Set ’Em Up, Joe

The bar was the kind of place that forgot your name the second you walked out. Or maybe it was the other way around.

A long, narrow room where the lights were dim enough to hide the lies on your face, and the floor still smelled like 1946. The jukebox in the corner wheezed out sad jazz like a drunk muttering to himself — that turned out to be me in the corner, losing my religion.

The only other voice in the room belonged to the bartender, Joe — an old warhorse who poured drinks and pity in equal measure.

I sat there like I had nowhere else to go.

Because I didn’t.

Oh, no. I’ve said too much.

“Another?” Joe asked, already reaching for the bottle. He didn’t wait for answers — just read the way you breathed.

“Yeah,” I said. “One more for my baby. And one more for the road.”

The glass clinked softly on the bar top. I stared at it like it might blink back.

“She’s gone,” I said, because silence can kill a deeper silence faster than anything. “Didn’t leave a note. Didn’t leave the cat. Didn’t slam the door. Just a cold bed and a memory that smells like lilacs and ashtrays.”

Joe wiped down a glass that was already clean and nodded like he was agreeing with something inside himself.

“You know I was gonna ask her to marry me? That’s rich, huh? A guy like me, asking for forever. All I had to offer her was a drawer full of unpaid bills and a past with blood on it.”

I drank. It didn’t help, but it passed the time.

“She used to hum when she was nervous,” I said. “Low little thing. Like a tune stuck in your teeth. When we met, she was singing Billie Holiday in a second-rate lounge off 47th. Dress too tight, eyes too tired. But she had a voice like velvet soaked in gin. And I was already half in love before she hit the second chorus.”

“She know what you did before?” Joe asked.

I shrugged.

“She knew what I let her know. The rest? That’s classified. Between me and the badge I tossed in the river five years ago.”

“You still wear the look,” he said. “Like someone who asks too many questions.”

“I could tell you a lot … but you’ve got to be true to your code,” I said, lighting a cigarette. The flame made the glass sweat.

I got the routine. Put another nickel in the machine.

“She left me,” I said. “But I started it. Withholding truth like it was currency. You do that long enough, even love stops trying to cash in.”

A silence settled between us. The bar groaned as the night shifted its weight. Out on the street, a neon sign blinked “OPEN” like a desperate promise.

“You gonna chase her?” Joe asked.

“She’s already gone,” I said. “Left the key, the ring I never gave her, and a pair of shoes she hated. That’s not a woman planning to come back. That’s a woman drawing a line.”

Joe poured me another without asking. It felt like kindness, which made it harder to drink.

I thought I heard her laughing. Might’ve been the minibar compressor. Or the lizard in the sink. I thought I heard her sing — sweet Jesus, what a voice. I think I thought I saw her try. But it was probably the Crown Royal making shadows talk again. That was just a dream. A sweaty, twitching, bug-eyed dream.

“I keep thinking about the little things,” I said. “The way she laughed through her nose. The way she leaned in when she lied. The smell of her gum when she stood too close.”

Joe nodded again. He had a master’s in nodding. Most bartenders do.

“You know,” I said, “sometimes I think this city eats people like her. Sweet. Soft. Dreamers. She was trying to build a future with a guy who only knew how to bury the past.”

“City didn’t eat her,” said Joe, and I could see he was gettin’ anxious to close. “You did.”

I looked at him. He didn’t flinch. That’s why I drank there. He didn’t dress up the truth — served it straight up.

“What is it about women anyway that causes them to go straight for the guy that repels them?”

I left a crumpled ten on the counter. More than the tab. Less than the guilt.

Picked up my coat and my fedora and walked to the door. The street outside looked cold and wide and ready to forget me already.

Consider this — the hint of the century: You don’t chase the muse. She chases you, then disappears into the fog, leaving you clutching a receipt and a hangover. Consider this — the slip that took me down: a half-smile across a dim room, a phantom touch, a hallucination in high heels.

And then the whole circus came crashing down. Every fantasy, flailing like a fish out of water. Legs kicking, eyes wide, no air. And me, on my knees, praying to gods I didn’t believe in for a mercy that never came.

I thought I heard her laughing. I thought I heard her sing. But that was just the ceiling fan buzzing through a head full of static.

I paused in the doorway.

“You’d never know it,” I said, turning back and returning to my regular stool, “but buddy, I’m a kind of poet.

“So make it one for my baby. And one more for the road.”