Bartender

You know, it's nice to watch drunk people. It really makes you see what you're capable of when you're drunk yourself. I'm a bartender. I bought the place from O'Malley's family. That one was unlucky. Haven't you heard the story? It's very interesting. It's a kind of warning to customers. I always keep a loaded gun under the bar. It makes me feel safer.

Oh, I was going to tell you the story about O'Malley. I didn't know the guy. Unfortunately. Besides, I couldn't even recognize him. He was dead when I bought his place. I heard the story from my neighbors, who, when they found out I bought the bar, just tapped each other expressively.

"Who's going to come to a bar where a dozen people died?" I ignored them, and it was a good thing. Now they're my regular customers. O'Malley wasn't supposed to be a troublemaker, and yet...

One fine evening, a man who looked about thirty walked into the bar. Apparently, when you looked at him in the right way and in the right light, he was even quite handsome. So he walked up to the bar, sat down, and said,

"O'Malley, I'm thirsty."

"Not just you," O'Malley laughed, and began to mix the indicated drink. Then the guy reportedly stood up, crossed himself, pulled a gun from his belt, and shot the bartender. Everyone gasped.

"Neighbors!" he shouted, "Friends!"

He pounded the bar with his fists and continued shouting,

"I bear no grudge against you! I am a man no God is waiting for, but for whom the whole world longs! I am marked by blood and darkness!" No one dared utter a word. Besides, if someone killed a man in your presence and started screaming such things, I wonder what you would do. And he put the barrel under O'Malley's wife's throat and fired. Her head landed in a sink full of dirty dishes, but no one noticed.

Everyone watched in silent horror as he strangled O'Mally's daughter, the woman the entire town had a crush on, with his huge hands. Caffery tried to take advantage of the situation and moved to attack, but the killer was faster. Caffery died before he could do anything.

The man raised his smoking gun and whispered, "I'm not doing this willingly..."

At that moment, a hysterical scream rang out. It was Richard Holmes's wife, who had lost her nerves and was sitting at her table, her face beet red, her eyes wide and empty, her mouth open, a mad scream escaping. The man slowly turned, laughed silently, and shot her in the left breast. The scream suddenly broke, only to turn into a death gurgle a few moments later. Richard Holmes, watching with horrified eyes, suddenly stood up, raised an accusing hand, and, pointing at the murderer, squealed:

"You're a bad man." He stood there for a moment, as if amazed that he was still alive, and the angel of death, who had been distributing it so generously, paused and pondered. For a moment, time seemed to stand still in the bar. Richard stood with his hand raised, the murderer stared thoughtfully at the floor, the dead lay still, and the living… The living looked almost like the dead, with pale faces, sitting stiffly, as if waiting their turn.

Suddenly, Mr. Death shattered the image by raising his head. He looked Holmes straight in the eyes and whispered,

"If I don't do this willingly, how can I feel morally guilty?" He raised his pistol and shot Richard in the stomach. Richard stood there for a moment longer, then gently, slowly, as if in slow motion, sat down on the floor, a barely audible whisper escaping his lips: "There is no defense," and the limp body fell to the floor.

"None of them," the murderer replied, and, carefully lining up his shot, he blew Holmes's head off.

Standing over the motionless body, watching the blood, obeying the last beats of his heart, flow from the wound, he removed fresh cartridges and slowly loaded the gun. Then, as if struck by a sudden spasm, he quickly fired at Mr. Brookes and young Richardson. Both fell without so much as a groan. You could say anything about this man, but one thing cannot be denied him: a skilled hand.

Then he took a deep breath and, looking at all the dead bodies, said,

"I'd like to introduce myself, and I'm glad you all came." He jumped onto the bar, spreading his arms wide, and shouted his name. Then Jerry Bellows rose from his stool, closed his eyes, and began to laugh. But it wasn't a hysterical laugh, but the ordinary, manly laughter you sometimes hear after a good joke. Death came to him in the form of a large glass ashtray thrown by the figure standing on the bar. Bellows collapsed onto the bar, his head shattered, his blood forming a slow, crimson stream on the counter. The murderer lowered his gaze and, as if captivated by the blood flowing at his feet, knelt, tears welling in his eyes. Henry Davenport tried to take advantage of the situation by running, but what could he do against the bullet? The bullet entered through his chest and blew his insides straight out onto the floor. I told you, that guy had a good eye. Then he jumped to the floor and casually shot the recently divorced Kathleen Carpenter, ran across the room, and stood in front of the fat Vincent West.

