He’s been sitting at the far end of the bar, sliding C-notes into his own video poker game and going through them about as fast as I’ve been going through my quarters. Every fifteen minutes or so he throws back another shot of chilled Jager and bangs the glass on the bar, indicating the bartender should get his ass over there and give him a refill.

Back in the day, when I had to do that job, when my biggest worry was getting the drunks out the door before the sun came up, I’d never have put up with that shit. Someone banged a glass on my bar or snapped their fingers or something like that and they’d be sitting dry a long fucking time before I remembered they were there. This bartender is different, he’s working the day shift at the Laughing Jakalope for Christ sake, glasses banged on the bar are the last fucking thing he’s gonna raise a sweat over.

The bartender pulls the frosted green bottle of Jagermeister out of the cooler, fills the guy’s shot glass and puts the bottle back. The guy doesn’t even look at him, just keeps peering into the game screen, his credits rolling up and down as he scores on two pair here, three of a kind there; searching for a full house or a straight flush or even a royal.

There’s a blast of sunshine as someone opens the tinted front door and two drunk couples come stumbling in. They’re college kids, the boys in shorts and tank tops, their faces sunburnt except where their eyes have been raccooned white by their sunglasses, the girls in shorts and tube tops, skin tanned cancer brown, harsh bikini lines climbing up out of their stretchy tops and creeping around their necks. All of them are double-fisting plastic cups full of something bright blue and frozen.

The bartender looks down from the TV hanging above the bar. He’s been watching one of those behind-the-scenes shows; this one cracking the lid open on a reality show that teamed up stars from older shows that have already been behind-the-scened. He sees the cups the kids are carrying and shakes his head.