Bar None

by Mark Malcolm

in sharp detail just as if she were sitting in the bar for real.

  “This is the Bar None, and where we are is at the corner of Reality and Acceptance just after the second star to your right but before you get to morning,” the man said, adjusting the untouched glass of wine. “You got here through a book you were reading, don’t you remember?”

  Her mind drifted back to the last thing she could remember. She’d been lying in bed in her hotel room, bored—reading, that was true. Something she read tickled a buried memory in her mind, but she couldn’t quite recall what it was. She also couldn’t recall drifting off to sleep, nor the title of the book she’d been reading. She did remember the feel of the hard, black cover, some simple gold lettering, and a symbol she couldn’t make out. The memory felt more like trying to grasp a dream after waking, which only confused her further about the seeming solid reality of the bar. Karyn looked around the room again. The ceiling was held up with roughhewn beams, the kind that are all the rage in the haut bars now, hand crafted and very expensive. Her exploratory gaze finished and rested on her dining companion, whose face still held a blurry edge to it like looking through a window smeared with petroleum jelly.

  “Yes, that’s the book, good,” the man said. “And this place, well you could say I own the place, though own isn’t really the right word. Built is a better word. I made the Bar None what it is. I’m responsible for every beam in its frame, every board in its floor, and every stone in its foundation. You could say I’m the cornerstone of the whole thing. The bartender over there is Azor. He runs the place for me,”

  Azor looked over at their table on queue and bowed slightly as if he’d heard their conversation.

  How could a book transport her here—and why? Her companion interrupted her thoughts before she got much further.

  “How did the book get you here? That’s easy too. You’re a seeker like all the rest. Nobody comes to the Bar None who isn’t looking for answers. Answers I have, though you may not like many of them, but that’s up to you. Accept the answers or don’t, I will not control that, but it doesn’t change the truth of them one bit. Whether you reject the answers or not is up to you. It always has been.”

  Karyn didn’t have any questions, at least not ones she thought any book could answer.

  “Oh, you don’t have questions? I find that hard to believe. Everyone has questions. I hear them all, and the book can answer them all. That’s why it was given to you.” The man folded his hands around the untouched wine glass. Had he read her mind? Perhaps he had. It was a dream after all. “The best part about answers in the Bar None is that they involve others. Oh maybe not people like you, not like you at all, but they serve their purpose nonetheless. So, let’s just relax a minute. You won’t like everyone who comes in, and they won’t like you. That’s one of the first uncomfortable truths you have to accept about the Bar None, but you can learn something from everyone who passes through my doors if you listen.”

  On cue, the door opened and an older man walked in. Just as the man stepped through the door, Karyn thought she saw something resembling wings fold into the man’s back and disappear. She glanced at her blurry companion then back to the man at the door, who was talking to the host. When she turned back to face her companion she perceived a pleasant smile in the blurriness of his face, a smile that warmed her heart.

  “Yes, those were wings. That is Jesse, and he used to work here. He’s sort of trying to find himself, just like you. Perhaps you should go over and talk to him before his game with Natasha starts.” The man slid the glass of red wine across the table. “Take this to him and, no, I didn’t get one for Natasha. She wouldn’t take it from me anyway.”

  Karyn stood as though compelled to do so. She forced herself to stop midway and then sat back down to make sure she still had motor control of her own body.

  She did.

  Once again she tried to penetrate the blurry mass that was the man’s face, but just couldn’t bring it into focus. Nothing about the man triggered any of her mental alarms highlighting him as a threat or wrong in anyway, not like those frequent times when someone tried to kill her. No, this was a feeling of curiosity, of wanting to know more, like when she and John had first been dating. She wanted a deep connection with this man to help her grow and become more than she was. The memory of her husband stirred her sense of loss again and a tear formed.

  The man set his hand on her elbow again. A sense of comfort she could not explain filled her mind as the warm atmosphere of calm descended upon her once again. She stood, picked up the two wine glasses, and headed across the bar toward the chess game.

