NOTE: The following piece was an experiment in writing a story that is 95% dialogue. Enjoy.
“You look like a man who knows who shot J.R.”
Tyler Howard looked up from his bourbon. The woman had materialized on the stool beside him, which was impressive given that the bar contained five people, including the bartender, a man unconscious in a booth, and a woman standing at the jukebox apparently waiting for divine instruction.
“Kristin Shepard.”
“Wrong.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“You answered too fast.”
“That's generally how knowing something works.”
“Or lying.”
“Or knowing something.”
“People who know things don't have to prove they know things.”
“People who don't know things tend to say things like that.”
She smiled. He liked her smile. It was slightly crooked like her mouth was winking.
“Bella.”
“Tyler.”
“Teacher.”
He stared at her.
“What?”
“How did you—”
“Chalk on your pants.”
“Nobody uses chalk anymore.”
“Exactly. You don't care how you look. Teacher.”
“It's drywall dust.”
“Contractor?”
“History teacher.”
“So I was right.”
“No. You were wrong twice and got lucky.”
“High school?”
“Yes.”
“Public?”
“Yes.”
“Chicago?”
“We're in Chicago.”
“You could commute.”
“It's three in the morning.”
“I don't know your life, Tyler. I'm making inquiries.”
She signaled the bartender.
“Two Old Styles.”
“I'm drinking bourbon.”
“You were drinking bourbon. Now you're drinking Old Style.”
“I don't drink Old Style.”
“You're fifty-something, sitting in a bar on Division at three in the morning. You absolutely drink Old Style.”
The bartender deposited two cans.
“Fifty-two,” Tyler said.
“Fuck. I had forty-seven.”
“Thank you.”
“Not a compliment.”
“I've learned to accept what I can get.”
“Divorced?”
“Fuck’s sake.”
“Divorced.”
“Four years.”“Kids?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Cat?”
“No.”
“Holy shit. What do you do with yourself?”
“Apparently I sit in bars and get interrogated by women who think they're Sherlock Holmes because they spotted some drywall dust.”
“You're defensive.”
“You're invasive.”
“Same thing from opposite sides of the table.”
“We're at a bar.”
“See? Defensive.”
She cracked her beer.
“Tell me something, Professor. Do you teach the real history or the sanitized-for-your-protection version?”
“Oh, for fuck's sake.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The sigh. The government-approved history-teacher sigh.”
“That's not the government-approved sigh. That's the sigh reserved for people who think watching three YouTube videos constitutes a doctoral thesis.”
“You think textbooks tell the truth?”
“I think textbooks are written by people.”
“People with agendas.”
“People with deadlines. You'd be amazed how much human history can be explained by deadlines.”
“Who decides what goes in?”
“Editors.”
“Who hires the editors?”
“Publishers.”
“Who owns the publishers?”
“Conglomerates.”
“Who owns the conglomerates?”
“Rich people.”
“Who owns the rich people?”
Tyler stared at her. She was adorable. His mother would call her “fetching.”
Bella raised her beer.
“Checkmate.”
“No, you just kept asking questions until the English language stopped cooperating.”
“That's what they want you to think.”
“Who?”
“They.”
“Who are they?”
“If we knew, they'd be lousy at being they.”
Tyler drank.
“You're going to be exhausting.”
“You're going to enjoy it.”
“History suggests otherwise.”
“History is written by the winners.”
“No. History is written by historians. The winners generally hire publicists.”
She laughed. “Okay. You're funny.”
“It's a defense mechanism.”“Against what?”
“People.”
“Good luck with that.”
Tyler and Bella sat for a brief minute contemplating their beers. Tyler shrugged and looked at her skeptically.
“What was your first cassette?”
Bella turned toward him.
“That's your move?”
“What move?”
“The nostalgic pivot. You've established that I'm not a moron, so now you want to see if we share cultural references.”
“I'm trying to establish how embarrassing you were.”
“Were?”
“Fair.”
“Whitney Houston.”
“Respectable.”
“Debbie Gibson.”
“There it is.”
“Don’t.”
