Needful Things by Stephen King Page B

Dugas had said, Why shore, Hubert—Bobby always called him Hubert, which was not his fucking name, and you could bet that shit was going to change, too, and soon. Why shore, Hubert, I’ll prob’ly be down around seven, same as always.
    So Hugh, confident of a ride if he got a little too pixillated to drive, had pulled into the Tiger at just about five minutes of four (he’d knocked off a little early, almost an hour and a half early, actually, but what the hell, Deke Bradford hadn’t been around), and had waded right in. And come seven o’clock, guess what? No Bobby Dugas! Golly-gosh-wow! Come eight and nine and nine-thirty, guess further what? More of the same, by God!
    At twenty to ten, Henry Beaufort, bartender and owner of The Mellow Tiger, had invited Hugh to put an egg in his shoe and beat it, to make like a tree and leave, to imitate an amoeba and split—in other words, to get the fuck out. Hugh had been outraged. It was true he had kicked the jukebox, but the goddam Rodney Crowell record had been skipping again.
    â€œWhat was I supposed to do, just sit here and listen to it?” he demanded of Henry. “You oughtta take that record off, that’s all. Guy sounds like he’s havin a fuckin pepileptic fit.”
    â€œYou haven’t had enough, I can see that,” Henry said, “but you’ve had all you’re going to get here. You’ll have to get the rest out of your own refrigerator.”
    â€œWhat if I say no?” Hugh demanded.
    â€œThen I call Sheriff Pangborn,” Henry said evenly.
    The other patrons of the Tiger—there weren’t many this late on a weeknight—were watching this exchange with interest. Men were careful to be polite around Hugh Priest, especially when he was in his cups, but he was never going to win Castle Rock’s Most Popular Fella contest.
    â€œI wouldn’t like to,” Henry continued, “but I will do it, Hugh. I’m sick and tired of you kicking my Rock-Ola.”
    Hugh considered saying, Then I guess I’ll just have to kick YOU a fewtimes instead, you frog son of a bitch. Then he thought of that fat bastard Keeton, handing him a pink slip for kicking up dickens in the local tavern. Of course, if he really got fired the pink would come in the mail, it always did, pigs like Keeton never dirtied their hands (or risked a fat lip) by doing it in person, but it helped to think of that—it turned the dials down a little. And he did have a couple of six-packs at home, one in the fridge and the other in the woodshed.
    â€œOkay,” he said. “I don’t need this action, anyway. Gimme my keys.” For he had turned them over to Henry, as a precaution, when he sat down at the bar six hours and eighteen beers ago.
    â€œNope.” Henry wiped his hands on a piece of towel and stared at Hugh unflinchingly.
    â€œNope? What the hell do you mean, nope?”
    â€œI mean you’re too drunk to drive. I know it, and when you wake up tomorrow morning, you’re going to know it, too.”
    â€œListen,” Hugh said patiently. “When I gave you the goddam keys, I thought I had a ride home. Bobby Dugas said he was coming down for a few beers. It’s not my fault the numb fuck never showed.”
    Henry sighed. “I sympathize with that, but it’s not my problem. I could get sued if you wiped someone out. I doubt if that means much to you, but it does to me. I got to cover my ass, buddy. In this world, nobody else does it for you.”
    Hugh felt resentment, self-pity, and an odd, inchoate wretchedness well to the surface of his mind like some foul liquid seeping up from a long-buried canister of toxic waste. He looked from his keys, hanging behind the bar next to the plaque which read IF YOU DON’T LIKE OUR TOWN LOOK FOR A TIME-TABLE , back to Henry. He was alarmed to find he was on the verge of tears.
    Henry glanced past him at the few other customers currently in