out what Heather hoped was hers, and the bartender started vigorously smashing buttons of the credit card machine with his thumb. As Heather turned around to see where Albert had gone, more to verify he didn’t wander off to somewhere else, but the bartender slapped down the seventy-dollar tab and weighed down with a capless ballpoint pen, which caught Heather’s attention. Her brow furrows and she grunted to herself, trying to avoid making eye contact with the number printed under the “Total” line as if it were staring back. The pen was sticky and she signed the receipt in a small puddle left on the countertop, none of which made her less angry about being so shamelessly dismissed by her boyfriend. She slapped down the pen and shook off the water from her hand. 

Heather started to feel a small sharp pain just above her eyes as she bumps into a man approaching the bar. She apologized, but her voice was muted by the music. Aggravated, but doing her best not to ruin his New Year, she weaved through the crowd and stood next to Albert, wrapping her arm around his waist and pulled herself close to him. She held on as he barked and yelled with his coworkers and old college buddies, whose names she had forgotten, except for Chaz, mostly because his name was Chaz. She held Albert’s waist as he and the others bounced together and chanted “Y2K! Y2K!” before they chugged whatever drinks they had left in their hand.

The cover band finished playing their rendition of “Jump Around” when the lead singer gripped the microphone, shoved it against his mouth and muffled, “We’ve got TWO WHOLE minutes before welcoming in the new millennium.” drawing out the word for dramatic effect. ” If you don’t already have one, grab yourself a drink and I’ll see you all next year.” 

Albert swung his arm up around Heather’s shoulder and pulled her in close. “Hey Babe, could you grab me another drink?” He yelled. His breath reeked of hot gin that made Heather wince. He shook a glass in front of her with nothing in it but a carcass of a lemon twist rolling around inside. 

Heather’s sharp pain was becoming a full on headache and watching her boyfriend mumble and slur made her heart feel empty, but she kept her pressed-on smile. Heather glanced around for the second glass out of curiosity. “Where’s the other one?” She asked.

“What?” Albert yelled back. With no music playing, and even with the hum of a few dozen simultaneous conversations in the room, she still felt it was easier to hear her now than before.

“You ordered two drinks, where’s the other one?” She replies, needlessly matching the volume of his voice.

He paused for a moment when one of his college buddies handed him a flute filled with champagne. In one motion, Albert put the empty gin and tonic down on a flat surface nearby, grabbed the champagne flute and held it up to cheer with his clique. He gripped Heather tighter, rubbing her shoulder and laughed. She’s heard the fake laugh he makes when he’s around his friends, but this one felt different, more exaggerated and it almost seemed directed at her.

“Aaaaalright everyone, ready or not, here we go!” The lead singer announced. 

Everyone in the bar started counting down in unison “10… 9… 8…” to a projector behind the band showing the ball drop with the animated chrome number that twirled around to the next.

“7…”

It was at that moment that Heather saw a woman nearby, the woman in the red sequin halter top, holding a hastily poured gin and tonic with a sad looking lemon twist inside. 

“6…”

Heather gently pushed herself away from Albert and looked around for another matching drink, but Albert held her tight. Besides the champagne flutes and a couple of beer bottles, there were no other cocktail glasses anywhere in sight.

“5…” 

She saw the woman glance back to Albert. She tipped her drink to him and smiled. Heather glances back at Albert and finds him with a smirk and a raised eyebrow back at her. He runs his hand down Heather’s back in a sly attempt to hide that he was ever holding onto her, dropping it in-between Heather and him, and pushes her away at her hip.

“4…”

Heather felt a pain in her heart, like a sharp puncture that let the last bit of her joy out. Only to her, the room fell silent. The arms of the patrons raised in the air with a drink in hand, bounced with the numbers on the projector and watched the mouths of everyone yell together in a slow shouting match. The rapid pounding of her heartbeat is all she could hear.

It took only a moment before her sadness turned into frustration. She shoved Albert, her smaller stature barely able to move him, only able to make him lean, bumping into the guy next to him when the room came back into focus.

“Happy New Year” everyone cheered, shooting confetti and blowing horns while singing “Auld Lang Syne”, but Heather was already headed to the door.

Heather hastily dug through the dozens of jackets hanging on the coat rack near the entrance before finding her own burgundy faux fur parka on the floor. She held for a moment, aggressively throwing the jacket around her as she looked back into the crowd, waiting for Albert to come running to her with a long face and showing her with apologies. She waited a moment more, but nothing. She grunted, voice cracking, spun to the entrance and forced the heavy glass door with her shoulder. 

