"Last Rounds" - short story

When I invite my customers to order their last drinks, several raise their fingers, sure I’ll remember what they previously ordered. One more beer, one more vodka. Another Gin & Tonic. In the darkened room, several night owls linger at their tables, heads low, engaged in whispered conversation. One man sits alone on a stool at the far end of the bar. He’s wearing a red plaid shirt and sports a thin gray goatee and wise eyes. My age, maybe a few years younger. He's been sitting there for about thirty minutes or so. He calls me over.

“It’s been busy tonight, hasn’t it?” It’s more a statement than a question. “Do you always get such late-night crowds?”

“It can get noisy,” I tell him, waiting patiently for his order.

“It must be difficult to handle all this on your own,” the man notes.

“What can I get you?” I point at his empty shot glass. “Another?”

“No, I’m fine. I’ll just sit here for a while, if you don’t mind.”

“We’ll be closing soon.” I turn to attend to the other customers.

It’s not my bar, but I work so many shifts, you’d think I owned the place. I’ve been working here since my college days. At first it was to finance my studies, but now it just helps pay the bills. The steady employment at nights leaves my days free to pursue my writing career. Freelance, mostly, but nothing steady. I make do on what I earn as a bartender. Which is not all that much. Luckily, the tips are good.

We get all kinds at the bar. The college gangs, loud and boisterous. The businessmen, drinking away the pressures of their dead-end jobs. Couples on romantic interludes. Men and women. Men trying to pick up women. Men and men. Women and women. Divorcees, deadbeats. All kinds.

Everyone’s welcome—that’s what the sign in our window says.

They share their frustrations, their troubles, and their worries, as if I’m their therapist. I nod when appropriate, but I have few words of advice to offer. They don’t seem to mind. After spilling their life stories, they pay their bills and head out into the night. Sometimes so drunk I need to call them a taxi.

Tonight’s shift has been nothing out of the ordinary. The early hours were busy with beer and wine orders. Fancy cocktails and spritzers. Whisky—on the rocks or straight. Casual drinking at first, followed by more serious alcohol consumption. Nothing I can’t handle, especially with Melanie at my side.

Melanie’s a good worker. She serves the drinks and the salty accompaniments that keep everyone drinking. Pretzels, peanuts, potato chips. Melanie cleans counters, wipes tables, washes glasses, and pours draft beer. All of this Melanie does with a dimpled tip-encouraging smile.

“How would I get along without you?” I say, as I have on many occasions.

“We’re a good team,” she admits.

“You’re good at your job, completely trustworthy, and the customers appreciate you.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she says, dismissing my compliments with a wink of her eye.

Melanie’s good looking, and I’m attracted to her, but if I considered something more than our companionship in the bar, nothing would ever come of it. She has a steady boyfriend.

“Gus is so demanding,” Melanie complains. “And he doesn’t trust me. He can get jealous over nothing. If he saw how the guys ogle me, reach for my ass, he’d go berserk. You don’t know what he’s capable of!”

Melanie and me—we’re coworkers. We've share tidbits about our personal lives, but nothing more. Still, I’d do anything for her. We’re a team. An inseparable team.

An hour before closing, I send Melanie home. She has a dentist appointment in the morning and I assure her I can handle things on my own. Now, an hour later, I'm serving the night's final orders.

“You been working here long? How’s that going for you?”

It’s the single man, the one with the gray goatee. He gazes at me while he fingers his empty shot glass. I had assumed he’d already left.

“It’s okay.” There’s something about him, something that makes me suspicious, but I can’t determine what it is. “Is there anything else I can get you? I told you we’re closing.”

“No, I’m good. Very good, in fact.”

That statement invites a reply on my part. “What’s so good?”

“This bar. It’s an OK place, wouldn’t you say?” He looks around the place, at the remaining customers, finishing their drinks. “I wondered what you thought about it.”

It’s a strange thing for him to say, not anything I’m expecting. How am I supposed to respond? Should I tell him I’m satisfied working the night shift? That the pay is sufficient and the hours conducive to my morning writing sessions?

“I guess you could say that,” I reply at last.

“It’s in a good neighborhood, I think. That’s why I bought the place down the street last week.”

“Frank’s?” I hadn’t known that Frank’s bar was up for sale.

