Free The Town by Bentley Little

finally grew up.”
    “Blow me.”
    Gregory chuckled, sipped his coffee. He felt good. He and Paul hadn’t hung out since high school, but there was none of the awkwardness between them that he would have expected. It was as though they’d picked up exactly where they’d left off all those years ago. They’d fallen into the old rhythms, the old patterns. They were comfortable with each other, perfectly at ease, and there was something nice about that.
    “So how is Deanna?” Gregory asked.
    “Still at her mom’s. I pick her up Thursday. I called and told her you were back, but to tell you the truth, she didn’t seem all that fired up to see you.”
    “Tell her I’ve changed, too.”
    “Yeah. Right.”
    They laughed.
    Gregory motioned to the bartender for a refill. He glanced around the bar, saw neon beer signs, a few old mining photographs half hidden in the gloom, a dead jukebox and a Pac Man video game. In his mind, this place had always been demonized, the home of hate, an evil spot, and it was liberating to see that it was merely a typical small-town business, to recognize on an emotional level that his dread had been all self-induced and that none of the attributes he had ascribed to it existed anywhere outside of his mind. He finally understood what people meant when they talked about “a sense of closure.” The phrase had always smacked of pop psychology to him, and he’d dismissed the word “closure” as yet another trendy, meaningless buzzword, but it was apt in this instance. It felt as though an open wound had been healed, and it made him think you could go home again.
    The bartender poured him another cup of coffee, and Gregory smiled his thanks. “You know,” he said to Paul, “I was thinking. You need some help at your café? I’d do it for free,” he added quickly. “You wouldn’t have to pay me a dime.”
    Paul frowned. “You won the lottery and gave up your high-paying job to become . . . a waiter in McGuane? Are you drunk or are you just insane?”
    “I don’t want to be a waiter. You have the only café in town, and I thought about all the ones back in California, and I figured I could help you out. You know, spruce it up, bring it up to California standards.”
    “How?”
    “Do you have entertainment? Performers?”
    Paul shook his head.
    “There you go. That’d help draw people. I could help you book local singers. Or cowboy poets. Or, hell, maybe even some club acts that usually don’t even hit this part of the state.”
    “Why?” Paul asked.
    Gregory shrugged. “Call it an investment.” He smiled.
    “Or the whim of a bored rich guy. Well, rich-for-McGuane guy.”
    Paul nodded, looked over at Odd. “We could have entertainment. We could move back those chairs and tables on the east wall and you could put up a little stage . . .”
    “I’d pay for the materials,” Gregory said. He nodded toward Odd. “And your time. We could get a decent lighting setup, a mike and a speaker system.”
    The old man nodded. “It’s doable.”
    “This has potential,” Paul admitted, and Gregory thought he detected a hint of excitement in his voice. “No place else in town has live entertainment.”
    “Even if we just booked local talent, you’d get their friends and family coming in to watch. At the very least. Charge a two-item minimum, and voilà!”
    “This could work. I might be saved from bankruptcy yet.” He grinned, held his hand out to Gregory, shook. “Deal!”
    Gregory wanted to go immediately over to the café, but both Paul and Odd had beers in front of them, and neither one was in a hurry to leave. They talked excitedly of the specifics of renovation, the mechanics of outfitting the café with a performance area, and Odd borrowed a pen from the bartender and started writing figures down on a napkin.
    After ten minutes of increasingly grandiose plans that made Gregory mention the fact that they should have a budget, a limit, Paul excused himself and headed off