Inhuman Heritage by Sonnet O'Dell

uncapped the second bottle. I stared down through the clear liquid to the bottom of the bottle and shook my head. Drinking alone was pathetic. I left the open bottle on my coffee table, grabbed my keys and pulling the locket from my neck walked out in search of a pub in which to be a social drinker.
    Toby’s Tavern was a long room with the bar at the far end and a small raised area on the left that held two pool tables and an area right of the bar that held an indoor skittles lane. With twenty-four hour licensing laws it meant it was open by ten am and stayed open until one or two am if business was good. I liked the polished wooden floor and the surly woman behind the bar who polished glasses as I sat there at the bar drinking my fourth, fifth? Sixth? White Russian. In my state of mind I decided to commiserate with the bartender whether she wanted to or not. I just wanted to talk about how stupid last night had been with someone who I thought would understand.
    “I mean sure he’s good looking, and he’s got these tanned arms that just feel good wrapped around you but he’s a dumb ass. If it wasn’t bad enough that he cheated with my roommate, but then when I kicked her out he takes her in. Why? Because he felt sorry for her. Why do men always want to take care of the damaged ones? Skeesie cow caused our break up, you’d think he’d be mad at her for that.”
    I looked up at the beefy tattooed woman who looked like she could punch a dent in a long haul truck and not even break a sweat. She was staring into the mid distance. I knew she was trying to just give me companionable silence but damn it I wanted more than that. I wanted to be told I was right about something, for once.
    “It’s not wrong of me to think it’s incredibly poor taste to shack up with the woman who single handed destroyed a near perfect relationship is it?” I stared at her large chin almost able to count stubble; she probably had to shave a lot and waited for an answer thinking on top of that she wasn’t a natural blonde either. I snickered quietly to myself “dye job.” My phone started to bounce along the bar. I’d pulled it out along with some other things in search of what I had done with my wallet when she’s insisted that I pay up front if I was going to go over three drinks. I looked at the caller ID and smiled.
    “Incarra,” I said what I thought was quietly into the phone but later realized I’d probably said it in a too loud drunk voice.
    “Where are you? You sound funny.”
    “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m at Toby’s...”
    Before I could continue anymore, the bartender gruffly took the phone from out of my hand and pressed it into her own ear. She had a deep earthy voice that was beginning to make me think that she used to be a bloke.
    “Are you her friend?” she asked Incarra. Incarra must have replied in the affirmative. “Then I am going to kindly ask you to come remove your soused friend from my bar stool.”
    “I am not soused,” I said offended and reached my arms out flexing them back in to touch the tip of my nose with the tip of my index fingers. “See, no loss of motor function yet.”
    The bartender turned slightly away from me talking in a lower voice into the phone.
    “She’s on her seventh White Russian, I’m now out of Kahlua and she smelt like vodka when she arrived. I dunno, something about an ex-boyfriend.”
    “Hey! Hey! Hey!” I said snatching my phone back carefully keeping my hand over the receiver. “One time I don’t want you to talk and you become a chatty Cathy.” The bartender looked at me non-plus and perhaps like she was thinking about snatching the phone back. I turned from her and leaned in on myself.
    “Incarra?” No reply. I looked at my phone, removed my hand from the receiver and tried again. “Incarra?”
    “Cassandra! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Don’t you know there is a special hell for people who drink before lunch on a weekday?”
    “Mmhmm, along