Free Vengeance by Eric Prochaska Page A

relatively freely once it was in motion, if still under the burden of its own weight.
    My dad passed me and was swallowed whole by the darkness that was so thick it seemed to ooze out into the gravel along with the sounds and smells. I stepped inside and pulled the door shut firmly. But I stayed standing there with my hand on the door because I couldn’t make out more than the faintest shapes. A few neon beer signs along the walls provided the sole illumination. As my eyes adjusted, I saw there was a bar maybe five feet in front of me. I could hear my dad’s voice coming from that direction. He was having a hushed, urgent argument with someone that ended with him saying, “Well, it’s my luck to push, so you just let me push it.”
    “Fine. But don’t go poking your stupid face at the camera in the corner,” the other voice said.
    I was able to make out my dad’s form on a stool, his cocked head now turned over his shoulder, waiting for me to join him. “Jesus. Get over here already.”
    I stepped forward cautiously and felt the stool with my hands before sitting blindly. I scanned the room and could see maybe a dozen people at four or five tables and booths. I couldn’t be sure of who else might be in the dark, but there seemed to be about that many tables and booths sitting empty, too. The space was bigger than it appeared from outside. If anyone noticed me in my suit I’m sure I stood out like a sore thumb. Maybe they’d think I was a parole officer or sleazy attorney having a drink with a client.
    “What do you want?” my dad asked. I turned to see the bartender looming, waiting on me. His eyes were hollow black sockets against that obscure backlighting.
    “You have any light beer?”
    Instead of answering, he stepped to the tap and filled a mug. My dad signaled for his second scotch. The first must have been delivered before I got the door shut, and was already reduced to a stain in the bottom of his glass. I had never appreciated my dad’s drinking ways, but given the occasion, I wasn’t going to begrudge him wanting to be less than sober.
    “So this is it,” I said. I was hardly overwhelmed by the reality. Still, it was an experience beyond expectation. All the stories I had heard about his nights here took on substance. “This is where you got stabbed, isn’t it?”
    It was one of his stories that I had never known how seriously to take. He and a few buddies had been out drinking and started throwing comments back and forth with another booth. Before long, the guys in the other booth had drawn a gun and some knives – though how he could be so sure of the details in this darkness was still a mystery. No one got shot, but my dad and one of his pals got cut, and they ended up with the gun after a scuffle. The other guys took off, not wanting to be around for the aftermath of stabbing someone.
    “That booth in the corner,” he said, tipping his glass in the general direction. I gathered that using a finger to point at someone in here wouldn’t be well-received. “Fuckers got ahold of Big Sean and meant to mess him up real good. I thought they were about to gut the bastard, so I rammed into the middle of them all and started punching with both fists. Never hit anyone with skulls as hard as those mother fuckers. When they cleaned up the place a few days later, they found four teeth on the floor back there.”
    “You got stabbed in the middle of all that?”
    “Didn’t even feel it. Didn’t even know I’d been stabbed. We were sitting out front for the ambulance to show up. You cause trouble here, you take it outside. You tell the paramedics you were outside the whole time. That way the police don’t need to come inside and ask around. So it wasn’t until I was helping Big Sean up to the ambulance that the paramedic asked about the blood on the back of my shirt. He asked if I was all right, and I said of course I was. And he says, ‘This is your blood back here. It looks like you’ve been