Shot Game

I met an angel once on a brisk night in early November at a bar in New York City. I’ve never been a religious man. I wouldn’t even say spiritual, but after it happened I considered changing the way I looked at a lot of things. I knew it was the beginning of the end. Or maybe the end of the beginning. Guess it all depends on the perspective. Either way, the world hasn’t been the same since.

I walked in to The Hemline around seven o’clock that evening and looked for a seat at the bar. This was usually a fairly busy time for the haunts of the Fashion District, that witching hour between when the forty-something year old building engineer regulars left and the twenty-something designer wannabees filled in. The front bar area was uncommonly empty, but when I saw the imposing figure sitting dead center it made a little more sense. He was almost my height sitting down so I pegged him at about six feet eight inches tall. He had the chest and shoulders of a man who spent the last thirty years commanding a jack hammer, and the waist and legs of a prepubescent teenage boy. He resembled those weightlifters who never did leg days. I noticed a large burn ring on the crown of his bald head, and his eyes were incredibly dark. I thought it was the lack of lighting most NYC bars offered, but there was darkness the polar opposite of the cloudy-eyed cataracts you might find on a completely blind person. 

He might have stood out more if this wasn’t New York City and a few days after Halloween. But The Hemline was my favorite of my regular bars, and I had seen plenty stand-outs over the years. I had no problem walking up and taking a seat keeping one chair between us, as is common “single man at a bar” etiquette. 

I nodded to Leda as I took my jacket off and got comfortable. She was my regular bartender here for the last five years, and she smiled in recognition. I took a quick look around and soon had a shot of Jameson and a pint of Guinness in front of me. I raised my shot glass to my neighbor in mock toast and knocked it back in one hard swallow. Leda was heavy handed with her pours. Then I took a long draught of the stout and glanced at the television.

“Weather’s not bad for this time of year, right?” I asked. I was known for making small talk with random visitors. If there was a game on either of the seventy inch televisions at either end of the bar, I was all but guaranteed to get into a heated but friendly debate.

“Yeah, definitely seen worse,” he mumbled. He didn’t really look away from the television or pay much attention to the conversation. About right for a typical NYC bar, and I wasn’t offended or deterred.

“I do a shot for every state that comes up blue, double if it flips from red to blue. California just came in, and Florida should report in soon. Hell, I hope to be dead drunk by the time the polls close,” I chuckled and he snickered.

“Come again?”

“Yeah, man, I need something to make this whole election thing more entertaining. I mean, I care about issues, but this thing can drag on and on, so I do shots based on the results every time they call a state.”

“And double for red to blue, huh? You really think what’s her face got a real chance to win it all?”

I almost choked on my beer laughing. “A chance? Bro, it should be a bloodbath.”

“If only we could be so lucky.” he snickered again. It seemed somewhat odd this time. There was a weird timbre to his voice that I couldn’t place. Like trying to listen to someone on a plane after your ears pop. I motioned to Leda for another round.

“Well, who do you think is going to win?” I posited the question like an investigative journalist breaking the interview of the century. It wasn’t sports, but a healthy debate seemed to in the cards nonetheless. He turned to face me more, and the weathered face looking back was noticeably older than I originally thought when I sat down. Maybe be a bad makeup job, but still. Strange.

“First of all, we could give two shits who wins. We care only about the aftermath. The chaos that would likely ensue on a world wide scale regardless of who wins.”

“Damn, dude, that’s dark—”

“But since you’re so confident why don’t we bet on the next round of reports. Loser buys.”

I expected another snicker, but none came. Nothing came. I tried to search his eyes for some sign of — well, anything recognizable. I found nothing in his voice or his eyes. It probably would have been more frightening if this wasn’t the third bar I’d been to since getting off work at four thirty. Leda replaced my drinks and then went back to her cell phone games and web videos.

“Sheeeet, I’m definitely a gambling man, especially when the odds are in my favor. You’re on.”

“Excellent.” That weird feeling was back hearing his voice again. I couldn’t help but picture Mr. Burns from the Simpsons smiling with hellfire in the background. Yeah, I was officially a little tipsy.

“So you really think that dude is a better choice for the country?”

“Again, we don’t much care.”

“You one of those people that are still mad about Obama? Get over it, bro.”

“Nah.” 

“Ok, you must be some kind of anarchist or something.”

I thought I saw a light behind his eyes flicker. I blinked to double check, but the voice on the television broke my concentration. The newscaster cleared his throat and continued. “Ladies and gentlemen. The poll results are in for Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio,” I looked over at my compatriot with a confidently smug smirk and picked up my shot glass to resume drinking to my success on his tab. “And, yes, it is confirmed.”

I turned to face him directly and started my celebratory chair dance. I started looking towards Leda to signal it was time to re-up.

“In a shocking turn, the Republican challenger has carried all three key states,” the reporter continued, “and is looking strong in other key states that have historically voted Democrat for the past two decades.” 

This time I did choke as the shot stuck in my throat in disbelief and dismay. He snickered again at first, and then laughed more hardily. I took a few sips of Guinness to try to get everything going back down the right pipes.

