3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Liam MacManus signed his name on the release paperwork, taking his copies when the guard behind the glass slid them through the narrow opening at the bottom. “You’ll need to meet your parole officer within twenty-four hours, and when you meet him, you’ll give him your address, phone number, and the rest of the information listed here. Do you need me to read it to you?”
Liam shook his head. “I can read it.”
“Good luck, and don’t come back here,” he said, and Liam finally looked into the man’s dark eyes. He was older, with a white, trimmed beard clashing against his dark skin. In his eyes, he held a confusing mixture of hope and resignation.
“I…I’ll try.”
When he left the prison walls and he was on the outside at last, the openness of it was suffocating. Liam had heard about the fear of freedom from long-timers inside, but he didn’t think he’d be the one to feel it.
But there he was, the intense desire to run to the gate and beg to be let back in, and he swallowed it as best he could while glancing over his shoulder.
“Liam,” someone called, and he saw a man beside a car twenty feet from him. It was the guy that visited him, the one who’d helped get him parole.
Suddenly, he felt better. Not because the guy was some savior, but because he had the distinct feeling that he’d gone from one prison to another. He’d be obliged to the guy, like it or not, and he was sure if he didn’t do everything Connor Murphy wanted, he’d be back in prison pretty quickly.
After making it to Murphy, he was proffered a hand and shook it, ducking his head a little. “Thanks for getting me out.”
“You’re welcome. Let’s get you to your new place and get you settled. Then I’ll show you around the place and introduce you to the guys you’ll be working with.”
Nodding, he watched Murphy open the back door of the SUV he was driving and then he took Liam’s bag, setting it on the back seat.
The drive was pleasant. It was a cool fall day, and the air felt good on his face.
“Nice to be out, huh?”
“Sure, I guess.” Murphy didn’t ask what he meant, but when Liam looked over at him, he was smiling. “Is that funny?”
“Maybe not funny, so much as familiar. You’re not the first person I’ve picked up from prison, and likely won’t be the last.”
“What are you, some do-gooder, or what?”
“I try to do good things, but you will work for the good things you get, too, Liam, and no, not as a hooker. I’ll explain things to you now, and later, I’ll explain more, but I want to tell you again, you are under no obligation to stay. I have friends who need workers, who have places for you to stay. I wouldn’t want, and really, if I’m honest, can’t afford to have people working for me that don’t want to be there.”
“Bartending?”
“Yes, Liam. That’s part of it, and for now, that’s all you need to worry about. Maybe that’s all you’ll ever have to worry about.”
The cryptic bullshit bothered him, but what could he do? “I, uh, have to see my PO.”
“I’m taking you there now. I have a phone for you back at the house, we’ve set up the number for you, so you’ll have a number to give him of your own. I have all the numbers to the pub, the landline at your place, and the addresses and such you’ll need. Might as well get it over with.”
Having all that set for him was nice, but he was too suspicious to be grateful yet. “Thanks,” he said half-heartedly.
Murphy chuckled. “I know all the things going through your head right now. You’re not the first to worry about what I want from you. I can’t ease all your worries right now. It’s just impossible. No matter what I say, you don’t trust me. I could be lying, right? So, I just have to show you, and eventually, hopefully, I’ll earn your trust, and you’ll earn mine. That’s all I can do right now besides the job and place to live.”
Liam felt bad, because, well, the guy got him out of prison, and he had a job and a home to go to. More than anyone else had ever done for him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be a prick.”
“It’s fine. You’ve just come out of a place where you learned to trust very few people and I’m sure even fewer people of authority, which you see me as. I’m your boss now, so I’m sure, to you, it feels like I’m the warden or a guard, but I assure you, you’ll have plenty of freedoms you never had inside. You’ll live your life as you wish, if it doesn’t cross me or my business.”
“Like…what do you mean by that?”
“Don’t steal from me, Liam. That’s what I mean by that. Don’t talk to people about me or anyone at the pub, except the things you have to say to, well, your parole officer. Are we together on this?”
