* * *
Dawson pulled open the door to The Old Cotton Gin and went inside. It wasn’t normally his kind of place, but lately nothing really seemed his sort of place. Nothing about this entire town seemed his sort of place. He had big ideas, and what better place to get those ideas off his chest than a bar with a bartender that was a good listener. The place smelled like spilled beer and greasy fries. Dawson grabbed a seat at the bar anyways.
There were a few guys and a girl playing pool at the table in the corner. There seemed to be a disagreement between a couple of the guys over whose turn it was. Their alcohol-fueled conversation suggested more of an investment in their drinking skills than their pool skills. They both had their hands on the lone pool stick, tugging it back and forth. The girl staggered from her stool to stand next to them.
“It’s neither of your turns, you jackasses. It’s mine. Go sit down, and give me the damn stick.” She held her hand out.
Neither let go of the cue as they continued arguing, oblivious to the girl. They staggered precariously, but their tug of war over the cue somehow kept each from falling over. The girl grew tired of waiting, and finally punched one of them in the shoulder. She’d aimed higher, but their jostling made her miss. They both stared at her, as if seeing her for the first time.
“I said, give me the damn stick. It’s my turn. You guys have been hogging the table ever since we got here. You promised me I could play if I came along, so give me the damn stick.” For emphasis, she punched the other guy.
Both men looked at her, then shrugged in unison, handed her the cue, and sat back down. Gulping their drinks, they watched the girl shoot. Her first shot totally missed the white ball, and tore a divot out of the felt. Both men laughed so much one of them almost fell off his stool. The girl glared at them both before proceeding to string together a number of equally bad shots. Happy to have drinks in their hands, and amused by the girl’s pool skills, they totally forgot their previous squabble.
Dawson took a seat at the bar.
“I’ll have a double whiskey and a glass of water please,” he said to the bartender.
The bartender reached for the whiskey bottle with the white label on the bottom shelf.
“Not that stuff,” Dawson said. “Top shelf up there. The good one. The other stuff is gut rot.”
“That malt is totally overpriced,” the bartender said, “but I have to charge what the boss says.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dawson answered. “If I’m going to poison myself, I may as well do it in style.”
“Whatever you say, mister. Most people around here are happy to just feel good without emptying their wallets.”
“My name’s Dawson. Guess I’m not really too smart when it comes to money matters.”
“If you’re drinking from this bottle, at least you got money. That’s more than I can say for most people in this town.”
“Today I do, but who knows what tomorrow brings. Today we drink the good stuff.” Dawson smiled, raising his glass.
“Health and wealth are grossly overrated I always say.” He nodded to Dawson’s raised glass.
“Excellent motto for a bar.” Dawson took a swig of the water. “It was a hot one out there today.”
“Welcome to Texas. You’re not from around here, are you? You sound more like a Midwest boy.”
“You’re right, I am. Good ear.”
“Well, I am a bartender, right? Listening comes with the territory. You been here long?”
“About a year now.”
“Really? I haven’t seen you around town. Certainly not in here. I’m usually pretty good with faces, even if I don’t remember the names. My name's Jim by the way.”
“Right. Nice to meet you, Jim.” Dawson reached his hand across the bar, and they shook. “I usually only have time for work and home. It’s been quite a while since I sat in a bar. Something I got far too good at not so long ago.”
“Probably not the kind of life skill you want to be putting on a resume anyways.”
“No, probably not. Although, with my resume, it wouldn’t be the worst thing I have on it.”
“As long as it’s not the best thing, you should be OK. Plenty of people make bad choices. The sad part is some never realize it.” He motioned towards the group at the pool table.
Dawson nodded in agreement. “So, you say you’re not the owner of this fine establishment. Who is?”
“Mr. Billy Parsons is the current owner, but not for much longer. Some big outfit is in the process of buying the place, and then who knows what will happen to it.”
“Really. They gonna tear it down? Put up something fancier?”
