David Linden stood at the bar, running his finger round the lip of his glass and watching time pass in the form of dissolving ice cubes which watered down an already thin dose of Puerto Rican rum. He had no intention of drinking it, as his days of boozing concluded with his graduation from university and the subsequent marriage he took. He was a family man both graced and burdened with a strong sense of responsibility, straying far from vice and embracing virtue as he knew was right. He lived his life for his wife and two sons and nothing more. Yet he still found himself drugged into a dreamlike state by the events of the past few days and his mind had now vanquished all obtrusive thoughts save one.
David’s senses occasionally noticed the environment. When he first came in, his eyes reacted slowly to the dim illumination of the pub as though entering a cinema mid-way through a film noir. The odor of dried alcohol and soda syrup that pasted the bar mats and floor assailed his nose immediately, yet it wasn’t until later that he was made aware of it. His ears noticed the jukebox only after realizing that the same song had been playing on a continuous loop since he first entered.
The barman interrupted David’s dream by lifting his glass and wiping away the puddle that leaked under it. His name was Art and he possessed a foul demeanor made famous in this rugged Hollywood neighborhood by his history of thin patience and an intimidating sense of physical violence projected upon customers who irritated him. As he wiped the ring of condensation away, his eyes never left David. The stranger was ill fitting with his khakis and brown loafers and starched blue button-down with sleeves rolled. Art was already annoyed and made it clear by saying, “You gonna drink that?”
David gradually looked up, though he said nothing. His face remained impassive while his eyes projected first confusion, then a slow fury which inclined even Art to find some other business to steady himself with. In a moment David withdrew again into his entrancing thoughts.
The light of a cloudless early afternoon stormed the room and blinded its three occupants. David lifted his head and squinted to witness a great white blur from which dark shadows swam. As the door smacked shut and returned the interior to the comfort of bleakness, David’s eyes adjusted and followed the man’s path from door to stool. He sat four seats away and grinned stupidly at Art and said, “how ‘bout a Bud Light, buddy?”
Art was irked already by the fellow’s sweaty clothes and greasy hair, yet he served him nonetheless and collected his seventy-five-cent tip.
They stood and sat under the music, the four of them, David, Art, the sweaty man, and a beatnik sprawled at a corner table playing solitaire with a forty-eight-card deck, his shirt unbuttoned down to his belly to help fight the heat from the Santa Anas. Art filled a glass with beer and walked around the bar to the table and set it down in front of the card player even though a glass already stood half-full before him, simply out of boredom and because he knew the man and was confident the old beer would be gone soon enough since a fresh one was waiting to replace it. He walked back behind the bar and failed to think of something else to occupy his time.
The sweaty man took a sip from his glass, then picked a hair from his tongue and wiped it on his trousers. He looked eager to speak, yet a quick glance around to his potential audience encouraged him to remain silent. None appeared to be interested in what he had to say.
David lifted his glass and took a small sip from it, his face cringing slightly when the acrid flavor assaulted his tongue. Although it was mostly water, it still made his celibate throat constrict as it passed through. It was all he needed to take the few steps toward the man.
He wavered, immobile, before the sweaty man realized he had stopped at his side rather than continuing on to the bathroom or the dartboard on the back wall. The man stopped rolling the base of his glass in circles on the bar and looked up, his smile revealing teeth suffering from disregard. “Hiya, buddy. How’s it hangin’?”
David couldn’t figure out how to respond. The man tried again.
“Helluva heat today, uh?” He looked back at his beer before adding, “it’s enough to make a man drink!” He took a long swig from his beer and chuckled somewhat nervously.
David stood tall over the seated man. His arid voice asked, “You Billy?”
The sweaty man seemed to shrink into his stool with the knowledge that the stranger knew his name. “I dunno,” his voice trembled slightly, “you a cop?”
David didn’t answer and didn’t need to. “Nah,” Billy answered himself, “you’re too straight for a cop. And that’s sayin’ somethin’. Pretty straight.” He regained part of his confidence and nonchalantly supped his beer. “Pretty goddamn straight.”
