It's Better Then Drinking Alone
"Hey, mister. Can I get you something?"
"A ride to Conneticut?"
"Can't help you there."
Jess shrugged and waved his hand to one of the beers.
"Polite, aren't you?" the bartender asked, grabbing it off the shelf for him.
"So, Conneticut, what are you doing here?"
These bar people seemed to have that idea of a Cheers bar fixed in their heads. Free drinks, open hearts, a little we-have-no-lives-drinking club... lovely little picture. Not his kind of thing. He shrugged again.
"Just saying, I don't see any reason for you to be here. In Monitcello."
"I'm not exactly a native."
"It's obvious."
Shrug. He switched shoulders this time. The waitress plopped down next to him, "so, you speak with limbs only?"
"I'm fluent in it."
"Well, English ain't your first language, obviously."
She even was striking up two-second poses. Instictively, he looked around for a camera.
"No, that would have to be Manhattan," a heavily lip-sticked woman said, eyes narrowed, lips tight, a perfect face of drunk analyzation.
"Oh, a city kid!" Regular-With-Beer-Glued-to-Hand commented.
"I've never been to the city."
The conversation switched from him to grafitti, piegons, rats and pollution and he was left alone to drink. Until the Bar Rats remembered the stranger in their midst.
"Why are you going to Conneticut?"
"Chasing after the girl I love." They took his reply mildly, as if it happened all the time in their little television land.
"Why don't you take a bus? I know you can get from the City to almost anywhere, with a few transfers...."
"I have no money."
"Who does?" Mr. Regular nodded to himself, "who does? Hey mister! Another two beers... on him!" the selection was random. It didn't seem to matter. Grumbling, the victim threw money on the counter and turned back to his laptop.
His breath heavy and thick with drink, Regular leaned over to Jess and stage-whispered in his ear, "we like to pick on the buisness guys. Make them think they fit in and then drain for cash" Buisness Guy scowled as the harsh voice carried across the room.
Jess raised the bottle to his lips. A woman with a hopefully fake bird on her head had just entered and was screaming the "latest". If you took Stars Hollow and saturated it in achohol, this would be it.
He glanced around and noticed a girl - maybe fourteen years old, sitting in the corner reading her book as the man with her... probably her father, fixed his eyes on the football game.
He tilted his head to get a better look at the book but recieved a warning glance from her father.
God, he missed Rory.
But he was going to find her now, and that was all that was important.
He was up to his elbows in dishwater. The owner of the motel came in and smiled at the stack of clean dishes.
"Nice job."
"That's what you're not paying me for."
"I hope you'll like the room you're getting."
"So long as there aren't enough cockaroaches to chew down and collapse the cheap bed I'm sleeping in, I'll be fine."
"Not very confident in my motel, are you?"
"The outside doesn't give the best impression."
"My mother, Anna Sr., did the decorating," she said with a sigh. He nodded, as if it explained everything.
"So, are you done yet?"
He spun the last dish onto the pile, "yep. Can I go to bed now?"
"Only after you finish making the french toast for tommorow."
"You serve your french toast cold?"
"It'll be our little secret."
"Remind me not to get breakfast here tomorrow."
"Just because it's reheated? Like you've never been broke," Anna defended her motel quickly, "and let me tell you, what I don't put in on food, I put in on good, reliable, microwave ovens."
He broke the final egg and handed her the two bowls, "mix, stir, soak bread, cook, flip, done."
"What?"
He was already asleep by the time she came into his room, covered in flour and asking if he could please make another batch.
"Mariano! Over here!" Jess glanced around the motel and spotted his ride.
"Hey," he dropped his bag into the open trunk before getting in to the car.
They drove the first few miles without saying a word, Jess with his nose in a book, Sam with his eyes on the road. At last Sam sighed, as if he had been fighting the urge to say this for the last hour.
"So, how'd you screw up?"
"Excuse me?" Jess looked up.
"Hardly anyone ever gets out of Stars Hollow. If you did, you wouldn't have to hitch a ride with me to come back. So you must've screwed up. Like me."