"Do you know I live on your street?" he asked the fat man. Vincent looked at him as if he had lost his mind, which was probably not far from the truth, and replied:

"Oh, I didn't know..." he rose and slowly walked toward the door. With a straight face, he passed the killer and was about to leave when a single shot knocked his hat off his head and onto the street. Suddenly, it became eerily quiet. Vincent was the last victim. The man with the gun in his hand stood for a moment, looking around, until his gaze fell on the mirror. He smiled at his reflection.

"There stands a man!" he shouted, then turned left, then right, left again, and shouted again:

"Fear me! Fear me!" But no one answered him, for they were all already dead.

Then the first police car arrived. With a wailing siren and a flashing siren, it stopped with a screech of tires in front of the bar's door. Two cops jumped out, drew their weapons, and hid behind the car. Suddenly, the quiet, peaceful street became very noisy and crowded. Police cars seemed to appear out of nowhere, pulling up as close to the front car as possible, and the officers hid behind them, pistols at the ready. Crowds of onlookers stood at a safe distance, muttering incessantly, waiting for the spectacle. From somewhere, a loudspeaker boomed:

"Drop your weapons and get out!! Keep your hands high above your head!!!" The order echoed through the street, and suddenly silence fell. For a moment, everyone thought the place would be razed to the ground by the force of police weapons, but suddenly a pleading voice rang out:

"Don't shoot!! I'm unarmed!!!" A tall, slender man emerged from the bar, empty hands raised. Two cops ran up to him and quickly handcuffed him. They put him in their car, and he looked out the window, and before they took him away, his lips seemed to be counting: one… two… three… four…

That was the end of O'Mally's Bar.

Imagine what happened next. Imagine the headlines in the newspapers. Imagine the despair of the families of the victims. Imagine the astonishment of the murderer's neighbors. And then try to imagine the latter's utter calm and composure. His face appeared in all the local newspapers, even on national television. It was the same face the entire time. As if made of stone, expressing no emotion. And what then? The guy got twenty years, people buried their dead, and I showed up at O'Malley's family's. I was lucky. They wanted to forget the tragedy as quickly as possible and therefore sell the place as quickly as possible. A year after the shooting, I opened the bar. I changed the entire interior. Nothing reminds us of the past except a small bronze plaque on which I had the names of all the murdered people engraved and hung right by the entrance, so everyone would notice. I placed a drum kit, a double bass, and a piano on a slight elevation. Once a week, I try to organize a small, intimate concert. Anyone can come here any day and try playing. If the guests like it, they get a free drink; if not, they can leave.

The only person who's never had a drink is Czarny. He always plays amazing things, he plays wonderfully, everyone loves him, but he doesn't seem to know it. He comes, plays, and leaves. He's always so lost in thought that sometimes I wonder how he even makes it to the exit. Everyone knows him, but no one can boast of even a minute of conversation with Czarny. I really like this guy. I don't know much about music, but I know that when he sits down at the piano, the number of drinks and beers sold increases by almost half.

After his last concert, he spilled his entire glass on the floor, and you know what? I didn't even get mad. It's an artist's right. Especially when you can still make money off of it. Better than Intel, for example. He'll drink five beers, get drunk like a pig, and then throw up all over the toilet. Once, he supposedly almost drowned in his own vomit, but luckily, the Master, our local writer, pulled him out. One is worth the other… Well, maybe they differ in that the Master, at best, falls asleep over his beer and, upon waking, dutifully goes home.

