Chapter 12 Jay
The bar is called The Rusty Nail, which is the kind of name that tells you everything you need to know before you even walk in the door.
Dim lighting that hides more than it reveals, sticky floors that make your shoes peel up with every step, a jukebox in the corner that only plays country songs from twenty years ago.
The alcohol is cheap and nobody asks questions as long as you pay your tab at the end of the night and don't start trouble with the regulars.
I've been coming here ever since I turned twenty-one and could finally drink somewhere other than my motel room, could sit at a bar like a normal person instead of hiding in the dark with a bottle.
It's not a good bar. It's not even a decent bar. But it's mine, in the way that places become yours when you show up often enough that the bartender knows your order before you open your mouth and the regulars nod at you when you walk in.
I have my spot at the end of the bar, my back to the wall so I can see the door, so nothing can sneak up on me. Most nights I sit there alone and drink until the noise in my head goes quiet enough to tolerate.
Tonight is a Friday, which means the bar is more crowded than usual.
There's a group of guys in the corner playing pool, loud and drunk and laughing at jokes I can't hear.
A couple at a table near the window, leaning close and talking soft, their hands intertwined on the table.
A few solo drinkers scattered along the bar like me, minding their own business, nursing their own demons.
I'm three whiskeys in and starting to feel that familiar warmth spreading through my chest, that loosening of all the tight places inside me that are usually clenched like fists.
I'm not drunk—I'm never really drunk, not the way some people get, sloppy and stupid and stumbling. I just drink enough to blur the edges.
The bartender, a guy named Rick, refills my glass without me asking. I nod my thanks and take a sip, letting the burn settle in my stomach, warming me from the inside.
That's when I notice the guy.
He's sitting a few stools down from me, and he's been glancing my way for the past half hour.
Early thirties, maybe. Dark hair, nice smile, clean-cut in a way that says he doesn't belong in a place like this.
He's drinking a beer and pretending to watch the TV above the bar, but every few minutes his eyes slide over to me and linger.
I know what that look means. I've seen it before, in other bars, other places. It's the look that says he's interested in me, that he's trying to figure out if I'm interested too, if this is something worth pursuing.
I've never been with anyone. Male or female.
Never had the time, never had anything in my life stable enough to let someone else in.
But sitting here alone on a Friday night with whiskey in my blood, he seems harmless enough.
Seems like someone I could share a beer with, watch the game with, maybe talk to like a normal person for once.
He picks up his beer and starts to move toward me, sliding onto the stool next to mine.
"Hey," he says, his smile friendly and easy. "I'm Daniel."
"Jay," I respond, taking another sip of my whiskey.
"You come here a lot?"
"Most weekends," I say. "You?"
"First time. I'm just passing through town, thought I'd find somewhere to have a drink before I head out tomorrow." He leans in a little closer. "Lucky, I picked this place."
For one moment I let myself imagine what it would be like to let someone in, to feel something other than alone for once in my miserable life.
"What the fuck is this?"
The voice comes from behind us, loud and slurred and ugly, cutting through the bar noise. I turn and see one of the guys from the pool table, a big guy with a red face and a sneer that tells me exactly where this is going before it even starts.
"I said, what the fuck is this?" He's looking at me and Daniel, at the way we're sitting close. "You two faggots trying to turn this place into a gay bar?"
Daniel stiffens beside me, his friendly expression evaporating. "Hey, man, we're just having a drink. No need for—"
"I'm not talking to you," the guy interrupts, taking a step closer, and I can smell the beer on his breath, can see the mean glint in his eyes.
He's not drunk enough to be sloppy, just drunk enough to be brave, drunk enough to think he's invincible.
"I'm talking to him. The one who's been sitting here every weekend like he owns the place.
Always knew there was something wrong with you. Something off."
I should walk away. I know I should walk away, know it in my bones.
This is not a fight I need to have, not a hill I need to die on.
I could throw some cash on the bar, head out the back door, disappear into the night the way I've been disappearing my whole life.
