Style

The old corner bar had seen better days. The windows on the street needed washing, as did the curtains hanging limply from the slightly sagging rods. The place was dim inside with darker corners. Everything smelled of stale beer with a urine undertone. Seedy was a good word for it. Grungy was another.

Rose sat at the corner of the bar by the door. A large glass of scotch and another glass with coke, sat in front of her. She would sip the scotch, make a face, take several swallows of coke and return to looking out the window. It was a dismal looking day. The perfect day for a funeral. At least the weather had held off until afterwards. A mixture of sleet, snow, and rain fell from a lead colored sky.

Johnny the bartender sat on a stool in the center, behind the bar. He had a book open in front of him but watched Rose in the mirror across the room. She obviously hated the scotch but she kept sipping and making faces. She had downed half the double shot of scotch in an hour and was working on her third glass of coke.

A damp, heavy, black, knee length coat with a hood, hung on the back of her chair. The black sheath dress looked good on her. It wasn't too tight or too loose, Johnny had noticed as she had walked to the restroom earlier. Nice ass and legs. A little flat up front for his tastes but overall, not bad at all. She was a lot older than most women he noticed were but since she was the only one in the place...

"Bartender, another coke, please," Rose said, interrupting Johnny's thoughts.

"Yes ma'am, coming right up," Johnny said getting up off his stool.

As he sat the glass in front of her, he asked, "You don't seem to like scotch, so why are you drinking it?"

Rose looked at the young man in front of her for a second or two. He was obviously a college student from his apparent age and the textbook he had open. "I hate the shit to be completely honest." She paused to smile and then added, "I'm having a drink for an asshole that's dead and gone."

She watched the young man to see how much he would be shocked by what she said and how she said it. That had been Joe's style so she figured she'd try it on for size. Anyway, she missed the bastard and felt irritable and ornery that he was gone.

"I take it he drank double scotch's."

"No, he drank club soda, I'm drinking the scotch to punish myself," Rose said with a deadpan expression. She could hear Joe saying the same thing in her mind.

Johnny gave her a "Huh!" look and she laughed. "Yeah, he drank double scotch's." Shock and sarcasm were fun when applied to young unsophisticated men, she was finding out.

Joe would have been impressed. Usually, she was shy to the point of total silence.

With a shy smile, Johnny started to turn away. "What's your name, my young bartender friend?" Rose asked trying to phrase it like Joe would have.

"Johnny. Johnny Freedman," he said pausing and turning back toward Rose. The way she had asked his name sounded familiar but he couldn't remember from where or when.

"I'm Rose, glad to meet you. What are you studying, if I may be so bold as to ask?"

"Third year Physics and I hate it as much as you do scotch."

"Then why are you taking it?"

Johnny shrugged. "Beats the hell out of me. All geniuses are expected to take Physics or something similar."

Rose cocked her head to the side. "You're a genius and you're a bartender?"

"It gives me plenty of time to study and read. It also keeps me well away from the dumb ass's at the college."

"Brains always get picked on. I've never understood that. Smart people are a blessing, if you treat them right. Take Joe for instance, my friend that died, he was smart. Too smart for his own good sometimes."

The double scotch and the phrasing from earlier clicked in Johnny's mind. "That wouldn't be Joe Dowel, would it?"

"The one and only," Rose said and then sighed. "I'm going to miss him."

"Hell, he was in here Monday afternoon. Sat right where you are now. When and how did he die?"

"Someone killed him Monday evening around six or so. They think it was a robbery."

"It couldn't have been a robbery. Joe had ten bucks on him when he left. He had two drinks and handed me a twenty. I gave him his change. He kept the ten and tipped me the rest. He said the ten was all he needed."

"Did he put it in a money clip?"

"Yeah, it was the only bill in it."

"Then that was all he had on him," Rose said and reached for her purse. She dug in it for a moment and then laid a money clip on the bar. "This was his lucky charm."

"Didn't work too well, did it," Johnny whispered to himself.

Rose frowned and then sighed. "He made his own luck. That's what made him such an asshole. He planned everything down to the last detail. Hell, he even planned sex. Can you believe that? The one thing that should have spontaneity and he plans it like a military operation."

