A. Rose

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  A young man sat alone in a dark corner of the bar. As if in fear of its retreat, his hands were gripped tightly around a glass of brown liquor, sat atop a dining table. His appearance suggested he was a drunkard yet the glass he grasped, wet from sweat, sat shaking and untouched. Every instinct told me to stay away but my desire for answers compelled me to do otherwise. As I approached the suspect, the sounds of restless floorboards underfoot forced my breathing to betray my hazy bravado - born of caffeine and painkillers. Placing a cigarette in between my lips, I sat down in the chair across from him trying not to look terrified. His countenance now bathed in the light of my flickering lighter, revealed a man weary of his past. As I searched for words, the man’s gaze arose from his glass and met my own. Instantly I found myself robbed of speech. Red and swollen from tears, his eyes conveyed the nature of a man no more capable of doing harm than sprouting wings and taking flight. His gaze lasted but a moment but imbued my hands with the impetus to act.

  “Cigarette?” I offered, shaking a loosie from the empty pack. He made no gesture and spoke no words of contention as I returned the package and lighter to the breast pocket of my jacket still wet from the storm outside. Allowing myself to believe he wanted company I began to speak. “Do you know who I am?”

Nothing.

“Do you have any idea why I might want to speak with you?”

Still. Nothing.

  I removed the golden shield from my belt and placed it on the table hoping this would have the effect of dispelling his reticence. It was in that moment I realized my mistake. The man’s indifference gave way to panic as he lept across the table sending us both crashing to the floor.  The shot came from the heavy standing at the foot of the bar; whizzing by my left ear and striking the framed sports jersey on the wall above our table. Flinching for what seemed like an eternity, the eyes of the man atop me directed my gaze to the shooter. There he stood inebriated and blinking rapidly - apparently in disbelief of his recent miss. I recognized him right away as a local killer-for-hire and hated myself for failing to spot him when I entered. Urging me onto my feet, the man above me finally seemed to relinquish the truth as he stepped into to the path of the shooter’s second shot giving his life for my own. My heart raced as I removed my service revolver from its holster. It had been over 15 years since the academy and even then my aim had been far from true. Now at 47 and nursing a hangover, it would at last behoove me to be a straight shooter in more ways than one. I aimed down my shoulder as the bar’s patrons began to scatter and squeezed three shots. Mustering all  the strength I could to prevent my legs from giving out, I remained standing long enough to witness my handiwork dispatch first a nearby bar stool, then a bottle of scotch whiskey and finally my would-be killer. When the madness began to settle, I stood over the murder’s corpse holding what remained of my pride in the same hand as the broken bottle of whisky. “What a waste.” I whispered to myself. Discarding the bottle I returned to the stranger on the ground lying now in a pool of his own blood. His mouth hanging wide, I discovered to my horror why the man had not spoken a word this night: his tongue had been removed. Judging by the look of the scaring, it had been months since the procedure was performed. The events of the night raised more questions than they answered and I wondered now more than ever if the man who had perished saving my life was indeed the man I had been searching for these past six months. As the spirit fled his once tarnished face, I couldn’t help feeling that he had at last, in the finality of his death, found peace...