“You had the hat.”
“I didn't have the hat.”
“You wanted the hat.”
“Everybody wanted the hat.”
“I didn’t.”
“You were too busy jerking off to Tiffany.”
Tyler nearly choked on his bourbon.
“That's a serious accusation.”
“Am I wrong?”
“Not entirely.”
“Your turn.”
“Richard Marx.”
Bella put her beer down.
“Oh, you poor bastard.”
“Chicago Theatre. My mother took me.”
“Of course she did.”
“She did.”
“You stood there during “Right Here Waiting” with your hand over your heart.”
“I was fourteen.”
“You were fourteen and you believed that song was about you.”
“That's what fourteen is.”
“No, fourteen is acne and masturbation. You were apparently forty-three.”
He laughed. The jukebox finally made a decision. The Cure drifted through the room.
Bella stopped smiling.
“Fuck.”
“What?”
“This song.”
“Pictures of You.”
“I know the goddamn song.”
“Okay.”
“My boyfriend loved this song.”
“First boyfriend?”
“First real one.”
“Name?”
“Daniel.”
“What happened?”
“He died.”
Tyler set down his drink.
“I'm sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“Don't what?”
“Do that. The face.”
“What face?”
“The face people make when they accidentally discover there's a corpse in the conversation.”
“I didn't know.”
“Of course you didn't know. That's what accidentally means.”
“How old?”
“Twenty-four. I was twenty-two.”
The music filled the space between them.
“Rebecca,” Tyler said.
“What?”
“Mine was Rebecca.”
“Dead?”
“Milwaukee.”
“That's worse.”
“Married to a dentist.”
“Shut up.”
“Three kids. Big house. Golden retriever.”
“Stop. I can only take so much.”
“I saw it on Facebook.”
“Facebook is emotional surveillance.”
“Facebook is a business.”
“Same thing.”
“You think Zuckerberg is sitting in a room somewhere keeping tabs on my college girlfriend?”
“No. He has a computer doing it. That's what makes it efficient.”
“I teach teenagers. Nothing Zuckerberg knows about human behavior can frighten me.”
“What do teenagers think of the eighties?”
“They think the eighties were a period of primitive human development between the invention of fire and
the discovery of Wi-Fi.”
“Fuck them.”
“One asked if people really dressed like The Breakfast Club.”
“What'd you say?”
“I told him five people dressed like The Breakfast Club and John Hughes found all of them.”
She laughed.
“Do they know the music?”
“They know Journey.”
“Everybody knows Journey.”
“Journey will survive the apocalypse. Cockroaches, radiation, and some asshole singing “Don't Stop Believin'” over the ruins of Cincinnati.”
“Why Cincinnati?”
“Seems like the kind of place where the apocalypse would start.”
“New Coke,” Bella said.
“What?”
“Conspiracy. New Coke. Deliberate failure.”
“Bad marketing.”
“Strategic failure.”
“Corporate stupidity.”
“They wanted people begging for the original.”
“Or they made a mistake.”
“Then brought it back.”
“Because people hated it.”“Convenient.”
“Bella, you're confusing an outcome with an intention.”
“That's what history does.”
“No. That's what bad history does. People make choices, things happen, and fifty years later some asshole writes a book explaining why it was inevitable.”
“Like Kennedy?”
“Here we go.”
“CIA?”
“Oswald.”
“Alone?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“Probably.”
“That's your professional opinion?”
“History is mostly probably.”
Bella considered him.
“That's a terrible slogan for a school.”
“It's an excellent slogan for a school. The problem is parents want certainty. Administrators want compliance. Students want the answer on the test. Nobody wants to hear that civilization is a bunch of frightened primates making decisions with incomplete information.”
“And you're different?”
“No. I just get paid to explain the mistakes.”
“That's sad.”
“It's a pension.”
She looked at him over her beer.
“You're lonely.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
“You are.”
“You've known me twenty minutes.”“And you've made seventeen jokes.”
“Eighteen. You missed Cincinnati.”
“You hide behind them.”
“You hide behind conspiracy theories.”