Johnny chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, I can believe it. He was one of the few people I could talk to and not have too talk down to them."

Rose looked at the young bartender and cocked her head again. "Are you talking down to me?"

"Uh, no ma'am. I was referring to, uh, technical stuff and the mysteries of life, to name a few things."

Rose grinned. "I know what you meant. I was teasing you. I like to tease people. Good people anyway. Joe was good people in his own way. He liked my teasing and gave it back in spades. He called me his sweet tart."

"Sweet tart? I don't understand, that's not a nice thing to call a lady." Johnny said with a confused look.

Rose laughed softly. "Sweet Tarts were a candy a long time ago. They were one of the first sour sweets. It's also a play on words. Sweet and tart. Or, at least, that's the way I always took it. Tart is also a word for a lady of lesser virtues, shall we say. You could take a lot of things Joe said, many ways."

"He did have a way with words."

"Bullshit for the most part but he could be a sweet talker when he wanted to be or needed to be. He could talk a lady out of her panties in a heartbeat," Rose said with a far away look in her eyes. "It didn't hurt that he was a big good looking guy."

"He was big alright. That's why I say it wasn't robbery. He was alert. You didn't sneak up on him. There had to be something else if someone got close enough to him with a gun," Johnny said thoughtfully.

Rose frowned and sighed. "You're right. I know it and you sense it but the cops don't care. Joe wasn't too high on their list of good citizens. He had friends in low places, shall we say. High, low places but low places, none the less."

"I never saw him with anyone in here and this is the only place I ever saw him," Johnny said, once again turning toward the other end of the bar.

As he sat down on his stool, he looked at Rose in the mirror and said, "I wish I could do that. I get tongue tied around girls."

Rose had taken a sip of the scotch and was making a face as he spoke. After a swallow of coke, she asked, "Wish you could do what?"

Johnny blushed. He didn't think he had said that aloud or at least loud enough for her to hear. Rose just looked at him, a hint of a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. Had she real missed part of what he said or was she playing with him again. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as the saying went.

"I wish I could charm women out of their panties. I'm really shy and fumbling where it comes to girls. I always have been."

"A good looking young man like you should have no problems with the ladies. You seem to be doing alright talking to me."

"It only took me an hour to work my courage up enough to even ask you about the scotch," Johnny admitted.

"That could be a problem with the girls today. They're in a big hurry to nowhere. One day, they'll figure out what they are missing along the way but by then it will be too late and they'll wonder where all the good men are."

"Is that the voice of experience talking?" Johnny asked with a smile.

"You could say that. Hindsight is always twenty, twenty. If I'd known then what I know now, I would have married Joe when he asked me. But I figured there'd be a better man, a more stable man, down the road and Joe made a good backup, just in case I was wrong." Rose sighed deeply and picked up the glass of scotch.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel worse," Johnny said softly.

"It's not you, it's Joe, for getting his sorry ass killed," Rose said and took a real swallow of the scotch this time. She made a really bad face, wheezed several times, and then coughed.

"Damn, that shit burns all the way to bottom," she said in a hoarse tone.

Johnny chuckled and nodded. "They say it's an acquired taste. I don't even like the smell of it."

"This will be my last, believe me. How about refilling the coke again."

"No problem," Johnny said as he got up from the stool.

As he sat the coke in front of Rose, she asked, "What would you do if I took you home with me?"

"Uh... Is that a trick question?" Johnny asked in return with a grin on his face.

Rose laughed and shook her head. "I don't think it was. I like you. You're a good listener."

"That's part of the job," Johnny said and then regretted it.

Rose frowned. "Just doing your job? Okay, thank you. I'm glad you had a good laugh at an old ladies expense." She turned and looked out the window.

"I didn't mean it like that. I meant I learned to listen on this job. Come on, Rose, don't be that way."

Rose continued to look out the window. The scotch was getting to her, she realized. Turning back, she smiled at Johnny and said, "I'm sorry, I'm not used to the scotch. Between it and Joe dying, I am a little out of it. I shouldn't have asked you that in the first place."

"Honestly, I was flattered, that you asked me that. I have never had a woman ask to take me home. I've asked a couple of girls if I could take them home. To be honest, I got laughed at."