  As she approached, Jesse took a seat and meticulously began adjusting his pieces even though they were already neatly aligned. He wore a flowing white robe that seemed somehow smudged. The sleeves of the robe were rolled up on the forearms, and he had long grey hair held back with a rubber band. His face looked weathered as though he’d spent long hours in the sun. He met Karyn’s gaze and frowned. Something in those eyes told Karyn he was much older than the sixty or seventy years his appearance communicated. As Karyn reached the table, the woman looked up at her as well.

  Natasha offered a bright, welcoming smile. Her complexion was that of rich coffee with just a touch of cream. She wore a rather tight-fitting, thigh-length dress with a plunging neckline that revealed more than Karyn cared to see. Her hair hung in long braids. Karyn had several friends who spent hours upon hours at the salon to get braids like that woven into their hair, and she thought these looked just like that. Natasha’s hands held that delicateness and grace associated with fine work, but the manicured nails said she did little in the way of physical labor.

  “Ah, you must be Karyn. I’m Natasha Genesis. Nice to meet you.” Natasha extended her hand, then awkwardly retracting it as she saw both of Karyn’s hands holding something. “Oh, sorry. Is one of those for me?”

  Karyn looked over her shoulder at the table she’d come from and the man seated there calmly watching the exchange.

  “Oh, him,” Natasha said coldly as she folded her arms.

  Karyn dropped her right leg back, assuming a narrow fighting stance instinctively.

  Natasha laughed. “You have no need to worry about me, girl. I’m harmless.”

  Karyn didn’t trust the woman. Now that she was closer, Karyn could read the title of the book but not the author’s name for the tome Natasha held. The title of the book read: The Jesus Crutch: How the Religion of Atheism is Maligned. Karyn looked up from the book and met Natasha’s hard, brown eyes. The two women locked each other with their gaze, and Karyn knew Natasha was anything but harmless.

  “How do you know my name?” Karyn asked, but then she remembered it was a dream and of course she’d know her name.

  “I know the name of every person who comes to the Bar None, of course. By the way, love your work. If you really want to master your profession, look for me after you’ve grown tired of the book. I’ll find you. We can always use someone as talented as you,” Natasha said, meticulously adjusting one of her chess pieces.

  Jesse broke the tension without looking up.

  “Ignore her. Her organization is overstaffed as it is, and the red one is for me. He still thinks I’ll come back,” he said, still tinkering with the near-perfect position of his chess pieces. He moved the king’s pawn forward two paces and slapped the button over the chess clock on his side of the board. The second hand began moving across the face of the other dial with an audible click, click, click. “Your move.”

  Karyn slid over to stand near Jesse’s side of the board and set the glass down without taking her eyes off Natasha.

  The stately black woman returned Karyn’s gaze as she advanced her queen-side bishop’s pawn.

  Jesse snorted.

  “You know he doesn’t really want you back, Jesse. You don’t want to go back, not to all those rules and restrictions anyway. You should come work for me. You know, set your own hours, work when you want to, goof off w
hen you don’t, the easy life.” Natasha gently pressed her clock button causing Jesse’s second hand to start to move and flashed Karyn a subtle smile that hinted at understanding secret thoughts.

  Jesse quickly moved his king’s knight out and slapped his button.

  “Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen,” he said, watching Natasha.

  Natasha moved her queen’s pawn up one space.

  “Look, tell him I appreciate the wine but I’m not coming back. He knows why.”

  Karyn stood there for a moment, gazing down on Jesse.

  The man’s eyes darted rapidly about the board but never strayed beyond the confines of the game as he and Natasha moved their pieces with almost reckless speed. Despite the dizzying pace of the game, she was certain Jesse was studying her as much as she was studying him. She sipped her wine and realized the glass was almost empty as she watched in silence. Finally, she drank the last bit of the exquisite wine and wondered how she could get another glass.

  At that moment, she became aware that she was standing before these two people in her pajamas. Karyn flushed and quickly dashed back to her table, dropped into her chair, and scanned the room for any sign that someone had noticed.

  Her table companion chuckled softly.

  “Why don’t you take that to the bar and have Azor refill it, on the