TALES FROM THE BARSTOOL
By: Clint Lien

Ray

The old man sat at the far end of the bar where he always sat - where I had seen him a thousand times before. His name was Ray and I'd never exchanged much more than a nod with him. I knew little about him and didn't really care to know any more. Someone told me he was a jeweler. He was just another barfly to me. Another member of the lost and lonely tribe. I could not recall ever going into that bar and not seeing Ray sitting there on the same stool.

Ray drank there six nights a week. While I made no effort to get to know him, he made less effort to get to know me, or anyone for that matter. He was like a painting at your doctor's office - you don't hate it, you don't like it. It's just there. After awhile you stop seeing it - but if someone takes it away you notice the space on the wall immediately. If it's been hanging there long enough a record of its existence will be perfectly marked by contrasting colours on the wallpaper. Soon enough a new painting will go up. Before long the old one will be forgotten.

Three weeks ago I came in and Ray wasn't there. It was the first thing I noticed. I joined the gang, ordered a beer and didn't think about it again, until a young couple came in the bar and the girl took Ray's seat. That was Ray's seat.

After a few drinks I commented to the group that it sure was funny to see someone else sitting in Ray's seat. The others were surprised. Alex said he'd noticed something was amiss but he couldn't put his finger on it. Nobody could remember a time that Ray was not sitting there. Things were not right and true in the world.

Ray had died. I knew it as sure as I knew my own name. I think we all knew it.

I asked Jack. He didn't know. Ray hadn't been in for the last two nights.

Jack had worked that bar for more than seventeen years and Ray had been a long-time regular when Jack was just a bus boy.

For the next twenty minutes Ray was the topic of conversation. Did anyone know anything about him? One of the fellows had heard somewhere that Ray had served during World War Two and had been in the infantry. He'd also heard that Ray was one of the rare survivors of the invasion at Dieppe. He wasn't sure if he'd heard that or if it was his imagination. No one knew where he lived or even his last name.

Terrible thoughts began to surface. If he had died, as we were sure he had, was anyone aware of it? Was he currently laying on his linoleum- floored kitchen while three starving cats were reaching the end of their patience? We thought the worst and everyone felt pretty bad about it.

Three days later I was back, but Ray wasn't. I didn't expect him to be, but I was hoping. I'd thought of him more than a few times since I'd last been there, and always it was with some regret. It sure wouldn't have taken much to invite him to join our table, or to pull up a stool next to him and shoot the shit for awhile. He seemed like a nice enough guy but, of course, I didn't know for sure and now, it seemed, I never would.

Of course, my reaching out may have revealed a bitter cynical old man who wanted to know nothing from nobody. Somehow I doubted that and what would it have mattered anyway? Nothing gained. Nothing lost.

The following Tuesday I was back again and to my utter surprise, so was Ray - sitting there as he always did as though nothing had happened, as though hungry cats had not been nibbling on his toes.

"Where the hell have you been, Ray? We thought you were dead." I asked.

"So I heard. So I heard," he said.

Ray had been to Regina for his granddaughter's wedding. Ray's son, her father, had passed away and the honour of walking her down the aisle fell on Ray's shoulders.

He joined us at our table and told us about the wedding. He told us about World War Two and how he fixed watches in the back room of a friend's jewelry store when he came home in '45.

So now Ray's stool is occupied by any number of people - except Ray. He sits with us. People generally don't like change, but this is a change everyone seems fine with.

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