An Old Short Story

So a Guy Walks into My Bar

By Kevin Harkness: First published in On Spec, Volume 27, #102 (You should really read this magazine)

So, a guy walks into my bar.  That’s the way all those jokes start, right?  Only, when I saw who the guy was, I wasn’t laughing.  I knew the guy.  When I had a sister, he was my brother-in-law.  Was he still that?  I mean, when my sis died, was he still my brother-in-law?  You don’t know?  I thought you’re supposed to know all about the law.

Anyway, he shows up right at closing time when I’m shooing the bottle bums and the refugees from domestic bliss out the door.  It’s still early, just after two in the morning, but when I opened this place, I decided that I wasn’t going to stay open too late.  It ain’t healthy.  And when I decide on something, that’s it.  I stick to it.  That’s why everybody calls me Bull, not because I’m big like this, but because I’m bull-headed.  

Ray comes in and sits on a stool I haven’t put up on the bar yet.  Ray Heller, yeah, with two l’s.  Go ahead; type it into that little pad thing.  Anyway, he sees I don’t like it, but he just grins at me like the weasel he is.  He looks like one too, sharp-faced and skinny as a junkie, though I’ve never seen him on the hook.  In the old days, I would have broken his arm and tossed him out into the alley.  I could have done it with one hand.  Hey, I ain’t bragging, but you guys know I’ve been a bouncer, a bodyguard, even a leg-breaker since I was fifteen.  What’s with the look? Even if I wasn’t exactly legit back then, I never pushed no drugs.  I never bothered no civilians.  And I never killed nobody.

Yeah, I know what the judge said, but the scans showed no memory of that.  Yeah, yeah, I know, the booze blocks it out.  But all they had was circumstantial stuff like DNA and blood – and that was planted on me.  Yeah, yeah.  You guys never make mistakes.  You’re inhuman, you are, cause it’s all down to the science.  DNA, truth scans, memory grabs, and – what do you call it, yeah – neurological interrogation.  But a smart guy can still work a frame.  I tell you, I’d never killed anyone in my life, and I’d never harm a hair of my baby sister’s head.  

Yeah, laugh it up.  You listen to what Ray had to say, then you keep on laughing.

So, Ray lights up a cigarette, which is illegal, and he knows it because he smuggles them for a living, and starts talking to me like we was friends.

“Hey, Bull,” he says.  “Nice place you got here.  I didn’t know they let murderers run bars.”

“Shut up,” I tell him.  “Even a bum like you ought to know that when you get ENV, there’s nothing else they can do to you.  No jail.  No conditions.

“Enforced Non-Violence,” he says, slowly, like he was enjoying the taste of the words. “So, it really works, then?” he asks me.

I tell him, “Yeah.  I could run a dynamite factory or a daycare and nobody would squawk.”

“The kids looking at your ugly face might,” he says.

Can you believe it?  In the old days, he would have been on his way to the hospital with several bent limbs, but now I had to just stand here behind the bar and take it.  ENV don’t even let you slap a guy, no matter how much he deserves it.

Yeah, I knew Ray was a bastard.  I’d decided that when I first met him, over a Sunday dinner at my sister’s place.  I saw right off that he was no good, and when I decide on something, I never change my mind.  Problem is, my sis was just as stubborn as me, and she decided that Ray was the guy for her.  They got married in Atlantic City two months after they met. 

Here, let me freshen that up for you.  So Ray keeps talking.  He tells me what really happened the night my sister died.  I’d gone over there after she called me and told me Ray had beat on her and took off.  When I got there, she was hysterical.  I calmed her down and said I’d stay in case the bum came back, and then I’d teach him some manners.  I could do that back then, teach somebody something.

Well, there was some beer in the fridge, and I had a couple.  My sister didn’t drink on account of being pregnant with her second kid.  The first, Kelly, was at my Ma’s place because of the trouble they was having.  So I had a couple, not enough to get blind drunk like the judge said, but I blacked out all right.  When I came to, the place was a wreck, you guys were banging on the door, and my baby sister was lying there with a broken neck.

Yeah, I know I looked good for it.  I was a tough guy, and I had booze in my blood.  They never looked at Ray for it because he was in another town, getting a load of cigs to bring back.  He made some trouble at a fleabag motel that night, and the manager remembered it.  

So, there he is, sitting on the same stool you’re sitting on now, and he up and says, “You didn’t kill your sister, Bull.  I did.”

