Vance

Two years ago

At the bar, I finished unloading the last case of beer and clicked the freezer door shut. Oscar came barreling down the hall lost in his headphones, humming loudly. He didn’t see me, and I took full advantage by plastering myself along the wall, waiting for him to pass, and then I jumped in front of him and gave him a pretty decent shove. His scream was so loud that Joey and Bill came running back.

“What are you two pricks doing back here?” Joey shouted. He hated when we goofed off. He was a bartender for life, and he took his job very, very seriously.

I was bent in half, laughing my ass off at the pitch of my brother’s scream. My father was right. He did sound like a girl.

Oscar was pink in the face, and I could tell he was pissed. Whatever. It was a joke.

“We’re just messing around, Joey. No big deal,” I said.

Bill shook his head and walked away. He never got as mad as Joey, but he probably just didn’t give a rat’s ass. Bill had only worked at the Blue Mountain Lounge for two years. He was always telling me how much he wanted to go to law school and that this job was strictly for putting money into his college fund. In other words, he was the polar opposite of Joey, who, I was pretty sure had never worked as anything else in his fifty-three years.

Joey yanked the white bar towel through his belt loop and shook his head. “You two act like a couple of kindergartners. No wonder your old man drinks so much.”

Oscar’s eyes bulged, and he went as red as a sports car. The way my dad partied made him all ragey, so Joey blaming him, even if he was just saying it offhandedly, was making Oscar furious. I could tell he was seconds from running away, like he always did. He never fought back. He never stood up for himself. His whole “run away and hide in my room” shit pissed me off.

“Did you finish unloading the beer, Vance?” Joey asked, his eyes squinted.

“Yeah.”

“And you stacked it like I told you?”

“Yeah,” I repeated with just as much annoyance.

“Why you gotta be such a prick?” he said.

I shrugged when I turned to leave. Oscar was gone. He was probably sulking in the alley behind the bar as usual. He would sit back there on that cruddy bench and do his homework. Or draw his stupid shit in that sketchbook. He was probably drawing sunsets and kittens. Or maybe the book was full of untalented chicken scratch. Who the eff knew what he had in there? He was so secretive about it, which was annoying.

I’d tried to get my hands on his book a few times, but he’d either be clutching it or it was in some hiding place I didn’t know about. Yet.