The Portal

The Portal
WC 1259

It had been a long two years.

I hadn’t been out to dinner or even out for a drink in all that time. It just felt safer staying home, alone. All my social contacts had dried up for one reason or another. I knew I wasn’t the only one feeling isolated and unsettled; the world as we knew it would never be back.

I felt a slight rush as I approached The Portal, my once go-to bar. The façade was Art Deco and The Portal had bronze double doors that always seemed to beckon me.

“Enter,” they would whisper.

The Lalique glass blurred the interior. I used to love the privacy; I felt hidden from the mean street. But now, standing on the outside looking in, I couldn’t see what might await me after such a long absence. I grasped the metal handle and then pulled my hand away.

But why?

Suddenly, the doors opened wide; I backed up and began to retrace my steps toward home.

“Well, I’ll be. It is you,’ said Nate, the bartender. “Don’t run off. Come on in. No masks required.”

The only person in the bar was Nate. I wasn’t sure I wanted to have a drink after all. What I yearned for was human companionship, but not with the one person that knew where all the bodies were buried. Nate and Hank, my barber, had been my priests through the years. I frequented their respective confessionals before the Lockdown.

Once I was seated on my favorite stool, Nate said, “The usual, Eddie?”

Bartenders have memories like elephants. My usual was a vodka martini, dry, with three olives.

“No, Nate, I think I’ll have a vodka and tonic, easy on the vodka,” I said, remembering the trouble I usually got into after a few of the usuals.

“You look well, Nate. Survived it, I’m happy to see.”

“You, too, Eddie. We missed you. Let me get that drink for you.”

“Glad to see The Portal didn’t go belly-up,” I said to Nate’s back.

“You and me both!”

“So where is everybody?” I asked.

A breathy female voice said, “I’m right here.”

I smelled her musky scent before I saw her. I kid you not, an electric current ran through me. My heart started racing as this gorgeous creature pulled up the barstool next to mine.

I knew I was in trouble.

“Beth,” said Nate, “it’s good to see you again. The usual?”

“Yes, please. Make it a double.”

“Beth, Eddie. Eddie, Beth,” he said and got busy concocting what looked like a White Russian in a large Margarita glass.

I didn’t know what to say, so I started talking about the weather as we sipped our drinks and nibbled nuts.

She was wearing a skin-tight jumpsuit of some sort. I admit wondering how I was going to deal with its long zipper…if I got lucky. Her outfit was made of some odd fabric I had never seen before, like a metallic mesh. And her boots had pointy, curled toes and strange, see-through heels. Beth’s outfit had Star Trek written all over it.

I wanted to ask her if she was a Trekkie but didn’t dare, in case I was wrong.

“So, where are you from?” she said. I couldn’t place her accent.

“From here,” I said.

“Here?”

“Yes. Chicago.”

She tilted her head.

“As in Illinois,” I added, to clarify something I didn’t think needed clarification.

She seemed to be waiting for more.

The silence was awkward, at best. I was getting a bit annoyed at the interrogation.

“USA. My final answer,” I said. “How about you, Beth?”

She was silent.

Screw this!

I pushed the stool back and was milliseconds away from asking Nate for my check, but something stopped me. Beth was rude, yes, but she was smoking hot, and that zipper did intrigue me.

“USA, on the planet Earth,” I said.

“Which Earth, Eddie?”

Seriously?

“Earth, 2022. Is that what you’re looking for, Beth?”

“I like to know who I’m dealing with.”

“So, Beth, I’ll bite. Where are you from?”

“Earth, 3033.”

This was too nuts for me!

“Nate, what do I owe you?” I said as I got up.

“Eddie, sit down,” he said in a non-Nate voice.”

I didn’t know what was going on, but I didn’t like it. Something had changed since I was here last. Things were off. Warning bells sounded in my head. My heart started to pound.

“Nate, what is going on?”

Before he could answer, a man entered. He looked like he had stepped out of a history book during Abe Lincoln’s time.

“Jedidiah, welcome. The usual?” Nate said, in his unworldly voice.

“Yes, please. Make it a double. Long day.”

Jedidiah pulled up the barstool on the other side of me.

“So Jedidiah, let me guess. You are from Earth, circa 1865ish,” I said, confident of my guess.

“Eddie, that isn’t polite,” Beth said. “That’s like asking someone their income or weight--or their age.”

“But you asked me, Beth.”

“Yes, I did, though not flippantly.”

“But it wasn’t polite, according to your rules.”

If looks could kill, I think I would have met my Maker right then. I sipped my vodka tonic through my zipped lips.

Every few minutes, people dressed in clothing from different eras and places entered The Portal until the bar was packed. I sat silently in the time machine, trying not to be offensive.

The musical intro to Welcome to My World spilled out of The Portal’s jukebox at the back of the room. I stifled a giggle at the absurdity. I glanced around for Rod Serling. I began laughing, uncontrollably.

“Something funny?” Beth said as she squeezed my arm with a death grip.

“Ow!” I yelped, but I could not seem to stop laughing.

“Stop laughing!” Nate ordered in that not-of-this-world voice.

I stopped laughing.

I wanted to go home, to the safety of my private prison and attempted to leave two more times. Nate wouldn’t have it.

“Eddie, mingle!” he said.

Mingle? Seriously?

“Hey, buddy, I don’t want to mingle!”

“I said, mingle!”

“Okay, okay. I’ll mingle.”

If I hadn’t been shocked senseless, it might well have been fascinating to mingle. But I had been shocked senseless and there was no coming back to normalcy. However, since I was still intrigued by Beth’s long zipper and sexy voice, I stayed.

What’s that old chestnut? If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

“Nate, give me my usual,” I said. “And keep them coming.”

The endless night continued…on and on and on. I realized I was trapped in a real-life twilight zone on my first night out since the post-lockdown world began its shapeshift.

At least I had mellowed out. And, after my third martini, things were starting to feel normal.

“So, Eddie, tell me about Earth 2022,” Beth said as she placed her hand on mine and inched closer.

On an impulse, I reached for the metal pull at the top of the zipper. And that’s when she disappeared. Everyone disappeared, except Nate!

“What the—”

“You stepped over a line, Eddie,” Nate said in his Nate voice.

“Well, where did everybody go?”

“Home.”

“Where did Beth go?”

“I said, home!”

“That sounds like a good idea!” And it did. “What do I owe you?”

I paid my tab and said goodbye to this man I no longer recognized.

I staggered out the Art Deco doors of The Portal and into the night of this strange new world…
back to the safety of my private prison, circa 2022.