"Like I said, silly girls. One day they will kick themselves for doing that. I know I kick myself all the time over Joe. Not the going home part but the marrying part."

"Joe was a good lover, I take it."

Rose laughed and nodded. "In a long roundabout way. He took his time and made sure he hit every spot that needed hitting and then some. A girl was well satisfied by the time he rolled over. Sometimes, over satisfied."

"Over satisfied? Is that possible? In my case it sure isn't," Johnny said thoughtfully.

"You just haven't met the right young lady yet. One day, one will come along, knock your socks right off, and then keep right on knocking them off until you yell uncle."

"Promises, Promises," Johnny said with a grin. "You wouldn't happen to have her number now would you?"

Rose grinned and whispered, "After all this booze, I might just give you a number. A glass of wine, one glass of wine, is usually my limit."

"Don't do anything you might regret later."

"Regrets are the story of my life," Rose replied with a long deep sigh.

There was a long silence and Johnny started back to his stool. Rose had been contemplating the bottom of the scotch glass. When he moved it drew her attention back to the here and now. "You're studying physics, why don't you figure out how to build a time machine so people could straighten their lives out."

Johnny looked thoughtful for a moment as he pondered how best to answer. "Without getting too technical, speed compresses time, the now slows down for the ones at speed compared to the ones at normal speed. There is a theory that if you go fast enough then time might reverse."

He paused again and then said, "But would you really want to go back and change things? And what would the effect of those changes be on others?"

Rose look at the young man hard. She hadn't really expected an answer but now that she had one... She had so many things she wanted to change. Joe was just one of the things. She wondered what he meant about it affecting others.

"How would me changing my life affect others?"

"I don't know enough about what you might change to answer that but everything we do affects someone. Cause and effect, it's called. In close time, time close to now, there isn't much effect but over longer periods the affect gets much larger."

"You mean like, if I had married Joe, he wouldn't have been here that day. So he wouldn't have been somewhere he could be robbed and killed. That's a good thing, right."

"That's the idea but what about something much earlier in your life, something that will affect more people. If you changed that, how would it change them and their lives?"

Rose sat deep in thought for a while. Her deepest regret was one such as he described. At eighteen, she had had an abortion. What if she hadn't? What would that child grow up to be? Who would it have loved and who would have loved it? How would it have changed her life alone? So many questions from one little change.

Rose sighed deeply and nodded her head. "I see what you mean," she whispered softly, her eyes burning at the thoughts of what could have been.

"The world is full of what ifs," Johnny said. "Sometimes the question isn't could we, but should we. Scientists have argued that question from the beginning of time."

"Scientist aren't the only ones," Rose replied with a shiver.

Johnny looked at the quarter inch of scotch left in her glass. "Why don't you call it even on the scotch. Joe occasionally left a little."

Rose smiled but shook her head. "Nope. I set myself to do this and I'm going all the way. That's also the story of my life. I never know when to quit. Good, bad, or indifferent, I carry it to the end."

With that said, she picked up the glass and drained it in one quick swallow. It took her breath away and she could feel the burn all the way to the pit of her stomach. She shook her head and frowned deeply as she hit the bar with her free hand. "Oh, shit!" she finally got out when she caught her breath.

Johnny chuckled and handed her the coke glass. She downed it also and held it out to him. "Please."

As Johnny went to get the refill, Rose coughed several times and then said, "That was a lot like Joe, breath taking and a kick in the stomach."

"He was an interesting guy," Johnny said when he returned with the glass of coke.

Rose downed about half of it and sat the glass down. "He was an asshole but a sweet asshole. He could have been my asshole, if I had been smart."

Johnny shrugged. "You could have been with him when he was killed."

Rose frowned and then shivered hard. "I hadn't thought about that. He was on his way to meet me for supper. I thought he stood me up but that wasn't his style. He would have called if he couldn't make it."

Johnny nodded and returned to his stool. As he sat down, Rose asked, "What time do you get off work?"

"About six if my relief shows up anywhere near on time."

"Would you walk me home? I need some company for one thing and I have a feeling that the scotch is going to hit me hard here in a little bit."