“I’m no snitch! That’s what got me put inside!”
Murphy nodded and glanced over at him. “I know. You will not have an issue with that again. I assure you of that, Liam.”
Liam swallowed and thought about that statement. He wouldn’t have to worry about snitches. He was going to work a straight job, he was told. Why would he have to worry about snitches?
“Don’t hurt your head worrying over that,” Murphy said, as if reading his mind. “Just know for now, you’re going to have to work on being one of my bartenders. And, oh, I need to tell you, you won’t be called Liam.”
“I won’t?”
“Your new name is Cosmo.”
Barking a laugh, he asked, “Cosmo?”
After a good laugh, Murphy said, “Yeah, like cosmopolitan, the drink. All my bartenders have drink names. It’s good for the pub, and good for you. Helps keep stalkers at bay, for one. If they don’t know your real name, they can’t find you online and stalk you. We had a guy years ago, and he told this one-night stand his name. After my guy didn’t want to see him again, he started getting harassed by his PO, and we found out the guy he dumped was calling in reports. Some people are vicious.”
“Damn. Okay, well, I can’t pick my own?”
“Sorry. It needed to be a red drink, and well, I thought Cosmo fit you.”
Bristling at that, he said, “I’m not some flame boy, flitting around like a fairy.”
Murphy lost his smile, and his fists tightened on the steering wheel. “Keep up that talk and our association is over. We have all kinds of gay men that work at the pub. If one is more feminine than others, he’s as important as anyone else. We respect each other, Liam. Get that through your head now. There will be no slurs, no racism, internalized homophobia or any other bullshit. I get it, in jail you might have had to set yourself apart from other races and others that are gay and trans, but this isn’t prison, and I won’t have it. You understand?”
For some reason, that particular ass chewing made him feel better instead of worse. “Yeah, yeah, I got it. Sorry. I guess…I guess, yeah, it was prison. I’ve had religious folks around me too, so…it’s…”
“Liam, we have guys that were kicked out of their loving families for being gay. I understand, believe me. My father is less than thrilled his son is, and this is a direct quote, a fudge packer . But he’s accepted my husband, even grown quite fond of him and absolutely adores my children, so I’ve vowed to forgive his stupid remarks for his coming much further around than a lot of men his age, his religion and his background. It’s difficult for all of them to change, but if they’re trying, we can try too, right?”
“I guess. I have nothing to do with mine, but it’s not me being gay. He doesn’t know I am.”
Murphy got quiet, like he was waiting for Liam to explain, but Liam refused to explain. He hated his father with a blinding passion.
“Fair enough. Now, we’re getting off on a hundred and fourth up here. About twenty more minutes to the PO, and then we’ll head down to the city after to get you settled. I’ll need a list of things for you, foods you like, clothes size, things like that.”
“Why?”
“We do big shopping trips. We have cards at all those discount bulk places, so we shop for food together, but you can also shop for yourself once you earn a check. Eazy, my husband, he can set you up with a bank account, get you rides to shop for clothes, whatever, until you can get a car,” he said, then stopped and glanced over at him. “I should say, buy a car.”
Liam saw him laughing, and he did too. It was good not to feel horrible guilt, or even pretend to. “I promise, no stealing.”
After Murphy got quiet, Liam thought Murphy didn’t believe him, but he refused to push the matter. He wasn’t going back to prison. He’d made it through without being raped or beaten, and he wanted that record to stand.
Not that men hadn’t tried. Liam had had to fight a lot, but he’d fought most of his life. He knew how strong he was, how to throw a punch, and how to use his entire body to keep attacks at bay.
“Here we are,” Murphy finally said as he drove into a parking lot next to a three-story brick building that loomed over him, creeping into his mind as a scary place where one wrong word would send him back to prison. “Listen, I know your PO. He was the same one that a couple of my guys had. He’s not a bad guy. He doesn’t want to throw anyone back in jail. In fact, he sees his job as the opposite, to keep you out of there.”
