This bar is a safe place for me to operate, to relax, and to get some work done. And so, here I often find myself in the evenings. Of course, it’s seven thirty, so none of the other regulars are in the bar, and I find myself in a nearly empty bar, just me, Bill, and a group of four guys sitting at the bar like a bunch of fools. As I walk up to the bar, Bill is cleaning some glasses. He keeps the glasses spotless, I think it’s because -
“So, what do you think is going on right now in his head?”
My thoughts are interrupted. Don’t they know better than to stop me mid mental-monologue? I suppose not, but then again, that’s what you get when you’re the only regular at the bar. You know that feeling, when -
“No idea, probably something really deep.”
There they go again, interrupting my thought stream. “Bill, can you help me out here?”
Bill turns towards me. “That depends.”
“Can you get those guys to stop interrupting my thoughts? I’m trying to soliloquize here, and they keep on stopping me mid-thoughts.”
“Nope, they’re paying full price for all their drinks, so you’re just going to have to deal with them talking over your internal narration. If you want a drink, I can get you that, though.”
“Sounds like a deal, just hit me with an old fashioned.”
“Coming right up.”
Bill is a good bartender, he lets me buy drinks cheap and knows how I like my drinks – more booze than sense and bitter as all hell, much like my soul. In his own words, he liked me, because whenever I was in the bar, something strange would spontaneously happen, though I personally put that more on the people I generally hang with rather than on my own behavior. You see, -
“You know, I was here once, and somebody says that he isn’t even a real person. Like he hasn’t got a name or anything.” Bill hands me my old fashioned. I decide that I’ve had enough, pick it up, and walk over to the group of what look like college kids.
“Hello. How are you guys this evening?” It is clearly a polite, rhetorical question, and so I put the sharpest underlying threat in my tone.
The preppiest of the group, though it would be a tough contest, shrank away, sputtering out, “We, um, were just chatting about this, uh, one guy at our work who was all weird acting all the time who no one really knows anything about and we thought that he might have come here or something but I’m not actually sure this is that bar because everyone here seems pretty awesome right.” He does not take a single breath in that bit. I continue looking at the group. He lets out a forced chuckle. The rest of his friends look at him like he is some insane person.
I smile cordially. “Of course. I’ll give you a helpful hint about this place: The regulars head out during this time because the strip club a block down has half priced chicken for this hour only. Once they come back, I’d highly recommend having a good story to tell, and they might actually tell you some fascinating tales of their own. They do love their stories.” I look slightly up and to the left.
The one on the right looks at me, quizzically, “Why aren’t you over with the rest of the regulars, then?” This one’s interesting, he has no fear and, rather than asking about things he knows I won’t talk about like most customers do, he asks me a good question. After the group fractures, I should talk to him some more.
I let a smirk crawl across my face, “Now why would I need to save money?”
I walk over to the staff bathroom. Sure, I work here, essentially, and all of the bartenders here let me use this one. It helps that I installed the network hub for all my cameras and bugs in this bathroom. It allows me to get all the info, and the bartenders don’t tell because it allows them to keep track of the patrons and the bar even when they need to use the bathroom. The group of four is talking amongst themselves. Preppy is confused by my antics, Interesting says that they really should come up with a good story and the one between Preppy and Interesting looks at his phone, ignoring his surroundings. The final one calls over Bill, and orders a Long Island Iced Tea.
Interesting looks at Bill and asks, “Hey, so, that guy who just went over there, is he telling the truth?”
Bill smiles, “About what, exactly?”
Preppy speaks up, “Is he even real, he seems like a cartoon character or something?”
Interesting shoots Preppy a look. Bill smirks, “That must be why you were so afraid of him.”
Preppy grows red, “Shut up.”
Interesting turns back to Bill, “Well, ignoring my friend here, do the regulars really warm up with just a story?”
Bill shakes his head. “Only if it’s a good story. In general, whatever that guy says is probably true, but I wouldn’t trust his words very much.”
Interesting looks quizzically at Bill. Sloshed, as I will call the guy soon to be on his third Long Island, speaks up, “That’s real cryptic, you know.”
Bill turns back to finish the Iced Tea, looking away from them and towards one of my cameras. “So is he,” he says with a wink towards the camera.
The group begin talking amongst each other about their best stories, to figure out which would be liked the most by a bunch of bar regulars who leave for cheap chicken at a strip club. I grab one of the earpieces, and walk out back to my regular seat, a booth in the shadiest corner of the bar. This is the place from which I generally conduct both of my businesses. It is true, the regulars love to hear stories. They also like to be bought drinks, or jokes, but stories work well. The real reason behind telling them that stories will ingratiate them is that I’m feeling a bit of writer’s block, and an Old Fashioned will only go so far to fixing that. Hearing new stories from a bunch of college students and writing them down should help. And so, as they discuss which of their stories would be best, I transcribe everything that they say, connecting my speech to text software to the bug by their position. Yes I’m a writer, but that will never actually pay bills, so I conduct other, shall we call them operations, for actual salary.
My phone buzzes, some business, perhaps. I pick it up, “Hello.”
The voice on the other line is my old friend Nick. “New job. You up for a quick easy one.”
“Depends, is it legit?”
“Yeah, but a bit more under-the-table than you normally like. We don’t want any other trips to hear about it.”
“Sure thing, send over the intel, I’ll get someone on it.”
“You in a secure place.”
“I’m off the clock, where do you think I am?”
“Ah, right. I’ll send it over as soon as I get authorized by my Cee Oh.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Don’t do anything you won’t regret.”
