Hollow.  Lifeless.  Empty.

The eyes of the very much alive young woman standing in front of him looked of someone no longer living.  Sure she smiled.  Being that she was a bartender and depended on the tips she would hopefully get from the few patrons scattered around the small bar.  She seemed blank in her expression.

She smiled at him when she leaned on the bar in front of him.  But her smile didn’t reach her eyes.  He watched her for a few minutes while he waited for her to finish tending to the other customers to ask for his drink order.

“What can I get you, dear?”  Her voice was smooth.  It was her eyes that bothered him the most.  He couldn’t see the color of them as the bar carried the typical low, muted lighting found in dive bars.  Her eyes were dark and emotionless.  Hollow.  Lifeless.  Empty.

“Whiskey on the rocks.”  JC placed a $20 on the bar in front of him.  She nodded and placed an ice filled rocks glass on the bar top.

“You just passing through?”   She poured the amber liquid into the glass while waiting for his response.  She kept her eyes on him, never once needing to monitor her pour.

“Sorta.”  She finished pouring the whiskey and waiting if he was going to offer an additional comment as to his reason for being in Cannon Beach.  Sure this area of Northern Oregon tended to be touristy but not in the middle of the week and not so much this time of year.  The start of the school year usually signaled a lull for the residents of the area.  A much needed breather.

“Let me know if you need anything else, hon.  My name’s Charlie.  Enjoy.”  Charlie gave a hollow-eyed smile before leaving to check on her other patrons.

JC allowed his gaze to slowly scan around the dark bar as he sipped the bitter liquor.  An old country song played overhead.  There weren’t more than a handful of people there that night.  A couple of gruff-looking fisherman were shooting pool and talking loudly.  They seemed to be getting a bit riled up over their game.  Curse words started to fly between the two as they fought over the previous shot of the game.

This place looked to be a stereotypical, small town hole in the wall bar.  While tidy, old pictures and random knickknacks dotted the walls.  The smell of stale cigarettes and beer lingered in the air.   A cloud of smoke hung in rafters above the crowd.  The old wood floors creaked as people moved around.

JC’s attention was drawn back to behind the bar.  Charlie was sitting on the back bar with a pad of paper and a pen in her hand.  Her left hand had a baseball bat in it that she loudly hit against the bar a few time to get the attention of the two men arguing at the pool table.  They immediately settled down and abandoned their game.  Charlie’s eyes never left the pad of paper that was resting in her lap.

This one simple action to quiet the arguing men commanded respect.  She didn't need to speak any words to end their bickering.  JC stared at Charlie where she perched.  He couldn’t tell if she was drawing or writing but it had her full attention.  Some of her long brown hair had fallen over her face, shielding any possible expression.

“No band tonight?”  Charlie looked up from her post to glance at the darkened stage JC gestured at.  She briefly glanced at JC before looking back at her paper.

“Usually Saturday nights.  Nights like tonight, this is as good as it gets.”  JC continued to watch Charlie.  He could tell she wasn’t from around the area.  Her jeans look designer as did her fitted sweater.  The other bar customers were more the flannel and overalls type.  JC looked down at his own attire, realizing that he too looked a bit out of place.

“So Saturday is when this place comes alive, huh?”  Charlie let a small chuckle escape though her eyes stayed downcast.

“Cannon Beach isn’t really a party town.  Some of these people would likely break a hip if they moved too quickly walking to the restroom.”  JC looked around to see if any of the other patrons heard Charlie’s crack about the age of residents of the town.  If any of them had, they didn’t make any indication.

“I’ve been in a few bars in towns like these and those people can get down with the best of them.”  A small smile lingered on Charlie’s lips.  She shook her head but didn’t respond, her head staying bowed the entire time.

“I’m Josh, by the way.”  Charlie only glanced in his direction to check the status of his drink.

“Can I get you another?”  JC could tell she wasn’t in the mood for small talk.

“Sure.”  Charlie hopped down from her post and quickly refilled the glass.  JC grabbed a local newspaper laying a few seats away that was abandoned by a previous customer.  He thanked Charlie when he had a fresh drink and slowly read the small paper cover to cover.  He worked the crossword puzzle on the back page when there was nothing left to read.