“Same architecture,” Bella said.
“Different wallpaper.”
For a moment neither spoke. Then she raised her can.
“To probably.”
He touched his to hers. The bartender called forty-five minutes. Bella checked the time.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That's convincing.”
“I couldn't sleep.”
“So you came here?”
“Yes.”
“Why couldn't you sleep?”
“Dream.”
“About Daniel?”
“No. My mother.”
“Alive?”
“Unfortunately.”
“That's a complicated answer.”
“She's a complicated woman.”
“What happened in the dream?”
“I was in my childhood house. Rockford. Empty. No furniture. Nothing. My mother was upstairs calling me. I went up, but the upstairs wasn't upstairs anymore. It was my apartment in Phoenix.”
“Dreams are economical. They reuse locations.”
“And Daniel was sitting on the bed.”
Tyler stopped joking.
“What did he say?”
“'You missed it.'”
“Missed what?”
“I asked him.”
“And?”
“Woke up.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It was.”
She watched the bartender wipe down the counter.
“My sister died,” she said.
Tyler waited.
“Yesterday was the funeral.”
“I'm sorry.”
“There. The face again.”
“I'm running out of faces.”
“Fentanyl. Forty-three. Monica.”
“Were you close?”
“No.”
“Ever?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Life.”
“That's vague.”
“It's accurate.”She drank.
“Second husband died of pancreatic cancer. Eight months. Ethan. Nice man. Funny. Terrible dancer. One of those guys who thought dancing was just walking with more confidence.”
Tyler smiled.
“He sounds good.”
“He was.”
“And the first?”
“Naperville.”
“Tragic.”
“Unsurvivable.”
“Kids?”
“No.”
“Choice?”
“Biology.”
He nodded.
“Don't do that either.”
“What?”
“The sympathetic nod. You've got the face, the nod, the careful silence. Jesus, you must be a nightmare at parent-teacher conferences.”
“I'm told I have excellent bedside manner.”
“You're not a doctor.”
“Neither are most of the parents.”
She laughed, then looked away.
“What about you?” she asked. “Your wife.”
“Allison.”
“Rebecca was college.”
“Rebecca was the great lost love. Allison was the great failed love.”
“That's obnoxiously poetic.”
“I'm a history teacher. We make failure sound dignified.”
“Why'd she leave?”
“She said I wasn't present.”
“Were you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“Bullshit.”
“You don't believe people can be confused about their own behavior?”
“I believe people use confusion to avoid describing behavior they understand perfectly well.”
Tyler looked into his bourbon.
“I was waiting for my life to start.”
“How old?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Fuck, Tyler. What the hell were you waiting for?”
“I don't know. Something.”
“Something was happening.”
“I know.”
“Allison was happening.”
“I know.”
“And you missed it.”
He looked at her. She looked back.
“That's what Daniel said.”
“I heard him.”
The bartender started stacking stools. Bella watched him for a moment.
“Can I ask you something?”
“You've established that you can.”
“Can I borrow twenty dollars?”
Tyler laughed. She didn’t.
“Ah,” he said. “There it is.”
“What?”
“The third act.”
“My card isn't working.”
“Of course.”
“I need a cab.”
“To where?”
“The Robey.”
“Fifteen-minute walk.”
“It's three-thirty in the morning.”
“And you have a phone.”
“Dying.”
“And you have legs.”
“Asshole.”
“And you're staying at a hotel that costs more per night than I spend on groceries.”
She said nothing. Tyler studied her.
“How much?”
“Twenty.”
“No. How much were you eventually going to ask for?”
She held his gaze.
“Three hundred.”
“There we go.”
“I need a room and a ticket.”
“To Phoenix?”
“No.”“Rockford?”
“Maybe.”
“Bella.”
“What?”
“Pick a destination. It'll help the story.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “I'm not a realtor.”
“I didn't say you were a realtor.”
“I was going to tell you I was a realtor.”
“Good. We've eliminated one lie that hadn't happened yet.”
“I bartend. When I'm working.”
“Currently?”
“Not working.”
“Monica?”
