The Barroom Dance

I can honestly say this has to be my third favorite bar in the world. Maybe fourth, depending on whether or not that dive just outside Richmond finally shut down. Ever since I moved into town a year ago, I’ve been a regular fixture in this bar. Smiling to myself, I raised a finger towards the bartender. Ivan, seeing my finger and knowing exactly what that meant, poured me a pint. “You break this one, you’re paying for its replacement,” Ivan scolded me, “Word from on high.”

I groaned at him. “That was one time. Once.”

Ivan chuckled. “And you’ll never live it down,” he joked as he returned to the other patrons. The patrons who tipped more than myself. Sipping my beer, I looked at the time. It was fast approaching go time. I smirked to myself, still sipping the beer. Tonight was going to be a doozy. And I was most definitely going to use the glass to instigate it, just not in a breaking sort of way.

As I was lost in thought, someone had seated themselves beside me, and in a soft, kind voice, asked, “Do you mind if I sit here?”

I looked up at the lovely woman now sitting next to me. “Not in the slightest,” I remarked, “Though, you might.”

“I might what?” she asked me, curiously. She knew exactly what I meant, just not why I meant it.

“End up minding sitting there,” I replied, not falling into the trap, not giving anything up that she didn’t already know. An important part of the game was the people who didn’t know it was one.

She gave me a halfhearted, sideways smile. “And why’s that?”

I shot her back the most knowing of grins I could muster, while still sipping on my beer. “I suppose you’ll just have to find out.”

She laughed. It was a pleasant laugh, a kind laugh. The kind of laugh that was either honest or perfected over years. I knew, because I’d perfected that laugh myself. Leaning over the bar, she raised two fingers, holding her credit card. Frank, noticing her and somewhat surprised at her choice of seats, wandered back over. She, still smiling pleasantly, said to him, “I’d like to open up a tab, and let’s start with a neat scotch.”

“Alrighty, miss,” Frank said, plucking her card from her fingers and approaching the register. He shot me a look that screamed, ‘You still good?’ I nodded, and Frank returned with a tumbler of scotch. “You sure you want to sit here?” he asked her.

She looked at him, confused. “What is it, is he like a serial killer or something?” she asked.

“What?” he replied, taken aback. I on the other hand simply smiled and shrugged.

“He literally just said I’d end up not liking my choice of seat, then you come in and ask about it as well. What’s wrong with him?”

I shrugged. “Mostly? I’m a horribly terrible person.”

Frank added on, “Really, he’s barely human.”

“No real sense of common decency, you know.”

She looked between the two of us as we said are clearly rehearsed spiel, then shook her head. “Not buying it. Something else is up.”

I shrugged. “Believe what you will, I suppose,” I replied as I took another sip of my beer.

She beamed a smug, overconfident grin at me. “I always do,” she said.

Frank leaned over and whispered in my ear, “God, It’s another you.” He was joking, but he wasn’t wrong. She was definitely stealing my hyperconfident swagger. With a discreet handwave, I sent Frank back to the other side of the bar. The time was fast approaching.

She extended a hand. “I’m Holly.”

“Somewhat nice to meet you, Holly,” I said, shaking her hand.

“Thanks for the honesty,” she replied. Then she looked at me expectantly. Clearing her throat, she said, “And you are?”

I smiled, mischief abound. “Most people just call me Ruiz.” It was true, even if it wasn’t an answer to the question.

“Well, it was very weird to meet you, Ruiz,” she said.

I liked her. “I appreciate the honesty. We should meet again sometime. Say, tomorrow?”

“Really? It was that bad?” she asked.

I laughed. “I’m not sure anyone likes their introductions being described as somewhat nice or weird. What do you say, same time same place tomorrow, we do proper introductions?”

“Never know, I might have met other, more interesting people by then.”

I shrugged. Time was almost upon us. “I’ll take that risk.” I could hear the jingle of the door opening. That’d be Paul now, I thought.

