Time Goes By
Chapter 3
A Sigh is Just a Sigh
"We're closed." Jean Havoc said as he leaned on the door and lit his cigarette and eyed Riza coming towards the entrance. They were done for the night but it appeared that someone was not. He liked Riza, they all did, which is why they all felt betrayed when she didn't come home from the war with Roy. Not that any of them, Catherine or Chris or himself, had any right to judge them or their relationship..but it was hard not to when they saw Roy spiral out of control after he lost her. Maybe if he had known why, maybe if it wasn't fuel for a intense self-hatred they all feared would consume him...maybe they could just let it go as a wartime romance that was all adrenaline and no substance. It wasn't. It was anything but.
"I know I'm not welcome..." She said and Havoc brought his cigarette to life and held up a finger. She remembered a night in the past so clearly, the smell of his cigarettes mingling with the unique smell of whatever Madam Christmas was smoking as they sat at a table in the back room. Laughing, playing cards and thinking about a bright future. Havoc flirting with Catherine and her not noticing at all, Roy holding her hand and kissing it...looking at her with a warm smile and bright eyes...introducing the woman he was falling in love with to his family. It was a trial to see if they could work in the real world the way they had in the field, a test to see if the only thing they had in common was the war. It wasn't supposed to go that well, it wasn't supposed to be that incredible, but it was. And the song had wrapped up their two lives together, wrapped them up in a dance that was so intense on a metaphorical and physical level that she couldn't help but want that happily ever after she felt she had no right to. Because that song was written of pain, from the mind of a man lost in the world because the world wasn't fair and tried to destroy him for believing in doing the right thing. It also told her that they could be reborn from that pain together. Save each other. Never forget the past and walk together to hold each other up and find that way to make amends for what they did. It was so much more than words, and he only vocalized them in this bar because he finally felt like he didn't have to hide them anymore and she made him go back to hiding them. Never wanting to hear that song again, she ruined something so genuine because of her actions and that was crueler than death.
"Riza, you were the most welcome person..." Havoc blew some smoke in the air as he thought about that night in the past when they all had been so damned happy. he was sure she was doing the same, it was hard to not stand here by this building and recollect the good times . "We saw the war change him and then he brought you home with him and he was alive again. We all welcomed that, we welcomed you and you never came. We welcomed you with open arms."
She looked away. Tears were starting again and she wanted to leave. "I need to talk to him."
"A little late for that, but go ahead." Havoc walked a few steps and cleared a path to the door. "Don't leave here without telling him why. It's killing him, eating away at him as the booze eats away his liver. It might hurt, but he needs to know answers."
She opened the door and walked into the dark bar and saw him wiping down a table. She let the door close behind her and studied him as he was now stripped down to just his shirt with rolled up sleeves for closing duties and the tuxedo jacket and tie were thrown over the back of a chair. He looked thin. He looked lost in his task. "Roy?"
He stopped buffing the table and leaned on the rag and contemplated his next move. He wanted to tell her to leave but he needed to know why she suddenly showed up again after all these years. Coincidentally the night he obtains these travel papers and Yoki gets killed for them. The thought already crossed his mind that she was more than capable of killing a man. In more ways than one. "What did you come here for? I know it wasn't for me."
All business. Professional. He wasn't in the mood for anything else. "I came here to meet Yoki, he had papers I was going to purchase. Travel papers."
Roy stood up and threw the rag across the dining area so it landed somewhere behind the bar. Dammit. He hated being right. "Why am I not surprised? You...are only interested in leaving."
He was hurt and she hated that she had done this to him. Hated that she couldn't make it better. Hated that the one thing she couldn't give him was the truth. "Roy..."
"Tell me, Riza." He said and walked over to her. God, she still was so beautiful. Even in the dimmest light he could still see her features and it reminded him of the moonlit nights they would spend in the desert. He had to stop thinking about that. "Is this for Lazlo? I can't help but see this as more than coincidence, you showing up just as everyone is looking for him."
"Yes." She replied.
"Ah." He said. He kind of hoped she would lie. "So the famous Lazlo who had this incredible weapon who could end the war...was he the reason you left me standing on that train platform with my heart in my hand? "
"Yes." She replied and closed her eyes. "You have to know that I loved you. You know what we shared was genuine."
"Then what the hell happened?" He asked. "Because you spend a war being merciful with your shots, making sure your prey doesn't suffer, and you left me bleeding out in the worst pain imaginable waiting for you."
"I thought he was dead." She said. "Lazlo. I thought he was dead or I would have never let things develop between you and I. When the war was over I heard he was still alive, being kept hostage by the government for his research. I had one opportunity to save him and unfortunately it came at the time when a train was leaving in one direction for him and the other direction with you."
"And now you want to leave again with him...but you need my help." Roy shook his head. "He's a lucky man, I suppose he should try that luck of his in obtaining his papers himself. Careful, I'm told someone is willing to kill to get their hands on them."
