by Joe Mallon

The door to the bar opened. 

A frigid, howling wind burst through the entranceway. 

A man, holding his cap, his clothes caked with a blanket of cold sleet, slammed the door behind him. 

No one looked up.

“Jesus, it’s nasty out there.”  The man stomped his feet on the threshold.  Brushed the frozen sleet off his coat. 

He surveyed the room.  A guy, say, mid-fifties, stood behind a mahogany bar that was old when it was new, polishing it with his bar towel. He gave the man a glance and returned to the task at hand.

A handful of Formica tables, maybe three or four chairs to a table, sat on an oak-plank floor, worn by age.  A door led to a back room.  Maybe for crowd overflow.  Parties.  He doubted it was ever used.

Couple of younger guys, maybe in their early forties, sat at the front of the bar, near the door. Young for this dump, anyway.  Thick flannel shirts hung down past their waists.  One had a beard that bore a striking resemblance to a rat’s nest.  The other guy a redhead.  Freckles.  A mick.  Both nursed half-empty mugs of beer.  Construction workers was his bet.  Hell of a day to work outside.  At the far end of the counter, crouched over a beer and a newspaper, sat a man, unshaven and long in the tooth.  A half dozen more spread themselves, in pairs or alone, among the yellowed, beer-stained tables.

The bar fit the neighborhood.  Probably a dozen more like it.

He sat down on a stool in front of the bartender.  “Jameson’s.  Make it a double.”

His host eyed him.

The man raised an eyebrow.  “Problem?”

The bartender narrowed his eyes for the briefest of moments before he threw the towel over his shoulder.  He turned to the shelves of liquor on the wall behind him.  Grabbing a bottle marked “Jameson’s,” he turned back.  Picking up a tumbler, he poured the man his double shot.

The man slid a ten-spot towards him.  “That cover it?” 

The bartender eyed it.  He scooped it up in one practiced motion.

The man picked up the tumbler, downed the whiskey in one swallow and slammed the glass on the glistening mahogany.  He shuddered.  “That did the trick.”  His black eyes moved to the bartender, shoving his glass towards him.  “But that ain’t Jameson’s, ace.  Don’t try that again.”  He  tapped the counter.  “Next one’s on the house.”  His eyes never leaving the guy that held out on him.

The bartender held the man’s eyes with the dark green of his own.  He turned and picked a different bottle, this time the real stuff. For the regulars. Poured a double.

He pulled the towel off his shoulder, walked to the end of the bar.  By the young guys.  Resumed his polishing.

“Place got a name?” 

“What’s that?”

“A name.  Bar got a name?”

“Average Joe’s.”

“You got a name?”

“Joe.”

The man nodded.  “Average Joe.  Joe.  Clever.”  He pointed his index finger at him.  “You are a very clever man.”  He sipped his whiskey.  The melting sleet formed a filthy mix of slush and water under his seat.

Joe moved on to the glasses.  Closer to the man he’d never seen that walked into the bar. His bar.

“Slow night?”

Joe shrugged.  “Picks up in a couple hours.”

The man pointed above to one corner of the bar, then to another.  “You gotta nice couple of flat screens.” 

Joe raised a glass mug above him.  Picking up a clean towel, he eyed its insides, before  polishing it.  “Football season.  Guys like their sports.”

“Bet it gets pretty crowded on Sundays.  Lot of money changing hands.”

Joe shrugged.  He placed the sparkling mug on a shelf, picked up another, and renewed his meticulous process.

The man put his elbows on the bar.  “You don’t talk much for a bartender.”

Joe looked up from his polishing.  “You won’t be back.”

The man raised an eyebrow again.  “That right?” 

Joe stopped polishing.  Stared at the man with his deep green eyes.  “That’s right.”

The man stared back.  “You run a book.”

Joe reached a hand under the bar.

The man laughed.  “Seriously?  You gotta gun?”

Joe, with slow deliberation, shook his head.  “Wouldn’t need one.” He took his hand out from underneath, holding a can of Gilboy’s Paste Wax.  He smiled, placing it on the bar.

“Cute.”  The man, displaying no mirth,  smiled in return.  “Let’s talk about the book.”

“Don’t run no book.” 

“That’s not what I hear.”  He took another healthy sip of the Jameson’s.

Joe put the towel down. Folded it.  He put his hands on the bar top, spread wide, while taking a deep breath.  “Time for you to leave.”  He cocked his head toward the door.

“Not looking for trouble.  Just tell me about it.”

“You a cop?”

The man grinned again. “I look like a cop?”

Joe looked around the bar.  At the tables.  “Guy comes in one day.  Might have said something about startin’ a book.” 

The man finished his whiskey and signaled for another, sliding across another ten-spot. “You’re not kicking anything up.”

Joe stared at him, hands tightening their grip on the bar.  “Everybody kicks up to somebody.”  He paused.  “Right?”

“The book.  I mean on the book.”

“Told you.  I ain’t got no book.”

“Bullshit.”

Joe shrugged.  He opened the Gilboy’s Paste Wax.

A chair scraped as one of the older patrons stood, hair white from age with a military cut, heavyset.  “G’night, Joe, goin’ out the alleyway.” The sound of his crackling knees bounced off the decrepit walls and floor.

The man looked at the old goat.  Turned back to Joe.  The man’s black eyes turned darker.  “I don’t give a shit how it goes.  I’m gonna tell you how it goes.”

“You’re not from the neighborhood.”

“You’re goddamn right I’m not from this shithole.”

“I’m tellin’ ya to leave.”

“I’m still waiting for my fucking whiskey.”  The man stood.  “You’ll tell your guy he’s gonna kick up to us now.  Every week.”

Joe took the man’s glass and put it in the sink.  “Lotta people been telling me what to do lately.”

“And I want my fuckin’ drink.”

“Gettin’ kinda tired of it.”

The guy with the rat’s nest beard stood.  He walked to the front door.   The redheaded guy downed his beer. 

“Maybe you should come here on a Sunday. Start your own book.”  Joe smirked.

A scowl crossed the man’s face.  “Listen, pal…”

The sound of the front door’s deadbolt hitting the strike plate echoed through the bar, like the clank of an iron gate slamming shut on a dank prison cell.

The man’s head snapped towards the door. 

The guy with the beard leaned against it, arms folded.  “Locked, Joe.” 

The man turned back to Joe, hatred in his now-bewildered eyes.  “What the fuck is this?” He reached for the bulge in his coat.

The rack of a shotgun.  The white-haired man with the military cut stepped out of the back room, scowling, a twelve-gauge held with a cop’s expertise.

Joe burned.  “I wouldn’t.”

The man didn’t move.  His eyes darted between the twelve-gauge and Joe. 

“So now I can’t leave.”

Joe nodded.  “That’s the way it is.  Mickey.”

The bar, like a tomb.

 A floorboard creaked.

Staring at Joe, Mickey sat back down on the stool . “You know my name?”  An eye- the right one- betrayed the slightest twitch.

 “Done my homework, Mick.”  Joe picked up the Jameson’s, grabbed a fresh tumbler, and poured a tall order of County Cork’s finest.  “You’ll be needing this.”

The man named Mickey looked down at the drink. Up at Joe. “They’ll come for you.  It’ll be slow.”

“Let ‘em come.”

 Mickey sneered at Joe.  “You’re a dead man.”  He turned to the other men.  “All of you.”  A shaky hand downed the whiskey.

Joe smiled.  “I told you before.”

“What?”

“You won’t be coming back.”