“Done,” she said with a nod, turning back to her scotch.

Perfect timing. I picked up my half-drunk beer and turned, walking towards the tables. In front of me was Paul, walking towards the bar. We both seemed like we weren’t paying attention. The bus boy was walking away from the pool cue area, meaning he’d put ours back on the rack. As I thought moments before, perfect timing. We bumped into one another, my beer spilling across his white shirt. As we pushed past, he whispered, “You ready, bro?”

I held back my chuckle. Of course, I was ready. I kept on walking like nothing happened. He stopped and turned to face me. “The hell, man?” he shouted, somewhat drunkenly.

I turned towards him, exaggerating my level of intoxication. “What’s wrong with you?” I slurred out. I could see the slight confusion in several pairs of eyes, the fear in a couple, and the interest in Holly’s. She knew I wasn’t this drunk.

“You just gonna stain my shirt and walk away without an apology?” he angrily said. One of the people sitting at the bar, not a regular, shot a worried look over at Frank. Frank went to comfort them.

“Beer don’t stain, my man,” I replied.

He stumbled towards me. “I said, apologize.”

I stood up tall but wobbling as though my balance weren’t consistent. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

He glared at me. Curling his right hand into a fist to cue me in on the opening, he took a swing. In general, we don’t script the fights. We follow a set of rules about dos and don’ts, but we never tell one another what we’ll attack or defend with beforehand. The only exceptions were the very beginning and the very end. We always telegraphed our first moves to each other, so it was clear to the uninitiated that this wasn’t just a bar brawl. And we always started at eleven and ended before 12:15. At midnight, we determined who was going to win by cheers of the crowd. The regulars had figured this out, but that didn’t make it any less fun. As his haymaker flew towards my head, I flipped towards it, grabbing his arm and using it as a spring for my front flip over Paul. That told Paul what my counter would be. Handspring meant I was flipping to the ground and using my arms against the ground to support a two-legged kick towards the back of his head. Planting my hands against the hardwood floor, I extended my legs just as he began a leaning dodge and twist, passing under my outstretched legs as I pushed off and over him once again. He continued his twist to face me. He clenched his fists and dropped into his fighting stance. I opened my hands and did the same. The regulars cheered. The normies looked in horrified and confused wonder at the beautiful and violent scene unfolding before them.

He came at me with a kick, feigning up then slamming his foot down at my head. Rather than try to defend, I intercepted his foot with my own, and locked the leg inside my knee’s crook. He used that to pull himself at me, slamming his elbow at my head. To dodge, I rolled back, letting go of his leg in the process. On the ground, I spun low, swing my leg towards his ankles. Paul leapt over the sweep, as I suspected he would, and I let the momentum bring up to my feet and continued the spin to bring a chop towards his abdomen as he was in the air. His foot found purchase on the pool table, and he pulled his body to a stop making my swing pass through the air as he stayed in a slightly leaning position. I pushed off the ground and planted a foot on a chair, then pushed my knee towards him. He blocked as he pivoted backwards, pushing my leg back down. My foot found purchase on the back of a second chair, and I used that as my own pivot, kicking at his side. He blocked with his leg. My foot bounced down to the pool table, and, jamming it in the pocket, I swung my whole body around to kick with my back foot. He leapt from the pool table onto a bar table, kicking an ashtray at me. Pushing hard off the table, I flipped over the ashtray and landed in a three-point stance. I saw where he was, it was time for phase two to begin.