The most polite of them all, however, is probably Kieliszek. He can drink anything in industrial quantities and at best, he'll burp. More than once, thanks to him, I've been able to control drunk guys hitting on the same girl. First, they're both sweet and eloquently slinging various words at each other to please the girl, and then suddenly they're at it. Then, the woman doesn't matter anymore; all that matters is who draws the most blood. And then Kieliszek arrives. Big as a wardrobe, with a mouth covered in a huge beard, he grabs both fighting roosters with his paws and throws them outside. The whole place shakes with his laughter as he listens to what they'll do to him if he lets them go. Ha, ha. It's worth having a regular like that, I tell you.

I'm standing behind the bar, wiping him down with a cloth out of boredom. I'd just turned on some quiet, relaxing music. A few couples were swaying on the dance floor, hookers were darting their eyes sideways, waiting for their customers, and the Master and the Kieliszek were whispering to each other. Intel wasn't there today, which was good; everyone would have a good laugh except me. Why do they all have a good time smashing things after drinking?

Yesterday, the Master came in drunk as a pig. That got me thinking; he usually arrived sober and left drunk. He came in, threw the bottle of beer he was holding against the wall, and started yelling about some woman, Sandra I think, calling her names, and collapsed to the floor. Not bad, I thought, and I was about to throw him out of the place when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kieliszek marching by. His eyes were shining like two flashlights, but his movements were coordinated.

"Joe, leave him alone, I'll handle this." "Didn't I tell you my name?" "Joe." So Kieliszek practically lifted the Master into his arms, and then I saw the strangest thing in my life. The guy burst into tears. He sobbed, mumbling something under his breath, and Kieliszek just soothed him. I looked questioningly at that huge, bearded face:

"What's going on here? I've never seen him like this.

" "They won't print his book. The guy broke down and burned the manuscript. Now he regrets it.

" "Do something with him, he'll scare all my guests away." Kieliszek just nodded and carried the drunken body outside. "A golden man," I thought, and for a moment I felt immense sympathy for the Master. You sit there for a while at the typewriter, thinking that what you're doing is useful to someone, then some strange woman comes along and tells you it's crap. On an impulse, you destroy your work, and a moment later you feel like a murderer. You feel like you've killed your own child, the one you spent so much time caring for, nurturing, creating, and then, ugh... I guess I shouldn't have chased them away.

I'm standing behind the bar, watching. It's my haven.

"Hey, Joe. Get me the usual." "Vicky." Damn, I can never remember what "the usual" is.

"What do you mean?"

"You'll never learn," she replied condescendingly, and told me what she meant. Fuck. Literally. What? Did you think they weren't here? Show me a place where they aren't. I can't stand them, but hey, they buy drinks, they make you buy them, I survive thanks to them too. With a pleasant smile, I handed Vicky a glass. Besides, she's a nice piece of work, except instead of earning money like that, she should be in some kind of school; she'd be better off. How old is she? I don't know, she looks like she's in her twenties, maybe eighteen. Suddenly, I caught the familiar stench of cheap cigarettes.

"Vicky, you look lovely today," the man greeted me with a wave and asked for a beer.

"Mike, you're always so nice." Vicky immediately became sweet and smiling. I looked at her with sympathy. Mike. That stinking prick in the perpetually rumpled suit from about twenty years ago, screwing everything that moves. Vicky, little bunny, I really feel sorry for you with that pervert. But what could I do? I'm just a bartender, a parasite preying on people like them. If they weren't there, I'd probably have to close down. I used to ask whores to leave the place, but after a month, when I realized with horror that my income was practically zero, I gave up. Let them come. Money doesn't stink. Admittedly, my dear guests sometimes get into a real fight about one, but overall, it's the women who make it somehow more pleasant. Even though they're just whores. No, not good. It's not just prostitutes who come to the Bar. Normal girls come here too. But the "professionals" are more noticeable, and they come more often. And they leave with someone different every time. Or with Mike, ha, ha, ha. This guy's probably tried every single one. As the Master put it: he's amassed a complete collection, the crown of the Bar. Nicely put. But this guy seems to have a gift.

Come to my place sometime. There's always a spot, maybe the Black guy will come over and play something, you can have a beer, and maybe pick up a girl. And if you're bored, just go to the bar, and old Joe will listen to your problems, tell you an anecdote, look at you, judge you, and bring you another beer. Everyone's welcome.

Just don't bring any weapons, please.