"Well, I hadn't figured that out about you yet," Jess knew that he and this man had something in common. Or else he wouldn't have agreed to take Jess with him back to Stars Hollow. They met in the motel that morning and they had discovered they both could trace back to Stars Hollow and wanted to return. And they had known that the other had a similar reason for leaving. Neither pryed any further. But now Sam had given out to his pure human curiousity.
"Guess it's kind of obvious, now that I'm taking renters?" Sam gave a soft snort and his eyes hardened, "seriously, though, I didn't know Stars Hollow had to many screw-ups."
"The whole town is a screw-up."
"So you must've done something pretty bad to be counted... bad."
Jess didn't look at him when he answered. Instead he looked out the window, "didn't you?"
"Worst part is, I don't have anyone to blame it on."
"Join the club."
"Anyone but me."
"Join the club."
Another cloud of quietude descended on them. It took awhile for Sam to speak again.
"When did you leave?"
"Five years ago."
"That would explain why I don't know you. Ten."
"Oh."
"Yea. Let me tell you, spending ten years hating yourself is not the most pleasant in the selection of futures. Remember this, Mariano, you choose for yourself. No one chooses for you."
"Yes sir."
Sam reddened, "sorry."
"Well, if I hadn't come to my senses about Rory, I would probably have had just that fate."
"Rory Gilmore? The nice little girl who seemed to be joined at the hip with her mother?"
"Lorelai," he almost smiled. His memories of Lorelai were pratically welcome memories. She was so much like Rory.
But no one could ever be Rory.
"So how are they?" Sam asked. Jess could see where this was going. He decided to play along with the small talk.
"I don't know. Last I saw, Rory had high hopes for Harvard and Lorelai was in a constant flirting match with my uncle."
"Luke Danes?"
"So their relationship's famous?"
"It's a little town."
The silences were getting less uncomfortable.
"Is Taylor still there?"
"Yea."
"That man is going to live forever. I remember when I was a kid and he caught me skipping across the street, the next town meeting was about how children's discipline needed to be stronger."
"Well, at least I didn't keep him bored," Jess said, then stopped.
Sam glanced at him and a slow smile crept across his face, "oh, come on. Tell me your Taylor pranks!"
Jess sighed and suddenly longed for orange juice, "one time I drew an outline of a body outside his market and put police tape around it."
"I'm surprised the local boys didn't worship you."
"There's just something pretty hateable about me, I guess."
Quiet. Hush. Lull.
"So are you going to tell me what happened?" Sam had finally cut to the chase. Jess' eyes flicked over to him for a second before he responded.
"Nope."
"I wasn't really ready to tell you mine, either," his driver admitted.
"Do you want something to drink?" Jess' hand was in his backpack.
"I might have lived in Stars Hollow where all types and forms of achohol were non-existent but I still know the laws of the outside world, and they seem to imply..."
"No, I have two pints of Tropicana Orange Juice."
"Orange juice?"
Jess looked over at him and shook the pint, trying to make it appear more appetizing. His companion snatched it and opened it deftly, taking a long gulp before setting it on the dashboard.
"I see we're not foreign to opening Orange Juice containers," Jess said in the lightest form of drawl/Jess-teasing.
"Hey, when I was a kid, my mom made me open my own milk."
Sam seemed ready for Jess to share a similar memory. He simply took a sip of his own identical beverage.
A silence settled over the two of them. It wasn't awkward, it wasn't anything. The two stood on common ground. That was enough in a friendship for Jess. These days, he hardly found enough people he could stand being around for five minutes.
Sam flipped on the radio and the song came on in the middle.
And they're sharing a drink,
They call lonliness,
But it's better then drinking alone.
Sing us a song, you're the piano man,
Sing us a song tonight,
We're all in the mood for a melody,
And you've got us feeling alright.
****The song at the end is some old song by Billy Joel. I don't own it! Isn't that news! Sorry this chapter was so bad. And sorry it took me so long to update. But please R/R and I promise it will get better!
And sorry it's mostly dialouge. GOOD NEWS! I've finally taken all the html tags out of the first chapter. Sorry about my bad spelling and all the mistakes, though.
