Bar Rescue

CW: Physical violence, abuse, sexual violence

Bar Rescue

I didn’t want a blind date. Who does? Yeah, I knew that I had a reputation for being a complete workaholic, which didn’t bode well with the rest of the crew at my job. Working at the bare minimum just outside of getting let go was the Olympic sport that constantly took place at Murphy’s Graphic Design House.

Krystal, aided by others in the finishing crew, planned on setting me up. I guess she and everyone else figured that maybe a good time with a guy will focus my energy on something else- something that wouldn’t make everyone else look like a tool. Most of the employees had been at the firm for ten years or more. Everyone knows once you hit your mid thirties or forties, no matter how crappy the job is, it doesn’t matter how much you get paid. Your life outside your work sustains you. Did they feel I had a path of destruction about to befall me? Or was it simply jealousy?

Walking into the cozy bar, I felt thankful. The bar only served light snacks, so I wouldn’t feel tied to an arduous meal if I needed to make a quick getaway. The dark wood and small space made me feel more at home. Maybe Krystal knew me more than I knew myself after all. Guilt riddled my conscience for all the times that I declined happy hour after work to get ahead of a project’s deadline.

The bar was empty save for one older gentlemen at the bar who looked like a regular. His scraggly hair, old bomber jacket, baseball cap, and slumped demeanor showed that he wasn’t here for me. I sidled up to the end of the bar near the wall, giving a good view of both the entrance and the bar at large. Looking out the front windows, I started to worry that I would get stood up, even though it was still five minutes before the hour.

“What can I get you?”

I jumped. “Oh, um I guess a glass of something red?”

“Sure thing,” the bartender winked. “Maybe I’ll bring you some water, too,” he added, sliding a menu my way. “You don’t seem like you need coffee.”

I smiled. “Probably a good idea. The water, I mean, not the coffee.”

“You got it,” he said, tapping the bar in response. “I’m Pete, by the way,” he said, as if there were some other bartender vying for business in the vacant restaurant.

“I’m Sherry,” I replied, then grimaced. Why the hell does he need to know my name?

He turned away to go get the drinks.

Did he just look at me longer than usual? That’s stupid. The dude works for tips. It’s his job to be slightly flirty.

I looked about the room after he walked away, keeping one eye on the front doors. At five past 6, a man around my age walked in, and my heart rate increased exponentially.

He sat down at the bar, sitting closer to the old man than to me. Maybe that wasn’t him?

Pete went up to him. “Hey man, welcome. What can I do you for?”

He looked around anxiously. I felt like I should go over there and ask if he’s my blind date, who I knew his name was Brandon. Or was it Braden? Brody? But at the same time, I enjoyed making him sweat a little. I feigned interest in some random soccer game on the TV above the bar.

“Um, I guess a beer? I don’t care what kind.”

“You got it,” Pete said, giving me a look out of the corner of his eye. An astute one, that Pete. Working for tips must give you a good read on people’s body language.

Taking care with the pouring of the pint, Pete ceremoniously placed it in front of me along with my glass of red.

“I think these need to be here,” he said, gesturing to the new guy. “You guys on a date?”

I found myself smiling against my will. “Probably. Krystal set us up?”

He looked relieved. “Yeah, she’s a friend of my cousin’s. I really can’t stand her.”

I seemed shocked at this sudden negativity, even though I wasn’t keen on my coworker, either.

“She does seem the type to want to set everyone up, doesn’t she?” I chuckled.

“Even though she’s been married twice and can’t seem to be by herself for longer than a month.”

I laughed. “If that.”

“Well, my job is done here,” Pete said, throwing a towel over his shoulder and walking down the bar to check on the old man.

“Brady,” he said, coming in for an immediate hug.

I stifled the inbound affection with my glass of wine, sticking out my other hand.

“Sherry.”

“Sorry, I’m just a bit of a hugger.”

“No offense,” I replied, understanding that I was in the minority when it came to hugs.

“So, you work with Krystal?” he asked. I was already irked at this ridiculous question. Did he expect me to talk about her the whole time, even if we both hated her? I already didn’t know where this conversation was going. I wasn’t interested in childish bashing of others when there were way worse people in the world. Maybe I should have just relaxed, I don’t know. I can only attest to what happened that night.

“Yeah, we’ve worked together for a bit. She’s fine.”

“You don’t seem like you want to talk about something we might actually have in common,” Brady jabbed. My hackles went up. Was he already irked with me? Or was I imagining it?

I did my best to conceal my real emotions from reaching my face. “Look, I’m not here to bash people,” I said, placing my palms out in a gesture of goodwill. “I simply think we should use this time to get to know each other, that’s all.”

He snorted, grabbing his glass, promptly chugging half of it, and slamming it on the bar. My eyes widened, and I did nothing to try to hide that.

“Did you pregame this date?” I asked, staying polite. I could understand how someone could hit the sauce to ease the nerves before a blind date. “I thought of doing that myself, actually. These types of things aren’t exactly someone’s idea of a good time,” I added, trying to ease the tension.

He snorted again, louder this time, grabbing his glass. I spontaneously wondered three things: one, if he was going to throw his glass, two, if those were the types of glasses that looked like glass but were actually plastic, and three, how much it would hurt if it hit me.

“You really have some nerve, you know that?” He started to get louder now. Pete and the regular at the end started to politely look sideways down the bar.

I leaned back in my stool, shaking my head and raising my eyebrows. “Look, I’m not here to argue at all. I’m nervous, and it is showing. That’s it.”