“Alive. Schaumburg. Orthodontic equipment.”
“Ethan?”
“No Ethan.”
“Pancreatic cancer?”
“My uncle.”
“Daniel?”
She stopped.
“Daniel was real.”
“Dead?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Suicide.”
Tyler said nothing.
“He was twenty-four. I was twenty-two. That part was true.”“The Cure?”
“He liked the Cure.”
“But?”
“Our song was “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
Tyler burst out laughing. Bella covered her face.
“Don’t.”
“Rick Astley?”
“Fuck you.”
“He killed himself and left you with Rick Astley?”
“He loved that fucking song.”
“That is the most beautifully terrible thing I've ever heard.”
“He'd sing it in the car. Loud. Windows down. He thought he sounded like Rick Astley.”
“Did he?”
“He sounded like a man choking on a sandwich.”
Tyler was laughing so hard he had to put down his drink. Bella started laughing too. And then she stopped.
“He was a good guy.”
“I bet.”
“He was.”
“I believe you.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody invents Rick Astley as the soundtrack to their great tragedy.”
She wiped her eyes.
“Rebecca?” she asked.
“Real.”
“Dentist?”
“Real.”
“Three kids?”
“Real.”
“Golden retriever?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Great lost love?”
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“I cheated on her.”
Bella stared. “You son of a bitch.”
“I was twenty-one.”
“With who?”
“Deanna.”
“Hot?”
“Very.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“If you're going to destroy the defining romance of your youth, Deanna should at least have been hot.”
“That's morally appalling.”
“I'm trying to scam a public-school teacher out of three hundred dollars. Stop coming to me for ethics.”
“Why are you here?” Tyler asked.
Bella rolled the empty beer can between her palms. “Michael.”
“Who's Michael?”
“My ex.”
“Dead?”
“Alive. Chicago. Six blocks from here.”
“And?”
“I stole from him.”
“How much?”“Eight thousand.”
Tyler stared. “Dollars?”
“No, Tyler. Eight thousand decorative soaps. Yes, dollars.”
“What happened?”
“I was using.”
“Drugs?”
“Cocaine.”
“Still?”
“Eleven months clean.”
“Congratulations.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don't congratulate me. I spent six years making a mess and eleven months not making one. I'm not a fucking astronaut.”
“Fair.”
“I thought if Michael saw me, he'd understand.”
“Understand what?”
“That I'm different.”
“Are you?”
She opened her mouth.
Closed it. “I don't know.”
It was the first honest silence of the evening.
Tyler looked toward the bartender.
“Two bourbons.”
“I don't drink bourbon.”
“You do now.”
The glasses arrived.“Why'd you pick me?” he asked.
“You looked safe.”
“That's insulting.”
“It's a compliment.”
“It's the compliment women give men they don't want to sleep with.”
“You also looked like you might have money.”
“I'm a public-school teacher.”
“I said might.”
“Did you plan this?”
“No. I went to Michael's building. Stood outside for forty minutes. Called. Blocked. Texted. Blocked. Then I walked until I found a bar.”
“And me.”
“And you.”
“You were going to tell me about the dead sister, the dead husband, the dead boyfriend—”
“Daniel is dead.”
“Right. The dead boyfriend, the cancer, the funeral. Get me feeling sympathetic, then ask for twenty, then three hundred.”
“Yes.”
“That's a lot of work.”
“You have no idea.”
“Why not just tell me the truth?”
“Because people don't give money to the truth.”
“What do they give money to?”
“Stories.”
He considered that. “That's depressing.”
“It's America.”
The bartender called last call.
Tyler ignored him. “Did Michael know you were stealing?”
“No.”
“How'd he find out?”
“Overdraft.”
“He checked the account.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Spreadsheet.”
“Goddamn.”
“Color-coded.”
“Monster.”
“Eight thousand four hundred sixty-two dollars.”
“You remember the number.”
“Every penny.”
“Paid him back?”
“Two thousand.”
“The rest?”
“Working on it.”
“Are you?”
She looked at him. “No.”
“Have you called him to apologize?”
