Bourbon & Branch

[talonkarrde]

INT. THE BOURBON & BRANCH - NIGHT

We open in an underground room that is either a library that’s been converted into a bar or a bar that’s been converted to a library. Along the brick walls, there are an unusual number of bookshelves.

A bookshelf swings open and a youngish person of indiscriminate gender walks in, dressed casually. This is the NEWBIE.

Behind the bar, a grizzled, salt-and-pepper haired BARTENDER who is polishing a glass nudges his cap out of the way to look at the newcomer. He straightens his vest and has laugh lines he’s not using.

NEWBIE
(hesitantly)
So, er, how’d you.. I mean, how’d you learn about all this? Like, is it--

BARTENDER
(sighs, scowling)
Christ, kid, siddown. Yes, that stool. One question at a time, got it?

Bartender sets the glass down.

BARTENDER (CONT’D)
You know, everyone of yous always asks what the moment was - everyone expects that there’s a moment when you break through, take the pill, yadda yadda, all of those metaphors. Something ‘bout a clean delineation between before and after, and then, ta-da, you see the light.

NEWBIE
(even more hesitantly)
Is that not… how it works? I mean, I’ve been looking for--

BARTENDER
You gonna let me answer? Sheesh, no respect these days.
(pause)
I don’t think I have one of those. I vaguely recall flashes of… weirdness, I guess you’d call it, but growing up in San Francisco, there was a lot of weirdness. It’s kind of always been known for it, you know? Counterculture, free love, protests, gay rights, bay to breakers, folsom street fair… I remember seeing someone during the marathon that looked kinda like he had horns, but there’s roughly a billion furries in the city, so who knows? There was this guy at Folsom– well, I’ll spare you the details, but he sure healed up right quick.

Bartender chuckles, remembering the sight.

So, yeah, growing up, it was always weird. Didn’t get less weird during the ‘90s when the techies moved in, trying so hard to pretend that they were different than the finance people, even as they were busy being exactly as shitty. Turns out, everyone’s shitty at the top of the totem pole, and the nerds aren’t any better than the jocks. Heh, what a surprise, right?

NEWBIE
Hey, I’m a--

BARTENDER
Yeah, yeah, whatever. Stuff it. You were asking about the first time I was Noticed, right. Prolly September in ‘03 - Harry, one of the regulars, came in, was in a big hurry. Pretty sure he was pretty hurt, and the dark patches on his shirt wasn’t from a spilled Guinness, y’know? He was tryin’ to hide it - he tried to play it off as being drunk, but I had only seen him drunk once in the half-decade he’d been in, and that weren’t it. More importantly, he went to a booth. The man never goes to a booth.

NEWBIE
(incredulously)
You figured out what he was from the fact that he went to a booth?

BARTENDER
Shut your trap before you eat a fly, you aint a frog. Yeah, ‘the man never goes to a booth’ doesn’t sound like ‘that’s how I knew he was fucking magic’, but you’ve never been behind the bar, you don’t understand. People - they have habits. They show up, they order their usual, and sure, every once in a while they want a change but you can see it as soon as they walk in - maybe Mabel wants to impress her date, or maybe Johann is having a real bad day, or Tish had to clean up after someone. Harry, I’m telling you, he doesn’t do booths. Him going to a booth is like the sun deciding to rise from the west, you- don’t even start.

Bartender glares at the Newbie, who looks like they’re about to say anything, but stops.

BARTENDER (CONT’D)
Anyway, it perked my interest right up, and the night was pretty quiet, and so I hollered out to him, of course. His voice had kind of a curious strain to it - like a tightness in the throat, you know? And he told me to let him be, he just needed a moment. So, you know, I went to draw someone’s beer, and I stared a bit more at him, and, I shit you not, those dark patches on his chest were going away.

NEWBIE
Like… going away? Like--

BARTENDER
(exasperated)
Kid, I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. You think I ever saw blood just disappear from someone before? I thought I was fucking hallucinating or some shit, but I wasn’t gonna just head to Central to get checked out, I had a shift to finish. And besides, someone that makes a wound disappear can prolly make a wound appear real fast, if you catch my drift, so I wasn’t gonna make any dumbass comments. So, yeah, I kept quiet, kept my hands above the bar, and served Harry his whiskey sour like it weren’t nothing. And then I stared real hard at his vest, which looked like it was brand spanking new, straight from Savile Row.

NEWBIE
Savile Row?

BARTENDER
Yeah, Harry always dressed like he was a old timey Chi-town gangster, vest, suspenders, dark colors all the way down, a trenchcoat.

NEWBIE
And that didn’t--

BARTENDER
It’s San Francisco, kid - never San Fran, by the way. Once you’ve been around for a bit, you don’t blink an eye when someone comes dressed in a leash, in a tutu, in a t-shirt, or in a space-suit. The fog rolls in and you get all kinds. Not any kinds, all kinds. So, no, it wasn’t particularly weird, though now that I think on it I never did get a good answer for what he did. Well, until after that night.

Anyway - he left after three drinks, lookin’ a touch pale but otherwise his regular self. And I don’t think I picked up on anything else for a coupla weeks, maybe even a month. It was always small things, here and there. What someone who wasn’t in the know would’ve called sleight of hand, prolly. Things like money appearing into hands, or someone who tripped but didn’t trip, yeah? But I guess it’s true, you know? Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Both of them pause, staring past each other.

NEWBIE
Okay.
(after a beat)
But how’d you end up here?

BARTENDER
I’m getting there, kid. I think, into November or so, I was getting ready to open, was outside, about to come in. Saw a woman running down the street. Dress, fur coat, running. Heels. But here’s the thing, every step she took, it felt like she was aging. She was getting older in front of my face.

And that aint it. There were shapes behind her. Distortions. Haze, but not like Karl, malevolent haze. She met my eye, and I… well, I stepped aside and gestured into the Branch. And I, frankly, don’t know what the everlasting fuck she was thinking, but she - at that point, old enough to be my mom, and your granny - took zero seconds at all to come in, and I closed the door behind me and waited, eyes closed.

I don’t know what I was waiting for. The haze to come in, maybe? A knock at the door? But I held the door - don’t you dare make that reference - and… I dunno, the moment passed. And when I opened my eyes, she was young again. So, yeah, that was a fucking moment I’ll never forgot. I think we stared at each other for a second, and then I said, ‘So, we safe?’ and Madame Sop-

NEWBIE
(almost at a shout)
That was Madame Sophia?!

BARTENDER
(grins, wryly)
Heard of her, have you? You’ve done at least a bit of your research then. Yes, that was Madame Sophia, and we spent a bit of time talking. She told me a bunch of things, none of which you need to know. And in the end, she offered me a job. I see you’re getting it now.

NEWBIE
(slowly, thoughtfully)
So… that’s… why she asked me to talk to you.

BARTENDER
Yeah. So, here’s the drink, and the deal. You drink it, we get to see what courses through you, and you join the ranks.

NEWBIE
And… and if I don’t?

BARTENDER
This isn’t a magic pill or some shit. The talent you have in you is already there; this drink just determines what it is. It fixes it into a form that you’ll be able to use. You can live a life without it, and there have been a number of people who have walked the path but refused the drink. There are also those who have strayed and gone insane, of course.

In the end, it’s up to you, and your choices.

NEWBIE
Who… was the last one to reject the drink?

BARTENDER
(raises an eyebrow, seeming to take a renewed interest in NEWBIE)
Why… Madame Sophia, of course.