I admitted to e that I no longer liked p, not like that, but just as a person, and I couldn't explain why. Then I figured it out: I have long held the suspicion that it is he who took my L album, the one S gave me, the one I loved more than anything, the only one I insisted A leave behind (though he left plenty for me, he took the record player, which is why I brought the L album to the bar, the only one I would ever want to listen to, and I can't replace it on vinyl without shelling out mega eBaybucks).
Tonight changed that alleged resentment, and it's probably because there is a girl interested in P and P is interested in the same girl and we can be friends again without any of That tension between us.
A said once, "I always thought he had a crush on you." "P?" I said. "No way." But he did, but not really; he had a crush on bartender me, who is a completely separate persona from the real me. I'm actually a little jealous of bartender me; she will kick your ass twice before you ever know what's hit you and still have you tipping 100%. I wish that was me all the time, but it takes too much energy except when you're getting paid to be awesome.
It was never going to be a great night, what with the sickness, but I faked it as best I could, playing my part, reciting my lines, giving my all as best I could under the circumstances, but when I really fucked it up at the end of the night and received only pity instead of the verbal smackdown I so deserved, the only thing left to do was to lock myself in the office and cry and cry and cry. I've cried in the bar before, but never with customers still there. But it was the only the left to do.
Then P knocked on the door, and I opened it and, my mascara-stained face and I looked up at him and he said, "Are you ok?" And I shook my head no. And he said, "Do you want company?" And I put my head on the desk and said no. And he patted me on the shoulder, shut the door tight, and did all my dishes for me.
I never doubted that P was a good man, because he always was. He's very young, for how old he is, and I get the sense that the things he does, the hobbies he has, are less an result of his passions and more an effect of his desire to be associated with a subculture; thus, the mishmash vinyl collection, no rhyme or reason, no story behind each album, no appreciation for the collection, just more Stuff to mask the fact that he does not belong. I accepted that long ago and have little patience for those who don't.
That's what pissed me off most about the L album. I love it on more levels than he'll ever appreciate it, from story behind the person who gave it to me to every last lyric, and he just wants it to say he has it. And maybe someday, someone will pull it out and say, oh, these guys, I remember when, and it will be put back, whereas if I had it and someone pulled it out and said oh, these guys, I remember when, I would say, I saw them live twice, once at the Crocodile in Seattle with A with 30 other people, once at the Fillmore in San Francisco with S with 2000 other people, and both times were the best times I've had at a show, ever.