“HA! We like this game!” he said, and this time he was the one to get Leda’s attention, flashing up three fingers for shots. Wait, was he missing fingers? Was he a disgruntled veteran? That would explain why he was acting this way, still upset with the Democratic base’s insistence on pulling out of the wars in the Middle East. No,I probably just saw a bad angle and didn’t see his hand right in this depressingly poor bar lighting.

“Damn Republicans. You don’t have to be a jerk about it.”

“Told ya before, we don’t give a shit. It’s all a game to us. But seeing how invested you are gave us an idea. Double or nothing?”

“And so you’re all in with the shot game now, too?”

He nodded. “We are.”

“Ok, I guess. I did say that I was a gambling man, and hey, the more the merrier. Who’s here with you?” 

“We do not understand.”

“Why do you keep saying ‘we’ and ‘us’ when you are the only one I’m talking to?”

“Ah, we see now. You wouldn’t understand,” he said matter of factly.

“Hey, I’m as liberal as anyone you’ll ever meet. So if this is about how you gender-identify, I don’t give a—”

“We should have said you can not understand.” 

“Come on, man, now you’re just being rude. Ain’t no need to talk down to me and call me ignorant.”

I turned back around in my seat muttering to myself how much of an asshole he was being.

“We keep forgetting about your kind and your sensitive emotions.”

I turned around, fully prepared to investigate the ‘your kind’ comment with violent thoroughness when he continued.

“We are a higher being. What you humans would call an angel. Singularity can’t define us as you typically do.”

I was the one who snickered then. 

“Get the hell outta here, man, I ain’t that drunk.”

“Watch and listen.”

I heard distant choral singing emanating from inside my head and all around me at the same time, and for the first time tonight there was a hint of light in their eyes. That circle on his bald head emitted a faint glow. It was imperceptible to everyone else in the bar, but I was certain it was there. 

“Ho-ly shit. Holy shit.” That’s all that would come out. I couldn’t help but stare, but he - it - didn’t seem offended or even surprised. “But, but… How?”

“You humans are so vain. You may have been given dominion over this world, but that does not mean remotely that you inhabit it alone. There have always been and will always be others amongst you.”

I downed the rest of the Guinness and tried to get a grip on what I just discovered. They were right - I couldn’t understand. I mean it’s one thing to believe there’s life on other planets, but angels in bars in New York City? That was just too much.

“So why do you care so much about chaos and turmoil? I thought you all weren’t supposed to interfere in human things and such.”

“That is exactly why we care about the chaos. You were given everything, a limitless world of potential with the free will to explore it all. Yet you seem mostly content to use a fraction of the brain power and that free will to do anything productive that does not lead to wars and violence against your own kind. In the vast cosmos of things in existence you are all more alike than you could ever be different, yet all you do is concentrate on the fraction of a percent of traits that separate you.”

I don’t know if they paused for effect or if I just focused intently on what they had just said and zoned out for a second pondering the “vastness of the cosmos”.

“Oh I get it now. So in a nutshell, you get off on the pain that is the human experience?”

“Again, so short-sighted.” When they snickered this time, I heard it in full stereo with my ears and my mind. I guess there was no need to hold back with me now that I knew what they were.

“Well, what then?”

“You humans think this is all about you, and that when you’re done with this world everything will just be destroyed and then you get to inherit heaven? After the terrible jobs you’ve done as a steward of this place?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m not even sure I believe in heaven. At least I didn’t really until tonight.”

“Oh, it’s real. And when we say you could not understand, this time we really mean there is no way for your human mind to comprehend. Your laws of physics simply do not apply. The things humans will learn in the next millennium will not apply.”

“Ok, I get it. Puny humans. So again, what’s in it for you?”

“We - in the plural sense you are used to using in conversation - get this world. All of it. The faster you humans ruin it for all humankind, the faster we get to finally enjoy it without needing to heed warnings of intervening in human affairs. You all are like a disease ruining the experience of the world for all other creatures. The sooner you are gone, the better for everyone else.”

“If it’s so bad down here and you hate us so much, why don’t you just go back to heaven.”

For the first time of the night I sensed something like loss from them. It took my breath away like a well placed punch to the solar plexus. I just felt like the loss was shared and hurting inside me as much as them.

“Not all of us can.” After a minute, they continued. “So we wait out your existence until we can at last claim this world. The chaos, the fear, the frustration all lead to your ruin. As those things rise your contempt for each other rises with it, all moving you closer to your own self-destruction.”

They definitely paused for effect this time. And I got the full brunt of it.

“So, we doing this or what?”

“Huh?”

“We have some election news to watch and some shots to be had, do we not?”

“I somehow feel like the stakes have changed—”

“Not for us.”

Before I could respond with the value of humankind, the newscaster was back.”

“We can now report - Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Virgina, all for Republican underdog! Honestly, the way this night is going, I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to call him that.” There were groans from random tables in the bar, and the Democratic pundits on set with the newscaster were shaking their heads in disbelief. Leda turned the volume down again as the television personalities apparently tried to apply reason to the current state of events, and once again the bar was awash in top 50 pop and hip hop waiting for the next update and then back to her cellphone.

They smiled widely. “Yes. Yes, we like this game a lot. Drinks for the bar on us!” they exclaimed. 

And now that I understood why they were smiling, I definitely changed the way I looked at a lot of things. 

I was sure it was the beginning of the end. Or the end of the beginning. 

Guess it all depends on the perspective.