The Barback's Folly

“He Stopped Loving Her Today” was not a danceable song, but Kathleen was a little tipsy and didn’t want to go back to her barstool just yet. She swayed in time to the music on the narrow strip of wood floor between three small tables and the old polished wood bar and squinted over at her husband as he tossed back his third Jack. She wasn’t a local like Warren and didn’t know half the songs in the jukebox - George Jones hadn’t exactly been a college radio mainstay back in Kingston, Rhode Island.

Another song, twangier than the last, came on just as Tommy the barback brought a tray of beer mugs from the kitchen. Kathleen sidled over to the end of the bar and grabbed his arm as soon as it was free. She linked herself to him elbow to elbow and swung herself around him calling out a wobbly “do-si-do!”

Tommy - Tomás - pranced into the unexpected spin and smiled broadly. His second job made the mornings hard but it allowed him to drink his wages all evening and he enjoyed the attention he got from the pretty local girls. He was short and wiry and his dark hair and boyish face seemed to get handsomer as the men focused more on their drinks than on their dates. He conveniently forgot that he got into trouble almost every time he drank.

“It ain’t a do-si-do, it’s an allemande.” Warren’s voice was slow and nasal when he drank. He scrapped his barstool back with his long legs and swaggered over to the improvised dance floor where Kathleen and Tommy finished their spin. “And you look like an idiot dancing in them tennis shoes. I bought you goddamn python boots and you wear that shit?”

Warren shouldered between the two dancers and pushed Tommy aside. He didn’t have anything against the guy but he would never hear the end of it if he didn’t at least make a show of being offended at his wife dancing with an illegal. Warren and his friends didn’t mark distinctions between legal, illegal, seasonal, or citizen. Anyone who looked like Tommy was an illegal to them.

“Well, you dance with me!” Kathleen leaned into her husband and wound her arms up around his neck. She vaguely wondered for the millionth time why she was here, in a bar, in a very small town, married, but she quickly chalked it up to the head-spins. She put her weight on her husband and tilted her head back to look up at him. She tried pouting for attention but his eyes were half closed and he wanted to get back to his beer.

“Come on…” He took hold of her in return, circled his arms around her and half lifted half dragged her back to the other side of the bar. “You’re just a skinny thing…you’re like a little bird.” He chuckled knowing she’d like the comment. She smiled and nuzzled her face into his neck.

The man who sat closest to the dancing seethed into his beer. Kathleen didn’t know who he was and didn’t notice him. It seemed to her that every bar Warren took her to had its own gigantic bald guy whose muscle-bound days were covered over with ten years of beer and fried food. They all drove the biggest bike or the biggest truck, and though some were nice, many were boisterous. Lonnie Ocopaw of Paw Paw, Illinois was usually at the top of the boisterous scale, and he held a deep-seated belief that most of the country had figured out how to game the system. He was left behind holding the bag.

Most days Ocopaw stopped at the bar on his way home from his construction job in Ottawa. The cops didn’t usually patrol this stretch of road, and he needed a little reprieve between work and facing his wife and kids. He knew Warren from around and heard he’d married a girl he met when he worked out East. She was a cutie squeezed into tight jeans. Tommy should know better -  Ocopaw was sick of him acting like he owned the place.

Kathleen put one foot on the ledge along the bar and hopped up. She slid her jeans back on the black Naugahyde and wiggled into her seat.

“Ocopaw,” Warren raised his voice and lifted his beer in a bar salute toward the big man. “How the hell you been? Still working out in Aurora?”

“Down in Ottawa, now. Aurora was too close to the city if you know what…” He cut himself short as Tommy delivered another tray of clean glasses to the bar. He nodded in time with the current song and perhaps brushed against the man’s arm. “Watch it, Tommy!” His voice boomed over the music but Tommy just laughed and slapped Ocopaw on the back.

It was like lightning flashed in the dark and the next image that came was Ocopaw standing. He pushed Tommy, hard, toward the kitchen door. “Yes, yes! Ok!” Tommy yelled as he skipped to keep his feet under him.

Kathleen peered down the length of the bar as the man got back in his seat. “Oh my God, Warren, he looked like he was gonna kill Tommy.”

“Lonny Ocopaw don’t take shit from anyone,” Warren said under his breath and pushed his empty glass forward for another beer.

“Tommy doesn’t mean any harm; he just can’t hold his booze.” Kathleen was near her drinking limit, but she took a small sip from her warming beer.

“Yeah, well, he’s got no business drinking on the job if he can’t handle it. Here we go…” Warren looked toward the back of the bar as Tommy danced back out of the kitchen – a beer sloshing in one hand - and scooted behind several patrons sitting at the bar, including Warren and Kathleen. Time was already slow in the bar and Kathleen felt it grind to a halt as she saw Ocopaw jump to attention. His stool fell backward as he propelled his mass straight for Tommy the way an enraged bull goes for the red cape.

Warren wouldn’t let someone get beat up for no good reason, she was sure of that. “Hey… I think you need to…” she started, but Warren ignored her as they watched the train coming down the track. The distance shrunk between the big red-faced man and the drunk, and Kathleen realized at the last second her husband was not going to do anything. Without thinking she jumped off her stool into the path of the train and yelled “Don’t you dare!”

There was a split second of stunned silence during which Kathleen repeated in her head, “Don’t you dare? How stupid is that?” But she planted her sneakers firmly on the floor and put her hands on her hips thinking she probably deserved to get run over.

That split second was all it took. Tommy slipped around the patrons with their necks craned to view the fight, and he disappeared into the kitchen. Ocopaw exhaled and sneered at Kathleen. He flicked one hand at her like she was a gnat, turned on his heels, and clomped back to his stool shooting daggers at anyone brave enough to catch his eye. He’d been here before, though usually the men at the bar held him back until they gave up and he pummeled someone. He pummeled Tommy on at least one previous occasion that he remembered. This time, the unexpected petite obstacle holding her arm out like a traffic cop stopped him in his tracks. He almost laughed.

Warren sat back and twirled the edge of his mustache with his right finger and thumb, waiting to see what happened next. Ocopaw reached into the pocket of his worn Carhartt, pulled out a fistful of change, and threw it down the length of the bar.

“Warren, you better get that girl of yours to pick some more songs. Maybe that’ll keep her out of my way, because next time, I don’t stop.”