jamie iredell : “nick’s down”
We’d closed the Pub and the orange streetlights transformed everything into this dawn or dusk Martian surface. Nick wavered like a reed in a breeze. We’d been drinking only beer, but whenever Nick had ten dollars he took the bar to it until his barstool kept trying to walk away from under his ass, conspiring for a hard rendezvous with the concrete flooring. Some guys we didn’t know fought in the street, squared against each other, circled, a human Stonehenge. Their girlfriends stood by, fists pounding air as they chanted no no no no no no no. Me and Timmy decided these guys could not fight in front of our bar, on our street. This sense of ownership overcomes only the most deluded and young and white, which constituted us. But I explained everything, my palms like pale twin stop signs. These fighting guys understood and started to break it up. But Nick Bender. Fucking Bender. After everyone cooled off and me and Timmy walked away, satisfied with our community duty done, Nick still stooped there mouthing “bitch” and “cock whore.” Then he was on the ground, black blood running from his broken teeth. When me and Timmy ran back, bottles breaking musically and rhythmic, the girls screamed and the wind died. A neighbor cocked a shotgun. I’ve had better nights.
Jamie Iredell’s recent stories & poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, from The Pedestal Magazine, SUB-LIT, NANOfiction, Descant, The Literary Review, & many others.
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