The Last Worthless Evening by Andre Dubus Page B

stops.”
    â€œYou were a Marine?”
    â€œOh yes. Oh yes, Charlie. See?” He turned and flexed his right arm so the tattoo on muscles faced Mickey. “U S M C. Know what that means? Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children. So fuck it, Charlie. Come on in.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œWhere? The fucking bar, man. Let’s go. It’s springtime in New England. Crocuses and other shit.”
    â€œI can’t.”
    â€œWhat do you mean you can’t? Charlie goes where Charlie wants to go. Ask anybody that was there.” He lowered his face close to Mickey’s, so Mickey could see only the mouth in the beard, the nose, the blue eyes that seemed to burn slowly, like a pilot light. His voice was low, conspiratorial: “There’s another one in there. From ’Nam. First Air Cav. Pussies. Flying golf carts. Come on. We’ll bust his balls.”
    â€œI can’t go in a bar.”
    The man straightened, stood erect, his chest out and his stomach pulled in, his fists on his hips. His face moved from left to right, his eyes intent, as though he were speaking to a group, and his voice was firm but without anger or threat, a voice of authority: “Charlie. You are allowed to enter a drinking establishment. Once therein you are allowed to drink non-alcoholic beverages. In this particular establishment there is pizza heated in a microwave. There are also bags of various foods, including potato chips, beer nuts, and nachos. There are also steamed hot dogs. But no fucking rice, Charlie. After you, my man.”
    The left arm moved quickly as a jab past Mickey’s face, and he flinched, then heard the doorknob turn, and the man’s right hand touched the side of his waist and turned him to face the door and gently pushed him out of the sun, into the long dark room. First he saw its lights: the yellow and red of a jukebox at the rear wall, and soft yellow lights above and behind the bar. Then he breathed its odors: alcohol and cigarette smoke and the vague and general smell of a closed and occupied room, darkened on a spring afternoon. A man stood behind the bar. He glanced at them, then turned and faced the rear wall. Three men stood at the bar, neither together nor apart; between each of them was room for two more people, yet they looked at each other and talked. The hand was still on Mickey’s back, guiding more than pushing, moving him to the near corner of the bar, close to the large window beside the door. Through the glass Mickey looked at the parked and moving cars in the light; he had been only paces from the window when the man had turned and held his shoulder. The pressure on his back stopped when Mickey’s chest touched the bar, then the man stepped around its corner, rested his arms on the short leg of its L, his back to the window, so now he looked down the length of the bar at the faces and sides of the three men, and at the bartender’s back. There was a long space between Mickey and the first man to his left. He placed his books and binder in a stack on the bar and held its edge and looked at his face in the mirror, and his shirt like green leaves.
    â€œHey Fletcher,” the man said. “I thought you’d hit the deck. When old Charlie came walking in.” Mickey looked to his left: the three faces turned to the man and then to him, two looking interested, amused, and the third leaning forward over the bar, looking past the one man separating him from Mickey, looking slowly at Mickey’s pants and probably the web belt too and the tee shirt. The man’s face was neither angry nor friendly, more like that of a professional ballplayer stepping to the plate or a boxer ducking through the ropes into the ring. He had a brown handlebar mustache and hair that hung to his shoulders and moved, like a girl’s, with his head. When his eyes rose from Mickey’s clothing to his face, Mickey saw a glimmer of scorn; then the face showed nothing.