“No one knows. Billy hasn’t had much to say about it. We’re not on speaking terms these days.”
“Hard to stay friends with the boss all the time.”
“Thing is, we’ve been pretty close for a long time. He’s known me since I was a kid. Kind of a friend of the family when I was growing up, and gave me my first job out of high school.”
“What job was that?”
Jim just smiled as he wiped the bar. “You’re looking at it.”
“Oh.” Dawson hesitated. “Sorry, didn’t mean to suggest …”
“Don’t worry. You wouldn’t be the first person to tell me I should be doing something better in my life than pouring drinks. The list is long. Both parents, the ex-wife, and the ex-girlfriend. The new girlfriend who was going to be the next fiancée would agree with them.”
“Life does kinda suck sometimes. Maybe you should buy the bar. The ladies might take you more seriously as a business owner than a bartender.”
“Oh, so now you’re the guy giving advice in a bar? Thought that was my turf.”
“Ah, sorry.” Dawson held up a placating palm.
“No worries. I did make an offer to buy it a few months ago, but Billy turned me down. It’s why we’re not talking. I always assumed he’d want me to take it over eventually. People can surprise you in the worst way sometimes.”
The television behind the bar caught Dawson's attention. Jim turned to look as he started stacking glasses from the dishwasher tray. A newscaster was rambling on about the usual world disasters. She was interviewing some guy from NASA. Dawson motioned towards the screen, and Jim turned up the volume.
“So what exactly did the satellites pick up, and what can our viewers do about it?” she asked.
“In layman terms, it’s simply a solar storm. The satellites pick these up all the time, and provide some interesting data for scientists. This one is quite a bit bigger than usual, so we thought we should let people know. Just in case.”
“In case of what exactly? What kind of preparations should someone take to prepare for a solar storm? Board up the windows and stock up on food, like they would for a hurricane?”
“No, no, no. That’s not really necessary …”
“What is it with these space geeks? Seems like ever since the government cut their budget, these NASA guys look for any excuse to get some air time,” Dawson said.
“Just doing their jobs I suppose. No point in letting us regular folks get through a day without something horrible to worry about.”
“I know what you mean.” Dawson slid his glass across for a refill.
Chapter 18 ~ Outage
Julie explained her theory once again to Jim. “It’s the kind of thing that everyone knows and hears about, but no one ever believes it. It’s the sort of thing that happens to other people, in other cities, in other countries, in another galaxy. The stuff of science fiction—in a land/galaxy/universe far far away. Everything turns off, then everything is turned on its head. Life as you know it … etc., etc., etc. Except for today. For today, normalcy comes to an end, and it’s happening to you and your family and your friends and your next door neighbor. It’s about to get far more real than you would have expected. It starts off small and innocent, seemingly just another normal inconvenience. Then …”
Jim nodded with polite agreement, b
ut was clearly focused on his last patron, who was in no hurry to leave. Dawson teetered on his bar stool, closer to closing time than he wanted it to be. He didn’t believe in closing times when he got this drunk. Like a computer in an endless loop, that never ends. Julie, got tired of asking him to leave, and eventually went through her regular closing routines. Everything except for taking Dawson’s empty glass and turning off the TV he was glued to trance-like. She left that to the bartender.
Jim watched her get in her car from the front door of the bar. As she drove away, he waved and locked the door. It was a pretty safe neighborhood, especially given how cheap the rent was, but it gave him peace of mind to see her drive off safely.
“How’s it going, Dawson? You bout ready to call it a night?”
Dawson nodded in agreement, like he’d been doing for the last hour, but kept his eyes glued to the screen.
“I’m gonna turn off the TV, alright?”
If everyone stayed sober, he’d be out of a job. Jim learned to be patient with his bread-and-butter heavy drinkers. The TV played some nature channel show. It showed wild horses running across a vast plain, with snow-capped mountains in the background. Jim had turned down the volume as the last few stragglers complained about some damn nature show messing up their round of pool. Dawson didn’t seem to mind. He was mesmerized by the horses running and fighting and eating and mating on the wild plains of somewhere.
