Just keep Walking

“Whisky” the man croaks to the middle aged bartender.

“Right away sir” the balding bartender replies, pouring a drink for another one of the bars customers.

The man must be at least 40; his hair and unshaven face are grey. His trench coat clings to him, wet from the rain. Two empty glasses of whisky sit on the counter; he stares at them while waiting for his drink. His ID says his name is John, John Erickson. The bartender returns pouring him another glass of whisky.

“Put it on my tab Joe” John mumbles as the bartender walks away.

He looks up, towards the television set in the right hand corner of the bar. Baywatch, he scoffs returning to his drink. The stuff they put on TV these days, depressing really. He downs the rest of his drink and takes a handful of mixed nuts, he orders yet another whisky.

“You alright John? Usually you stick to two drinks a night” Joe, the bartender asks.

“I’m fine Joe, just pour the whisky” John says, while thinking how he’s possibly going to pay for the whisky, even when he had a job he had some trouble paying for his drinks, but now that his whole company had to shut down, so some big corporation could have a new office…

He downs his last glass of whisky, and heads towards the bathroom. Slipping just slightly on the wet floor he makes his way to the sink. He washes his hands and quickly splashes some cold water on his face. He takes a brown paper towel and wipes away the water, looking back at himself through the cracked mirror. His blue eyes split into 4 separate pieces; he shakes his head and throws away the paper.

Wrinkling his nose as he hears a groan coming from one of the red bathroom stalls, or at least they used to be red, before the up and coming artists and poets of hells kitchen decided to show off their work in splendid fashion. John chuckled as he quickly read one of the poems on the door, hidden among the many phone numbers with the prefix of “for a good time call: ….” Stepping over the small puddle on the bathroom floor he stepped back out into the bar, heading towards the exit.

“See ya later Joe!” John called as he pushed open the door, getting a blast of wind to the face.

“Take care, John” Joe called back, changing the TV station to ESPN, for the Monday night game.

John stepped out onto the street, zipping up his coat in a futile attempt to keep out the rain. Behind him the bars blue neon sign flashed “Murphy’s bar and grill” well technically it flashed “Murph ‘s bar a d g ill” but that didn’t matter much. “Back home, to the classifieds” John thinks moving forward. He thinks about hailing a taxi and then decides he’d rather walk tonight.

He passes by some graffiti artists going to work on the red brick wall of some apartment complex. John pauses a minute to admire the work, he doesn’t care what other people say some of the greatest artists in the world nowadays live in hells kitchen, not in some Italian villa overlooking a lake.

He walks forward a while and walks into a 7/11, picking up the latest copy of the local newspaper and a bottle of Budweiser. He brings his items to the counter and plops them down unceremoniously, the latest gangster rap song playing quietly on the store speakers.

“$4.50, sir” the acne ridden clerk says, putting the beer and newspaper in a paper bag.

John reaches into his pocket and pulls out his last twenty dollar bill, he hands it to the clerk, while at the same time grabbing the bag. He takes his change and shoves it back into his pocket, and walks back outside. He takes the newspaper out of the bag and sticks it into his inside coat pocket as well as popping the cap off of his beer while keeping it in the paper bag.

As he takes a drink he sees a girl, she can’t be older than 17. Wearing a mini skirt, high heels, and a belly shirt, she’s sucking on a red lollipop while pushing a baby in a pink stroller. She pushes past him while flipping her long brown hair over one shoulder, and walking into the same 7/11 John had just barely left. “That must be her sister” John reasoned, though he knew that it probably wasn’t true.

He kept walking, home, to his wife, his Wife! He hung his head, his wife was barely making enough money to put food on the table, much less pay the bills. He sighed; this was not going to end well when he got home. He kept walking the rain soaking him to the bone. An ambulance and police car sped fast sirens blazing, managing to splash the already soaked john with even more water. John groaned. “Could this day get any worse?”

Twenty minutes later he came across a donut shop. Outside was the ambulance and police car from before. The paramedics were putting a dead body into a black body bag. John looked closer and sighed, the boy was only 15 or 16, a bullet hole, in the forehead, between the eyes, no chance. He watched the paramedics put the body in the ambulance and drive away, the police car staying behind to investigate the crime scene. Deep in his heart John wish they would be able to find the killer, put him in jail, so he could spend the rest of his life afraid of bending over to pick up the soap. But he knew the chance that the cops would probably never find him, they almost never did. It wasn’t there fault though; it’s hard to pin down a single criminal in a city where almost 50% of the population has broken the law in one way or the other.

John started walking again, not wanting to stay around long enough for the investigators to start asking him questions. He stumbled into the poorest section of town. His apartment was on the other side of town. He saw a crazy old woman smashing bottles on the sidewalk in front of what used to be a house. John remembered her, her house had burned down two years ago. Back then she wasn’t so crazy. John crossed the road to the other sidewalk, just in case the old woman decided he was a better target for her bottles than the sidewalk was.

He passed by a back alley, inhabited by hobos and stoners. In most cases they fit both roles. He kept walking, keeping his mind on one goal, to get home. Maybe take a warm shower, then get to bed, he’ll tell his wife the bad news in the morning, when he can think straight again. He passed house after house, windows boarded up, people sleeping on the front porch. John reminded himself from now on he’d take the taxi, if he could afford it.

Looking down at his shoes he looked up just in time to realize someone had a gun to his head. He quickly looked over his attacker but couldn’t discern much, they were short, barely 5 feet tall, skinny too. He couldn’t tell much else however, the person wearing all black, including a black ski mask and black gloves.

“Give me your money!” his attacker yelled, he was young, his voice had just started cracking.

“Here, take it” John said, handing him the money from his coat pocket.

“This it?” the mugger asked.

“Yes it is” John said, hoping the mugger would just take the money and run.

“Well that’s a shame then” the boy said as he pulled the trigger, point blank, to the head, no chance.

Funny thing being shot, you never hear the shot till about 10 seconds after its hit you, by which time your usually dead anyway. John’s legs gave out on him, he fell to the ground, his head colliding with the pavement. The last he saw were the red converse shoes of his mugger. He closed his eyes, in the distance he heard a radio playing “It’s a beautiful morning”, John groaned, and he was gone.