“Sure thing, man.” And with that we hang up. That’s been our farewell to each other since forever. Nick’s a nice friend to have, the kind that will encourage you to do crazy things, but still stop you from doing anything plain stupid. Too bad he’s started working overtime during the week. He was at one time, a regular here as well, but he learned better relatively quickly, and decided to devote more time to his work. I, in the foolish way I do things, just moved my work into the bar.
My computer beeps quietly. The information has been delivered. I take a look at the package. It’s just a clean up job, a situation has gone wrong and the matter needs to be thoroughly sanitized before anything got out. A fresh recruit could probably handle the scene alone, but just in case there is anything worth keeping there, I should send a mask along to monitor and instruct the kid. I look at my work phone. Someone just got out of the pit last week and finished the training fast to boot. She’ll do excellently. As far as the mask, I’ll probably send along 11. He’s a reliable sort.
I send out the orders to them, while calling up a friend in the target region. “Listen, Moe, I know you’ve got to do things, but I’m going to need a major blockage to prevent anyone from getting near the location I just sent you.”
“That’s already leaked in conspiracy networks, it’ll be twice the normal rate.”
“Sounds fine, just get it done. Remember.”
“Yes I know, no money if there’s any footage of the scene.”
“Exactly. Until next time.” I sigh as I hang up, then text Nick that it is handled.
With that taken care of I go back to my writing. It’ll be another fifteen minutes before the other regulars get back, and the kids have decided on their story and are now clearly trying to figure out who I was talking to. Bill keeps quiet, he is a good friend, and knows better than to reveal more about me than necessary.
Interesting begins to walk towards me. He clearly has something he wants to ask. I pull up the nondescript page of text. It’s actually my half complete dissertation, but it’s generally boring enough that no one cares to ask. Interesting sits down across from me, and I look up from my computer.
“So,” he begins, “why did you tell us the thing about the story? It’s been bugging me for a while.”
I look blankly at him, “Could it not be that I simply want to have everyone sharing stories with one another like oldtimers?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s something that the bartender said, that everything you say is true and shouldn’t be trusted. I think he was trying to say that you always had an agenda.”
I smile. This one certainly has something well formed in his head, reading through the lines. “I hear you. Well, in all honesty, it is wise to be bugged by it. I just think it will be useful and interesting to see what happens next.”
“So, you just want to see something interesting happen. I see.”
“Enjoy the tales you hear, they are in many ways more true than the truth.” I go back to typing on my dissertation, though I don’t make much headway. Interesting leaves to rejoin his friends. I go back through the transcripts. They had a couple of good stories, though the one that they settled on, while good, would be useless to me, as it was far too common to be an anchor. Too believable. Interesting recognizes that as well and tells his friends. They begin to spice it up, adding a couple of strange features from other stories to spice it up. Their amalgam becomes an interesting but confusing Frankenstein of a story, though I don’t know how the boys are going to react to it.
I get a phone notification that the drop went off without a hitch. That’s a good start, the job should be finished in a couple of minutes.
The regulars return from next door, chatting about their experience. Upon seeing the four friends at the bar, they grow quiet and begin to migrate to their seats. Ignorant looks up, gets a text, then looks back at his phone and laughs. Preppy walks over to the regulars’ area, on the other side of the bar.
“Hey, do I have a story to tell you...” And he tells the story of the three monkeys, a prostitute, and cocaine in the radiator. It is the worst telling of a good story physically possible. The potential for greatness is there, but the man has no manner, no flow, and doesn’t seem very invested in the story. They shake their heads at the kid. Too bad, I suppose the friends won’t be hearing any of the rumors and stories that regularly float around this place.
I get the all clear notification from my team, and check the news. It’s clear of anything surrounding the sanitized location, so I send payment to Moe.
Preppy walks back to the friends and tells them how terrible the experience was and how the cruel regulars harassed him dearly. Ignorant and Sloshed laugh at him. Interesting just shakes his head.
I send a text to Nick, simply reading ‘done.’
Then, after a brief moment of silence, Interesting holds up a hand. “I got this,” he says, getting up from his stool and walking over to the regulars.
They look at him incredulously, then one of them, Art, says, “What do you want, child?”
I smirk. This will be good, undoubtedly.
Interesting starts speaking. “So, the strangest thing happened before you guys got here.” He pauses for effect.
Another of the regulars, Matt, asks, “What are you talking about?”
“Well, so we come in to the cursed bar, as my old colleague once called it. Said that each and every time he came to this place, someone got beaten near to death. Of course, me and the boys, we weren’t going to be deterred by a few stories so we walk in, and find it completely deserted, save a bartender cleaning one of the tulip glasses. Kind of a creepy start to the night, but you know, it was a little early, so I paid it no mind and sat down at the bar. We’d ordered a couple of rounds before we noticed this figure, sitting quietly in the corner booth. Just as we start talking about him, he wanders up to the bar with this pensive look and starts talking with the bartender, quietly and clearly moderately irritated at the world. That man then came to us, just hanging out at the bar, and said hello. Jack over there tried to talk to him, but you’ve seen him talk, so the outcome was obviously less than ideal.”
This elicits a hearty laugh out of most of the regulars. I even barely manage to stifle a chuckle.
Interesting continues, “And so the guy, who definitely doesn’t work here, wanders off into the staff bathroom. I remark to the bartender that he was kind of creepy, and also in the wrong bathroom, and the bartender looks around and whispers, ’Just let him be, you don’t want to get on his bad side.’ With that, of course, I hushed up real quick as he passed by us the second time. Does that sort of thing happen here often?”
Art lets out a hearty laugh. “Oh yes, it does. Let me tell you all the odd stories I’ve heard about that man in that corner booth...”
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