I was floored.  I tell him, “But you were somewhere else.  That’s why you never got put under the brain scan.  They had nothing on you.”

He grinned even wider then and says, “I got a cousin who looks a lot like me.  Same height, same build, though I’m the better looking guy.”

“I got to take your word for that,” I say to him, “since I can’t picture an uglier mutt than you.”  

Just because I couldn’t mangle him didn’t mean I shouldn’t hurt his feelings.

His grin got a little smaller then, and his eyes got a whole lot meaner.  He says, “My cousin was the one in that motel.  I snuck him in, left my truck there and drove back in his car.  I told him to wait until midnight and then complain about something to the manager.  He was wearing my clothes, and the night guy didn’t have any trouble describing him, I mean me, to the cops.  When I got to my place, I found you knocked out.  Why do you think I left so much beer in the fridge?  So a gorilla like you could relax while you waited for me to walk in the door?  Not likely.  I handle more than cigarettes, moron.  There’s lots of designer drugs that’ll knock you out and won’t leave any trace.  By the time they took your blood, there was only beer left.”

Now, you guys can imagine the state I was in.  This bastard just admitted to killing my sister and framing me for it.  But he’s still sitting there grinning, and he had a good reason to.  ENV made me about as dangerous as a mouse.  I could only stand there and listen to him laugh.  

Then it got worse.

He stubs out the cigarette on the wood of my bar, leans in real friendly-like, and keeps talking.  “The problem is, Bull, your ma’s got a lawyer after me, making trouble about child support and that parental responsibility crap.  Hey, I never wanted any kids.  It was your sister who wanted to fill the place with brats and look what it got her.  So, you and me are going to take a little trip tonight.  We’re going to drive your car over to your ma’s place, and we’re going to take a can of gas.  I’ll even drip a bit on your car seat for the cops to sniff.  Then there’s going to be a big fire at that house, and nobody’s going to survive except me, of course.  All my problems are going to be burned up, Bull, and you’ll take the rap for this one too.”

I pick my jaw up off the floor and try to reason with the rat bastard.   I tell him, “Everybody knows that I’m ENV.  They know I can’t burn people up.  The frame’ll never fit!  Not this time.”

He just laughs some more and tells me, “The cops and the lab rats will find some way to explain it, just to save their own skins.  Maybe you didn’t know anyobody was home.  Maybe the guilt you felt over your sister broke the ENV.  Hey, I know, we’ll bring some booze, and they can say you blacked out again.  Don’t worry about it, Bull.  What really matters is that I’m a hundred miles away, thanks to my cousin.  Different town, same scam.”

Guys, I was torn in two.  With my sister gone and my ma hating my guts, little Kelly was about the only thing I had to look forward to in this world.  Since I got let out, my ma and I have an agreement.  I get to take Kelly to school and back and pick her up after church on Sunday to spend some time with her.  I also get to pay for everything.  Rent, clothes, school fees, any books or games she wants.  She lives in a nice apartment near a good school, and I live in the back room here and sleep on a cot.  But you go back there and look.  I got the walls covered with her drawings.  She’s gonna be a real artist.  Nobody can colour a tree like her.

Every part of me wanted to jump over this bar and strangle the bastard before he could hurt her, but I couldn’t.  I couldn’t even get out my phone and call you guys.  Yeah, the double bind.  The lab rats never thought of that when they invented ENV, did they?  You tell a guy to squeal on a buddy or else he’ll go to jail, but he can’t, because if he talks, his partner’s likely to get hurt, so he stops talking.  Takes all the fun out of those back-room conversations, don’t it?

What could I do?  If I didn’t stop him, Kelly would burn up in her sleep, but if I told you guys, Ray would definitely get hurt.  Yeah, you and I both know that any piece of crap that hurts a kid gets a trip to some parking garage or construction site before he ever sees the station.  Not that I’m disagreeing with the sentiment, but it put me in a real fix.

What?  No, I really couldn’t make the call.  You don’t know what it’s like.  What, you want to know?  Listen, when I first got ENV, they put you in a support group, to adjust you.  The guy who ran the group talked about the bind.  He said it was like with robots in those old movies.  He lent me one so I could get it.  The movie wasn’t any good.  There was a flying saucer, but there weren’t any aliens in it, just a bunch of Navy guys.  They landed on a planet that looked like Las Vegas without any casinos and found an old guy and his daughter.  That guy had a robot that was eight feet tall and was supposed to be able to knock over a house.  But when he told it to shoot one of the Navy guys, as sort of a joke I guess, the robot went all crazy, with sparks shooting out of his dome until the old guy cancelled the hit.

