Its nights like this make me think of quitting the whole scene, sell the bar and head on down to Mexico. But I know that’ll never happen. I’ll die right here in the only place that’s ever felt like home to me, here at my bar. You know, the one with the shattered overhead light from last night’s shotgun blast, wide plank wood floors still splattered with beer and glass.
Today I’m taking the day off. They say the doors are never closed here, but not today. Seems like everyone in town was here last night and that was good for business until they all started in on each other. Now Ol’ Jimmy and JD are both in the hospital, Little Earl is in jail, and no one seems to know where Shelly ran off too.
The weirdest thing though was that howling. When people started smashing up the place I had to call a stop to the mass destruction of property and I did it the only way I knew how, since JD wasn’t helping too much. (Remind me what I pay him for?) So I had to take out the shotgun and shoot up my own goddamn place. Everybody stopped at that and for that one moment they were all quiet, I know we all heard it. It was the weirdest thing that it happened at just that time. It was kind of like a wolf, that high pitched lonesome song, but then at the end it turned into something more like a woman’s scream, sending chills down more than a few spines by the looks of the clientele.
Then everybody split, leaving me this freakin’ mess to clean up. Truth is, I’m just tired. I’m tired of the drunks I’ve built my life around. I just need a rest. I don’t know what I heard or saw. I just know I need some time.
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ReplyDeleteLori, I'm curious - when you first thought of the bar fight, did you know it was going to involve a wolf-like howling or did that just come up out of the blue when Smitty started talking? I ask only out of curiosity, and because writing every day seems to be opening my head up, kinda like sudafed for the brain. Was wondering if you might be experiencing something similar.
ReplyDeleteThis is turning out to be fun. Will be interesting to see how things are around day 13 ;)
No, it wasn't part of the "original" idea, although I can't say that I thought it through at all before I started doing this writing exercise. The idea of the bar fight came to me and I started writing. As I did, characters from another story I've worked on started walking in - Little Earl for one - and then the howling...so we will all just have to wait and see what happens.
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