Jim reached for the power button, but Dawson grunted angrily at him.
“Alright. Five more minutes, then I’m turning it off.” He held up five fingers in front of Dawson’s face and repeated himself “Five minutes! That’s it, Dawson, then the TV is off, and you’re going home. Me too. We’re closed.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dawson managed to grunt.
Jim walked to the back, and double checked that the washrooms were empty and the back door was locked. As he started back towards the bar, every light in the place went off, and the television died. Dawson complained vehemently.
“Damn it,” Jim said.
There was a loud crash from the bar as Dawson fell off his stool in the dark.
“Dawson, you alright? The emergency lights should come on in a second, just hang on.”
It was pitch black inside and outside the bar. Jim pulled his phone from his pocket to use as a flashlight. The phone didn’t respond.
“Really? The battery died on this thing too. I thought I just recharged it. I really do need to get a new phone. Just stay where you are, Dawson. Our eyes should adjust soon. Power must be out everywhere.”
Jim started making his way to Dawson, bumping against tables and chairs as he went. Dawson wasn’t saying anything intelligible from his position on the floor when Jim got to him. He was flat out on his back, with a bar stool lying across him.
“Dawson, you alright?” Jim pulled the bar stool off him and leaned in closer to get a better look at his face in the pitch black. Dawson just moaned. “Alright, buddy, I’m gonna just roll you over on your side and leave you here for a minute. I want you to just stay here—OK? The emergency lights aren’t coming on, and I want to see if I can find a flashlight, or candle or something.” He managed to get Dawson’s dead weight on his side, with his back propped up against the base of the bar. “There, that should stop you from rolling onto your back.”
Just as Jim made his way behind the door and started rummaging around through all the junk drawers, a loud, glass-rattling banging came from the front door. Jim startled and dropped the one flashlight he had found, which immediately rolled under the ice maker.
“Damn it!” He got down on all fours, and tried stretching his arm under the ice maker. He could see the light shining from underneath, but couldn’t quite reach it. A louder banging sounded from the door. Dawson moaned from his spot on the floor every time the banging broke the silence. “Jesus. All right. All right.”
Jim stood and looked in the direction of the front door and yelled. “We’re closed. Go away.” He could barely make out the shape of a woman in the moonlight, but couldn’t see her face. She was yelling something, but he couldn’t hear a thing through the glass. He grabbed the baseball bat from behind the bar, and walked over to the door. As he got closer, he realized who it was.
“Ah shit. Sorry, Julie,” he said as he let her in. “I didn’t realize it was you. The power’s out, and I was just trying to find something to light the place. I dropped a flashlight under the ice maker, but couldn’t get to it.”
“Gee, Jim, you are a mess. You actually got down on the floor behind the bar. You’re a lot braver than I thought. One little power outage, and you’re all kinds of desperate.” Dawson moaned again. “Who’s that? Is Dawson still here? I thought you were gonna call him a cab or something.”
“I was working on it when everything went out. What are you doing back here, everything all right?”
“No, it’s not. My piece of crap car died just a couple of blocks from here. I was hoping someone would come by to help, but there’s nobody around, and all the lights are out too. My phone died, so I walked back hoping you’d still be here.”
“Where else would I be?” Jim held his arms out in a ‘whatever’ stance. “Your phone is dead too? That’s odd. Maybe I should check if Dawson has one. At least we’d have something to give us some light.”
“There are some candles and a lighter in the bottom drawer with the blue handle behind the bar. Don’t you know where anything is around here?” She gave him that what’s wrong with you look, which he couldn’t see in the dark anyways. “How long exactly have you worked here?”
The bar took on an eerily deserted glow with the candles flickering on it. At least one of the candles was a scented candle which Jim thought stunk the place up, but Julie said made the place smell nice for a change, so they let it burn.
