“Nice ambience. It’s like drinking in the middle of a traffic jam.”
Bonebrake shook it off. “Relax, dude. You need a drink, and an hour with the skankiest chick I can hook you up with.”
Dane winced. “Does your voice have a volume control?”
Bonebrake made a face as the bartender approached.
“What can I get you guys?”
Dane ordered a Dos Equis, which earned him a sneer from the bartender, while Bonebrake ordered a Samuel Adams. The bartender proffered two bottles, one green and one brown. He removed the caps and passed them over on warped cardboard coasters. Dane paid and took a long drink, enjoying the rich flavor, the feel of the cool liquid sluicing down his throat, and the chilled bottle smooth in his hand.
“Thanks for the drink. Next round’s on me.” Bonebrake held up his bottle, “A toast to Maxie and the United States Navy. May they and all the babes we meet tonight regret our first leave as Navy SEALs.”
“We’re not all the way through training,” Dane clinked his bottle against Bonebrake’s.
“Yeah, but the hard part’s over.”
“You think so, do you?”
“Maddock, some guys see the glass as half-empty. You see it as half-empty and filled with poison. You know that?”
Dane made no reply. It wasn’t the first time he’d been told he was a pessimist. They settled into an awkward silence and Dane tried to gather in the ambiance of the run-down sports bar, what little it had. Truth was, calling it a dive would be high praise. A few items of sports memorabilia hung on the once salmon-colored walls.
Dane wasn’t a huge sports fan, but he recognized the teams and faces. Pictures of Bruins retired numbers superimposed on the black and yellow spoked B, while a large photo of Bobby Orr hanging in mid-air took up half of a wall. Images of Larry Bird, Bob Cousy, Bill Russell and Red Auerbach held up a Celtics-themed wall, while still more of Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski and a young Roger Clemens were behind the bar. A solo minuteman huddling over a football held a special place among the mementoes. Other than that, it was dark, dirty, and the clientele, if the patrons could call themselves that, wore tank tops and cut-off jean shorts, most favoring a few days’ stubble.
Dane looked to Bonebrake. While he sported neither a dirty tank top, nor stubble running along his jawline, the tall Indian wore a garnet and black-colored South Carolina basketball jersey with the number 22 on the front, along with khaki shorts, bright red Converse high tops, and no socks. They cut an odd figure, Dane in a Hawaiian shirt and Nikes a few sizes smaller than his cohort’s gunboats.
Dane absent-mindedly picked at the green label with his fingernail. He didn’t know how this weekend would play out. He and Bonebrake drove each other nuts, though Dane felt he had reasons aplenty to dislike the man. Bonebrake was abrasive, obnoxious, and immature. On the positive side of the ledger, he had the mettle to complete the first stages of SEAL training. He finished pulling the label off and dropped it on the bar. Bonebrake laughed and flicked the label onto the floor.
“What’s so funny?” Dane asked, turning to his partner.
“You, dude. You’re so sexually frustrated. How many labels have you pulled off bottles of beer in the past two years?”
“Oh, come off it. I’m not sexually frustrated, Bonebrake.”
“Hey, I told you. My name is Bones.”
“Sorry.” He paused. “What kind of name is Bones, anyway?”
“It’s just a nickname I picked up when I was just a little redskin.”
Dane blinked. Bones loved to make people uncomfortable by throwing around derogatory terms about his own heritage.
“Many moons ago, long before I first pulled handle on slot machine.”
“Okay, I get it.” Dane took another drink.
“No, I don’t think you do, dude. You don’t get me at all.”
“What I get is that you don’t have a serious,” he paused and grimaced, “bone in your body.”
Bones threw his head back and laughed. “You said serious bone. Sexually frustrated, just like I said. Speaking of which, I wonder if there are any ladies who might like to enjoy my…”
“That’s what I mean. You think everything’s a joke.”
“And you don’t know how to lighten up.” Bones gestured with his bottle. “If you’d get over yourself, maybe some of your comrades in arms, other than yours truly, would warm up to you. Maybe a few girls, too.”
“I don’t know.” Dane took another swig of beer, remembering what Bones had said to him the previous day. That’s why nobody likes you. People respected him, he was sure of that. Maybe Bones was right. He didn’t exactly have any close friends in the service. “I’m fine with the way things are.”
“That’s sad, bro. There’s a lot more to life than following the rules.”
Dane suppressed the sudden impulse to punch Bones, but he’d been there, done that, and it hadn’t helped things. In fact, the fight seemed to make Bones like him even more. Now, he’d made it his personal mission to lighten Dane up, or at least convince him he was too rigid. He turned to stare at Bones, who stared out across the bar.
“That’s not cool.”
Dane followed Bones’ gaze to the far corner of the bar, where two young women were trying to evade the attentions of an aggressive bar patron. Neither could have been more than twenty years old; probably college kids with fake IDs who were looking for adventure and got more than they bargained for.
“I think I’ve found my first fight of the evening.” Bones cracked his knuckles and made to slip down off his bar stool.
“I got it.” Dane set his shoulders and marched across the bar. He knew Bones was eager for a brawl, but he didn’t want to spend the evening trying to bail a guy out of jail who wasn’t even his friend, and he certainly didn’t want to get locked up along with him. With Dane’s luck, they’d probably wind up in the same cell. He imagined calling Maxie and telling him they’d been arrested. That would be fun.
The man had the two girls corralled in the corner, his hands pressed against the wall on either side of them.
“There you are.” Dane shouldered the man aside without even looking at him and reached out to take the girls’ hands. “Dad’s been looking for you. We need to hit the road.” Surprise and gratitude mingled on the girls’ faces. And they followed Dane to the door. “I don’t think this is the sort of place you two ought to be hanging around,” he told them.
“Definitely not.” The shorter of the two reached up and dragged a fingernail down his chest. “We’re gonna find a club or something. Want to come with?”
Dane smiled. Her slender figure, glossy black hair and sparkling blue eyes held plenty of appeal, but she was a kid. “How old are you two, really?”
“Nineteen.” The girl blushed and her friend giggled.
“You two have a good night and stay out of dives like this.”
He returned to the bar to discover Bones had ordered up another round. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem.” Bones paused. “Tell me something, and I’m not trying to give you a hard time here, I really want to know. Why didn’t you drop that guy?”
Dane sighed. “I wanted to, but I guess I’m always thinking a few steps ahead. I punch the guy, he calls the cops, I go to jail, maybe both of us if you mouth off, we have to call Maxie and it gets worse from there.”
“That’s why you take it outside. Insult his manhood, get him all riled up so he can’t refuse, then you go out back where nobody can see, take him out quick, and run. He’ll probably be too embarrassed to call the cops, nobody likes admitting he got his ass kicked, but even if he does, you’ve already found another bar long before they take the report. Besides, you’re a stranger to him. Which is why I always pay with cash. Can’t get my name off a credit card receipt that way.”