Brady sighed. “Sure. Be right back.” He headed towards what I assumed was the bathroom, although I didn’t actually check where he went; I was looking down at my glass stem, wondering where everything went wrong. My eyes glazed over, making everything in the room around me fuzzy and cloudy. Was it my horrible resting face he hated? I thought of chugging my glass of wine and making a polite exit as soon as he came back, but I hadn’t eaten much that day in anxiousness. I didn’t want my senses to be dulled, although they felt like they already were. I looked around the bar; it was a Saturday early evening. Why was this nice place deserted?

Brady didn’t come back for at least five minutes.

“I was beginning to think you had stood me up,” I laughed. I have no idea why I was giving this moron so much leeway. Looking back, he probably thought of it as passive-agressiveness.

“That would be the easy way out,” he replied. “I don’t do that.”

I frowned, speechless at that choice of words. “Well, thanks.”

“Why don’t we get out of here?” Brady asked. “I know a place with much better food just down the street. Do you like Italian food?”

I looked around the bar. Things were starting to look fuzzy. Or was that just the little bit of wine I had drunk? But Italian did sound nice. No matter how much I didn’t like Krystal, she wouldn’t have suggested a total idiot for a blind date.

“You know what?” Let’s go,” I replied, trying my best to start over.

“Cool,” he said, seeming to be reset as well.

Knowing what I know now, Pete’s wandering eye, as I passed the bar, body leaning, arms straightened against the wood rail the regular now gone, gave me a look that said, do you need me to step in? Knowing what I know now, I didn’t pay close enough attention to the yellow light that was illuminating his head from behind the bar. I didn’t think I needed rescuing at the time, but I most certainly did. And, apparently, other people were already ahead of me at work.

“Let’s go,” Brady said, holding the door open for me. As I walked towards him, something in his eye caught my attention, but it didn’t stop me. Then I felt the slam as my body and head cracked against the pavement outside.

“Gotcha!” some gruff voice said, like I was some sort of difficult fish to catch.

I couldn’t help closing my eyes as multiple men started tearing at me, my clothes, dragging me towards a parked car at the curb. Too frightened to scream, I flailed my head back and forth, foolishly attempting to escape my captors.

“What a beauty,” another said.

“Watch out, though,” Brady said. “She’s a nasty one.”

I opened my eyes at that comment. “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” I asked, thinking a conversation would stop the dragging and kidnapping. Where was everyone? The streets were quiet. It was darker than usual- there didn’t seem to be any streetlights or headlights, either. The car that they were trying to get me into didn’t have any dome lights, either. I wondered what in the hell was going on.

The one with the gruff voice promptly zip-tied my hands behind my back and forced me to sit up.

“Ooh, yeah, she’s a pretty one,” he said.

“Yeah, well she’s mine,” Brady said.

“You mean yours first,” the second one said. They all chuckled at that, and my eyes popped out of my head in response. This was like some sort of Lifetime Friday night special. I wondered if this unoriginal turn of events was how most people met their maker. Trying to stay calm, I looked around for some sort of life, light, anything. I opened my mouth to yell for Pete inside, but my voice escaped me once again as they all got into the car.

“I’ll get her,” Brady said, walking towards the trunk of the car with a keyfob in his hand, as the two other guys got in the car.

He never knew what hit him.

His body twisted and twerked backwards in some sort of ridiculous yoga pose as he was hit squarely in the lower back. Arms flying back, the keyfob flew out of his hand, his eyes bulged in surprise, pain, or as the last bits of what life he had flew out of him, I’m not sure. It was almost comical, I can tell you that now. But maybe I shouldn’t speak of death in a comical way. His body froze in the awkward backbend yoga pose that it was forced into. My eyes couldn’t peel themselves off of his face and upper torso. At the same time, air bags went off in the car, knocking the other two guys in the car out. Things were happening too fast, and my brain just couldn’t process it all. It seems silly now, like I should have been completely aware of what was going on.

“Can’t escape me!” My savior shouted. I then looked to who was the source of the yelling, and my eyes took a turn to bulge. It was the regular from the end of the bar. He jumped off of the three-wheeled street racer, more nimbly than anyone would have guessed, and ran over to me, flipping a knife out and cutting my zip-ties. As I looked down to gaze into my rescuer’s eyes, another crash showered the side of my face with glass.

“Sorry about that!” Pete yelled, jumping out of an old pickup truck that was folded into the front of the car. If the two guys in the car weren’t dead before, they most certainly were dead now. The amount of blood and bits coating the interior of the car staggered me. “You ok?”

It was my turn to be rude. “Someone explain what is going on!”

“We don’t have much time,” Pete said.

“We have a moment,” the old timer said. “I’m Angelo. Thanks for agreeing to go on this date. It was the perfect setup to get these guys.”

“Um, what?”

“Listen, we need to put things right in just a couple of minutes,” Pete interrupted. “Time is a bit paused right now, which is why no one is around. There will be a taxi waiting for you at the end of the block in four minutes. Don’t ever speak of this again. Tell Krystal it didn’t work out. You know she won’t really mind.”

The two men helped me up. When I looked away from their kind faces, the cars and the men were gone. Lights were starting to spark around me, and I started to hear voices from the street.

I walked away, stupidly forgetting to say thank you. But, every time I drink a glass of red wine now, I tip the glass towards the end of whatever bar I’m at, and I swear I always see a shadow of a baseball cap and a round orange and yellow light there.