“Well, at least I can see enough not to kill myself walking around,” Jim said.
“I think you spend too much time hanging out behind the bar, boss. I could navigate my way around these tables in the dark with a tray full of pitchers in one hand and a tray full of chicken wings in the other,” Julie joked.
“There are some benefits to being the boss, you know. Someone’s got to hang out in command central here, and make sure things run smoothly.”
“Right, because figuring out how to switch kegs on the taps is far too complicated to trust to a pretty waitress.”
“Now, you know I know you’re far more than just a pretty face.” Jim paused, holding the punchline for just long enough. “You’re also a great ass. I know, because the view from command central here behind the bar lets me see everything going on in this place.”
Julie slapped Jim’s shoulder. “I kind of figured that was the case. You dirty old men are all the same.”
“Oh, that hurt. You know how sensitive I am about my age.”
“Sensitive now, are we? That’s something new. We should kill the power here more often. Think of all the things I could learn about you.”
“Funny girl. Now, speaking of power outages, we need a plan. I feel like we’re kinda stuck with getting Dawson home. I think he lives at the Banner place, just outside of town. We could drive him in my car, and I could drop you off at home as well. Or, we could stop and see if I can get your car going.”
“You really think yours will run?”
“Sure, why wouldn’t it? Just because you drive that Japanese piece of crap, doesn’t mean my made in the Motor City machine shouldn’t run. Nothing like good old American know-how.”
“I don’t know, Jim. Not only did nobody come by to help me, but I didn’t see any cars on the road the whole walk back here. I know it’s late and all, but it seems strange that I didn’t see anyone.”
“This is a bit of a ghost town, you know, once this place closes. I mean, what else is there to do after the best bar in town with the best waitress closes for the night?”
Julie ignored his attempt to lighten the mood. “And both our cell phones are dead, at the same ti
me. Doesn’t that seem weird to you?” Jim shrugged it off. “It just feels odd. Maybe it’s like some sort of terrorist attack or—”
“Now, c’mon, don’t go down that path. You’ve been watching too many of those crappy television shows. Those things just feed off everyone’s fear. There’s no way it’s some terrorist attack or zombie apocalypse. That’s just your over-active imagination getting the best of you.”
“You’re probably right,” Julie said with barely enough enthusiasm in her voice to sound convincing.
“I’ll go check my car right now, just to make you feel better. Keep an eye on our patient here.” Jim hooked his thumb at Dawson, now snoring peacefully on the floor. “Make sure he doesn’t turn into a zombie or anything, and lock the door behind me.”
“Be nice,” Julie scolded him. “Or I may not let you back in. You’ll have to fend off the zombies on your own with nothing but a tire iron and your wits.”
“Ha!” Jim laughed. “Those freaks won’t stand a chance.
Chapter 19 ~ Life's A Game
Dawson tried to lighten the mood. “So, Chase, what could be so entertaining that it keeps you in your room for hours at a time? A girl? Is that it? C’mon, Chase, don’t tell me you’ve got some girl hidden under your bed now?” Dawson got down on all fours, lifted the sheets, and looked under the bed. Chase paid him no attention. “OK, so you don’t have her under your bed. Hang on now, just give me a second. Wait—your closet. That’s it, she’s got to be in the closet.” Dawson flung open the closet door and looked inside. He pulled the switch-cord on the overhead light which did nothing, and flipped through the hanging clothes one at a time.
Chase lay on the bed and looking through a magazine, with his back turned to the closet.
Dawson stopped his imaginary girl search and leaned against the closet door frame with crossed arms. “Alright, so there’s no girl in here.” He paused for a moment. “Guess you’re probably too shy to talk about girls these days, right? Don’t know where to start. That’s OK, I remember those days. Look, I may seem like an old guy who doesn’t have all the answers, but if you just want to talk about girls or anything—anything at all—you can talk to me. I’m not the bad guy here.”
America's Sunset: A Post Apocalyptic Fight for Survival Page 8