“So you don’t have to go home but you gotta go.”  Charlie was once again leaning on the bar in front of JC.  He pulled his attention away from the crossword puzzle and gave her a confused look.  “Closing time.”

JC quickly looked around the bar to find that other than Charlie, everyone else had vacated.  He looked at his watch and realized that he had spent nearly two hours on the puzzle, completely shutting out the entire world around him.

“Oh shit.”  JC quickly gathered up his backpack and jacket to leave.  He hadn’t meant to hang out until closing.  It was nice to tune the world out for a while.  Something he hadn’t done in a long time.  He had been able to quiet his mind for a brief while.

“Don’t forget your crossword.”  Charlie pushed the newspaper towards him while giving him an emotionless smile as he hastily shrugged on his jacket.  JC scooped up the paper and dropped a tip on the bar.  “Have a good night.”

“Thanks, you too.”  JC briefly glanced back at Charlie.  She went about stacking chairs on table tops, not giving him another look.  He pushed the door open and slid out into the cold, damp night.  The air was thick with moisture.  It had obviously rained while JC was in the bar.

Looking up and down the street, JC was the only one out at this hour.  The town appeared to have completely shut down.  He glanced at his watch to see it was already after two in the morning.  A few random streetlights provided the poorly lit path he would need for the one block walk back to his SUV.

Once safely back in his truck, JC turned the heater on full blast to get the chill out of his bones.  As the vehicle warmed, he pulled a folded paper map from the center console.  He flipped the cabin light on to examine the map.

When JC had decided a few days prior to get out of LA for a while, he had no destination in particular in mind.  He truthfully wasn’t sure if he was going to drive or fly.  He had no direction specifically picked out.  What made him decide to drive North was a brief stop at a gas station a few miles from his house.

While grabbing a few bottles of water and snacks, JC overheard a young couple arguing near the soda fountains.  The young woman was begging her boyfriend to take her for a drive along the Pacific Coast Highway.  This brought back a fond memory for JC.

Not long after he and his bandmates started their “hiatus”, JC and his brother took a road trip up the coast that landed them up in Vancouver.  It was a much needed break from the chaos that was his life at the time.  The media frenzy of the groups break was wearing on him.  

During the three week trip, JC and Tyler stopped in random small towns.  They goofed around at local festivals and ate greasy food.  They would get wasted in dive bars and sleep in cheap motels.  They bonded and JC loved every minute of that trip.  Even the stupid fights they occasionally had.  It relaxed and refreshed him.

The young couple’s argument solidified JC’s decision to road trip it up North.  He wasn’t sure that he would go all the way to Vancouver this time; he would just drive wherever his heart decided.  He didn’t have a time limit so to speak.  He pluck the folded road map from a display near the cash register of the gas station as he headed out.   

JC told his manager what he was doing and that he could be reach on his cell but only if it was urgent.  He also made the requisite call to his mother so she hopefully wouldn’t worry too much about him.

Other than that, JC didn’t tell anyone else about his plans.  Anyone looking for him would just contact his manager.  Eric would field all of JC’s contact requests and only bother him with one’s that were important.  Anyone important enough to have his personal cell phone number could get him but his business cell phone was turned off.  This was JC’s time to clear his mind and get over this writer’s block.

So far on his trip, JC had stopped in many of the same places he and Tyler had visited on their trip.  He wanted to see what changes, if any, had occurred in the nearly twelve years since his last visit.  Passing through those places again made JC smile.  He was glad to have the memories of that trip.

Glancing at the clock on the dashboard, JC figured if he left now, he could make the nearly four hour drive to Seattle and arrive just before rush hour got too crazy.  He briefly contemplated sleeping for the night and driving up in the daylight but decided to push forward.

The map was tossed into the passenger seat and the truck put into gear when movement in JC’s rearview mirror caught his attention.  Charlie passed under one of the random streetlights about a half block from where he was parked.  She climbed into her own vehicle and quickly disappeared in the opposite direction.

For reasons unknown to him, JC couldn’t get the image of the woman’s eyes out of his head.  He couldn’t recall ever seeing such emotionless eyes before.  He could read most people through the expression their eyes showed.  This woman had expressionless eyes down to a science.  It was haunting how blank she seemed.  

Hollow.  Lifeless.  Empty.

JC shook the thoughts from his mind, pushing the gas pedal to take him to his next destination.