What struck him first was relief, then suspicion grew through that, blooming like a daisy through a block of concrete. “How do you know who my PO is?”
“I know a lot more than you might think, and don’t know half as much as I should.”
The best kind of cryptic bullshit. Connor Murphy swam in that.
The meeting went well enough. He was given a list of dos and don’ts, told when he had to check in, which wasn’t as often as he thought. Once a month, and if he had to work, work came first, so they’d do a Skype session or FaceTime.
He also said that every one of the guys that worked for Murphy stayed out of jail. That was good news, but Liam was still suspicious.
Driving after the meeting, he was more relaxed, and he could take in the city better. It had changed little in the five years he’d been inside. A few more apartment buildings, some new stores, the cars were much the same on the freeways.
Elitches was still there, Bronco Stadium was too, though he never did remember the real name of the place, named for whatever corporation owned it at that point in time.
“You miss it?”
Liam nodded a little. “I did, yeah. As much as anyone could miss a city.”
“Well, this one is home to me and mine. My grandfather came over from Boston when he was about twenty and fell in love with the state first, then this city. It wasn’t as big back then, of course, but he grew with it.”
“And…this place you run, it’s that old?”
“He bought it in 1962. It was just a neighborhood bar, small, quiet, but the men in the neighborhood loved it. After my dad inherited it, he let it go some. It was mostly his cronies that came in and they rarely paid the huge tabs my father let them run.”
In awe of some of that, Liam said nothing. What he heard next, however, made him respect the man a little more.
“The businesses on that block were all taking a hit, though. There was an old dress shop that hadn’t changed out their stock in thirty years, a television repair shop that wasn’t getting any business, once TVs started being so cheap. Shame, but once they all closed, I put myself in major debt and bought half the block. Then there was tearing down walls and the reno, which, believe it or not, was more expensive than the purchases.”
“How’d you do it?”
“The banks saw my business plan, and well, I bullshitted well enough that they gave me the loan. I figured it wasn’t me, though. It was gentrification. People were already going into those neighborhoods and buying up property cheap, fixing them up and selling to trendy businesses like coffee shops, yogurt shops, crap like that. And I can’t talk. I gentrified the pub too. I couldn’t afford to keep it just a local pub for a few old guys anymore. I made it into a gay bar, but we get plenty of women in the place too. Our bartenders, their shows, they draw enormous crowds on the weekends. We make plenty of money now, but it’s about more than that. My husband was a bartender. He’d been in prison, and he got out and came to me, working his ass off and he decided it was better to be outside the prison walls than inside.”
So, Liam thought, he was a do-gooder, but that wasn’t a bad thing. He could use some good done for him for a change. “Thanks for helping me out. I’m not good at…”
“Expressing that. No worries, Liam. Not everyone belongs in prison their whole lives. Some are there simply because they never got the chance to make their lives better.”
“I guess.”
They got to the area and parked in a reserved place on the side of a three-story brick building. Murphy got out and took Liam’s sack of clothes from the back seat and then led him to the corner of the block, where the entrance to the pub was located. “We go in the side entrance, usually, but I wanted to give you a tour of the place right away before I show you your room.”
“Cool.”
They went through the double doors and ended up in a dim room that was only bright enough to see where they were. There were neon lights here and there and sconces on the walls, but the lights were dim.
There were tables and booths and a long bar that was polished dark wood, metal stools that looked like they were made of gears or something that better belonged in a factory.
The back of the bar was long, mirrored, and sectioned into three, two smaller mirrors on the sides flanking the huge one in the middle. All were framed by ornate wood scrolls, and there were shelves that began halfway down them all, iridescent lights showing the perfect lines of bar glasses beneath the shelves of liquor bottles.
There were a few patrons on the barstools, but the place was quiet and only a television over the right side of the bar could be heard.
