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It was something they had all whispered about, in the early hours of the morning, during closing, in those somber hours after a night out drinking together. What happened? What happened to Desmond?
Desmond Miles had disappeared. It was just after a Thursday night shift at Bad Weather, and he vanished like so much smoke. At first, they only knew he’d been acting strange near the end of his shift. Drunk, probably. It happened, wasn’t unusual for a bartender at Bad Weather to have a drink or two with a customer. After though, they whispered. Desmond never got drunk on shift. Ever.
A day. Two days, three. Nothing. Desmond was always on time. Always. He never called out sick, never disappeared. They started whispering then. Someone took him. Someone took Desmond. They drugged him, they slipped him something and got him in the street. The atmosphere at Bad Weather was always a bit tense, but they tried to look out for each other. It was becoming apparent that they hadn’t been looking out for Desmond. Not enough, anyway.
After the third day, they tried to file a report. The other bartender that had been on shift when Desmond disappeared, Erin, wrote down what they all knew during her shift. They’d pass her notes written on napkins, or whisper to her while they handed trays back and forth, and by the end of the night, they had a timeline. Someone bought Desmond a drink around 1:30 am, a half hour before closing. They were blonde, another server, Austin, remembers. He started to look sick about ten minutes later. He asked Erin if she wouldn’t mind closing - he was feeling bad. Ole’ Jimmy, one of the bouncers, saw him in the back alley a little after 2 am, trying not to puke. After a brief check-in, Desmond told Jim that he was fine, but would probably take a cab home. And that was it. No one had seen him since.
They met later that day to turn the report in, Erin, Austin, Jimmy, and a few others. Sheila, one of the dancers, who had been fond of Desmond ever since he helped her run off a particularly persistent… admirer. Kelley, because Desmond was one of the few people who didn’t get ‘weird’ when they came out as nonbinary, and Simon, who was part of the support staff, and about the only shift manager actually worth his weight.
They made their report with little fanfare, and they heard back two days later. We took a brief look into your guy, the cops told them. ‘Desmond Miles’ doesn’t exist. The apartment address you gave us was being rented illegally, and there was no name on the lease. Paid for entirely in cash. Whoever this Desmond was, he’s probably gone on the run.
And that was that, the cops said.
A few days later, a full week after he disappeared, their boss finally admitted that someone had been asking after him. They knew his dad, or something. Desmond hates his family, they told each other. He ran away from them.
I think they beat him, one whispered. I asked about his scar, the one on his face. He said it was his dad’s fault.
They were quiet for a while after that.
Didn’t he joke about being in a cult? One whispered in the silence. Didn’t they have enemies, too?
Ridiculous, they all said. But the idea was out there now. And if it wasn’t some weird conspiracy thing, the alternatives… weren’t much better. But days, weeks, months went by, and Desmond didn’t come back. They mourned, they walked each other home, they stopped letting customers buy them drinks all together, and slowly, things returned to equilibrium. But they all still wondered.
And then the sky fell in.
…
The Invasion had happened during the day time, which was about the only reason the staff of Bad Weather survived. In the aftermath, the only thing remaining of the popular night club was a hole in the ground and the memory of a shit work environment. According to anyone who’d seen it get destroyed, it had all happened in the blink of an eye – if people had been in the building, there would have been no time to react.
David, the owner, didn’t bother to stick around in the aftermath. From what best they could tell, he stayed long enough to collect the insurance on the place, then fled for the hills. Supposedly, he had business connections out in Chicago. Knowing that didn’t help anyone that stayed any.
So just like that, all the former employees at Bad Weather were out of a job.
Simon was still in New York. The former shift manager tried to do what he could for them, but in the months following the Invasion, very few places were hiring. Even so, he’d managed to pull a few strings to get them all their last paychecks, and did his best to refer them all on to other places.
The odd handful of them that had actually tried to do something for Desmond had banded together in the months following his disappearance, sharing ideas and leads and tips. After the invasion, Simon had gone to move in with family outside the city. Both Erin and Ole’ Jimmy (Who wasn’t all that old, so much as prematurely gray) still had apartments, but Austin, Sheila, and Kelley were all rendered homeless. Erin already had a roommate, but there was room on her couch for Kelley, and Sheila and Austin gratefully moved into Jimmy’s guest bedroom.
Desmond had remained on everyone’s minds in the months that he’d been gone, but with everyone who counted him as a friend struggling to get by, he’d taken a mental backseat in their collective conscious. That is, until the day that Erin found a place that was actually doing interviews.
…
“I’m telling you, I’ve heard really good things about this place.” Erin said, as she shuffled about in the cramped kitchen.
They all still managed to get together about twice a month, typically invading Jimmy’s apartment to give Erin’s roommate, Veronica, a break. From the tiny island separating the kitchen from the living room, Jimmy snorted.
“They’re actually hirin’ people, of course you’ve gone and heard ‘good things’. No one’s gonna bad mouth their workplace in a time like this. Nowadays if you sneeze wrong, you’re out. Why not, after all? Half’a New York is in a line out the door looking to replace you anyway.” Erin rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, Jimmy, the end times, we know.” She turned to squint at him. Behind him, sitting on the couch, Kelley was carefully touching up Sheila’s nails, while Austin carefully patched a hole in an old dress shirt. All of them were carefully minding their own business, but Erin could see the little interested glances.
Of the five of them, only Sheila and Austin had managed to reacquire full-time work. Sheila had found another job dancing in a club in Lower Manhattan on Simon's referral, while Austin’s Uncle had helped him find a job as a hotel concierge. Kelley didn’t have a permanent position, but was bringing in some money managing their Etsy store. Jimmy had his military pension, and the other two were helping out, but Erin was starting to run low on savings, and unemployment wasn’t getting her by. She needed this job.
