THE HARD PIECE

1970

Bobby had done it again. Walked away when shit got bad. Was this to be his legacy, then? Winning gold for running away, just like a sprinter in reverse. Getting in the truck and leaving Rayette in the car at the gas station was a crumby thing to do but sticking around pretending they were going to make it work would only be crumbier still.

It didn't matter how many miles the driver put between Bobby and his past, he couldn't escape the image of Rayette back at that gas station and it gnawed at him like a black hole inside his heart. Conversation between him and the driver was minimal to say the least. He wondered if perhaps the man had chosen the work due to leaving a girl himself. Bobby thought about asking him but then thought better of it. Silence was golden in this instance. As long as kept his mouth shut, he had no way to spoil the ride. Besides, it was raining outside and he didn't fancy being left on the road to hitch his way through the dark night.

In his dream, he played a piano which was all broken and out of tune. Half the keys were missing and there was an audience all dressed in formal attire watching him as if he was the new Mozart. No matter how awful and discordant the sound of his performance sounded to his ears, the audience seemed completely unperturbed. So he kept on playing.

Eventually, he was woken up by the driver who seemed annoyed that Bobby had been able to rest while he'd been forced to watch the road, bleary eyed for sixteen hours straight.

"Okay, pal. This is where you get off."

Bobby nodded and left the vehicle with next to no idea what happened next. He had a small amount of money in his back pocket and that was it.

And his smile which always acted like a passport into situations when he was desperate.

"Where are we?"

"Ontario."

1980

Bobby was playing the piano again, only this time not in his dream but in a bar in San Luis, Arizona in real life. I mean, you couldn't get more real than the faces staring back at him as he stumbled around the melody of 'It's All In The Game'. If Norman Rockwell had tried painting them on downers he wouldn't have been able to come anywhere close to capturing the sadness in their blood shot eyes.

There was just something deeply tragic about playing old popular melodies on the piano while people drowned their sorrows dreaming of a better tomorrow that invariably was never going to arrive. He appreciated the optimism, though. Bobby had been guilty of that same eternal dream of tomorrow knowing deep down that it was all bullshit. But as long as he kept promoting the delusion by playing the soundtrack, he would never worry about getting laid or getting paid. There was a transient consistency to living in a semi-nihilistic state of resisting any commitment to anything substantial or remotely permanent to rail himself down.

Taking a break from his lunch hour 'concert' and standing at the bar, Bobby grabbed a beer and some nuts for his lunch. If nothing else, working in a bar reduced him to the kind of cliched blue collar primate his middle class family would have hated. Was that why he did it? Maybe. And was he getting too old for this arrested rebellion? Probably. But he kept on doing it anyway. It was a point of pride for Bobby and he was nothing if not persistent in pursuing his convictions when it came to standing in the opposite direction to conventional standards.

Where was the evolution though? Maybe there wasn't one. Enlightement to Bobby was recognising that by standing still and seeing through the fallacy of living a meaningful life he could be superior to all those that once scoffed at him for not becoming something he was honest to admit he wasn't and could never be - a judgemental asshole. On the other hand, he had his moments where he felt a genuine repulsion at the shittiness of the low lifes he now surrounded himself with and almost understood for a brief moment the lofty aspirations and higher standards those familial hypocrites tried to live their lives by.

He could never, but he understood it.

Sidling up to the jukebox, Sandy, the high energy waitress he'd been trying to disentangle himself from emotionally, snuck up on him to peek at what track he was about to choose.

"You gonna play our song, Bobby?"

"We have a song?"

"Oh c'mon. You know we do."

Placing her hand against his neck and kissing the side of his face, he finally conceded and smiled as if her request was irresistible.

"Okay, okay."

"I better get these drinks to 'Romeo and Juliet' over there," Sandy said as Bobby glanced over at a couple of old winos holding onto each other for what seemed like dear life.

"Okay, doll," he said as she walked away from him, carrying the tray of drinks she'd prepared for the customers. Bobby then turned back to slide a couple of coins into the bright neon lit music machine as his chosen record was placed onto the turntable.

On the other side of the bar, Sandy held her breath for a moment or two until she felt content that her man had done what she asked of him. She'd learned the hard way never to expect too much from Bobby. She knew he was damaged goods.  But he'd been true to his word and played their song and that was about as much commitment as she could hope for.

At least for now.