The Ketel One is placed in front of him and Noah911 says, “Hold on, please,” and the bartender stands there for five seconds and watches Noah911 gulp down the whole drink and order another.
“I’m liking you more and more,” says the bartender.
“Be careful or I’ll spank you.”
He shakes his head at Noah911 and goes to get another vodka, coming back with the bottle and filling up his glass, then pouring himself one as well. No ice in his glass, only warm vodka.
“That’s hardcore,” Noah911 says, motioning to the tepid vodka.
“I don’t drink for the taste,” he says. As a toast, the bartender holds up his warm vodka and says, “To being one day closer to death.”
Noah911 doesn’t say anything and they shoot the vodka.
The bartender gets summoned by the four men, who are wondering whose dick they gotta suck to get the baseball game turned on.
Noah911 can feel heat and testosterone pulse from them. It’s written on their faces and wafts off of them, a violent pheromone, and Noah911 loves inhaling it.
“This ain’t a sports bar,” the bartender says.
“Just turn the channel, old-timer,” one says.
“Just go fuck yourself,” the bartender says.
Another starts clapping and howling. “Oh, snap, Willie. He sure got you!”
“Hey,” Willie says, adjusting his backward baseball cap, “I like your bite, old man.”
“You ain’t seen my bite,” the bartender says. “We’re too busy barking.”
This makes them lose it, cracking up, pounding fists on the bar, shaking their drinks, a few suds jumping out of pint glasses and slowly spilling down the outside.
Noah911 loses his capacity to follow the conversation, eyes glued to the TV. They’re saying something about the brass band but he can’t hear. They show a few stills from TheGreatJake’s video; Noah911 has memorized every frame. Finally, the screen zooms in on one man’s face, the last person to jump, the guy playing the bass drum. His mug is grainy, pixilated from being blown up this big on the screen, but Noah911 tries to soak up every detail. He’s young, definitely in his thirties. Short brown hair. Sort of handsome. Not an imposing face, clean-shaven, not the crazy you can see in the eyes of, say, Ted Bundy or Jim Jones. Noah911 would sit next to this guy on the subway and not worry one bit.
He has to know what the newscasters are saying. Earlier, he’d been kept out of the mariachi bar, simply from the threat of being triggered to think of Tracey jumping by the horns. This, though, feels like something different — this feels like he might be able to learn. Why are they zeroing in on this man? Is he the leader? Is it his fault, too?
He asks the bartender to turn the music down, crank up the news. The men buck at this idea, saying, “God no, anything but that. Jesus, what’s wrong with baseball? What do you have against the national pastime?”
This is the national pastime, thinks Noah911.
The cranky bartender agrees to Noah911’s request, probably because his suggestion bothers the others so much. He shuts off the music, snatches the remote control, and turns up the news.
“This is an image of the man thought to be the mastermind behind. .” the news anchor says, but Noah911 can’t hear the rest of her thought because one of the men whines, “Boring! This is boring! Can we please turn the channel?”
“We are so bored!” another says.
“Bor-ing!” they start chanting, all four of them, bisecting the word into two harsh syllables. “Bor-ing! Bor-ing! Bor-ing!”
They pound their fists on the bar in rhythm with their chants.
“Will you clowns shut up?” Noah911 says.
They stop. Look at him. Stand from their stools. Flash greedy smiles. It’s like an antelope has challenged a cackle of hyenas to a fight.
“I’m trying to listen to the news,” Noah911 says.
“Mister, you should be listening to the common sense the good lord gave you,” says the bartender.
“He’s giving you sound advice,” Willie says, readjusting his backward hat, pulling it down snug.
“I need to hear the news,” Noah911 says, “so put your tampons in and deal with it.”
“You assholes want to fight, you do it outside,” the bartender says. “I’ll call the cops, though.”
“Believe me,” Willie says, “he does not want to fight.”
Noah911 hears another phrase from the anchor: “. . it’s not known if a reason has been explicitly stated. .”
“What do you think, News Watcher?” says one of them. “Will there be anything left of you by the time the cops get here?”
Noah911 is off his stool. He backs up into the middle of the room. The news still tells people about the brass band, and Noah911 can’t think of a more appropriate soundtrack.
“Not here,” the bartender says.
“It has to be here,” Noah911 says to him.
Then he turns his attention to the guys: “Are you made of chicken shit or what?”
“You must be off your meds, man,” Willie says.
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
They saunter over and slowly circle him. The bartender has the phone in his hand, ready to dial 911, but no one will make it in time. Nobody can save him and they shouldn’t. A piss-poor protector like Noah911 shouldn’t get any shelter of his own.
Let his guilt have arms and fists.
Let him bleed.
The news still plays on the TV, not that Noah911 can hear much of what’s being said. The brass band’s enigma, their code, stupefies everyone, except Noah911 because he doesn’t care why they did it. That’s not a question that interests him. Futures contracts pay out or they bust. Those are the only two options, and Noah911 likes that simplicity. There’s no time for why. Tracey was alive; now she’s dead.
And that’s when Noah911 hits him in the face.
It’s a solid shot and drops Willie to the floor and Noah911 takes a deep breath, knowing what comes next. The first thing he feels comes from behind, a shot in the kidney, buckling him over, but he’s not going to fall, no way is he going down yet, and now another fist finds his temple and he sees a bright light, loses any sense of where he is, might very well be zipped up in that suitcase, and here comes somebody grabbing him in a bear hug, tucking his arms so he can’t defend himself, and Willie is up off the floor, saying, “Hold him still. Hold him still,” and Noah911 feels two punches straight in the face, another in the stomach, and the hyena who’s been holding his arms is now the only thing keeping him on his feet, a few more swings, a hook to the liver, an uppercut to the chin and he bites his tongue, tasting blood and freedom, and a wide hook lands on his eye socket and they let him fall to the bar’s floor.
The bartender screams into the phone, “Send the cops, send the cops, send the cops!”
The other men who had been drinking at the bar all scurry from the premises.
Noah911 looks up, lying under the bar’s starry sky.
He can’t hear the news but knows they’re still talking about the brass band, maybe a close-up of Tracey’s face and the newscaster asking earnestly, “Who was looking out for this young lady?”
He sees the four hyenas huddled around him. They’re looking down at him, inspecting their kill.
It doesn’t make any sense to Noah911 why they’ve stopped. No need for mercy on somebody so useless, so unconscionable, so undeserving of sympathy.
He says, “You guys punch like pussies.”
Which brings the boots, a couple of them kicking him while the others stomp on his chest and midsection, and he turns on his side so he can get enough air to take a breath, bringing his arms over his solar plexus to maybe defend his stomach but also maybe to leave his face free, exposed, open. Leave his face available for any gracious violence.