Carmen is a Cat

 The Bachelors, the Beginning

Stepping through the swinging door, five 30 something men sat at the bar, backs covered in plaid, hands cupping their beers like old friends. Perhaps they had names. They seemed to be waiting for something to happen, two of them calmly discussing what would happen next. Years later people would remember one or two of them, even from their backs, not because they knew them but because they knew of them. What kind of car they drove, who their girlfriend was, if they had a dog and sometimes, when they died.

The town had become a place where people died alot. Some from a disease, others from a stullifying loneliness and a few from crimes or accidents. A handful killed themselves.

Yet still, others clambered to join the club, to buy property even if it was a dry piece of land on which to park an old Winnebago. It wasn't obvious what brought them to this neck of the woods but what kept them here was quite clear and had always been: opportunity. The chance to find a love affair, a brilliant life full of tremendous adventure resembling faience, an earthenware pot glazed to appear as if it were actually ceramic. Some had no where else to go, divorced, thrown out, broke but good at electric, drywall or plumbing. A town of handymen kept just comfortable enough to keep trying.

A few of them found success and hooked up with an 'old lady' whom they referred to as "their old lady". The Bachelors never tired of this precious slang born out of the slaughter of the Vietnamese people, the Koreans and a batch of other Klingons.

It wasn't until the latter part of the century that a new breed of Bachelors began to arrive. Slightly better off, able to pay cash for a house and some still married but not for long. The town was hard on women and had been from the earliest days of its foundation. 

Pete arrived and bought his place up behind and in one corner, definitely on the outskirts of town. He'd received a handsome settlement from his ex whom he referred to as 'my ex' in the way burnt out divorced men do, out of spite and revenge. They just ex each other out and a name becomes a manner of referring to an entire past that was full of children, horses and homes. The rejection is stark, palpable and reliable as if to say, "I once was chosen by a woman," but I am no more.

Pete deserved what he had earned no doubt. He tended towards smug utterance and casual displays of having some type of above average intelligence yet here he is now, dissected by the docent of the local museum.