“Yeah, I got it cheap. Old man Frank wants to retire, head to Florida, I guess. He needed someone like me to take over, to build it up. I think Frank’s has a lot of potential, probably more than this place,” he says, indicating my bar with a dismissive wave of his hand. “No offense, of course, but a bit of competition never hurt. Two bars on the same street. It might even attract more business; wouldn’t you say?”

I nod and continue to rinse off the glasses and put them into the dishwasher. I expect the man to be gone when I turn around, but he’s still there, perched on his stool and staring at me.

“You're good at your job. I’ve seen how you work and I’m impressed. That’s why I have an offer for you.”

“An offer?”

“I’d like you to come work for me. At Frank’s. In fact, I want you to manage the place. I need someone with experience, and you have no shortage of that. You could run Frank’s, I think. So, what do you say?”

“Are you for real?” Then I step back, realizing I’d said these words aloud.

“I guess you didn’t expect to get a job offer at this hour of the night. But, let me tell you, my offer’s real and I think you’ll manage Frank’s just fine.”

I look around, wondering if any of the customers are overhearing our conversation. One couple gets up to leave, the man putting his arm around the woman’s shoulder so suggestively that I suspect they’re not married. At the back, three college students raise their beer mugs, laughing at a raunchy joke. No one’s paying attention to me and the man sitting at the counter.

“Listen, I don’t know who you are or anything about you.” I’m trying to sound diplomatic in my response. If his offer’s real, and there’s an opening at Frank’s with better pay and more responsibility, maybe it’d be something to consider. Do I have any loyalty to this place? Despite the many years I've put in, not really. I never said I’d work here forever. Changing jobs? Maybe, if the conditions are right.

Managing Frank’s, with more responsibility, will mean more hours, I tell myself. What about the mornings I devote to freelance writing? If I had to spend more time at the bar overseeing things, I wouldn’t have as much time for that. But on the other hand, if the pay at Frank’s is good, maybe I could give up most of the writing gigs.

“What sort of salary are we talking about?” I ask.

The man throws out a number, and it’s significantly higher than what I’m currently being paid. “And, of course, there are tips,” he adds. “I see your customers here are very generous, so there’s no doubt you’d make a pretty penny managing Frank’s. You’d share them with your coworkers, of course, but I’m sure there’d be enough to go around.”

My coworkers! Melanie!

“I can’t imagine handling the night shifts without you.” I had said those very words to Melanie earlier in the evening. “We’re a good team,” she’d said to me, and she was right. We are a team. An inseparable team.

“I’ll have to think about it,” I tell the man. “But there is one thing,” I add.

“What’s that?”

I weigh my words, as I don’t want him to withdraw his offer. “If I would come work for you, you'd have to also hire my coworker.”

“Your coworker?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Melanie. She’s great at what she does. You’d have to give her a job.”

“Is that your condition?” he asks.

Have I screwed up his unexpected offer? No matter what the salary, I couldn’t do that to her.

“Yes. Me and Melanie, or no deal.”

“Well, then.” He stands up and reaches out to shake my hand. But then, he doesn’t. He sits back down.

Confused, I stop drying the beer mug I’m holding and step back.

“My name is Gus,” he says. “Melanie’s told me about you, but I had to check for myself.”

“What?”

“She’s said only good things, I can assure you,” he says. A mischievous smile appears on his face.

“Gus is so demanding,” Melanie said to me earlier that evening. “You don’t know what he’s capable of!”

“You’re Melanie’s boyfriend,” I say, realizing he’s been testing me. Playing me for a fool.

“Yeah, we’ve been together for a while.”

“Are you buying Frank’s?”

“Of course not! Why would I buy that place when your bar here is doing such good business? Besides, I don’t have the funds.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s nothing for you to say. You’re good. You stuck up for Melanie, and that’s what counts. She can continue working with you. I should be going. I don’t want to get back too late and wake her. She’s got a dentist appointment in the morning.”

Gus walks out. All the other customers have already left and I’m alone in the bar, still confused by what just happened. Strange things can happen in the middle of the night, I guess. An over-jealous boyfriend. And I had fallen for his trap!

I put the last of the whisky glasses on the shelf, wipe off the counter, and hang up my apron. I shut the lights and lock the door. Time to go home and get some sleep. I have that writing assignment I need to finish.

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Originally published in POSTBOX, Scotland's International Short Story Magazine.

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash