​Change Of Heart

I

Lisa sat at the bar staring at her fourth rum n’ coke. She watched it sweat, turning lighter with every minute that passed. “You want me to freshen that up, little lady?” asked a gruff voice that snapped her back to reality. “Sure why not? She replied tossing back the rest of it in one gulp, slamming the glass back down on the coaster with a big thud. “Woah, easy there, kid.” he said as his two big ugly hands mixed her another. She stared so intently into the soda filling up her glass, the bubbles bursting above the foam like tiny fireworks in a celebration of more alcohol, that she barely heard the bartender asking if this was her fifth drink already. “What?” she said looking up at him, finally noticing what he actually looked like. He was the same man in all the pictures behind the bar. Some posing with customers, some with waitresses, and some posing at what seemed to be different holidays. She noticed one, in particular, his arms draped over two smiling middle-aged ladies, one had a Santa hat on, the other a red shirt that read in big green letters: I’ll be your HO HO HO. Tanya, Ben, & Tammy X’mas 86’ was embossed on a peeling label at the bottom of the frame. He looked younger then, but the same tired. The bags under his eyes were exactly the same, dark and deep, like someone who doesn’t sleep much. His eyes weren’t though. His eyes had life in the picture, they still had hope and happiness, but not now not anymore. Lisa looked into his eyes and saw only darkness, a void, lifeless like a doll. Only they didn’t scare her, they comforted her, they were familiar eyes, they were the same eyes she saw every morning when she woke up and looked deep into the mirror of her medicine cabinet. “You must be Ben.” she said swirling the ice around in her glass with her finger. “Unfortunately” he replied touting a small smirk. Lisa chuckled to herself and tossed back the rest of her drink. “This place isn’t that bad.” she thought to herself. Only it was. Bens’ Bar, which was literally the name on the sign out front, was the kind of bar that makes you question its mere existence. You know the bar, set in a barely functioning strip mall. You’ve seen it when you went to pick up Chinese takeout next door. You’ve questioned its existence at Noon on your Thursday lunch break. Door wide open, two or three lonely patrons inside, their lonely livers already suspended in alcohol.
Ben’s Bar was in a strip mall off Highway 165. Lisa passed it every day on her way to work, although she’d honestly never noticed it before today. Though today as she sped along Highway 165, for what seemed to be the 1000th day in a row, there it was. The neon open sign, flashing on and off, summoning her in like a lighthouse guides a ship safely into harbor. She sat outside Ben’s Bar staring through her windshield. It had started to rain and she watched the drops change colors with the flash of the neon sign as they meandered aimlessly down the glass. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there, watching the drops accumulate on her window, the steady sound of rain on the metal roof aiding in her trance. These trances had been happening more and more the past three months. Since her fiance, Brad, left. Brad, her fiance of 3 years. Brad, her high school sweetheart since sophomore year. Brad, the boy who took her virginity. Brad, the only man she had ever been with. Brad, the asshole, who three months ago confessed his undying love for Tammy. Tammy, a 39-year-old casino waitress. Tammy, single mom of four kids from four different fathers. Tammy, the lush who got so wasted at last year’s Christmas parade that she climbed up on Santa’s float, stumbled awkwardly onto his lap, screaming how she wanted a real man for Christmas, and then proceed to piss all over him. That Tammy. Lisa couldn’t have been out of it too long because the glass heart hanging from her rearview mirror still had a slight sway to it from parking. As she watched it slowly sway back and forth on her rearview mirror, she noticed for the first time since it appeared months ago that there were fewer cracks in it. She didn’t even know where it came from. She had woken naked on the floor of her bathtub three months ago, cold water from the shower still pouring down on her, and it was around her neck. She sat there, icy shower water pouring down, and examined it. It was exquisite, a glass heart about the size of a Christmas ornament. Clearly handmade, its deep red glass shape outlined with ornately decorated gold trim. A small glass loop protruding out of the top held a soft leather necklace that seemed older than time itself. She turned it over and over again in her hands, the icy water still pouring down on her, though she wasn’t cold at all. She could feel that the water was cold but she wasn’t. She felt nothing as she turned the glass heart over and over again. Examining every crack in the glass, tracing them with her finger. She felt close to them. Almost like they were a part of her.

