Gus
Mark DiStefano
“She used to come here,” Gus muttered to no one in particular. “She liked this place.”
He signaled to the bartender with his middle arm. The bartender obligingly refilled Gus’s glass with pale Earth beer. Gus lifted the mug to his mouth, and the amber bread-water funneled into his stomach.
“Urrrrrrrp!”
Jenny hated it when he burped. It was almost worse; her not being there to scold him. Her father had shown up with two of her cousins, laser blasters protruding from their waistlines and yellow teeth glaring in the Sporkean sun. Jenny had taken everything. The kids, the house, the ship. She even kept his collection of rare Republic coins from the days of the United Galaxy.
Not that he blamed her, of course. She was good at saving money; he was good at spending it. Jenny advocated a hands-on parenting style, while Gus was more interested in letting the squirts figure things out on their own. A hands-off approach. Was that such a crime? Jenny certainly thought so.
A young Murple couple parked a few barstools down from Gus. He examined them. Honeymoon stage. Had to be. Their tentacles were all over each other. They laughed at each other’s jokes. Cute. Barf.
Gus’s middle arm sounded the call for another round. Another beer. Gus promised himself he would take his time with this one. Earth beer had never disappointed Gus. Unlike his “friends,” unlike his wife. Earth beer wouldn’t leave him for a twenty-something kid.
“Whiskey and Borg Juice. No ice.”
She wore a tight, Jupiter-stitch mini skirt that stretched across the thighs of all four legs. She was a vision in her tank-top, long green hair flowing in the dusty bar fan. And what an order! This was a woman.
“You gonna stare, or you gonna pay for the lady’s drink?”
The bartender was a wise-ass. He hoped she hadn’t heard that.
Gus flipped a coin on the counter and made his way across the bar. He straightened his long dark mop as he went. Play it cool, Gus. Play it cool. How long had it been since he had approached a woman at a bar?
He stood behind her for a second, gathering his thoughts. Mydians were known for their dancing. Unfortunately, Gus was not. What would a woman like her be interested in?
“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t enjoy when men stand behind me while I’m trying to drink.”
Was she talking to him?
“I— I wasn’t—”
She turned to face him, her six eyes sizing him up quickly. He imagined her deducing his plight; abandoned by his family, living out of a rental shuttle. A solitary bead of sweat materialized on the back of his neck.
“I don’t like people buying me drinks...”
“I’m sorry—"
“...Without asking.”
“I—”
She smiled.
“Would you like to ask me if I want a drink?”
“Would— would you like a drink?”
“I would, thank you.”
She introduced the whiskey borg to her lips. Gus wished he was a whiskey borg.
“Why don’t you sit down.”
Gus’s legs gratefully obeyed, and he sank into the stool next to her. He turned to face the bartender, who was unabashedly gawking at the success of the galaxy’s most awkward pick-up attempt. He gave Gus a not-so-stealthy thumbs up and poured him another beer.
“Are you gonna ask me what I do?”
“What do you do?”
“None of your business.”
“Right.”
Gus took the beer from the bartender and gulped a guilty sip. What was he supposed to say to her? He tried picturing her as Jenny, but that just made him think of his kids. She didn’t want to hear about his kids.
“I have two kids. Also, my wife left me. Well, she kicked me out.”
“You don’t do this very often, do you?”
“I do not,” he confessed. She laughed, but not a mean laugh. It wasn’t at him, or at least he didn’t interpret it as such. Rather a laugh at the plight of being a beautiful woman in a bar full of less-than beautiful men.
“I have a proposition. We sit here and drink these drinks. We don’t talk about things we don’t care about, and we don’t ask each other about things that don’t matter. Deal?”
“Deal.” Gus could do that. He wasn’t much of a talker when it came down to it. Twenty-three years he’d lived on Spork. Twenty-three years he’d pushed papers at the Spork Interchase Company. He could go a few hours without speaking.
They sat there in a relatively comfortable silence. The sip of their drinks, the bar chatter around them. It was somewhat cathartic. Just being. No words, no questions. Just them. Enjoying each other's silence.
“Do you dance?”
Oh no. Here it was. She wasn’t facing him, but he knew the question was addressed to him.
“Not well.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“Right. Well, I suppose I do.”
“Do you suppose you would like to ask me to dance?”
“Would- would you like to dance?”
“Yes. Pick a song and put it on the jukebox.”
Gus slowly made his way to the jukebox across the bar. He flipped through a collection of musical relics. Marson and the Cadets, Pluton’s Cry… What would she want to dance to? Something fast? But not too fast. He was feeling sort of drowsy from the Earth beer.
There it was. Superflight’s “Love after Landing”. It was the sort of song that everyone thought they knew all of the words to when it came on and quickly realized they didn’t. He put a coin in the machine, and Howard Cruel’s post-galactic funk bellowed out of the pub speakers.
She met him in the center of the dance floor. He could feel eyes on him. She belonged out here. She fit the part. Four legs swirling to the guitar. Hair floating in the pub draft.
But what was he doing out there? Stumbling and bumbling to the rhythm, praying he didn’t step on one of her shoes. The Earth beer had brought liquid courage but also a drunk clumsiness that would surely betray him out here in the open.
And yet he seemed to find his rhythm in her arms. He carried on, holding her against him as Superflight played on. Play on, you crazy Clorgs! For this was Gus’s song now, and the bar patrons saw this clearly. The young Murple couple nodded their heads in unison, admiring this strange routine.
They whirled and twirled and danced and pranced. Suddenly Gus wasn’t thinking about his mortgage or the separation papers. He wasn’t thinking about anything in particular. He was just dancing.
And he was with her. They hadn’t spoken more than thirty words to each other. And yet there was something palpable about their chemistry. Gus could feel it. It was right!
The song ended, and a slow Creptian love ballad crept over the speaker. They sweated and caught their breath in each other’s arms. She pulled him close, and they swayed there in rhythm. This was their dance floor. And for the first night in a long time, Gus went to sleep that night in his rental speeder without a care in the universe.
About the Author
Mark DiStefano is an accountant based in New York City. He hails from a massive family (both immediate and extended, here in the States, Mexico, Italy, and Cuba). He enjoys writing movies with his twin brother.
© Gus by Mark DiStefano. 2022. All rights reserved.
