Young Writers Society

Sigler’s Last Shot

By

Michael N. Foley

“Stop breathing so damn loud,” David Sigler said.

Jed sat up in his cot. “What?”

“You’re breathing, like, every minute of every friggin’ hour. Just chill out for a while.”

Jed shook his head. “Get some sleep, Dave.”

David ignored his roommate and logged into his email on his phone.

Re: Query

David swallowed and opened the message.

David Sigler,

After careful review, we have determined that your manuscript is not a good fit for our agency at this time. However, we encourage you to continue to submit your work other places; another agency may be interested. Unfortunately, due to the volume of submissions we receive, we are not able to provide any critique. Regards.

David felt the pain before he realized that his index finger was in his mouth, his teeth digging deep into the skin.

He slipped the finger out of his mouth and examined it. Tiny round dents in the epidermis. A red bead formed in one of the dents, then turned into a stream of merlot, dripping onto the lap of his pants.

“You okay?” Jed asked.

David glared over at Jed. “I look okay to you?”

#

“Sweet tea, please,” Caressa said to the waitress.

“And you, sir?”

David cleared his throat. “Newcastle.”

“Okay, I’ll bring those right out.”

Caressa gave him a look as the waitress walked away.

“What? It’s just a beer.”

The look continued.

“It’s been two days. Let me have this one.”

Caressa shook her head. “Honestly, I just don’t understand how it’s possible that you never get carded.”

David shrugged. “I look underage to you? Besides, it’s not like I’m seventeen or anything. I’ll be legal in nine months.”

The waitress brought out Caressa’s glass of tea and David’s bottle of brown ale.

David hastily took the bottle from her hands, never letting it touch the tabletop, and took a long pull from it, tasting the familiar nutty, malty warmth.

“What happened?” Caressa asked, pointing to the bandage on his finger.

David sighed. “I got another rejection letter.”

Caressa sipped her tea. “Their loss.”

David shook his head. “That’s rejection number fifty. The manuscript’s crap. Seven months of work, wasted.”

“David, it wasn’t a waste,” Caressa said. “I loved it.”

David took another pull on the bottle. “Could you please just stop saying that and tell me what you actually thought? You keep stringing me along, telling me you loved it, making me think I should keep trying, keep submitting, but I keep getting the same rejections. Just tell me what you thought.”

“I’m not patronizing you. I actually loved it, David.”

David shrugged, drank again. “Well then, you’re the only one.”

The waitress appeared again. “Ready to order?”

#

“Shot of Bushmills,” David told the bartender.

The bartender poured it in front of him, and he’d downed it before the cash was in the register.

“Let’s do that again.”

Older guy sitting next to him at the bar looked over at him. “You look like you’ve got it rough.”

David handed the bartender the cash. “Yeah, and I prefer to drink alone.”

The guy shrugged, turned back to his beer. “A person is, above all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.”

David stopped with the shot at his lips. “What’d you say?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing.”

“That was Ian McEwan.”

The guy smiled. “Atonement, yes. Are you a fan?”

“Saturday is my favorite novel.”

The guy bobbed his head. “That’s a good one, sure.”

David felt his phone vibrate, checked it. Text from Caressa.

Where’d you go?

David returned it to his pocket without replying, downed the shot.

“You a writer?” the guy asked.

David smiled, feeling the whiskey do its job. “Yeah. Well, trying, anyways. How’d you know?”

“You’re drinking whiskey by yourself and your favorite novel’s Saturday. It’s not rocket science, kid.”

David nodded.

“You any good?”

“Huh?”

“At writing?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Good as McEwan?”

“I like to think so.”

The guy smiled. “No, you’re not. That’s the problem with young writers. They all think they’re the next McEwan, or the next David Foster Wallace, but the truth is, only one in a thousand even come close. But that’s okay. There’s millions of mediocre novels sold every single day. Just write your best, and if you’re happy with it, who cares if the critics like it?”

David shook his head. “You don’t get it. It’s art, man.”

“Exactly. You think Van Gogh gave a damn what anybody else thought? He painted what he wanted. Because art’s not about trying to be like the people who inspired you. It’s about expressing your own world, and inspiring people by doing things they’ve never seen before, or never seen done quite that way, at least.”

David felt his phone vibrate again. Another text from Caressa.

I know you’re at the bar. You need help. I’m with Jed in the common room. Please come home. We love you.

David asked the bartender for another shot.

“You ever been published?” the guy asked.

“Uh, no,” David said, accepting the whiskey from the bartender.

“Why do you think that is?”

David downed the whiskey. “You’d have to ask the folks who rejected me.”

“I’m asking you.”

David flushed. “My writing is very depressing. Agents like happy endings, right? But, how can I write that, when they’re always telling young writers to write what you know? I don’t know happiness. I’ve been a screw-up my whole life. All I know is failure.”

“You don’t know happiness?”

“That’s what I just said. I don’t know happiness.”

“So who’s been texting you this whole time, that you just keep on ignoring?”

David noticed somebody at a corner table for the first time. He quickly slumped down in his stool, covered his face with a hand.

“What’s the matter?” The guy followed David’s line of sight. “Who is that?”

David ordered another shot.

“Tell me who she is.”

David shook his head, downed his shot.

“Honey, come over here,” the guy called.

The woman got up from her table and approached the bar. “What’s up?”

