Bar stories: Susy

 Bar Stories: Susy.

I ran into Susy one rainy night, sitting on the sidewalk at the corner of the bar where I worked.

We'd seen her a couple of nights before, in the area where the drag queens were working. It wasn't surprising; the drags didn't mess around and, at knifepoint, they would scare off any depraved fucker who tried to cross lines.

That evening, however, Susy was alone. I had opened the door to show that the place was still open, and there I saw her curled up in tears. I approached her in my schoolgirl outfit from that shift and spoke to her:

"Hi hun, what are you doing here at this hour?"

"I have nowhere else to go."

"Are you cold? Are you hungry?"

"Yes."

"Come with me, let's go."

I took her to the bar. I introduced her to the girls, made her some tea, and gave her my snack while the others helped her dry off and change. She told me her name was Susana (I don't remember her last name) and that she was 19 years old (which wasn't obvious at all, but she confirmed with her ID).

"I have nothing more to offer you, but if you want to work here, you're welcome."

"Yes, I do."

"Yeah, the first thing you have to learn here is that you set the limit. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Everything else goes until you say no."

We handed her a little skirt, and she started working right then. That night, Susy accompanied the clients who invited her for drinks (with a commission for her) while she engaged them in conversation. The first night, Susy left half-drunk and happy with about fifty thousand pesos. She paid for a place to sleep that night, and the next day (and all the following days) she returned to the local to continue working.

Over time, we learned about Susy's plight. At 15, she had her little daughter, who was taken away from her by the courts. Her little one was her main motivation to put her life in order and get her back. Susy would often tell us how she dreamed of travelling with her girl and pictured the two of them getting on a plane for the first time to see the world together.

We became her family. Viviana, our Mamurri, soon took her in and welcomed her like a daughter, and like mother and daughter, Susy and Viviana were seen everywhere together. Wherever Mamurri went, Susana was right behind her watching her ass, and Vivi, for her part, protected Susy like a lioness in heat from any degenerate who wanted to overstep her bounds.

About six months passed. Susy earned good money, had regular customers who came to see her alone and spent the afternoon in her company, drinking heavily. We all loved her; she was the darling of Don Vicho, the owner of the establishment, who even gave her a contract as a housekeeper so she could pay her taxes and obtain the necessary documents to reclaim her little girl. Susy smiled genuinely when she returned from seeing her. She visited her as often as possible and always brought the drawings and crafts her little girl made for her. The coffee table in Vivi's house became a sanctuary for Susy's daughter's gifts.

She worked tirelessly and arrived at the bar every day wearing her best smile. She never had a private encounter, but even from the private room, we could hear her laughter as soon as she arrived at the bar. When getting drunk, Susy would become ten times funnier and more charismatic. She was a crazy ass... she never sat still! Always laughing and jumping from one side to the other. Since she was also tiny, having her in the restaurant was like having the joy of a little girl weaving her way through the tables. 

One day, Don Vicho helped me get back to the city from the capital because I was short on money, and I took the bus straight to my dad's house. I was there when Mecha called me from the store:

"Monse, girl, there's a huge drama going on here."

"Shit, what happened?"

"We're having a wake for Susy."

I dropped the dishes I was washing. I heard Mecha say, "Susy killed herself," before I put down the phone and headed to the bar.

Don Vicho then told us that on that day, Susy had happily gone to present her contract with half a year of contributions to the court to prove a fixed income and address, and then she found out that her daughter had left for Spain that day with her new adoptive family.

Vivi found Susy hanged in her house, hanging lifeless from the stairs.

In her pocket, neatly folded, was a notebook sheet with a drawing of a plane and a little girl and an older girl inside it, hugging each other and wrapped in a heart.