Bourbon Headstones

The same amber drink in the same 16 ounce glass. This one is chipped. Most of them are chipped because no one is as careful as they used to be. Two business men discuss cheating on their wives at the end of the bar in the same seats where a woman once confronted her boyfriend after she found out he was married.

Food, it’s ok. “It does the job,” as the regular patron next to me would probably say. The popping rip of pulltabs, gambling. A former line cook getting drunk instead of going home. He was going to propose last year, to his girlfriend. He probably returned the ring to have more money for gambling.

The bartender is sober for now. It comes and goes in cycles. The other bartender is sober because she’s pregnant. Let’s hope the rest don’t become pregnant—there’s only one male left.

He says, “so what happens when I die first.”

She says, “shut up; is there any wine left?”

The sallow amber of an oil lamp is the only light source in the room. Not even the distant glow of city lights infiltrates the windows nearby. A bottle of Malbec, mostly empty, appears and disappears.

“You know it’ll be me first.”

She ignores him, takes a sip of wine, turns a page of her book.

“Can you actually see what you are reading?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says, “can we not talk about death.”

“What would you like to talk about?”

“Tomorrow,” she replies.

He watched the chickadees. The small group of small birds, their comically swollen down protecting them from the frigid January temperatures. They currently inhabit a snow-covered mess of brambles. Their squabbling dance of hops and jolts causing minor avalanches—the brambles becoming increasingly bare, exposing their purple-red hues.

Out of habit, he flips his pocketknife open, then closes it. The satisfying click echoes in the empty room. His breath fogs up the single pane window, obscuring his view of the chickadees. His attention turns back to the wood stove; inside, the small flame from a match he placed in the bottom, crawls across some old newspaper and wood shavings. The fire grows. He closes the door to the stove and adjusts the flue and damper. The fire continues to grow.