Never Go Home by L.T. Ryan Page A

ever
managed to quit the business before it did me in.
    Sean leaned
over and nudged me with his shoulder.
    “What?” I said.
    “Look who’s
coming our way.”
    I looked ahead
and saw two older women saddle up to the bar. I hoped that wasn’t who he meant.
He nudged me and lifted his finger off the bar top and pointed toward the
floor. I shifted my gaze to the right, saw two guys I knew from my younger
days. We had gone to school together from kindergarten on. During those
thirteen years, we never got along. Half the fights I got in as a kid were with
those guys. They hated me. I hated them. I wasn’t surprised to find those
feelings still existed.
    They looked the
same, only grown up and sixty or seventy pounds heavier. One of the guys was
Glenn’s brother. Glenn was Jessie’s husband.
    “This must be
twofer day,” one of them said.
    “Yeah, two
jackwagons for the price of one,” the other said.
    Sean dropped
one leg to the ground. His shoulder grazed my back as he turned. I heard his
other shoe hit the hardwood floor.
    I glanced back,
shook my head. “I got this.”
    Sean didn’t
move.
    I slid off my
stool. “If it ain’t Mutt and Jeff.”
    “It’s Matt and
Jed, dumbass,” Jed said.
    Sean laughed. I
smiled.
    “What’s so
funny?” Matt was Glenn’s little brother. They looked nothing alike.
    “Look,” I said.
“I know there’s this long standing thing between you guys and me, but you gotta
let it go. That was almost twenty years ago. You’re living in the past. I’ve
moved on. You should move on. I mean, take your waistlines for example. They’ve
moved on, and out.”
    “You’re fixing
to get your face pounded in, Noble,” Matt said.
    Words like that
were either followed by a punch or more tough talk.
    He continued.
“And then when we’re through with you, we’ll take out your sissy brother.”
    I let my arms
hang loose. “Then shut up and do it.”
    “What?” Matt
said.
    “You aren’t
going to do anything about it. You’re all talk. At least twenty years ago you
had the sack to throw a punch. All those years of sitting on your couch
watching talk shows has sapped you of your testosterone. You go around bullying
people like you used to. Only now you can’t do anything but talk tough.”
    Matt narrowed
his eyes. The pace of his breath quickened. His arms shook and his fingers
twitched.
    Jed grabbed his
shoulders, and shook him, and said, “Knock him out.”
    That was all it
took for Matt to wind up like he was throwing the first pitch out. His entire
sequence was poorly executed. He tossed a lumbering right hook at me.
    I leaned back
and avoided the sloppy punch. With my right hand, I gained control of his right
arm. I spun him around, grabbed the back of his head with my left and drove his
broad forehead into the other guy’s nose. Jed went down in a heap. I drove my
heel into Matt’s right knee. He buckled sideways. As he went down, I slammed
his face into the edge of the bar and let go.
    Sean pulled me
back from the two bodies on the floor. Both men bled and rocked in place and
moaned.
    “Dammit, Jack,”
Eric said from the other side of the bar. “Didn’t I have to ban you from this
place for an incident like this before?”
    I shrugged.
“That time was my fault. This guy’s to blame this time. He took a swing at me.”
    “And you did
nothing to provoke it, did you?”
    I held my hands
up, sure that Eric wouldn’t do anything.
    A woman stepped
out from the game room. She had on a sheriff’s uniform. Dark sunglasses sat
atop her head. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. I recognized her
from earlier when Sean and I drove through town.
    She looked at
me, shook her head and continued toward the bar.
    Sean grabbed my
shoulder. “Just ease back a sec, Jack.”
    She said, “What
happened, Eric?”
    Eric said,
“Those two knuckleheads were so drunk they fell off their barstools.”
    “Is that
right?” she said. “There’s only two barstools at this end.