Nightstick

Having finished work early, I was seated at the bar when he came shuffling in.

“What you drinking?” he asked.

“Water,” I answered.

“Wanna beer or maybe a shot? I’m having both,” he said.

“Not right now,” I said.

“Why you having both? That’s not your usual,” I stated.

“Jus’ bugged and wanna relax a bit.”

“What’s got you bugged?”

“That incident last Saturday at the saloon.”

“I don’t know what you’re referencing.”

“You didn’t hear?”

“Not a word.”

“A guy the cops had already cuffed and on the ground and the one that likes to carry the baton around, whacked the cuffed guy in the head at least three times.”

“No, shit?”

“No, shit.”

“He’s one of the cops I had a run in about three years ago. Pulled me over and before I know it, I’m on the ground, cuffed, with three cops tearing my truck apart.”

“Why did he pull you over in the first place?”

“He never did say. He just made me get out and whammo.”

“So what happened then?”

“When they didn’t find the drugs they thought they would, they let me go.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“What about the guy the cop beat?”

“They had to send an ambulance to the jail. I don’t know what happened from there. I suspect they didn’t take him to the hospital, though.”

We sat there silent for about a minute before he turned to me and asked, “You sure you don’t wanna have something harder?”

I looked into the bottom of my water glass and answered, “Yeah, I’ll take you up on your offer.”

He looked down the bar at the woman tending customers, “Two shot glasses, please, and a bottle of Jamison.”

She quickly poured two shots and set them down.

“You can leave the bottle,” he said as he gave her his credit card.

“I know there ain’t anything we can do about it because it’s a small town, and I know I don’t wanna get a beatdown, and I know you’re having your trouble with them and don’t want to get whacked in the head either, so the best we can do is sit here quietly and drink,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.