Vanishing Act ✔️

2

Sean sipped from his tumbler of whiskey, as he took in the smoke-filled room.  It was dimly lit, the light reflecting with an amber hue off the deep red walls and the dark mahogany wainscoting beneath.  Even the bar stools were topped in red leather, now faded and in places patched.  A few overweight patrons anchored the stools down, crinkling that aged leather beneath them, as they quenched their palettes with their own liquors of choice.

This was the type of bar Sean imagined could have been classy decades earlier, but now lingered years beyond its time, a decayed monument to its former glory.  Sean glanced down at the intricate flowered patterns on the dusty carpet.  There were two patterns made of what might once have been maroon and Prussian blue, but which now met as nothing more than two virtually indistinguishable patches of gray.

He took a drag off his cigarette. The smoke soothed him as he breathed in.  Did the other patrons notice these signs of former glory?  No, glory was the wrong word.  It was something more, something regal.  Something dignified.  The moldings, the craftsmanship of their painstaking detail, the fine work on the now patched and mottled carpet, even the heightened ambience of the backlit, mirrored shelves of the bar spoke to a past solemnity, long since drowned and forgotten.   

Did anyone else see it?   Sean scanned the crowd.

In one back booth he saw a sleezeball in a black leather jacket that matched his black greasy hair and his goatee and Vandyke combo that did nothing to hide his increasingly pudgy jowls.  Sitting in his lap was a brunette at least half his age, wearing a tight white blouse over an ample pair of breasts.  Her midriff was exposed five inches above her navel, all the way down to the rhinestone belt that held up her low-rider jeans.  Sean watched as the jackass in the jacket tried to slide his hand down her exposed belly and beneath those jeans while guzzling down a pint.

Passing by the lustful couple, an old man in an orange polo and corporate khakis stumbled towards the bar.  The light glared off of his bald pate as he dropped himself into a seat between two drunk college girls, and waved for the bartender, motioning for him to refill their drinks.

One of the girls, anorexic thin with her hair pulled back through the opening of her UCLA baseball cap, stubbed out the butt of her cigarette, grabbed her drink and made her escape from the bald lech.  Halfway to an empty booth, she paused and pulled out a pack of Marlboro reds.  She packed the box for a moment, beating it against her hand, and then slid out another cigarette.

As the smoking girl lit her Marlboro, a waitress crossed in front of her.  She was likely in her mid thirties and once very beautiful.  Now there were bags beneath her eyes and the beginnings of a deep set of smile wrinkles.  She balanced a tray of empty glasses in one hand as she pulled up on her strapless top (which to be fair was part of a rather demeaning uniform and not likely her outfit of choice) from which her meager cleavage attempted to escape.

They are all blind, Sean thought.  Ignorant and drifting through life, mere moments from potential catastrophe and never the slightest bit aware.

He downed the dregs of his whiskey, and then raised his hand, calling the waitress over with a beckoning motion of his index finger.

"Another."

She nodded and Sean watched her as she left.  He stared at the gentle back and forth of her hips and the play of her tight skirt, slit up the back for maneuverability.  As she walked, the fabric parted then fell back with each step.  He felt ashamed as he watched, but he did not look away.  His eyes followed her until she disappeared, lost in the crowd.

Another vanished girl.

Would anyone miss her?  Would they weep for her like my father wept for Carrie?  Would they search for her like my mother?  Or would they drown out her memory like I did?

Sean reached for his glass, only it was gone, taken away by the waitress.  In its absence he grabbed his cigarette from the ashtray and inhaled.

He was surprised that you could still smoke in this bar; he doubted it was legal so much as a 'we won't tell if you don't' policy.  He exhaled, watching as a thin tendril of smoke escaped up towards the darkness above.

Tonight, he was going to know the truth.  At last, in this shit-heap of a bar, he would have his answers.  He would know what happened to his sister twenty-two years earlier.  Sean would reveal his secret, and he would learn how his sister had vanished.