"Roy, I never wanted things to turn out this way. I loved you and I still do." She wanted to reach out and touch him but it would make things so much harder to leave. "We talked about our goals and responsibilities and unfortunately mine take me away from you. I can't tell you more because I am trying to protect you."
"Protect me?" He asked. "We were supposed to watch each others backs and now you're telling me that I can't even know the truth because you're trying to protect me?"
"Lazlo's research taints everyone who comes close to it. It's dangerous and I don't want you knowing anything about it." She said and finally grabbed his arm. "Even if I hurt you it means you are still alive to be hurt. Wounded, but alive."
"Sorry, but you don't get to make that call for me." He closed his eyes as she let go of his arm. He opened them and said, "If he wants the papers he can talk to me himself. I want to make sure he knows the extents you are willing to go to protect the people you love."
She watched him walk over to the entrance and hold the door open for her. Reluctantly she left and wondered exactly what she was going to have to do to get those papers from him because meeting Lazlo was not an option. The longer he had those in his possession the greater the danger would be. Damned stubborn man!
Roy went behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of something potent, something that would certainly be more painful in the morning than seeing her again. He chose the moonshine Havoc's family made and sat down at the bar with it. He poured a drink, trying to stop thinking about the nights when they laid in each other's arms or the plans they made for when the war was over.
He emptied the contents of the glass into his mouth and felt it burn as it traveled down his throat.
Then poured another when he thought about the feel of her chapped lips on his and the way her skin felt on his body as she peeled back his uniform and ran her calloused hands over his chest. Another glass vanished.
He had to concentrate now to make sure the shine made it into the glass and that's when he remembered how her back arched when his own lips traveled down neck, placing kisses along the way, and finally licking and nipping his way around her breast. He let his lips linger on the edge of the glass as he tipped it towards his mouth. Trying to burn away that memory and nub his lips in the process, trying to kill the feeling the only way he knew how.
Another glass of shine disappeared.
The memories only slowed down as the alcohol took a hold of him, and he spilled a little on the bar top he just cleaned. Then a hand reached out and wiped it up. He smiled as he saw the familiar hand adorned with rings and costume jewelry. Nothing like being drunk in front of your Mom. "Of all the bars in all the world, she had to walk into mine."
"You're had enough." Chris said and capped the bottle. "Enough drinking over her. Roy-Boy, you're not the first man to have his heart broke or to cry about it over this bar. Or have a song bring up a painful memory."
"You...going to throw me out?" He asked with amusement. "Better yet you should call Hughes and he can throw me in jail for the night. He can torture me with the knowledge I hand delivered to him this evening. It's OK, he admitted he really wants to see me under some sheets."
"Roy-Boy, I need you to stop feeling sorry for yourself." She said and ruffled his hair. "You're letting the past get the better of you."
"I asked her to marry me. I told her we'd get on that train and leave the war behind us. Asked her to marry me as soon as possible, in the first town we came to...whatever it may be. I waited on that train platform for her and she never showed. I got a note, coded like the ones we used to send to each other on the front, and I knew it was her leaving not in danger." It sounded so much worse when vocalized. It sounded so cliché. He was such an idiot.
"I'll throw her ass out on the curb next time I see her in my bar."
"Mom." Roy said and put his head on the bar. Memories of a brief term of happiness in his life continued to play through his head, their song playing in the background. A song he wrote and shared with her. "All this time I wanted answers as to why she left me, why I wasn't good enough, what I did. I guess I need her to show me so I can stop looking back. I want the truth."
"You're not going to find it in this." Chris said and shook the mostly empty bottle. "You're not going to get it out of her either if she's just using you to get what she wants."
"The thing is, I...think I like the pain now. It's what I associate with her." He snorted. That sounded so pathetic and here he was telling it to his Mom.
"God Roy, go to bed." Chris said and flipped off the lights and started to walk away.
"Can...you play it for me?" He asked. His Mom had been a vaudeville singer in her day, before the cigarettes took their toll on her voice. She still played the piano and coached singers hence his own musical talents and also Catherine's continued interest in this bar. Here in this shithole, the once famous Madam Christmas was wasting her talent pouring drinks and listening to pathetic assholes like him whine about broken hearts. She deserved better.
"No."
"I want to sing." He said. "I try to play drunk and you'll wring my neck for playing bad."
"I'll wring that girls neck for doing this to you." Chris sat down at the piano and cracked her knuckles. "What did she want?"
"To leave the country." Roy said then clarified. "To get Lazlo out. She needs papers. I have them."
"Give them to her and get rid of them both." Chris said and began to play his damned song. A beautiful piece he wrote as therapy during those long, cold nights in the desert. A song that had given them all hope when he unveiled it for them during furlough. Damn that girl for doing this to him.
"Who the hell is Lazlo?" Roy said. "I know of him, he's famous for his research and weapon that can end the war. I guess my dream of changing things was going to take too long. Still, who the hell is this guy?"