The men barely glanced back at them, one nodding to Murphy, and another giving him a wave. “Hello, fellas! Where is Goldie?”
“Went to get a new keg,” One of the men said as he shook Murphy’s proffered hand.
“Good. Let me introduce you to the fresh face in the pub. This is Cosmo,” Murphy introduced, and all the men looked him over before mumbling hellos.
“Cosmo will join us on the weekends soon, but I thought I’d throw him in tomorrow's day shift with Goldie to learn the ropes.”
One of the men, a grizzled old fucker, said, “He gonna shake his ass on the weekends too?”
“Yeah, Mack. He will, and you won’t be here, so what do you care? As long as you get your afternoon Guinness.”
“Fair enough,” he said before turning back to his glass of dark beer.
Murphy informed Liam, “We still have the local boys in here on most days, sipping their beer while complaining about the economy, their taxes, price of eggs, and the youth of today.”
Before Liam could think of how to respond to that, a huge black man came through the curtain to the right of the bar with a keg of beer slung over his shoulder like it weighed a couple of pounds. “Hey, Murph!”
“Goldie, there you are. Set that thing down. You know I told you to use the hand truck.”
The huge guy set the keg down behind the bar and walked back around to Liam and Murphy, nodding to Murphy. “You know it’s not that heavy for me. I need the workout.”
“Yeah, you’re so flabby,” Murphy drawled with biting sarcasm. “Meet our newest. This is Cosmo.”
A big paw was offered to him, and he took it, watching his own hand be swallowed in it. “Nice to meet you, Cosmo.”
“Yeah, you too,” he said meekly. He hated being around people. Even in prison, he’d kept to himself in his cell or in the yard.
When he wouldn’t make direct eye contact, Goldie finally turned his attention back to their boss. “I’ll get this new keg set up, then do the books for you.”
“Mims is busy?”
“He’s got a new daddy,” Goldie said dryly. “One date and he’s already hooked.”
“Great. Good thing we have a new worker to take up the slack this week.”
“Eh, I don’t give it an entire week.”
Murphy started walking and called for Liam to follow, so he did, and they went through a set of thick black curtains.
All the walls were old brick, some with plaster over them, but the brick showed through the plaster in places which looked strategic.
There was conduit and piping on the ceiling, vents showing, but that only added to the industrial feel of the place. All the wood tables and booths were dark, thick, and what leather there was over cushions was deep red.
Old bar signs and neon lights covered the walls, shamrocks anywhere there weren’t bar signs, and once they passed by a set of double doors that had signage for patrons to keep out, he looked to the left to see walls of windows that showed a nice outdoor area for the patrons to sit on nicer evenings.
“This place is big.”
“It is. We don’t open these back areas except on weekends, when we get crowds, though. We like to keep all the patrons where we can see them easily, and our nighttime cleaning crew doesn’t have to look all over for messes.”
After heading across the patio outside, there was a door next to the bathroom. It was metal and locked, with another sign that read Employees Only . After Murphy looked through what must have been twenty keys on his ring, he found the right one and unlocked the door. “I’ll get my husband to get you a set of the one’s you’ll need.”
There were concrete stairs heading down, and metal stairs that rose to the upper floors. They went one flight up the metal stairs to reach a landing with another metal door. “The stairs across from the patio at the end by the kitchens and other bathrooms lead to my place. I have two floors for my family and me. This one, one floor up from the other set of bathrooms, is where Goldie, Hippy, and Mims live. You don’t live on this floor.”
“Hippy?”
“Hypnotic, but as you’ve heard already, they all have nicknames for each other that have stuck. Hippy is…well, he’s into blues music. Like very much into it.”
“Okay, so no going on this floor.”
“Didn’t say that. Once you get to know the guys, you’ll feel comfortable on this floor or yours. But both floors have a common living room and kitchen for you guys, and two big bathrooms.”