Her aggressive, heavy steps caused her heels to click loudly on the sidewalk outside, stepping on wet newspapers and confetti that littered the sidewalk. Booms and flashes of light from fireworks lit the streets with strobing flashes of light. Heather walked onto a large mesh grate that intermittently lined the sidewalk, making it only a few steps when the heel of her almost-stiletto shoe wedged itself into the mesh, nearly tripping her. She stumbled out of her shoe and stood one foot bare on the cold metal. She slammed her arms to her side, fists clenched, and screamed to herself, muted with sealed lips that tickled her nose. Onlookers that leaned against the building near her, mumbled and giggled to each other at Heather’s expense, but she ignored it.

She grabbed her wedged shoe with both hands and yanked as hard as she could, fireworks flashed overhead that revealed the deep pit underneath the grate. She pulled the shoe, which didn’t budge for a moment before a tearing was heard. The shoe ripped as she gave another final jerk, leaving the heel still wedged into the mesh. Heather slipped the broken shoe back on and walked away, her ankle wobbled with every heavy step to keep balance on the broken heel.

“Babe, hold on!” Albert yells from behind her, speed walking to catch up.

“Don’t Babe me! I saw you gave that girl a drink before you basically eye-fucked her!” Heather was trying not to yell, which made her voice crack while trying to hold in tears. 

“I bought her a drink. So what?” Albert slurred from ten feet behind.

Heather stopped and turned around, stumbling on her heel, pointing her finger at Albert. “You didn’t buy her a drink, I bought you a drink! What was your plan? Ignore me long enough to hang out with your cronies then go fuck her?”

Albert was too drunk to think of how he should react to this, “She needed a drink and I gave her one.” He said, only now realizing his poor choice of words. “So what?”

A moment of silence between the two as Albert waits to see if his excuse stuck. The silence was broken by the dwindling rhythm of firework explosions.

“I’m not just mad about the drink you idiot!” She leans toward him, emphasizing her words. “It’s the way you looked at her! You were basically making out in front of me.”

“What? No! You’re overreacting.”Albert said, immediately understanding his mistake.

Heather gave a frustrated growl through clenched teeth and turned away, each shoe clicked on the sidewalk in different octaves.

“Babe, wait! She was going for Chaz anyway. I was just helping him out.”

“Go away, please.” Heater throws her hand up.

“Can you hold on for one second?” 

She slows her walk, but doesn’t turn around. 

“I got the drink for me, but she needed one and Chaz couldn’t leave for another drink without her ditching him. Please hang on.” Albert pleaded through slurred lips.

Heather abruptly stopped, but stayed facing away from him.

“So you weren’t planning on going somewhere else?” Heather asked, speaking over her shoulder.

“No… I mean yeah… she wasn’t going to be there.” He assured her with his palms up.

“Hey Broski! You coming or what?!?” Chaz yells from the door of the bar with the other friends pouring out onto the street and hailed a cab.

Albert waves for them to hold on. Heather turns to see the others, but there, coming out the door surrounded by the other friends, was the woman in the sequin halter top. Another one of his friends stands behind her pointing down at her breasts making an exaggerated face, mouthing Oh my god.

Albert whips his head back with eyes wide Heather hoping she didn’t see that, neary flinging the paper hat off his head

Heather rolled her eyes and stamped her feet with every step away, but he continued to follow, pleading for her to wait, but she didn’t stop.

“Fuck off! I’m done with you!” Heather yelled out, moving into the street to avoid the next mesh grating on the sidewalk.

“You know, fine! I was planning on fucking her! I don’t need you! You need me!” Albert yelled at her, still following behind, his shoes clanging the steel grate underneath.

“Go die in a hole, bastard!” She yells.

She took several more steps waiting for his response, but there was no response. The sound of a bang is what Heather heard, not from fireworks, but the sound of a heavy stomp on a large metal grate followed by yelling and screaming in the distance. Heather stopped in the street, heart hollow, she was scared to turn around.

The yelling that came from Albert’s friends caused Heather to turn to them, still standing in front of the bar, slack jawed and stunned. She turned to look at Albert. Her heart sank when she saw only a torn green paper hat on the ground spattered with what she hoped was dirt. Where Albert had been walking, the metal grate on the sidewalk stopped, followed by a large hole where the rest of the grate should’ve been. Albert’s hat teetered on the edge of the hole for a moment and fell into the hole.

Her hands trembled. Heather stepped onto the sidewalk, stumbled slightly from the broken heel, and paced slowly back toward where Albert was. She saw the others from the bar cautiously walking towards the hole, but just as scared and confused as Heather was. When Heather reached the edge of the hole, hand out for balance, she peered in to see nothing but darkness. A firework exploded overhead. The light from the firework flashed and lit the streets and, for that brief moment, the hole. Heather saw Albert, but the short flash of light wasn’t enough to see all of him. Another firework boomed and another flash of light when Heather saw Albert’s half bloodied head about ten feet down the hole, arms splayed and broken.

Heather stood pale. Through flashes of light, Heather could see Albert’s lifeless, sorrowful eyes that stared back at her through his New Year’s glasses.