The Promise of Space by James Patrick Kelly

Author:James Patrick Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: anthology, science fiction, short stories
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2018-07-06T04:00:00+00:00

Miss Nobody Never Was

Everybody thinks that bartenders steal. You know what? They’re right. Maybe there’s an upright bartender someplace where it’s all parking lots and cornfields and traffic lights flashing yellow, but I doubt it.

So what do we steal? We might pocket some of the tips we’re supposed to split with other bartenders or the dishwashers in the back of the house. Or we might steal from the boss. We sure as hell steal from the government when we lie about our actual income. But it’s not just money—we steal time, too. Watch some guy sliding off a barstool at closing, and you’re seeing a sucker we’ve taken for two, three, four hours of his one and only life. That’s time he’ll never get back, time he likely won’t even remember losing. I’d been pulling beers since before Clinton met Lewinsky, so I was ready to come out from behind the stick with no regrets, no looking back. When you own a bar, however, you’re stuck with the kind of baggage that doesn’t travel. Even though I’d been sober since the divorce, two years and counting, I had to live with the burnt toast smell of cheap bourbon, the sticky oak floors and the wobble and snort of strangers who wanted to tell me that I was the brother they never had. If I stole whatever from whoever, like all my fellow bartenders, The Strange Brew Pub was stealing my life from me.

Which is why I was miserable that night. It was a Wednesday—our Whiskey & Wings night—and I had the game on the widescreen in the main room and Comedy Central on the old plasma in the annex. The Red Sox were down two in the fifth and were playing like their shoelaces were untied. There was my usual upscale crowd, a couple of suits postponing family obligations, more couples than usual. The whiskey was flowing and we’d run out of wings; Dana was pushing our mini chimis. The hardcore at the bar had already gone through the night’s ration of free chips and salsa.

“So the professor goes, ‘And how many of you believe in ghosts?’ About half the class raise their hands.” Cal Overton was telling one of his endless stories to some bored former hippie with a graying ponytail.

“I need a Jack and Jill for table four.” Dana set a tray filled with empties on the bar. “Ten Penny, Magic Hat, and Harpoon IPA pints.”

“ ‘How many of you have even seen a ghost?’ says the professor.” Cal was already leaning and it was only quarter to ten. We knew that he frontloaded his buzz before coming in, so he could nurse a Smutty or two all night. Dana glanced at her checks. “Hey Chaz, what’s a Stinger?”

“A duo,” I said. Dana was twenty-three, new to the job and the wonderful world of cocktails. “Brandy and white crème de menthe. Sweet.”

“Okay then,” she said. “Straight up. For table six.” Which was around the corner in the annex, just out of sight of the bar.

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