“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll go, I’ll check the place out, and if I get skeeved out I’ll come back, tell you that you were right, and dinner will be on me tonight. But.” Her eyes narrowed. “If I’m right about the place, I’m gonna rub my first paycheck in your face to hell and back when I get it.”
Jimmy just snorted. “Darlin’, if you think I ain’t walkin’ you there and back, you’ve got another thing comin’.” Of course, she should have expected it. Their unofficial rule nowadays: never go anywhere alone.
“Fine.” She made a show of huffing, but when she passed the island to go collect her things, she brushed a hand across Jim’s shoulders.
Their trip into Manhattan took longer than it used to. The subway tunnels had all been cleared out at this point, but the sidewalks were covered in construction scaffolding, roads were blocked off, and heavy equipment was parked in the oddest places. Even now, five months after the invasion, clean-up was only just coming to a close, and the rebuilding efforts had only recently gotten underway.
The 1000 Miles was a new bar, fairly close to where Bad Weather used to be. It had popped up quickly, relatively speaking, in place of an old seedy dive. They had just started interviewing people, she knew, but they had a good number of staff already. Erin wasn’t sure if that meant that whoever was running the place had a good network, or if they just had seedy hiring practices. Either way, she hoped her experience would carry her.
Jim tagged alongside her the whole way. Erin knew he would have come regardless, but it grated on him as well, to not have work to do. If the place they were going passed muster, it was likely that he’d be turning in his own application.
Eventually, they made it. It wasn’t the biggest place, certainly a size down in footprint compared to Bad Weather, but from what she could see through the windows, it was fairly open on the inside. They were closed for the day, but a sign in the window cheerily indicated that they were taking walk-in interviews for afternoon and night shifts.
Pushing her way through the unlocked doors, Erin made her way inside. Jimmy followed after her, and they were both greeted by an old woman knitting away in the corner.
“Are you here for an interview, dears?” The lady asked them, brown eyes winking through a thick pair of bifocals. It looked like she was crafting a little knit bird.
“Yes ma’am,” Erin and Jim chimed in unison. She gave Jim a side-eye, but he was giving the layout of the bar another look about, and he seemed pleased with what he saw.
The lady in the corner piped up again. “The owner is in the back taking care of something, dears, he’ll be right out.” And with that, she went back to her knitting.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Jim moved off to do a slow walk-about, but Erin stayed by the door to wait, and to make conversation.
She and Ms. Dorothy (call me Dot, dear) chatted away for a few minutes while Jim prowled the floor. The vet found a couple places that he seemed particularly pleased with, stopping and tucking himself into the occasional corner to survey the place. At one point, he backs himself right up to the bar, leaning himself back to, Erin guessed, get a view from behind the bar without actually trespassing.
Ms. Dot was a delight. Apparently she was the head hostess for the 1000 Miles, and the owner was ‘perfectly accommodating to her old self’. During the slow hours she could sit and craft to her heart’s delight, and during the busy hours there were plenty of folks happy to come by and chat.
As she listened to Ms. Dot extoll her job’s virtues, and watched Jim settle in to the place like a particularly satisfied goose, Erin was sold. She wanted this job. The place already had such an atmosphere while empty, she couldn’t wait to see what it was like when full.
Movement caught her eye from the back, and she turned to catch the owner’s eye. Time to impress. But she didn’t even get her first word out before the man’s appearance registered.
Tall. Lanky build, but strong, like a professional climber. (He was always in charge of getting things from the top shelf.) Loose stance, leant forward slightly, but not slouchy. (Always engaged, he always wanted to hear what you had to say.) Kind expression, somewhat tired, but attentive. (Desmond.) A distinctive scar cut across his mouth, old, faded, but long. (Desmond.) Sharp golden hazel eyes scanned the room, right hand – now scarred over with a strange electrical burn – twitched briefly at their joint attention before relaxing again. (Oh, Desmond.)
Erin Calloway was a star track and field athlete in high school, and she’d kept up her skills through college and after. The only reason Jimmy got to Desmond first was because he was already right next to him. Even so, as she hurdled the bar to crash into their tangle, it was right behind Jim, who had been around the bar in a flash to go in for a bear hug.
They all went stumbling backward with her and Jim’s combined momentum, but Desmond just caught them both and let his back drive into the wall.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Someone is babbling. It very well might’ve been her, Erin knew, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Next to her, Jimmy was shaking, eyes screwed shut, and a hand locked around the back of Desmond’s neck. There may have been tears, but Erin would never tell. Above them, Desmond was doing a bit of his own babbling, hands awkwardly patting at their backs, smoothing over their shoulders. He was always a bit awkward with physical affection, the dork.
She could hear Ms. Dot behind them, worriedly calling over, and there was movement in the kitchens – footsteps rapidly approached the swinging doors – but Erin didn’t care. Not the best first impression, quite likely, but Desmond was back. She’d worry about her application later.
…
Erin ended up placing a very teary phone call back to Sheila, Kenney, and Austin. She was pretty incoherent, she realized, and when they arrived, it was clear they weren’t quite sure what was going on. But it was incredible to watch the shock and realization dawn on each of their faces when they recognized Desmond, and to watch Desmond’s own surprise when all three followed Erin and Jim’s example in tackling the missing bartender for all they were worth.
Later, after they had called Simon on speaker and shouted with him for upwards of half an hour, they all sat about the bar and chatted away. Desmond was reluctant to share his story, but that was something they all understood. Maybe he’d tell them one day, maybe he wouldn’t. But for now, he was here.
Eventually Ms. Dot, as well as a woman who introduced herself as the Manager, Maria Ramos, came over to break them up so they could open.
…
“Am I adding those two to my payroll or not, Desmond?” Mrs. Ramos asked him.
Yes, yes she was.
...