Lance was not supposed to be tending bar that night. It had been a quiet night, one like any other, he supposed. Just the usual customers, those faces one gets to know over the course of time. By last call there were only three stragglers, two of whom were too drunk to stand up without assistance, and the third was passed out in the far corner booth. The jukebox had already finished playing its last song, though the patrons who chose it left before it came on, and Lance wiped down the bar, erasing the remnants of cheap bourbon, beer, and cigarette ash, in silence. He looked at the three remainders and wondered how he was going to get them out..
He was about to cash up the till when he heard the door open. He stopped to look. Standing in the doorway was a hulk of a man, looking rather confused, as if he didn’t know where he was or why he had come into this bar. He didn’t come up to the counter, at first. Lance didn’t like it. It was a bad sign. He’d been tending bar long enough in that neighborhood to know how things work.
‘We’re about to close up,’ Lance said, studying the man.
The man looked around. ‘Doesn’t seem like it,’ he said.
‘Well, we are,’ Lance said, but hesitated opening the cash register. He eyed the pistol under the bar, kept his hand close to it. Just in case.
‘One drink?’, asked the man. ‘My money’s good.’
The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of crumpled bills.
Lance sighed and said, ‘Okay. But we’re closing up. So just one.’
‘Just one,’ the man said, then walked over to the stool at the end of the bar, the one near the bathroom, the one no one liked to sit in unless they had to.
Lance stepped out from behind the bar and locked the door. He looked out the window. It was drizzling and it was quiet for a change. He returned to the other side of the bar and looked at the man. There was something vaguely familiar about him. Then he looked at the three stragglers. The two at the bar paid no mind to this new man, and the one in the booth wasn’t paying attention to anything but the void.
Lance walked over to the man. ‘What can I get you?’
‘Bourbon,’ the man said softly.
‘Any particular kind?’
‘Does it matter?’
The two drunkards sitting at the bar managed to stand up, though unsteady on their feet. One of them said, slurring his words, ‘Where’s Bobby tonight?’
‘He’s out of town,’ Lance said. ‘I’m covering for him.’
Lance placed a tumbler down in front of the man and poured him the shot of bourbon. The man reached into his pocket and fumbled with his crumpled bills, dropping a twenty on the counter.
‘Have anything smaller?’
The man thumbed through the other bills. Lance could see that he didn’t.
‘Never mind,’ Lance said, then opened the cash register to give the man his change.
‘Hey!’, one of the drunkards called out. ‘The door’s locked.’
Lance went over and unlocked the door, opened it, and when the two drunkards stumbled out, he closed the door and locked it again. He turned to face the man passed out in the corner booth. He wasn’t going to bother trying to wake him. He went back behind the bar, began emptying the cash register and placed the earnings into the strongbox under the bar, next to the pistol. He eyed it again, then looked over at the man at the end of the bar. The man wasn’t watching him. He was in a world of his own.
Lance cleaned the glasses the two drunkards left behind and kept his eyes on that man at the end of the bar as he wiped down the bar again.. He was quiet, withdrawn, but there was something about him Lance couldn’t quite place. Familiar face, yet nearly everyone who came to that bar looked like him. It was his silence that bothered him. He eyed the pistol again.
‘Rough night?’
‘You can say that,’ the man said. He looked at Lance, holding his gaze, then he said, ‘Do I know you?’
‘You do look familiar. Like I’ve seen you somewhere before.’
The man studied Lance’s face more closely. ‘Do you live in the rooming house across the street? Number 118?’
‘I do,’ Lance said, a little surprised.
‘I thought I recognized you. I live there, too. Just moved in about a week ago.’
The man took a small sip of his bourbon. He was nursing it, killing time.
‘We’re closing up, so don’t take too long,’ Lance said.
‘Can’t a man enjoy his drink in peace, anymore?’