That's what I should do. That's what the smart part of me is screaming at me to do.
But something in me doesn't want to disappear tonight. Something in me is tired of being invisible, of keeping my head down, of swallowing every insult and ignoring every slight because that's what survivors do. I've been surviving my whole life and I'm so goddamn tired of it, so tired of running.
"Walk away," I tell him. "Go back to your game."
"Or what?" The guy laughs, and his buddies from the pool table are drifting over now, three of them, all big, all drunk, all looking for entertainment, for blood. "What are you gonna do, faggot? Cry about it? Run home to your boyfriend?"
Daniel is standing up, backing away, his hands raised in a placating gesture. "Jay, let's just go. It's not worth it. These guys aren't worth it."
He's right. He's absolutely right. But I'm not moving. I'm just sitting there on my barstool, looking at this guy who thinks he can say whatever he wants to me because I'm alone and outnumbered. And because people like him have been saying things like this my whole life and getting away with it.
"Last chance," I say quietly. "Walk away."
He doesn't walk away. Instead, he reaches out and shoves me hard.
Hard enough that I nearly fall off the barstool, and I'm on my feet before I even think about it, years of survival instincts kicking in all at once, muscle memory from group homes and foster placements and a lifetime of learning to fight or die.
He swings at me and I duck, come up inside his reach, and drive my fist into his stomach with everything I've got, with all the rage I've been carrying for years.
He doubles over, gasping, and for a second, I think maybe that's it, maybe he'll back off, maybe this can still end without anyone getting seriously hurt.
Then his friends pile on.
The next few minutes are chaos. Pure, brutal chaos. Fists and bodies and the crash of barstools hitting the floor, glass breaking, people shouting. I'm fighting on instinct, the way I learned to fight in group homes and foster placements, dirty and desperate and not caring about rules or fairness.
I take a punch to the face that makes my vision go white, makes stars explode behind my eyes.
I feel my knuckles split open against someone's jaw, feel the skin tear and the blood start to flow.
There's blood in my mouth, metallic and warm, and blood on my hands and someone is yelling, maybe me, maybe someone else, I can't tell anymore.
I'm holding my own for a while. I'm smaller than these guys but I'm faster, meaner, more willing to do damage, more willing to hurt and be hurt.
I break someone's nose with my elbow, feel the cartilage crunch under the impact.
I kick someone in the knee and hear them go down with a scream.
But there are four of them and one of me, and eventually the numbers catch up. Eventually the odds win.
A fist connects with my temple and the world tilts sideways, goes fuzzy at the edges. I stagger, try to stay upright, and then someone tackles me from behind and I'm on the ground, on the sticky floor of The Rusty Nail, and they're kicking me. Ribs, stomach, back, anywhere they can reach.
I curl up into a ball and try to protect my head, try to ride it out the way I used to ride out beatings when I was a kid, when Henderson's belt came down and all I could do was survive it.
The pain is familiar. That's the worst part, the thing that breaks something inside me. The pain is familiar and somewhere in the back of my mind, underneath the survival instincts and the adrenaline, I'm thinking about Henderson.
Goddammit.
About his belt coming down on Ivan's back. About the sound Ivan made when he got hit, that small gasp of pain he tried so hard to hold back. About how I couldn't protect him then and I can't protect anyone now, not even myself.
Sirens. Someone must have called the cops.
The kicking stops and I hear shouting, hear the bartender yelling at everyone to get out, hear the chaos of people scattering like roaches when the lights come on.
I lie there on the floor, tasting blood, staring at the ceiling through one eye that's already starting to swell shut.
Two cops haul me to my feet roughly, their hands hard on my arms. My ribs scream in protest but I don't make a sound, because I don't make sounds when I'm hurting. Showing pain gives people power over you.
"You're under arrest," one of them says, and he's cuffing my hands behind my back, metal biting into my wrists, and I don't resist because what's the point. "Disorderly conduct, assault and battery. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you..."