Jeremy paused by the entrance for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the depressed light of the interior. A man stood half in shadow toward the back of the room. He was working at something with a small, pointed knife and the pips of his whistling competed with a low ambient hum.
“Come to see the good doctor Boswell for a medicinal cocktail, have we?” came his voice.
Jeremy watched the man scalp an arc of skin off a great yellow orb. Boz busied himself with gestures structured around glass and tin. He passed a menu. “We have a special going,” Boz said. “You buy, I pretend to fancy the company.”
“Christ,” Jeremy said.
“You don’t believe in God,” Boz said. “You probably only believe in economists.”
“Categorically, no. Occasionally, yes.”
“So what does that make you?”
Jeremy passed the menu back to Boz, pointed. “A misanthrope with a 401(k).”
With a quick flick of tins and ice, Boz poured a drink and slid it toward Jeremy. He held his hips, cocked his head. “Something wrong?”
“Why would you assume something’s wrong?” Jeremy said.
“Because you’re drinking at two on a weekday,” Boz said. “And because you look like a popped piñata.”
“Half three. What do I look like normally?”
Boz returned to slicing lemon rinds for martini twists. “Wary and waiting.”
“You might know me better than anyone, Boz.”
“How did you fuck up your life enough that a bartender knows you best?” Boz said. “A bartender who isn’t fucking you, I might add.”
It was a good question. It was a fine drink. “By having very little of myself to know.”