Chapter 5: The Hierophant
The coat check girl didn't even look up from her paperback thriller. She just blind-hooked a plastic numbered tag over Leo’s knuckles, grabbed the heavy Samsonite, and shoved it onto a metal rack in the back room.
Leo turned around to head back to his drink.
The hallway connecting the bathrooms to the main floor was narrow, smelling aggressively of bleach and cheap cedar cologne. Standing dead center in the bottleneck was a man in his late fifties. He wore a crisp, expensive linen shirt that had no business being in a dive bar, and a heavy gold watch that caught the flickering overhead light. He held a plastic cup of vodka soda and was currently using it to point at Leo.
"New blood," the man announced. He didn't introduce himself. He just claimed the space.
Leo tried to step around him. The man shifted, physically blocking the exit.
"I'm Richard," he said, looking Leo up and down with clinical precision. "And you have the frantic, sweaty look of a guy who just blew up his entire life. How long was the relationship?"
"Five years," Leo said. He gripped the plastic coat tag in his pocket. "Excuse me, I left a drink at the—"
"Five years," Richard interrupted, taking a sip of his vodka. He swirled the ice cubes. "Alright. Listen to me. There is a right way and a wrong way to do a messy breakup in this zip code. You are currently doing it wrong."
Leo stopped. "I've been here for forty-five minutes."
"Exactly. You walked in carrying baggage. Literally. Rookie mistake." Richard leaned in. The cedar cologne was almost suffocating. "Here is the syllabus. You do not hook up tonight. You sit in a booth. You download the apps, but you leave your face off the profile for at least two weeks to build mystique. You absolutely do not look Silas in the eye, because he breaks baby gays for sport. And you buy your drinks from the well, not the top shelf, until you earn your place in the ecosystem."
Leo stared at him. Richard wasn't giving advice. He was reciting dogma. It was the unwritten constitution of the local scene, handed down by a self-appointed high priest who desperately needed everyone else to follow his exact script.
"There are rules here," Richard continued, tapping a manicured index finger against Leo's chest. "A hierarchy. You don't just crash into the scene and improvise. You pay your dues. You sit in the dark corner. You wear black. You mourn properly, and then we let you into the rotation."
For a split second, Leo’s brain automatically started taking notes. Don't look at Silas. Download the apps. Sit in the dark. It was muscle memory. For five years, his ex had handed him an itinerary every morning. Wear this tie. Don't talk to that neighbor. Buy this brand of coffee. Order vodka sodas.
Leo looked down at Richard's manicured finger tapping his sternum.
He suddenly felt incredibly, violently exhausted by the concept of rules.
"I appreciate the orientation," Leo said. His voice was completely flat. "But I dropped out of school."
He didn't wait for Richard to move. Leo just dropped his shoulder, physically shoved past the linen shirt, and walked out of the bleach-scented hallway back into the loud, chaotic heat of the main bar. He left the high priest talking to an empty wall.
