My life is a series of repetitive events. Not that I mind. I actually love it. Because the events that aren’t repetitive in my life are generally terrible. For everyone. Still dressed in my suit for work, I pull on my leather gloves, in case it gets cold among other reasons. I head out of my apartment as the sun is just starting to get low in the sky. Happy Hour is about to begin at my favorite bar, and I’m not about to miss that. I start the three block trip to the bar, keeping my eyes on the clouds. I can’t risk seeing the wrong thing at the wrong time. People often say to keep eyes down, but I’ve found the sky has far less going on than the ground around you, and your peripheral vision lacks most temptation. Or whatever other people might call it.
No one interrupts my cyclic schedule during the three block walk. The sky is about as interesting as skies can be, which is to say, very boring. But, it doesn’t cause any problems. And that is infinitely better than being interesting. As I head down the half story staircase to my bar, I finally look in front of me. Unfortunately, what I see is a closed sign. The owner has shut the place down. It doesn’t say why. Fortunately for my life, it says the palace will reopen in three days. Double unfortunately, though, when I get close enough to the signs to read the fine print, trying to figure out what’s going on, the corner of my eye catches the locked door’s keyway. Before I can think, my tie bar and key ring are out and bent, and the locked door is open. Shaking my head, I close the door and think. Where was the next closest bar? If I recall correctly, there’s one seven blocks further down. Taking a deep breath and turning my eyes back to the sky, I head back up the stairs and continue my journey. Hopefully this new bar will be exactly as uneventful as this one normally is.
The first few blocks went without a hitch. A perfectly relaxing, perfectly uneventful walk, watching a perfectly calm, perfectly boring sky. Sunset should be coming on soon enough. That’ll make the sky a little more interesting. As I start crossing a mid-block alley, someone shoves me from the side. I don’t see who, thank god. I quickly close my eyes and put my hands halfheartedly, halfway in the air. “I don’t know who you guys are, but we really should just go our separate ways.”
I hear the distinct sound of a knife’s blade locking into place. “You’re only saying that because you’re scared.”
“I am, but not for the reasons you think,” I reply, eyes clenched closed, “And in any case, this city’s covered in cameras. You’re going to go to jail or worse over, what, the twenty bucks I have in my wallet right now?”
“No cameras here, son,” a voice behind me says, “Now hand it over. Before we have to merc you.”
Taking a deep breath, trying to prepare myself, I slowly open my eyes. There’s a man in front of me, holding a knife. I can feel the breath of the person behind me on the back of my head. “No thanks,” I reply, and turn to leave.
It happens too fast to react. The towering man, just entering my periphery, moves to grab me. My heart rate slows. And I am forced to watch helplessly. Powerlessly. His grab comes short as my body is already in motion, flowing to the side to avoid the strike. The armed man is stunned with surprise as my hands plant into the ground. My legs wrap around his neck, feet interlocking, locking it between my ankles. In a smooth move, akin to a half-flip, my legs throw the man into his knife-wielding partner, then momentum takes my body to its feet. As long as they both stayed down, this’ll be fine.
I can feel my heartbeat speed up again, renormalize. I can feel some semblance of control as I turn once again to leave. That control lasts only a moment, as the one with the knife regains his composure. Shaking his pained buddy off him, the armed man starts coming at me, and once again I am powerless to move. As he jabs the knife towards me, my torso leans back and into his strike, my right arm wraps around his elbow, and my left hand comes from below, slamming into his hand. His arm wrenches unnaturally, twisting as my left hand redirects his blades momentum into his own throat. As it impacts, my right arm slides away from him, spinning him around so the blood doesn’t get on me, as my body leaps backwards and both my legs kick into the dying man’s back, shoving him forward into his partner, ever-growing more composed. Some combination of the force of the man hitting him and his partner bleeding all over him causes the mugger to flounder, falling backwards. I need to get out of here.
I can feel my control coming back. The mugger is trying to figure out what to do about his friend. He’s forgotten entirely about me. I can move. I better move before he does anything stupid. Quickly, I walk out of the alley. Hopefully the mugger can save his mugger buddy. I’m sure he can. Modern medicine is pretty great, after all. Looking down, my clothes are disheveled, though they have no other sign of what just happened. I try to smooth them out while I walk. I succeed, and also find I have another thirty-five dollars in my pocket. Damn it, must’ve seen something in the corner of my eyes and not realized it. Can’t return the money. Besides not knowing who it’s from, this isn’t really something I could explain to someone. I return my eyes to the sky, and hope beyond hope nothing else happens today.