"Hey, mister. Can I get you something?"
"A ride to Conneticut?"
"Can't help you there."
Jess shrugged and waved his hand to one of the beers.
"Polite, aren't you?" the bartender asked, grabbing it off the shelf for him.
"So, Conneticut, what are you doing here?"
These bar people seemed to have that idea of a Cheers bar fixed in their heads. Free drinks, open hearts, a little we-have-no-lives-drinking club... lovely little picture. Not his kind of thing. He shrugged again.
"Just saying, I don't see any reason for you to be here. In Monitcello."
"I'm not exactly a native."
"It's obvious."
Shrug. He switched shoulders this time. The waitress plopped down next to him, "so, you speak with limbs only?"
"I'm fluent in it."
"Well, English ain't your first language, obviously."
She even was striking up two-second poses. Instictively, he looked around for a camera.
"No, that would have to be Manhattan," a heavily lip-sticked woman said, eyes narrowed, lips tight, a perfect face of drunk analyzation.
"Oh, a city kid!" Regular-With-Beer-Glued-to-Hand commented.
"I've never been to the city."
The conversation switched from him to grafitti, piegons, rats and pollution and he was left alone to drink. Until the Bar Rats remembered the stranger in their midst.
"Why are you going to Conneticut?"
"Chasing after the girl I love." They took his reply mildly, as if it happened all the time in their little television land.
"Why don't you take a bus? I know you can get from the City to almost anywhere, with a few transfers...."
"I have no money."
"Who does?" Mr. Regular nodded to himself, "who does? Hey mister! Another two beers... on him!" the selection was random. It didn't seem to matter. Grumbling, the victim threw money on the counter and turned back to his laptop.
His breath heavy and thick with drink, Regular leaned over to Jess and stage-whispered in his ear, "we like to pick on the buisness guys. Make them think they fit in and then drain for cash" Buisness Guy scowled as the harsh voice carried across the room.
Jess raised the bottle to his lips. A woman with a hopefully fake bird on her head had just entered and was screaming the "latest". If you took Stars Hollow and saturated it in achohol, this would be it.
He glanced around and noticed a girl - maybe fourteen years old, sitting in the corner reading her book as the man with her... probably her father, fixed his eyes on the football game.
He tilted his head to get a better look at the book but recieved a warning glance from her father.
God, he missed Rory.
But he was going to find her now, and that was all that was important.
He was up to his elbows in dishwater. The owner of the motel came in and smiled at the stack of clean dishes.
"Nice job."
"That's what you're not paying me for."
"I hope you'll like the room you're getting."
"So long as there aren't enough cockaroaches to chew down and collapse the cheap bed I'm sleeping in, I'll be fine."
"Not very confident in my motel, are you?"
"The outside doesn't give the best impression."
"My mother, Anna Sr., did the decorating," she said with a sigh. He nodded, as if it explained everything.
"So, are you done yet?"
He spun the last dish onto the pile, "yep. Can I go to bed now?"
"Only after you finish making the french toast for tommorow."
"You serve your french toast cold?"
"It'll be our little secret."
"Remind me not to get breakfast here tomorrow."
"Just because it's reheated? Like you've never been broke," Anna defended her motel quickly, "and let me tell you, what I don't put in on food, I put in on good, reliable, microwave ovens."
He broke the final egg and handed her the two bowls, "mix, stir, soak bread, cook, flip, done."
"What?"
He was already asleep by the time she came into his room, covered in flour and asking if he could please make another batch.
"Mariano! Over here!" Jess glanced around the motel and spotted his ride.
"Hey," he dropped his bag into the open trunk before getting in to the car.
They drove the first few miles without saying a word, Jess with his nose in a book, Sam with his eyes on the road. At last Sam sighed, as if he had been fighting the urge to say this for the last hour.
"So, how'd you screw up?"
"Excuse me?" Jess looked up.
"Hardly anyone ever gets out of Stars Hollow. If you did, you wouldn't have to hitch a ride with me to come back. So you must've screwed up. Like me."
