Free Last Call Lounge by Stuart Spears Page A

the desire to run.  I needed her but I didn’t want her to need me.
    She picked up the shot, downed it without toasting me. When she set the shot glass back down, she held on to it for a long second.
    “I’d better go,” she said.
    “What was it?” I asked.  “What was it you wanted to ask my Dad?”
    She pursed her lips and shook her head.  She didn’t want to talk about it, at least not with me.
    “It was nothing,” she said.  “Just a stupid idea I got into my head.”
    She picked up her purse.  The news about Dad, along with the way Boyd was ignoring her, was pushing Ruby back out the door.  I started talking.
    “How long are you in town?” I asked. She didn’t answer. “Come back tonight,” I said. “I’m working the door. We can catch up. Mitchell’s working.”  Ruby loved Mitchell. She was one of the few people who could make him laugh. She shook her head, looked up at the ceiling.  “Think about it.  Maybe I can help.  With whatever it was you wanted to ask Dad,” I said.
    “Maybe,” she said. “If I can.”  She turned to the door.
    “Bye, Ruby,” Boyd called from the bar. She stopped, cocked her head to one side, then continued out the door and onto the street. I looked at the closed door, then went behind the bar to wash the shot glasses. Boyd stared at the TV like nothing had happened.
    I lit a cigarette, looked at the closed door again.  I sat like that for a long time – smoking and staring at the closed door and thinking about Ruby and about the fact that it only took two minutes to scare her off after she’d been gone for so long.
     
    A few minutes later, a bit of movement in the front window caught my eye, just a flicker of something outside, above the maroon curtain. I trudged out from behind the bar and back out the front door. Outside, on the sidewalk, in the same work pants and cracking shoes, was Frank. He had a crumpled newspaper in one hand and a spray bottle in the other. It took me a minute to realize he was washing the window.
    “Oh,” he said when he saw me. “Hi, John.”
    Then everything just sort of fell out of me. I wasn’t angry, I wasn’t upset. Everything was just gone. I took a drag off my cigarette, flicked it into the street, and went back inside the bar. Frank followed me in.
    The bar was dark and sullen after the bright afternoon of the sidewalk. I sat at the bar, rubbed my eyes with my forefingers. Frank walked up beside me, but kept a safe distance. He held the spray bottle at his side.
    “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.
    He shifted his weight on his feet, shrugged his shoulders like a school kid getting ready to give a report.
    “I was hoping maybe I could help out around here,” he said. “I quit that other thing I was doing and I thought if I helped out around here, maybe I could learn to be a bartender.”
    “I’m not hiring,” I said.
    “Oh, you wouldn’t have to pay me or anything,” he said. “I just want to learn how to do it, so I could go to a bar and get a job.” 
    I bit my bottom lip, looked up at him. His blue work pants were brown at the knees.
    “I don’t know if you remember, but I kicked you out of here last night for selling cocaine.” 
    He nodded, a quick little nod.
    “I know,” he said. “But I quit that. Last night. I called Worm and told him I didn’t want to do it anymore.  It felt like maybe it was time to grow up.”  He licked his lips a little, shrugged his shoulders again. “So I thought maybe I could help out here and learn how to be a bartender so I could go get a job somewhere.”
    I looked at the front window. The half Frank hadn’t gotten to yet was rain-spotted and gray, the other half clear. Frank stood staring at his cracked shoes and tugging at his stained t-shirt. I don’t know why I did it. I really don’t.  Something told me to. I bit my bottom lip again, nodded slightly.
    “Okay,” I said.
    Frank smiled, a lopsided smile under his lopsided nose, then