SSC Weekend Words Prompt: “So This One Time, At BilBo’s Tavern”

This flash-fiction excerpt is continued from a blog post at StoryStudio Chicago’s “Cooler By the Lake” blog.

“So This One Time, At BilBo’s Tavern”

By: Michael J. Greenwald

The Tuesday night shift at BillBo’s Tavern had been the reason I’d been hired as the new bartender; even though I walked-in that one Sunday morning carrying a print-out of a Craig’s List ad which sought a dishwasher (“Hole-in-Every-Wall-Bar Seeks Creative Individual that Fears Not Soap and Suds”).

“Can you bartend on Tuesday night?”

I had only just stepped inside the dingy space, senses momentarily blitzed by the rancid smell of puke and BO which would offend a career homeless’s sensibilities.  I hadn’t spoken and had no idea where the voice had come from, due to my eyes reacting to the dimly-lit space as though I’d been staring at the sun before running directly into a mine-shaft.

Finally, my pupils compressed enough for me to discern the lone human in the bar: a man whose body would garner snowman-envy squeezed into a spotty-white T-shirt; which might have been too small for his girlfriend, if he had a girlfriend, and if she were on a liquid-diet.

“Huh,” I said.

“Can you bartend Tuesday nights?”

I held up the print-out; the paper shook.

“Can you bartend on Tuesday night?” the man repeated.

I turned the paper around, double-checking I’d printed the correct ad.  “No. I’m the creative individual who fears-not soap and suds.”

The fat man shrugged.  “I can’t do nothing for you.”  He turned, twisted a knob of an old Zenith TV propped on the bar-top.  A black-and-white image came to the screen, fuzzy lightning bolts shooting across the picture, like the cheesy original Batman show.  Bam!  Pow!  Poof!

“But I’m here about the dishwasher position.  Please, sir.  I’ve applied all over the city and I’ll do anything you need.”

The fat man didn’t turn for a long minute.  I’d already headed for the door.

“Can you work the Tuesday bartending shift?” he asked for a third time.

I stopped, turned.  “Sure.  Whatever.”  He had the Zenith’s taped-antenna’s in his grubby hands, moving them like one of those airport crew guys with the highlighter sticks.  “But I’ve never bartended before.”

“You ever worked at the zoo?”

“Sir?”

His head swiveled.  I noticed a red birth-mark the shape of Africa splotched on his skin from left cheek to the top of his head.  “The zoo.”

“No…yes!  No.  Yes.”

Suddenly the Zenith’s picture cleared and WGN news appeared.  The man lowered his hands, grunted as he situated himself on a beer cooler, eyes on the screen.

“That’s good, real good,” he responded, nodding agreeably–the birth mark in the shape of Africa had disappeared.

So like I said at the front; I was not supposed to be bartending at BillBo’s on Tuesday night.  But here I am.