"It would be my pleasure," Johnny said with a big smile.

Rose chuckled. "I'm not promising anything other than some conversation with a drunk, so don't read too much into it. I usually fall asleep pretty fast when I'm drunk."

"I promise to be a gentleman."

Rose laughed. "You don't have to go that far."

Johnny looked at her funny and then said, "I thought that was a good thing."

"It is up to a point, after that you have to take your cues from the moment. Sometimes a no now will change to a yes later. That was the thing about Joe, he knew how to arrange things so a no turned into a yes at just the right moment."

"Now, that's exactly what I mean about my not understanding people, especially female people. If no is no then how does it change to yes?"

"You have to give it a reason to change. You don't press the issue but you keep working on it slowly and gently. A word here, a touch there, a smile at just the right moment. Joe had a dozen different smiles. From shy to a grin that would get any girls attention, and her panties wet. It's picking the right one that's the trick."

"I wouldn't and don't have a clue," Johnny said shaking his head.

"It does take practice and the ability to read people, which take practice. With age comes wisdom and with experience you know what to do with it."

"That sounds like something Joe would have said."

Rose nodded. "I heard it many times. Explaining it to you makes me finally understand it. I always thought he was smart but only now am I finding out just how smart he really was. Why did it take him dying for that to happen?"

"Hindsight and thought," Johnny said softly. "You are thinking of the things he said from a deeper perspective."

With a nod, Rose said, "That makes sense I guess or the scotch is burning a few more brain cells a little hotter."

Johnny chuckled. "There is that possibility. Alcohol is a depressant but it can also open the thought process up as it numbs other parts of the brain."

Rose stared at the young man behind the bar for a moment. "Yeah, you're a genius alright. Only a genius would find a good reason for a drunk to think better."

"Or a bartender learning about drunks with first hand experience," Johnny said a moment later.

Rose grinned as she picked up the glass of coke. "That sounds like something Joe would have said."

Johnny nodded and then watched Rose drain the glass and stand up. She was a little wobbly as she headed for the restroom.

*****

Rose sat down on her stool and held her closed hand out in front of her. The hand slowly opened and a wade of black cloth sat in the cupped palm. "Joe loved red panties so why did I wear black ones to his funeral?"

Johnny eyed the balled up panties from his stool at the center of the bar. "Uh... black is for funerals?"

Rose looked at the young man and shrugged as she closed her hand. "I contemplated wearing the red ones but..."

With his eyes still on her hand, Johnny asked, "And you took them off why?"

Rose grinned and said, "Yes."

His eyes went to her face and he raised his eyebrows. "A no changed to a yes?"

With a laugh, Rose said, "Maybe."

Johnny chuckled and shook his head. "I knew it couldn't be that easy."

"Easy isn't fun, it's just easy. You have to do things with style to do them right," Rose said as she slipped the panties into her purse.

Johnny looked thoughtful and then nodded. "I'll have to think on that but I see what you mean."

Rose grinned and looked at the young man. "First you have to get past the thoughts of me sitting here naked under this dress."

Johnny chuckled. "I like your style."

"I know," Rose said as her eyes dropped to the ridge running up the front of his jeans. "And your style keeps on growing."

Johnny blushed and stammered, "I... uh... I..."

Rose chuckled and sighed. "A hard-on can be a great compliment at certain times."

Johnny's mouth dropped open as he blushed again. "I... uh... I..." he stammered and then took a deep breath. "I'm totally out of my element."

"Flirting or with women in general?" Rose asked.

"Women in general, I'm sorry to say," he replied and then sighed. "I screw flirting up badly. That is, what doesn't go over my head."

"Things going over your head means you are thinking too much and not listening close enough," Rose said quickly.

"That sounds like Joe."

"Live and learn," Rose said with a shiver as she held her hand just above her hair as if she was going to catch something. "Things go over my head more often than not."

Johnny didn't know what to say to that, so he just nodded.

"Funny thing is, not everything goes over my head. Like how you didn't know, Joe was dead, but you knew he had been shot. How does that work, boy genius?"

Johnny's eyes grew wide and then he frowned. "That is a slip I'll have to remember not to make again."