Lance frowned at this sudden belligerence, then turned away, began wiping down the bar again just for something to do.He glanced over at the man passed out in the corner booth, and wondered how he was going to get him out of there. The bourbon drinking man raised his glass and threw back what remained, slid the empty glass across the bar, ,took a moment to light a cigarette, then stood up,but paused half way, then leaned on the bar.
‘Ever hear something you wish you hadn’t?’ the man asked.
‘Are you kidding? In this profession?’
The man looked at Lance, his eyes closely studying his face. It was unnerving. ‘118, huh? Top floor?’
Lance didn’t say anything.
‘Next to that guy who doesn’t know how to be quiet?’
‘You mean the musician? The violinist?’
‘Yeah, that’s him. The old man.’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘He never shuts up, does he?’
‘He used to be somebody. Not anymore.’
‘I figured that if he lives there.’ The man took a drag from his cigarette. ‘No offense. Hell, I live there, too, but I was never a somebody. Always a nobody. That’s the problem with life. You’re either a have or have-not. I was always a have-not.’
‘Really? You paid for your drink with a twenty, and the two other bills were fifties. We should all be have-nots like you.’
The man laughed. ‘I got lucky at dice, that’s all. It’s the most money I’ve had in months. I thought I’d get a drink to celebrate before going home, or back home, anyway. I did go straight home at first. I was trying to sleep but the old man wouldn’t shut up with that screeching fiddle of his.’
‘You get used to it,’ Lance said. ‘At least you don’t live on the same floor as him.’
‘The fat lady downstairs, she doesn’t care?’
‘She tolerates it. Like I said, he used to be somebody. Played in the symphony once. Concert tours and everything.’
‘And now he lives here.’
‘It happens,’ Lance said. ‘What are you going to do? He’s a nice man. Friendly. Kind. But he generally keeps to himself.’
The man looked away for a moment, towards the door, then over at the man passed out in the corner booth.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Lance said. ‘I have to figure out how to get him out of here.’
‘You should just let him sleep it off. He won’t mind. If he wakes up, look at all the free drinks he can have.’ The man laughed, then took a long drag from his cigarette, then stumped it out in the ashtray. He immediately shook another one from the pack, and offered one to Lance. Lance declined. ‘I did something,’ the man said, then lit his cigarette, dropping the spent match on the floor.
There it was, Lance thought, but he tried not to react. ‘Yeah?’
‘I can’t decide if I should tell someone…or to pretend like it didn’t happen.’
‘It depends on what it is, I guess. And maybe I’m not the one you should be telling.’
‘People tell you all kinds of things, I imagine.’
‘Too often.’
‘Yeah, that’s a problem, isn’t it?’
‘Look,’ Lance said, ‘It’s late and I have to close up.’
‘The old man,’ the man said. ‘Your neighbor. The musician.’
‘What about him?’
‘He just won’t shut up, will he? Playing that fucking thing all hours of the night. I just came back from playing dice, see? Luck was on my side for once, and I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in days, partly because the old man never stops playing his fucking fiddle. It got so bad that I went upstairs to ask him to cut the shit out, that people are trying to sleep, you know? So I knocked on his door and he answered and he looked at me like I was from another planet, you see?’
‘He doesn’t know you.’
‘No, it was more like I was beneath him, right? Like he was someone better than me.’
‘That doesn’t sound like him.’
‘How well do you know him?’
‘I don’t really know him at all. Just see him around. Hear him mostly, I guess’
‘So you’re not his friend.’
‘No, I wouldn’t go that far.’
The man took another long drag from his cigarette, exhaled a plume of smoke into the air and looked up at the ceiling, as if trying to decide whether or not he should continue.
‘He slammed the door in my face,’ the man said bitterly. ‘Then he had the balls to start playing again.’
Lance waited, watched.
‘So I banged on the door, telling him to shut the fuck up, right? Just shut the fucking fuck up. Well, he opened the door and gave me that look again, as if I were some vagrant who just crawled out of the gutter. It got me so angry, I gotta say. I’ve spent my whole life dealing with those looks, like I’m a worthless piece of shit, a loser, a bum. So he tries slamming the door in my face again, only I stuck my foot out so he couldn’t. Then he had the balls to say something to me, very rude, you know?’