Like I said, the movie stunk, but I got it.  If you try to hurt anybody, you get the sparks.

Problem was I was stuck, since I was giving myself the order, there was nobody else who could cancel it for me.  Ray must have seen I was froze up, because he leans back and laughs so hard he almost falls off the stool.

When he calms down, he says, “What did it feel like, Bull, when they drilled into your head?  They say you get to stay awake while they do it.”

I could have told him, if I could have talked, that it didn’t feel like anything.  They tie you down and freeze your scalp, so that all you can do is listen to that drill and smell burning bone while they put stuff in your brain.  Later, some little guy in a lab coat who’s enjoying it too much slaps you around to see if it took.

“They’ll never do that to me, Bull,” he says.  “You know why?  Cause the world is full of morons like you that make it easy for smart guys like me.”

Since I couldn’t do anything but look at the guy, that’s what I did.  And for the first time maybe, I really see him.  I see a guy who killed the only person in the world who ever loved him and was about to kill the only person left in the world he should love like anything.  Kelly’s a great kid, and she’s all I’ve got.  She’s the only reason I make it through the day without just laying down and giving up.  I tell you, when I lift her up on my shoulders, I’m walking on air.  

Ray could have had that for himself, but he wanted to burn it all down. 

No, go ahead.  Finish the bottle.  I’m almost done.  You know, even when I was working the old job, I was never a wise guy.  But I seen how those mob boys finished up, and it ain’t pretty.  If they lived long enough, they’d already ratted out or killed anybody who ever cared about them.  Then they wake up one night, old and scared, with the walls closing in.  They’ve got nobody left to talk to except some bull of a barkeep who’s paid to listen to their tough talk.  And then they go home at night to the quiet and them walls.  A whipped dog wouldn’t envy those guys.  And that’s where Ray was headed.

I look at him sitting there, the smug bastard, so pleased with himself, and I swear to God, I start feeling sorry for him.  He wasn’t just killing other people, he’s killing himself, and he doesn’t get it.  He’s sitting there, smiling and cutting himself to pieces, until there won’t be nothing left.  Hell, that ain’t no way to live.

I decide something then, in my bull-headed way.  And when I do that, I can move again.

I tell Ray, “Okay, you bastard, you got me, but I don’t want to do this sober.”

He waves an arm at the bottles behind the bar and says, “That’s the plan.”

I pick up my towel and wipe the ash from the bar.  I throw down two coasters and ask him, “What’s your poison?”

“Best in the house, Bull,” he says.  

Oh, he’s feeling great.  He’s on top of the world with his foot on my neck.  I don’t say nothing.  I go back into the storeroom, and he don’t even try to stop me.  I come back with a half bottle of Kentucky bourbon and pick up two glasses.  I pour the bourbon into both of them.  

Ray downs his, then flips the glass upside down and puts it on the bar.  Cocky.  He looks at me.  I’m just standing here, staring back at him.  He asks, “You’re not drinking, Bull?  You’d better have a few if you don’t want to feel that fire.”

I tell him, “There ain’t going to be a fire, Ray.”  It looks like he’s having a hard time seeing me, so I lean in and talk louder.

“Ray,” I tell him, “you’re one sorry son of a bitch, but I got to admit, you laid it all on the table tonight.  You really showed me who you are.  Problem is, when I saw it, I decided something, decided it harder than I ever done before.  You know what I decided, Ray?”

He’s sliding off the stool, so I hold him upright, careful not to hurt him.  

I say to him, “Ray, I decided that for your own good, you’d be better off dead.”

Then I let him down easy over there where he is now.  It didn’t take too long.  I guess rat poison was made for a guy like him.

Hold on, don’t get nervous.  That’s the good stuff you’ve been drinking, just gin and soda water.  Now I guess we gotta go downtown and answer some questions.  Some cop questions, some lawyer questions, maybe even some lab rat questions.  So, let’s go.

Tell the body-bag boys to turn off the lights and lock up when they take out that piece of trash.  Nah, you won’t need those cuffs.  The state I’m in, I couldn’t hurt a fly.