He reached behind him, to the pool cue rack, and grabbed his cue. Spinning it around over his head to in front of him, he jabbed it towards me. I let myself fall backwards as the tip hit me in the chin. It hurt. Rolling back, I returned to my three-point stance, not outside his reach, as he spun onto the pool table with me, I slid across it, grabbing the thirteen ball and smashing it into the seam on his cue. To people who didn’t know better, it would seem like our hits were all strong enough to shatter wood, as the cue broke and the thinner half went spinning off onto the other side of the table. The people didn’t need to know that it was a broken cue held together by a weak adhesive. That wasn’t as fun of an idea. Having broken his cue, I cartwheeled off the table, back onto the floor, and pulled out my own cue. Giving it a couple of twirls, I held it behind me in my most aggressive looking stance. While his was a legit cue that had been pre-broken the first time, I had mine partially hollowed out, so it was much lighter than an actual cue, meaning I could do lots of fun fancy tricks with ease. Paul scrambled across the table, scooping up the other half of his cue, and fell into an aggressive, dual-stick stance as well.

The fight that ensued was glorious fun. We were both huge eastern cinema buffs, that’s what started this whole thing in the first place. We recreated that on-wires feel as best we could without harnesses or wires, using what we had around us to simulate things. Our shoes having small hooked grips on the soles to help us maintain balance in the most ridiculous of positions. The walls having similar surfaces, to allow us to pause on them when we wanted to emphasize our movements. Like wresting, we actually hit one another. And it actually hurt. But it was more important that we be entertaining than we beat each other. We kept our movements fluid, we kept our strikes full strength, and we never broke character. That third bit was key. We’d built this brand around believability. If we ever looked worried about one another during a fight, if we ever hesitated, well, it’d be the end of our Free-Beer-Fridays, and we’d never want that. So, we went all out at one another, the more ridiculous the better.

When midnight rolled around, we began the endgame. Rolling back after a particularly devastating shot to my knee, we began to circle one another, listening to the cheers. The audience was on his side today. Holly was silent. Frank was grinning ear to ear. He loved it when I had to lose. I nodded subtly towards Paul. Paul stopped his circling and fell into a stance. He was facing the bar, the audience, his arms at the ready, shoulder pointed towards me. So, I thought, he was doing the cartwheel of death. That wouldn’t be pleasant tomorrow morning. He leapt towards me, kicking down. I blocked it with my cue but let the force of the kick knock the cue out from my hand and to the floor. It clattered against the wood. His body continued the spiraling arc, and as the foot contacted the ground, his first half-cue came at my head. I deflected it with my elbow, exaggerating the effect it had. The other half came shortly afterwards, and once again I deflected it, this time letting it knock my arm down to my waist. Then came his back foot, and it found its mark on my shoulder, knocking my down on my rear as he continued his motion. Standing on my shoulder, his other foot came down, smacking into the back of my head and knocking my forward against the ground. Then, while I didn’t see it per se, I knew how it ended. He pushed off me, spinning around in mid air, and coming down, both sticks full force against the back of my head. Or so it would appear. In actuality, they struck against the floor just an instant before hitting my head, meaning it was little more than a minor headache. But I feigned unconsciousness and he stood up to the cheers of the crowd. He cast aside his half-cues, and approached the bar, ordering an old-fashioned. I watched as Holly left, a smile on her face.

The “medics” came and put me on a stretcher, carried me outside into the alley, and dumped me on the ground. I smiled up at them. “Thanks, man,” I said, having pretty much recovered form the whole thing.

Ralphie laughed. “Remember, bro, you’re unconscious. No going back to the bar.”

I shrugged. “Not much for me there left today,” I said.

I exited the alley and Holly was waiting for me. “Seem pretty functional for an unconscious guy,” she joked.

I smiled. “I recover fast. Why aren’t you enjoying yourself inside?”

“Why aren’t you?” she countered.

I laughed. “Remember? I’m unconscious.”

She shrugged. “After you went down, I got bored.”

“And yet I didn’t hear you cheering my name,” I said.

She grinned. “Nope. You didn’t.”

I smiled wide. “I honestly look forward to meeting you tomorrow.”

She laughed. “Me, too.” And with that, we went our separate ways. Or, tried to. Turns out we had to walk two blocks together in awkward silence before we actually went in different directions.

#firstperson #realisticfiction #story #fiction #modernity