II

Lisa stared past Ben now to the television mounted above the bar. The local news was on. A past her prime news anchor mouthed words, only no sound escaped. Bars of closed captioning lagged behind her moving lips not quite matching the images on the screen. It didn’t matter though. Lisa knew what she was talking about. It was the only thing the news had talked about for the last two months. There was a serial killer on the loose. She watched the news footage of a helicopter circling police as they roped off the area around a body lying face down in a boggy marsh. Just then the door to the bar burst open, the flood of sunlight pierced Lisa’s eyes reminding her that she had indeed had five Rum n’ Cokes before noon. In stumbled a couple both holding their jackets over their heads to shield them from the rain. The woman was much younger than the man, probably around her late 20’s. Pretty in a way that she tried too hard to be pretty. Her makeup caked on, bright pink eye shadow glistening in the glow of the bar lights. “Honey, Order me a Gimlet neat.” she said in a twangy southern accent, as she pulled the faux mink coat from over her head and tried to fix her soaking hair. “I’m gonna go freshen up in the bathroom.” she said to the man but looking straight into Lisa’s eyes. Without missing a beat the man looked over at Ben and confidently ordered drinks. “Gimme a Gimlet neat and scotch on the rocks” he barked pulling up a barstool right next to Lisa. “Hi there.” he said to Lisa leaning on his elbows and lighting up a cigarette. Lisa raised her eyebrows and nodded her head in acknowledgment taking the last sip of her drink. “You want a sixth?” Ben asked as he placed the man’s drinks down in front of him. “Six! Geez darlin it ain’t even 1 pm yet!” the man said then taking a big swig from his scotch. Suddenly Janis Joplins “Take Another Little Piece Of My Heart’ screeched onto the jukebox. The woman had emerged from the bathroom and now stood in the front jukebox, hands leaning on the glass, her hips swaying back and forth to the beat. “Take it! Take another little piece of my heart now baby!” Janis Joplin’s voice screamed as the woman jumped around and begin to dance provocatively toward Lisa. Her eyes never left Lisa’s as the woman’s hips swayed and gyrated, gliding ever closer to Lisa. “This goes out to the Heartless killer!” the woman screamed over the song, never stopping her movement. “I said come on come on come on. Take another little piece of heart now baby! You know you got it if it makes you feel good!” Janis Joplin’s voice continued to whale. “I just love her so dang much!” “You know that she got her 35th victim today!” the woman yelled finally reaching Lisa with her dance. “ Babe, I told ya there’s no way it’s a woman!” the man yelled, through a cloud of smoke, as he stamped out his cigarette in the ashtray behind Lisa. “ It is so Chuck! I just know it is!” she yelled dropping to the floor with a seductive sway, slowly making her way back up, never breaking eye contact with Lisa lip-syncing the entire way: Come on Come on Come on Come on. Take another little piece of my heart now baby! the woman mouthed seductively. “What makes you think it’s a woman?” Ben asks in his gruff normal voice you could still hear over the music. “She thinks there’s no way a guy could do that another man” Chuck says lighting up another cigarette. “What’s that?” asked Ben. “Oh, you don’t know what she does to her victims?” Chuck screamed over the music. “See you just called her a woman!” the woman yelled hitting the man in the shoulder of his leather jacket. “Yeah Yeah.” “Well anyways she cuts open their chest all delicate like and takes out tiny pieces of their hearts.” “Then she sews up the incision all perfect like in the shape of a heart.” chuck said confidently, his arms mimicking a doctor, pretending to sew with a needle and thread. “They’re alive the whole time!” the woman squealed with eerie delight as Janis Joplin belted out the climax of her song: Come on! Come on! Come On! Come on! And Take It! Take another little piece of my heart now baby! Break It! Break another little piece of my heart now baby! All Lisa could do was smile and spin back around in her Barstool. She stared up at the news story still gracing the TV. Pressing the glass heart tightly against her chest a smirk slowly crept across her face, as she sipped her sixth Rum N’ Coke, realizing the whole world was admiring her handiwork.