“I’m looking for my boy. A friend tells me you know where he is.”
Billy’s bladder attempted complete evacuation before his muscles quickly cut off the flow. He pushed his glass at Art even though he hadn’t finished it yet. “Gimme another one, eh, bud?” Then he cocked his head toward David without looking at him. “What’s his name, your boy?”
David made sure to say his son’s name slowly and clearly. “Eric. Eric. Linden.”
Billy laughed once, his stomach jerking the air out through his nose, as some do at inappropriate times. “Hmmm,” he replied, “got the kinda name that sounds familiar. But no, I don’t know him. Eric Linden?” David nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I don’t know him.”
He added, “He live around here?”
David had been listening to Billy’s body more than his voice and knew much more than his ears informed. “Yes, he lives within a few miles of here. Six-foot-two, a hundred and eighty-five pounds, short brown hair. People say he looks like me. You know him.”
Again, Billy let escape a quick laugh through his nose. He leaned over and picked up a cocktail napkin to wipe his upper lip with, then blew his nose into it and crumpled it up next to his beer. “No, no, sir, I don’t know him. But if I see him around I’ll tell him you’re lookin’.”
Billy’s stool lunged and bounced against planks of maple as he was grabbed and thrown to the floor, his shirt ripping open in David’s fists. David sat over him, pinning the fragile man down with his weight, his hands trembling fiercely as they wrapped around Billy’s moist and feeble neck and clenched as though they were a boa embracing its prey. Art, in practice an aggressive and offensive man, decided he might stay out of it this one time. He knew well enough to let the weird ones be.
Billy’s face was red and he choked for air. David’s blood pulsed visibly through his forehead and he hissed through clenched teeth, “Where is he, you sonofabitch? Where’s Eric? Where have you got my boy?” His rage was deafening.
Spittle flew from Billy’s mouth as he tried to breathe and David relented his grasp slightly so he could comprehend an answer. Air billowed back into Billy’s lungs and he coughed, “I don’t know! I don’t know him!” David burned hotter and his thumbs clenched Billy’s windpipe with a force which nearly caused the man's neck to snap like dry timbre. Billy’s face went from red to purple to blue. His flesh was wet and hot.
David loosened his grip again and let Billy gulp for air, his fury failing to diminish. His own sweat fell on the man as he touched his nose to Billy’s and shouted, “Tell me where he is! I’ll kill you!”
Billy’s eyes were swollen shut and his head jerked from side to side. He flailed his legs to no avail. He tried to move his arms, but they were pinned under his captor’s legs. There was no escape, yet he knew his fate would be certain if he gave this man his secrets.
“Ffffuck you! You should’a paid!” he croaked.
David heard the words and was subdued momentarily as he sat back and allowed this bold statement, the history of his week, and a flood of memories ricochet through his brain. He would never remember looking to the bar and seeing Art with a telephone to his ear, his hand cupped over his mouth. He would fail to recall the card player in the corner gazing at him as though watching election returns on the evening news. He never once, through his dying flash of nostalgic past, retained memory of the deafening whine in his ears as the violence boiled over in him and he took the throat in his hands again and crushed it into silence.
Gradually the shock subdued and David stood. He looked at the man lying at his feet and remembered the last time he had practiced violence. It had been in the second grade, when a boy had made fun of the girl who held young David’s schoolboy crush and he tore the offending student’s jacket when he threw him to the ground. Now a lifetime of circumstance and incarcerated anger had escaped to help him ruin a man.
It was not an intelligent thing to do, he admitted to himself. Billy had known where Eric was, and still David had lost control. He missed his opportunity. He had lost much in the past few moments. He may have even lost his boy.
No, that’s not true, he thought. There was another lead, a stronger lead to follow. His friend had told him two names. Reality was flooding back. Two names. One down. One more to follow.
He would not lose control again.
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