The hopefully last portion of my walk to a bar is exactly as unhindered as I hoped for it to be. The sunset, at least, provided a bit of interesting texture to the otherwise clear and boring sky. I let my head fall to eye level as I turn to face the door. Thankfully, this place is open. I head in, a cordial smile on my face, and sit down at the bar, near the middle, so most of my vision is taken up by the bar alone. I don’t want to notice anything accidentally while I’m drinking, and I’ve found generally it’s easier when there’s less things to notice. And the only thing behind bars I ever found to be noteworthy doesn’t do anything for me unless I’m actually behind the bar. And I’m terrified of what happens when I do get behind a bar. Last time I got lucky, because that one backyard tiki bar ran out of rum. Settling into my seat, I pull out my credit card and put it on the bar, as I take off my suit jacket to hand it on the back of my seat without looking back.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asks.
I shrug, glancing down the bar at what’s on tap, trying not to see too much. I think I spot one of my usual drinks at the other bar. “Is that an imperial stout I spy down there?” I ask.
“Good eye,” he replies, “I’ll open up a tab.”
“Thanks,” I say as he takes my credit card. Alright, I think to myself, it’s going good thus far. Just enjoy a few beers, talk to a couple people. As long as nothing too terrible happens around here, I can’t do anything too terrible. Well, not again, in any case. I’m not sure how well I could handle doing something like what I did in the alley twice in the same week, much less in the same night. I just need a break. I need to get stupid drunk, be able to relax some, then head back to my apartment. Nothing too messy, nothing too bad.
The bartender sets the beer down in front of me. “You’re new, and you look like you have a lot on your mind. What’s up?”
I sigh, smile, and say, “Yeah, I usually head to the Basement, but it’s closed. Don’t know why, and this place is the closest I could remember.”
“Oh, yeah,” the bartender replies, “I know the Basement. My buddy who works there said Miguel closed it for the week because something bad happened at his cousin’s place down south, so he had to travel down there to help out.”
I chuckle. “Here I was worried he closed down just to spite me,” I coyly respond, a smirk on my face.
The bartender chuckles right back. This may well be relaxing, after all. One can hope.
The hours pass by, and slowly people start packing in. What was initially a calm couple of rooms with a few regulars quickly becomes crowded and rowdy. But, at the now nearly full bar, it is still a nice, peaceful place. The two people sitting next to me don’t even stress about the fact that I barely look at them, focusing instead on my drink. One is a gentleman, looking for some companionship of the friend variety, the other a lady looking for some of the more physical variety.
Behind me, I can hear a commotion beginning to brew. I do my best to ignore it. Over the years, I’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring commotion. I smile and order another pint, as I’m about to finish my current one. Behind me, the commotion has grown in volume. Several people yelling at one another. The place is too crowded for me to leave. I can’t trust myself, even slightly drunk, to get out of here without accidentally seeing something. Reacting in some stupid way. I hear the sound of a chair breaking. Crap. Just need to keep my eyes ahead. And hopefully the dispute behind me doesn’t turn into an all-out brawl. Terrified by whatever he sees happening behind me, the gentleman on my left hurries out of the bar. He doesn’t even remember to close his tab. The lady to my right, as it turns out, not so much a lady. She squeals with glee at whatever she’s watching go down behind me. The whole rest of the bar, at least that I can see, is either watching or leaving. The bartender, putting my beer down in front of me, asks, “You know what’s happening?”
I smile, shake my head, and say, “I think I get the gist. Just staying out of it and hoping they’ll let me.”
“Really?” he asks, “You’re not getting involved, but you aren’t leaving either?”
I shut my eyes and shake my head. “I’m not really a fighter,” I tell him.
“I see,” he says back, seeing but not really understanding. Not yet, in any case.
I sip on my beer, enjoying it. I can hear the fight behind me. It has, unfortunately, grown larger, rather than staying between the initial instigators. That is bad. It gets so bad that, though I’m fairly sure she doesn't leave, the woman next to me retreats to watch from some distant corner. I can just barely see her flight, as I’m leaning forwards, enjoying my beer, and hoping beyond hope they’ll just leave me be.
Unfortunately, in the real world, hope isn’t generally enough. But at least I finish half my beer before anything happens. As I put down my beer and swallow, I can hear someone in the fray yell out, “You son of a…” The voice gets louder over the course of the four syllable sentence fragment. In my periphery, I can see the motion of an oblong object whizzing towards my head from my left hand side. I can feel control starting to slip away, my heartbeat beginning to slow down.
“Well, fuck,” I say, my last act of defiance as my control leaves. My left hand comes up, catching the pool cue and stopping it without any difficulty. This was not going to be fun, for anyone.
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