I scrub the bathroom wall with a Magic Eraser sponge. Only the word “basement” in “There’s a unicorn in the basement” remains. For about two weeks, this Sharpie-written sentence of graffiti has appeared here and there in the men’s room. Is there a unicorn in the basement? No, and I should know. I’ve been sleeping there.
Continuing to scrub, I wish there were a unicorn. I’d pack it in a trailer and drive it from town to town, charging locals a killing to just look at it. But I’m not that lucky.
The words gone, I wave my hand under the paper towel dispenser and dab my sweaty armpits. Working at Pair-A-Dice sucks. It follows the dive bar rule of the punnier the name, the dumpier the place. The owner, a guy named Jeff, doesn’t care that there’s mold growing on the water-damaged ceiling tiles. But if the bathrooms are dirty, he freaks the hell out as if I’ve just insulted his mother.
Out in the bar, I start taking chairs off the tops of tables. The bells tied to the door jingle, and a streak of light highlights the sawdust on the hard concrete floor. The owner, the world trapped inside his aviator sunglasses, stumbles in. He snaps his fingers like he’s keeping a tempo, which means, “Get my dumbass a beer.” When I go to pour him a pint, only a bit of foam sputters out of the tap.
“The keg blew,” I say, heading for the basement. “I’ll get one from downstairs.”
“Those bathrooms better be clean,” Jeff shouts from the top of the steps.
I moved into the basement after my ex-landlord raised my rent. At night, after Jeff finishes counting the till, I go around the block and wait inside a 24-hour McDonald’s until I see his rusted-out Firebird speed away. Then I sneak back in and sleep on an old army cot.
What good would a unicorn do me anyway? After the novelty wore off, it’d just be another thing to feed, to keep alive. Hell, Jeff would probably promote the thing and make it my supervisor, and I’d start getting paid in apples and hay.
I grab a dolly to load up a keg. They weigh well over a hundred pounds, but I’m used to lifting heavy things. Been doing it my whole life. I come from a long line of heavy lifters. It’s coded in my DNA.
I slide the nose plate under a keg of Budweiser. I’ll have to use the basement loading doors and haul the keg up the hill to the bar’s main entrance. When I pull out the keg, I hear mewing. A kitten, its skin suctioned to its body, crawls out from behind the dolly’s wheels. It’s orange with white stripes and has an M on its forehead.
“You don’t look like a unicorn,” I say, pouring a capful of bottled water.
As the kitten licks up the water, I remember my childhood cat. Ace would purr and vibrate next to me on the living room sofa whenever I pretended to be sick and stayed home from school. The Price is Right would be flickering on the television, and with no place to be, I’d yell numbers at the screen, hoping one day to be a contestant. Giant doors would retract, revealing a new car and other shiny prizes for me to win, and, as Jeff’s voice echoed in the future, I’d say, “Come on down.”
