Three people fall to the floor drunk almost at once and are carried to the back and some men and a woman sleeping it off in back get awake and start drinking and singing up front again. By ten o’clock I run out of food to make sandwiches with and next run out of ice and eggs and keg beer and later out of liquor and ale and lots of people thank me and leave because there’s almost no wine or bottled or canned beer left. Then there’s nothing left and people pool their money and go out and bring back a case of liquor and ice and later someone borrows another drinker’s car and drives back with cases of beer and ale. Then it’s nearly three and getting close to closing time and I’m tired though for the last few hours haven’t made anyone drinks but just walked around joking and reminiscing and I say “Goodnight everybody, it’s been great. Best night of my life or almost and I love you one and all but you have to go.” I get slapped on the back a lot and hugged and kissed which never happened here before and my hands shook till they hurt and cheeks pinched and several people push ones and fives and a ten in my shirts and pants pockets and say something like “I don’t care if all this was supposed to be free, go take a holiday or get laid someplace or give it to charity on me.”
One of the last ones leaving says “Why not make it an after-hours club for one night?” and I say “What’s to lose and I’m getting back my third wind.” I lock the door and pull down the shades and party goes on with what drinks we’ve left and old customers I haven’t seen for weeks and were probably at other bars and maybe till now told by Stovin’s or someone to stay away knock on my window and door and are let in. Other bartenders and owners also come by after their places close with more liquor and mixers and beer, even the ones who wouldn’t help me against Stovin or said they’d never see or speak to me again till my trouble was over with him. I don’t say anything to them about it. Past’s past, I might need one of them for a job in the future if I stick in the same trade or later return to it, and they’re really nice people with their own I suppose reasonable self-interests and almost none with my kind of bar background and fatherly business and why spoil the night with harsh words, so I just continue to gab, drink, laugh and dance.
Around five a policeman raps on the window and says “You’ll have to close, Shaney. Neighbors have complained of the noise all morning. I stalled them because I heard some of our own boys were having a feast in here, but these people say they have to get a couple-hours sleep before they go to work.”
I announce to the bar “It’s definitely goodnight now, folks. Anyone wants to take the mugs or even the stools home as a memento or whatever you see except my coat, hat and boots, please do. I don’t want anything here left.”
A few take stools and mugs and ashtrays and someone lifts the cash register and says “Okay?” and I nod and he leaves with it calling it an antique. Couple of the better tables go and some of the cheap prints and working equipment and all the bar tools are pocketed by the bartenders and owners. Then everyone’s gone and I look in back, see that someone fell asleep on the toilet seat and zipper him up and walk him to the street and give a cabby more than enough money to drive him home. Then it’s absolutely quiet inside, nothing left to drink except a bottle of scotch I hid, and I start drinking it mixed with some fizzled out soda water and begin smashing up the place.
“Here’s to you, Mr. Stovin and junior boy if you’ve been a bad boy too, a good belt to your jaws,” and I toss an empty beer bottle at the bar mirror and both break. With a bat I smash the mirror to bits, few slivers of it getting in my hand and wrist but nothing great and hurl all the stools around till they split apart and turn over the tables and kick the legs loose and slash the chairs against the bar counter till I’ve nothing left but chair backs in my hands and rip the prints off the walls and tear the frames from the glass and break both of those too and pop the light globes and bulbs with a broom but keep one on in the rear and front and smash every glass, pitcher, mug, jar, dish and plate in the place, heaving whole stacks and shelves of them to the floor and slinging them against walls and across the room. I tip over the refrigerator and with a carving fork puncture its condenser tubes, pull the grill loose but put on back in working order because the gas starts to leak and I don’t want the bar to explode, pull down the liquor cabinets that have been up for fifty years and with a table leg punch their smoked and etched glass in and drink while I’m doing all this and when the whole bar’s wrecked or just about and I’m sweating faucets and exhausted I go outside with a few empty bottles and throw them through the window and door. I want to set fire to the inside but there are four floors upstairs, three just manufacturing lofts with no people in them this hour but top’s a live-in serious artist and her cats.
But that’s enough destruction and I leave the lights on and door open when I walk out. Some people are in front watching and a couple in a car have doubleparked outside the bar to watch too. Ones on the sidewalk step aside when I walk by though I say “Excuse me … Pardon,” to every other one of them because I don’t want to seem dangerous or so insane where they’d be scared of me.
Second I step off the curb they run into the bar including the woman from the doubleparked car to I suppose look for things to drink and take and maybe break more. Phone’s ringing from the booth across the street when I’m walking past, I bet for me but for what? I watch it ring, then quickly turn around to try and catch someone from one of the doorways or windows near my bar spying on me, then run to the middle of the street to look at the windows and doorways in the buildings behind the phonebooth. They’re all closed and dark on both sides of the street and nobody’s in the doorways. I run to the ringing booth, lift the receiver and say “Hello, hello?” but no one answers though the phone isn’t dead. “Come on, someone’s there,” when I hear with the receiver still at my ear a police siren from somewhere not far off. Gets nearer and I hang up and a police car tears down the street and stops in front of the bar. Double-parked car drives off with its trunk open and no passenger. People run out of the bar emptyhanded and some with a number of things. Two men carry out the entire cooking grill, woman with a five-gallon jar of mustard I didn’t know was still there, man with a single dinner plate and several table legs but that’s all he has.
“Drop all that,” the policeman shouts getting out of his car, but they zigzag around him or like the men with the grill walk fast as they can the other way. “I said to drop everything you stole, folks, and I’ll let you get on your way,” when nobody’s in sight anymore except the men with the grill. He goes in the bar. I start back to it to warn him about the gas leak from the grill’s pipes, then think he’ll smell and know what to do with it and there’s a sign on the building’s doorway saying A.I.R. on fifth floor, and head for a nearby diner I know from when I had early morning bar work to do that opens at six.
When I walk in the counterman says “Morning,” and puts a cup of black coffee in front of me though I didn’t even make a sign for it.
“Thanks,” and give my order of cereal, eggs, sausages and toast.
Place is full of workers with those paper printers’ caps on their heads from the newspaper plant around here. Phone rings while the counterman’s pushing my toast down again because I told him I like it a little burnt and he answers it, says “I’ll see,” looks around and says to me “You’re the only one I don’t recognize — you Shaney Fleet?”
“What I do now?”
“Nothing I know and make it fast. This isn’t your personal answering service and my wife’s home sick.”