Narrative Short Story: "Bar Time"

“Bar Time”

By

James Hogan

The city seemed to be at rest, but Doug was not fooled by the stillness of the night. It was 1:30 a.m., the calm before the storm, the awakening of the beast. Doug ran out of his glass cage to ready the coffee and clean up the store a bit. He returned to his post and watched the lot with a Pavlovian nervousness learned from being at the station night after night during bar time. He paused, took a deep breath, and braced himself for the impending shit storm that is bar time.

 Doug has accepted his lot in life, which is to work making just above minimum wage, and trying surviving the god damned city. He is comfortable working this menial, low paying job, even with its sporadic doses of insanity. He is as happy as one can be while waiting for something better to come along.

The night shift takes a bit of getting used to. Sometimes Doug has to clean up blood from a junkie’s misfire off the bathroom walls, and sometimes he has nothing to do but the crossword. 

He pulled eight hour shifts behind bullet proof glass, and feels like an annoyed goldfish, with customers stopping to tap on his bowl. Most of his time is spent staring at the three florescent lit aisles, brewing coffee, counting cigarettes, serving up preservative laden snacks and petrol to the general public, and mentally preparing himself for bar time.   

At bar time, there are gas drive-offs, fights sometime break out between customers, trash is thrown onto the floor, people get loud, and obnoxious. Every so often, about once a month, someone tries to rob the place.  

Doug goes into robot mode, short with conversation, diligently scanning products, pulling down packs of smokes, and hoping that nothing bad happens. He sends each customer away with a mumbled “Thank you, drive safe”.

Bar time is the worst. The customers are usually rude, and shifty as hell. No one can be trusted. Some sober customers wander in during bar time and timidly wait to get their transactions over with as quickly as possible.They always leave looking violated. Doug quit apologizing to sober customers for the bar time mutants a long time ago.

Tonight a limousine pulled right in front of the station's double doors. Doug snapped to attention, he often daydreamed that someone famous would discover his untapped genius and take him away to a better life. Maybe this was his night.

A beautiful woman in an evening dress, wearing diamonds on her neck and hands, walked in. Like a cat, she slinked up the aisle towards Doug’s glass cell. To him she looked like a Miss America contestant, only sexier. She stopped and stared at Doug. Her eyes entered his; she was looking into his soul. Doug liked the way this night was going and could not wait to find out all about this fancy seductress, but first he had to wade out of the sea of her blue eyes.

“Hey, how’s the night?” Doug asked, knowing he had no game with the ladies.

She smiled, leaned forward, then threw up brown chunks and bile onto the floor. She rose, standing tall and proper, staring straight at Doug. This freaked him out; looking away, he saw her driver enter the store.

"Yo, you need to take care of that man," Doug said, pointing at the floor.

 Miss America raised her right arm, flat palm slapping empty air in the direction of the entrance causing the chauffeur to stop, as if he ran into an invisible wall. She directed her left arm and middle finger at Doug. The chauffeur grabbed her, and Miss America threw up again onto his face and chest.

Doug screamed, “What the fuck? That’s gross, dude. Are you gonna clean that up?”

“It’s okay, it’s okay, she had a little too much to drink,” stammered the chauffeur.

“No, no, no! It’s not okay, you are both gross. Get her the hell out of here, now.” demanded Doug.

Miss America now had both of her middle fingers in the air trying to point them in Doug’s direction.

“Fuck you back, lady,”said Doug. Now waving his middle digits at her.

 She slipped from her driver’s grasp, falling face first to the floor.

“Ohhh!” the chauffeur groaned.

“Ohhh!” Doug laughed.

He watched as the driver slipped around in vomit, struggling to lift Miss America and throw her over his shoulder. He never lost his footing. Doug admired the chauffeur’s prowess.

With drunk in tow, the driver rushed to the limo, threw the limp and battered Miss America into the back seat, and tore ass out of the lot.

“What the hell just happened?”  Doug asked  no one.

 He was baffled by the ordeal, but was mostly pissed off about the pond of bloody puke on the floor that he has to clean up.

As a clerk, Doug had learned to never get comfortable on the night shift, the hours when reality bends a little, laughter seems to pour until bullets start to fly. He hated the fear, and stress, and customer instability that came with bar time, but he is one of the few souls that can tolerate the bullshit that bar time brings night after night.