Free If I Knew You Were Going to Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go by Judy Chicurel Page B

asked again.
    “I said—”
    “Yeah, yeah, I love my kids,” the other voice said. “So what? What’s that got to do with anything?”
    “You ever criticize ’em?” Mitch asked. “Yell at ’em? Hit ’em, maybe?”
    There was silence at the other end of the bar. Someone snorted and said, “This fucking guy—”
    “Tell ’em get a haircut, get better grades, turn the music down?” Mitch asked. “Ground ’em for cutting school? Smack ’em upside thehead for sassing their mother? Tell ’em, ‘You get knocked up, don’t bother coming home’?”
    Silence, still, at the other end of the bar.
    “You ever wish you never had ’em?” Mitch asked.
    “Shut it down, now, you son of a bitch,” one of the men said. “Shut it down right now, or—”
    “You still love ’em?” Mitch asked.
    More silence. A lighter flared. Someone raised his mug to his lips and took a long drink. I couldn’t make out their faces in the dim light. I couldn’t tell the color of their eyes.
    “Yeah, you still love ’em,” Mitch said, stubbing out his Camel. “You can talk all that shit about ’em, but you still love ’em.”
    “The fuck’s he talking about?” one of the men said.
    Mitch laughed, and the sound of it was warm and rich. He drained his drink and got up from his stool, leaning against the bar for balance. “The fuck am I talking about,” he said, shaking his head.
    “Go fuck yourself, you commie prick,” the fat voice said loudly.
    “If I could’ve done that, I wouldn’t have gotten out of bed this morning,” Mitch said.
    Two of the men began moving forward. They were big and pretty bald with beer guts hanging over their tool belts. I didn’t recognize them. I was glad they didn’t appear to be somebody’s father or uncle. Somebody’s brother I might have to recognize.
    “Let’s take it down a notch,” Len said quietly from behind the bar.
    “Guy’s got a big mouth,” the fat voice said.
    Mitch stepped forward, farther into the light. The younger construction worker with more hair looked down at Mitch’s stump. He put his hand on the fat man’s arm. He nodded toward Mitch’s wooden leg. Mitch never covered it up. He wore his pants rolled up to just below his knee, where the wooden leg began. He watched the men looking. He smiled so that his face creased up. His eyes were the brightest thing in the room.
    “Don’t let that stop you,” he said softly.
    “Let’s take it down a notch,” Len said. “Let’s everybody relax and have another drink. On the house.” Everybody liked Len. He knew how to run a bar right. He had silver hair but his face was young. He’d been laid off the Sandhogs, which was why he tended bar at the lounge at The Starlight Hotel.
    “Sure,” the younger construction worker said. “Sure.” He turned back to the bar, to the place where the other men were standing. The fat man waited a minute longer before walking back to his place at the bar.
    Len served the construction workers first. When he began making Mitch’s boilermaker, Mitch put up his hand and shook his head no. He threw some bills on the bar and picked up his jacket with the bottle of Gordon’s in the pocket and began walking toward the door that led to the rooms in the hotel. He’d left his cane on the back of his chair, but neither Len nor I called after him to take it. He whistled “The Star-Spangled Banner” as he walked through the door. You could hear him whistling as he walked up the stairs to his room, one step at a time.
    “Guy’s got an attitude problem,” the fat voice said.
    “Lay off, Jimmy,” one of the men said.
    “Hey, he’s not the only one, is all I’m saying,” the fat man said. “He’s not the only one came back—”
    “Everything all right over there?” Len said sharply. “Your drinks okay? Taste all right?” He stared down the bar at the men, his arms stretched out behind him. Len kept a bat behind the bar. On the shelf just opposite the taps for the draft