“I told you. He blocked me.”
“Before that.”
“Yes.”
“What'd you say?”
“That I was using. That I was sick. That I wasn't myself.”
“Everything that made it understandable.”
“Yes.”“Anything that made it your fault?”
She stared at him. “Fuck you.”
“I'm asking.”
“No. You're teaching.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“Michael used to say I could turn an apology into a hostage situation.”
“That's funny.”
“He was funny.”
“What's an apology without the explanation?”
“What?”
“What's left if you take out the cocaine, the childhood, the bad luck, the terrible people, the circumstances?”
She looked into her bourbon. “I'm sorry.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“Can you say that to him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because then I'm just the person who did it.”
Tyler nodded. “There it is.”
She glared. “Don’t.”
“What?”
“Look pleased with yourself.”
“I'm not.”
“You found the answer. Teacher gets a gold star.”
“I'm not grading you.”
“Bullshit. Everybody's grading everybody. That's the whole goddamn problem.”
He let that sit. Then said, “Maybe.”
Outside, Division Street was wet and nearly empty. The city had reached that hour when the drunks, the insomniacs, and the professionally miserable briefly occupied the same economic class.
Bella shoved her hands into her coat. “So this is where you give me three hundred dollars.”
“No.”
“Two hundred?”
“No.”
“One?”
“No.”
“Twenty?”
“No.”
“You're very firm.”
“I teach teenagers.”
They started walking.
“You know what I miss about the eighties?” she asked.
“Your Debbie Gibson hat?”
“I didn't have the fucking hat.”
“You wanted the hat.”
“I miss disappearing.”
“That's dark.”
“No. Think about it. You could leave town. Move. Change your number. And people just didn't know where you were.”
“They could find you.”
“Eventually.”
“That's comforting.”
“I miss eventually.”
He looked at her. “That's good.”
“I know.”
“You've been saving that.”“Maybe.”
They passed a closed liquor store.
“Answering machines,” she said.
“What about them?”
“Perfect technology.”
“They were terrible.”
“They were magnificent. Somebody called, the machine picked up, and you could stand there listening, deciding whether you existed.”
“You could pick up.”
“Or not.”
“You can ignore people now.”
“No. Now they know. Read receipts. Last active. Location sharing. The little green dot. You can't disappear anymore. You can only refuse to participate.”
“That's fair.”
“Back then you came home and maybe somebody called, maybe they didn’t.”
“And if they didn’t?”
“You could imagine they tried.”
Tyler stopped walking. “Is that what you miss?”
“What?”
“Being able to imagine they tried.”
She didn't answer.
“Michael didn't try,” she said finally.
“No.”
“My sister didn't try.”
“No.”
“My mother didn't try.”
“No.”
“Nobody tried.”“Bella.”
“What?”
“You stole from all of them.”
She looked away. “I know.”
“You can't make their silence the crime.”
She stared down the street.
“I know.”
They walked another block.
“Do you think people change?” she asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Shitty answer.”
“Historically accurate.”
“What's the teacher answer?”
“Yes.”
“And the real answer?”
He considered. “I think people change when the cost of staying the same finally exceeds the cost of becoming somebody else.”
She glanced at him. “That's stolen.”
“Probably.”
“From who?”
“Some asshole with a podcast.”
“Maybe Zuckerberg.”
“Zuckerberg doesn't believe people change. It would ruin his advertising model.”
She laughed.
Then she said, “Rebecca ever call you?”
“Once.”
“When?”“Two years ago.”
“What'd she say?”
“Happy birthday.”
“And you said?”
“Thanks.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
“Two idiots.”
“She's married.”
“To a dentist.”
“Three kids.”
“Golden retriever.”
“You still love her?”
He thought about it. “No.”
She waited. “I love who I was when I loved her.”
“That's worse.”
“Probably.”
“I still love Daniel.”
“And Michael?”
“Yes.”
“Both?”
“Different ghosts.”
They reached the corner.
A bus hissed past without stopping.
“Bella your real name?” Tyler asked.
She smiled. “No.”