"Well, I hadn't figured that out about you yet," Jess knew that he and this man had something in common. Or else he wouldn't have agreed to take Jess with him back to Stars Hollow. They met in the motel that morning and they had discovered they both could trace back to Stars Hollow and wanted to return. And they had known that the other had a similar reason for leaving. Neither pryed any further. But now Sam had given out to his pure human curiousity.
"Guess it's kind of obvious, now that I'm taking renters?" Sam gave a soft snort and his eyes hardened, "seriously, though, I didn't know Stars Hollow had to many screw-ups."
"The whole town is a screw-up."
"So you must've done something pretty bad to be counted... bad."
Jess didn't look at him when he answered. Instead he looked out the window, "didn't you?"
"Worst part is, I don't have anyone to blame it on."
"Join the club."
"Anyone but me."
"Join the club."
Another cloud of quietude descended on them. It took awhile for Sam to speak again.
"When did you leave?"
"Five years ago."
"That would explain why I don't know you. Ten."
"Oh."
"Yea. Let me tell you, spending ten years hating yourself is not the most pleasant in the selection of futures. Remember this, Mariano, you choose for yourself. No one chooses for you."
"Yes sir."
Sam reddened, "sorry."
"Well, if I hadn't come to my senses about Rory, I would probably have had just that fate."
"Rory Gilmore? The nice little girl who seemed to be joined at the hip with her mother?"
"Lorelai," he almost smiled. His memories of Lorelai were pratically welcome memories. She was so much like Rory.
But no one could ever be Rory.
"So how are they?" Sam asked. Jess could see where this was going. He decided to play along with the small talk.
"I don't know. Last I saw, Rory had high hopes for Harvard and Lorelai was in a constant flirting match with my uncle."
"Luke Danes?"
"So their relationship's famous?"
"It's a little town."
The silences were getting less uncomfortable.
"Is Taylor still there?"
"Yea."
"That man is going to live forever. I remember when I was a kid and he caught me skipping across the street, the next town meeting was about how children's discipline needed to be stronger."
"Well, at least I didn't keep him bored," Jess said, then stopped.
Sam glanced at him and a slow smile crept across his face, "oh, come on. Tell me your Taylor pranks!"
Jess sighed and suddenly longed for orange juice, "one time I drew an outline of a body outside his market and put police tape around it."
"I'm surprised the local boys didn't worship you."
"There's just something pretty hateable about me, I guess."
Quiet. Hush. Lull.
"So are you going to tell me what happened?" Sam had finally cut to the chase. Jess' eyes flicked over to him for a second before he responded.
"Nope."
"I wasn't really ready to tell you mine, either," his driver admitted.
"Do you want something to drink?" Jess' hand was in his backpack.
"I might have lived in Stars Hollow where all types and forms of achohol were non-existent but I still know the laws of the outside world, and they seem to imply..."
"No, I have two pints of Tropicana Orange Juice."
"Orange juice?"
Jess looked over at him and shook the pint, trying to make it appear more appetizing. His companion snatched it and opened it deftly, taking a long gulp before setting it on the dashboard.
"I see we're not foreign to opening Orange Juice containers," Jess said in the lightest form of drawl/Jess-teasing.
"Hey, when I was a kid, my mom made me open my own milk."
Sam seemed ready for Jess to share a similar memory. He simply took a sip of his own identical beverage.
A silence settled over the two of them. It wasn't awkward, it wasn't anything. The two stood on common ground. That was enough in a friendship for Jess. These days, he hardly found enough people he could stand being around for five minutes.
Sam flipped on the radio and the song came on in the middle.
And they're sharing a drink,
They call lonliness,
But it's better then drinking alone.
Sing us a song, you're the piano man,
Sing us a song tonight,
We're all in the mood for a melody,
And you've got us feeling alright.
****The song at the end is some old song by Billy Joel. I don't own it! Isn't that news! Sorry this chapter was so bad. And sorry it took me so long to update. But please R/R and I promise it will get better!
And sorry it's mostly dialouge. GOOD NEWS! I've finally taken all the html tags out of the first chapter. Sorry about my bad spelling and all the mistakes, though.