After a nightcap of confessions, a priest rests his forehead on weathered hands. “Long day, Jack? Everything on the up and up?” the bartender croons, a usually-shouldered rag in hand. This prop grants him entry to the best gossip in town. The greased elbow rub at a spot on the floor, or a wet circled ring from the pool table’s arm, is all it takes to prove him to be harmless, neutral—disarming just enough to allow philanderers, murderers, and preyers to do their bidding with him in earshot.
With none of the sort in the low-lit bar, the focus is on target. “You really want to know?” The priest’s elongation of the word “really” felt like a cool breeze rolling in from a tomb opening, and the bartender wanted nothing more than to slam it shut. But with himself bellied up to the bar, so to speak, without another patron to dismiss himself to, his duty trumped his personal needs, and out came a simple “That’s why I’m here” as he slipped his hand on the railing to follow the man into the cellar.
As the priest stood to leave, an hour after the tale he unburdened ended, the bartender turned to look at himself in the beveled, majestic-looking mirror hung behind the bottles of cognac, gin, and whiskey. He saw his image focusing on his left eye. The fuzzy, watery feeling came as if daring him to blink, but he didn’t dare move. As though a gun was held to his head, he stood stiller than he ever had; the bartender’s rag had fallen like a limp body crumpled on the floor. And then he too joined it, atop the forever-sticky floor of the bar, hung his head in his hand, and cried.
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 