“Of course not.”“You want the real one?”
“I'd like one thing tonight.”
“Laura.”
“Laura what?”
“You get Laura.”
“Fair.”
They waited at the light.
“Tyler?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I borrow twenty dollars?”
He laughed. “Jesus Christ.”
“I'm serious.”
“I know.”
“I need to get somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Union Station.”
“To Rockford?”
“Milwaukee.”
“You don't live in Milwaukee.”
“No.”
“Where do you live?”
She hesitated. “Indianapolis.”
“That's a new one.”
“Real answer.”
“What's in Milwaukee?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why Milwaukee?”“Because it isn't Chicago.”
Tyler considered that. “That may be the most Chicago thing anyone has ever said.”
The light changed.
They crossed.
“I don't have cash,” he said.
“Asshole.”
“I'll buy you a ticket.”
She stopped. “What?”
“Bus. Train. Whatever gets you to Indianapolis.”
“Why?”
“Because you need to get to Indianapolis.”
“I could take the money and buy cocaine.”
“Exactly why you're not getting the money.”
“I'm clean.”
“Probably.”
She looked at him.
Then laughed. “You really are a prick.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“You don't have to do this.”
“I know.”
“You don't know me.”
“I know a few things.”
“You know I've been lying to you for two hours.”
“Not continuously.”
“I tried to steal three hundred dollars from you.”
“Borrow.”
She smiled. “You're an asshole.”“I'm aware.”
They walked east.
After half a block, Laura said, “You know, you're wrong about something.”
“Only one thing?”
“History.”
“That's a broad accusation.”
“You said history is people making decisions and then other people coming along afterward pretending the decisions were inevitable.”
“Yes.”
“But that's not what you do.”
“What do I do?”
“You tell stories.”
“That's teaching.”
“That's selling.”
“I'm not selling anything.”
“Bullshit. You're selling kids the idea that the past matters. That dead people matter. That knowing what happened makes a difference.”
“I suppose.”
“And I'm selling the idea that I deserve three hundred dollars because my life is a tragedy.”
“Your life may be a tragedy.”
“It's mostly a fucking farce.”
“Same thing with worse lighting.”
She laughed.
“But that's the thing,” she said. “People don't give money to facts. They give money to stories. They don't vote for facts. They vote for stories. They don't fall in love with facts. They fall in love with stories.”
“Sometimes the facts are the story.”
“Not until somebody makes them mean something.”
Tyler thought about it.
“Politics,” he said.“Advertising.”
“Religion.”
“Dating.”
“Facebook.”
“New Coke.”
“Oswald.”
“Kristin Shepard.”
“Debbie Gibson.”
“I didn't have the hat.”
“You wanted the hat.”
She grinned.
“And tonight?” she asked.
“What about tonight?”
“What story are you buying?”
He walked a few steps before answering.
“That I met a woman named Laura in a bar on Division.”
“Bella.”
“Laura.”
“Maybe.”
“She lied to me for two hours.”
“Not continuously.”
“She tried to scam me out of three hundred dollars.”
“Borrow.”
“She was funny.”
“Very.”
“She loved a ridiculous man who listened to Rick Astley.”
“He fucking loved Rick Astley.”“She stole eight thousand dollars from a man who loved her.”
“Eight thousand four hundred sixty-two.”
“She was eleven months clean.”
Laura said nothing.
“And tomorrow morning,” Tyler continued, “she got on a bus to Indianapolis.”
Laura looked at him.
“You don't know that part yet.”
“No.”
“So why put it in the story?”
“Because it's the part I want to be true.”
She stopped walking.
For the first time all night, she seemed to have run out of material.
Tyler waited.
Then she said, “That's a dangerous way to teach history.”
“It's a dangerous way to live.”
“What's the difference?”
“History's already happened.”
“Not to the people who were there.”
He smiled.
“Now who's teaching?”
She looked down the street toward the station.
“Tyler?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
She considered him, the empty street, the improbable prospect of Indianapolis, and whatever version of herself might be waiting there.Then she smiled.
“Ask me tomorrow.”