The man went silent, taking another drag from his cigarette. Lance just looked at him.
The bar fell silent. Finally Lance asked , ‘So what happened?’
‘It all happened so fast. I just remember… You know that window at the end of the hallway? It was open. The curtains were blowing in the wind and one of them was frayed. It’s a funny thing to remember, but I noticed it. I wanted to throw his fiddle out the window, but I didn’t. Instead I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of the room. He struggled a bit, and he was rather strong for an old man, I have to hand it to him, he put up a fight. I dragged him over to the top of the stairs, just put the fear of God in him, you know? But he started to kick me, tried to slap me with those bony old hands of his. Funny thing was, he wasn’t yelling or shouting, or anything like that. He just kept grunting, trying to get away. His arm felt like a chicken leg or something. No muscle at all…like I was holding a broomstick.’
‘What happened?’
‘Like I said, it happened so fast.’ He paused to light another cigarette. ‘I just wanted to scare him.’
Lance didn’t say anything.
‘I pushed him. I don’t know why. I barely remember doing it. For a moment, nothing, right? He went tumbling down the stairs, his fiddle still in his hand. He tumbled down like a pile of laundry. When he hit the next landing, he made some sort of weird groan and that was it. He was gone.’
Lance swallowed. ‘No one heard anything?’
‘No, it was quick.’ The man snapped his fingers loudly, looking straight at Lance. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt the old man. I just wanted to scare him. So I went down the stairs to check if he was alright.. He just lay there, the fiddle still in his hand, his eyes open like he was surprised.’
Lance looked at the pistol again.
‘You should go to the police.’
‘Maybe,’ the man said, appearing to think it over.
‘Not maybe. You fucking killed a man.’
‘It was an accident! I didn’t mean to!’
‘I just don’t know why you’re telling me all this?’
‘People tell you things. You said so yourself.’
‘I’m not a priest, you know. Aren’t you afraid that I will turn you in?’
‘That’s why I wasn’t sure if I should tell you.’
Lance reached for the pistol under the bar, and tucked it in his waistband when the man wasn’t looking. Just in case. ‘I could use another drink,’ the man said.
‘What you need is to go,’ Lance said.
‘Where to? I can’t go back there.’
‘Anywhere, then. You have to leave.’
‘Would you turn me in if I don’t go to the cops?’
‘What choice do I have?’
‘You would really do that?’
‘Are you some kind of a nut?’
‘I don’t like being called that,’ the man said. ‘Don’t say that.’
Lance stepped out from behind the bar. As he did, the man noticed the butt of the gun peering out from behind Lance’s waistband. The man finished his cigarette before dropping it to the floor, then squashing it with the toe of his shoe. Lance unlocked the door, opened it, and a rush of cold, moist air entered the bar, along with a sprinkle of rain.
‘I want you out of here,’ Lance said.
The man just shrugged, resigned, then lowered his head. ‘It was an accident,’ he said, then looked Lance in the eye. ‘Thanks for listening.’
The man walked out of the bar, his head down. Lance immediately shut the door and locked it. At first he just stood there.That poor old man. What did he ever do to anyone?
He then raced to the phone behind the bar and called the police. That’s when he remembered the man passed out in the corner booth. He hadn’t moved. Probably hadn’t even heard a thing that was being said. Lance walked over and tried to wake him, but the man just grunted and raised his head momentarily before it dropped back onto the table with a thud. He sighed, walked back to the bar and lit a cigarette with a trembling hand. It was a night like any other, he supposed. As he was finishing his cigarette, leaning against the bar, looking at the bottle of bourbon, he heard a vehicle pull up outside and saw the two police men approach the door through the rain speckled window. That poor old man, he thought. That poor old man…
Cover Image: Cigarette and hand by Ron Lach. Via Pexels.