They traveled up again and came to another landing. “Okay, the top floor is yours, Haze’s, and Absinthe’s.”
As Murphy opened the door, he right away saw a long, wide hall with three doors in front of him. “Starting on the left is Abs, then Haze, and that end door is your bedroom. Across here are the two bathrooms for you guys, and through the hallway there is the living room and kitchen. Yours is pretty comfortable, done like the rest of the place, industrial, masculine. The others’ common area is done in mid-century modern style. I only know any of that because my husband designed all the areas. Let’s get you settled into your room, and I’ll leave you be for now to get used to the place on your own for a while. Then later, I can introduce you to everyone.”
Not that he was looking forward to that, but he was happy to get to his room.
Murphy led him to his door and opened it for him, waving an arm over the opening. “Done in red and white. The room colors go with the color of your nickname. You can change whatever you like if you decide to stay.”
“Thanks. I know I haven’t seemed…really grateful, but I am.”
Murphy smiled warmly. “It’s a lot to get used to after jail, I’m told. Oh, and if you need anything, there is a door off the kitchen and living room that leads to our place. Hit the buzzer if it’s locked. Also, there is another door down in the other bartender's apartment. That leads to our place too, and that is what you’ll take tonight. We’re all having dinner together to welcome you. I promise, you can eat and book it out of there if it’s too much, but at least you’ll put names to faces, and you’ll also meet my kids, my dad, everyone.”
“Thanks. I’ll try to stay the entire dinner,” he said with a slight chuckle.
“Good. I’ll call you when it’s time. Go in the room, get comfortable, and we’ll see you at dinner.”
After Murphy left, he went into the room, closing the door behind him. It was a beautiful room, big and spacious.
The walls, curtains, and big area rug was a bright, cheerful red, and the wood floors painted a dull white. There was a small television mounted on the long wall and a loveseat across from it.
A queen size bed with a bright white duvet and a ton of pillows took up the center of the room, but he moved past it as he set his bag on the duvet. There were two long windows at the end of the room, and from there, he saw downtown that was only a few blocks away, and to the right, he saw the Rocky Mountains stretching from north to south.
Gorgeous view, beautiful building, and nice people. And Liam MacManus didn’t trust it a bit.
He’d had a nice home once. A loving family, or so he thought. In front of the kids, there were smiles, there were cheerful voices, and singing hymns each night as their mother played the piano.
The walls were painted a muted yellow or a soft white. The gleaming wood floors were always polished and the rugs over them clean. But there were signs. There were hints that something was terribly wrong.
If Liam could see that, even as an eight-year-old child…
Pushing those thoughts away, he turned and unpacked his clothes and placed them either into the small closet or the bright white dresser. The few books he had were stacked on the dresser, and he found the remote for the television in a drawer.
He set the TV onto a channel he would not watch and paced. That was what he did when he was stressed. He paced.
Before he’d gone to prison, he’d taken long walks. Sometimes he’d walk miles, just trying to outrun his thoughts. Then in his cell, he’d pace so much his cellmate would scream and beg him to stop. He didn’t because he couldn’t. Once his movement stopped, his thoughts began.
The television blocked most of them, but when he sat on the bed, he became antsy. Deciding to get a jump on learning about his new place, he left the room and checked out the two bathrooms first.
They were normal bathrooms, except they both had stalls in them instead of a single toilet. He guessed they were for privacy because if both bathrooms were occupied, no one had to wait.
Each had a tub with a showerhead, so he could choose, and he knew already he’d only use the showers. The last bath he took was when he was a little boy with his two brothers. So long ago…
The kitchen and living room were, as Murphy said, thick raw wood on the countertops, copper handles and fixtures.
The place was great, but what was the catch? There was always a catch. As Liam took a banana from a metal basket on the kitchen island, he felt as if he were stealing. Chewing it, looking around, he knew there was a catch.
Little did he know that soon he’d know exactly what that catch was. Far before anyone was ready for him to know.