The guy pointed to David. “How do you know him?”

The woman’s face lit up. “David Sigler! How are you?”

David smiled weakly. “Okay. You?”

“I’m well. I see you’ve met my husband.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Honey, I taught David’s tenth grade English class. David, I thought you’d be living in New York by now, with a Pulitzer.”

David laughed sadly. “I’m working on it.”

She checked her watch and looked at her husband. “It’s getting late. You ready to go?”

“Yeah, go ahead and start the car. I’ll be out in a minute.”

As David’s former teacher left, her husband turned back to him. “Why didn’t you want her to see you?”

“I, I told her at least once a week that I’d be published by the time I was twenty. And she always seemed to believe me. I didn’t want her to see me like this. Unpublished and drunk.”

The guy chuckled as he stood. “Better than being unpublished and sober, my friend. Take it easy.”

David got another text from Caressa.

I can’t keep doing this. Come home now, or I won’t be there when you do.

“One for the road,” David said, handing the bartender the last of his cash.

He did the shot, half the whiskey spilling down his chin. As he swallowed the last of what did make it to his mouth, he lost his grip and dropped the glass, watched it shatter on the bar.

He held his hands up. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave.”

#

“Got any cigarettes, fella?” the bum asked.

“Sorry,” David said. “I don’t smoke.”

“Right, of course not. The other folks in that klatsch of yours, the folks you were talking to in the bar, they said they didn’t smoke, either. But I didn’t believe them, and I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to believe me.” David started walking away.

“I met Philip Roth once. He gave me a cigarette.”

David stopped. “You met Philip Roth, huh?”

The bum nodded, pulling out a bottle wrapped in brown paper from his coat. “Know what he told me?” he asked, unscrewing the cap. “Said he was a Martian.” He drank from the bottle. “Been here to prep us for the invasion, that’s what he’s been doing.”

“How you figure?”

The bum’s eyes went wide. “Ain’t obvious to you, there ain’t no use tryin’ to explain it. You read any of his stuff?”

“Couple things, yeah.”

The bum nodded emphatically. “That’s why you don’t get it. Done gotten into your brain, that’s what they done. The Martians. Soon, they’re gonna attack and turn this into one big Communist planet. The Martians invented Communism, you know. That’s why the Russians wanted to win the Space Race so bad. So we wouldn’t find out about their government’s origins.”

David was fascinated by this guy, but he remembered Caressa, and knew he needed to get back to the dorm.

His phone vibrated.

Another text from Caressa.

Your dad’s in the hospital. Please call me.

“Hey, bud,” he said to the bum. “What’s in that bottle?”

The bum smacked his lips. “Old Crow.”

“Mind if I get a swig?”

“You wouldn’t even gimme a cigarette. Get lost, you bum.”

“Hey, that’s only because I don’t have any cigarettes. I’d give you one if I did.” David stumbled towards the bum. “Please.”

The bum grunted and handed over the bottle.

#

Caressa hugged David in the lobby.

“Where is he?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

“He had a heart attack, David.”

“Where’s Mom?”

“She’s with him, in the ER.”

“Jesus. What room is he in?”

“David.”

“What?”

“You reek. How much have you had?”

He shrugged. “Not enough.”

“Come on, let’s have a seat. You need to sober up.”

David lumbered over to a chair, Caressa gently holding an arm, helping him keep his balance.

“How much have you had?”

“I don’t know. That beer. Five, maybe six shots of Irish. Few swallows of bourbon.” He heard his own words slur.

Caressa’s eyes glistened with tears. “You have to stop, David.”

“Yeah, or what?”

“Or I’ll leave you. Or you’ll die. I’m not sure which will come first.”

David shrugged. “It was just a little binge. To celebrate Rejection Number Fifty.”

Jed came into the lobby now. “David, man, where the hell have you been?” He leaned down to embrace David. “Oh. Never mind. I smell where you’ve been.”

“Come on, like you don’t drink.”

Jed’s face was solemn. “You know I quit drinking after the accident. But whatever. How’s your dad doing?”

David looked to Caressa for an answer, then saw a nurse standing behind her.

“Are you Mister Sigler’s family?”

“I am,” David said.

“I,” the nurse said, then stopped. “I’m so sorry. He didn’t make it. I can take you to his room, to be with your mother.”

David closed his eyes, craved one more swig of the bum’s bourbon.

“I’m so sorry.” He had no idea whether the whisper came from Caressa, Jed, or the nurse.

#

“Shot of Crown,” David told the bartender.

Jed handed the bartender a five, told him to keep the change.

David accepted the shot glass, held it to his lips.

“His hands,” he said.

“What?” Caressa asked.

“That’s what I’ll remember about my father. His hands. He was an infantryman in the Gulf War. He told me some of the stories. Not the worst ones, I’m sure. I know he killed people. When I think about him now, I don’t see his face. I see his hands. The hands that held a rifle. The hands that took lives. The hands with callouses from all the work he did in the backyard, and in the shed. The same hands that held me when I was a baby. The same hands that carried me to my bed when I was nine because I fell asleep on the couch watching TV. The same hands that put bandages on my knees and elbows when I tried to learn how to skate. The hands that wrinkled with age. His hands. That’s what I’ll remember.” He sighed. “Last shot, Davey boy.”

He threw the shot back, set the glass on the table, and rose from the stool.

THE END