The White Road

The bar wasn’t too big, certainly no more than thirty feet in length and fifteen across. The counter itself was on the left and shaped like the blade of an ice skate, the curved end nearest the door. At its other extreme there was a small office and storage area. The toilets were beyond the bar, beside the back door. Four booths stood against the wall to the right, a pair of round tables to the left.

There were two men sitting at the counter, and one other man behind the bar. All three were probably in their sixties. The two at the bar wore baseball caps, faded T-shirts beneath even more faded cotton shirts, and cheap jeans. One of them had a long knife on his belt. The other had a gun concealed beneath his shirt.

The man behind the bar looked like he might have been strong and fit once, a long time ago. There was bulk on his shoulders, chest, and arms that was now masked by a thick layer of fat, and his breasts were pendulous as those of an old woman. There were old yellow sweat stains beneath the arms of his white short-sleeved shirt, and his trousers hung low on his hips in a way that might have been fashionable on a sixteen-year-old but was ridiculous on a man fifty years older than that. His hair was yellow white but still thick, and his face was partially obscured by a week’s growth of scraggly beard.

All three men were watching the hockey game on the old TV above the bar, but their heads turned in unison as the new arrival entered. He was unshaven, wearing dirty sneakers, a loud Hawaiian shirt and creased chinos. He didn’t look like he belonged anywhere above Christopher Street, not that anybody in this bar knew where Christopher Street was, exactly. But they knew this man’s type, yes they did. They could smell it on him. Didn’t matter how unshaven he was, how shabbily he dressed; this boy had “fag” written all over him.

“Can I get a beer?” he asked, stepping up to the bar.

The bartender didn’t make any move for at least a full minute, then took a Bud from the cooler and placed it on the bar.

The small man picked up the beer and looked at it as if seeing a bottle of Bud for the first time.

“You got anything else?”

“We got Bud Light.”

“Wow, both kinds.”

The bartender looked unimpressed.

“Two-fifty.” This wasn’t the kind of place that ran a tab.

He counted out three bills from a thick roll, then added another fifty cents in change to bring the tip up to a dollar. The eyes of the three men remained fixed on his slim, delicate hands as he replaced the money in his pocket, then they returned their gazes to the hockey game. The small man took a booth behind the two drinkers, leaned into the corner, then put his feet up and directed his face toward the TV. All four men remained in those positions for about five minutes, until the door again opened softly and another man entered the bar, an unlit Cohiba in his mouth. He was so quiet that nobody even noticed him until he was four feet from the counter, at which point one of the men looked to his left, saw him, and said:

“Little Tom, there’s a colored in your bar.”

Little Tom and the second man dragged themselves away from the TV to examine the black man who had now taken a stool at the lower end of the L-shaped bar.

“Whiskey, please,” he said.

Little Tom didn’t move. First a fag, now a nigger. This was turning into quite a night. His eyes moved from the man’s face to his expensive shirt, his neatly pressed black jeans, and his double-breasted overcoat.

“You from out of town, boy?”

“You could say that.” He didn’t even blink at the second insult in less than thirty seconds.

“There’s a coon place couple of miles down the road,” said Little Tom. “You’ll get a drink there.”

“I like it here.”

“Well, I don’t like you here. Get your ass out, boy, before I start takin’ it personal.”

“So I don’t get a drink?” The man sounded unsurprised.

“No, you don’t. Now you going to leave, or am I go

To his left, the two men shifted on their stools in preparation for the beating that they hoped to deliver. Instead, the object of their attention reached into his pocket, produced a bottle of whiskey in a brown paper bag, and twisted the cap. Little Tom reached under the counter with his right hand. It emerged holding a Louisville Slugger.

“You can’t drink that in here, boy,” he warned.

“Shame,” said the black man. “And don’t call me ‘boy.’ The name is Louis.”

Then he tipped the bottle upside down and watched as its contents flowed along the bar. It made a neat turn at the elbow of the counter, the raised lip preventing the liquid from overflowing onto the floor, and seeped past the three men. They looked at Louis in surprise as he lit his cigar with a brass Zippo.

Louis stood and took a long puff on his Cohiba.

“Heads up, crackers,” he said, and dropped the flaming lighter into the whiskey.

The man with the tattoo raps sharply on the roof of the Lincoln. The engine roars and the car bucks once or twice like a steer on a rope before shooting away in a cloud of dirt, dead leaves, and exhaust fumes. Errol Rich seems to hang frozen for a moment in midair before his body uncurls. His long legs descend toward the ground but do not reach it, his feet kicking impotently at the air. A spluttering noise comes from his lips, and his eyes bulge as the rope draws tighter and tighter around his neck. His face becomes congested with blood and he begins to convulse, red drops now speckling his chin and chest. A minute goes by and still Errol struggles.

Below him, the tattooed man takes a branch wrapped in linen doused with gasoline, lights it with a match, then steps forward. He holds the torch up so Errol can see it, then touches it to Errol’s legs.

Errol ignites with a roar, and somehow, despite the constriction at his throat, he screams, a high, ululating thing filled with terrible agony. It is followed by a second, and then the flames enter his mouth and his vocal cords begin to burn. He kicks again and again as the smell of roasting meat fills the air, until at last the kicking stops.

The burning man is dead.

The bar flared, a small wall of flame shooting up to scorch beards, eyebrows, hair. The man with the gun at his belt leaped back, his left arm covering his eyes while his right reached for his weapon.

“Ah-ah,” said a voice. A Glock 19 was inches from his face, held firm in the grip of the man in the bright shirt. The other’s hand stopped instantly, the gun already uncovered. The small man, whose name was Angel, yanked it from its holster and held it up so that he now had two guns inches from the barfly’s face. Near the door, Louis’s hand now contained a SIG, trained on the man with the knife in his belt. Behind the bar, Little Tom was dousing the last of the flames with water. His face was red and he was breathing hard.

“The fuck you do that for?” He was looking at the black man, and at the SIG that had now moved to level itself at the center of his chest. A change of expression flickered in Little Tom’s face, a brief candle flame of fear that was quickly snuffed out by his natural belligerence.

“Why, you got a problem with it?” asked Louis.

“I got a problem with it.”

It was the man with the knife at his belt, brave now that the gun was no longer aimed at him. He had strange, sunken features: a weak chin that lost itself in his thin, stringy neck, blue eyes buried deep in their sockets, and cheekbones that looked like they had been broken and flattened by some old, almost forgotten impact. Those dim eyes regarded the black man impassively while his hands remained raised-away from his knife, but not too far away. It seemed like a good idea to make him get rid of it. A man who carries a knife like that knows how to use it, and use it fast. One of the two guns now held by Angel made an arc through the air and came to rest on him.