It was raining outside as Carter walked into the bar. His coat dripped a steady stream of water as he made is way to his usual seat. The stool rocked while Carter sat down forcing him to grip the bar for balance.
“I’ll have a glass of—,” he said before he was interrupted.
“Water,” Rosie, the bartender, finished.“That’s not what I had in mind,” objected Carter, shaking his head vigorously.
“No, but that’s what you need right now,” said Rosie, placing the tall glass in front, but just out of reach, of Carter. She watched him attempt to move the glass closer, but he misjudged the distance, knocked the glass, and sent water sloshing over the rim.
“I’m fine,” insisted Carter. But he didn’t look at Rosie. He starred down at the glass, shaking his head.
“Where have you been already tonight, Carter?” she asked carefully. “I know this isn’t your first stop.”
Carter seemed to be contemplating his answer, but remained silent. He was one of Rosie’s regulars, but he also frequented the other bars that lined the street, often on the same night.
“Can I have a straw?” he asked.
“I could call every bar from here to Jackson Street, but I’m not going to waste my time, Carter. I’m not serving you alcohol. You can thank me in the morning when you’re not hung over,” said Rosie. She handed him a straw and walked to help another customer.
Despite his wanderings up and down Brewery Boulevard, Carter’s favorite place was McNulty’s, Rosie knew that. He always came in at the same time every night she worked, regardless of where he had been drinking right before. Sometimes he stumbled in, having already drank somewhere else. Sometimes he walked in, and stayed all night. But she always poured him a glass of water when he sat down and he knew better than to ask for alcohol until she offered.
Carter was a relatively infamous topic of conversation for the bartenders of the boulevard. He wasn’t old enough to be drinking away the days until he died, like most of the bar-hopping locals. But he wasn’t so young that he drank for the sheer reason of becoming intoxicated. Carter had to be in his late twenties, the bartenders assumed because no one had ever checked his driver’s license.
He drank alone at the bars, never speaking to fellow patrons or bartenders.He did talk to Rosie, but never about anything personal, regardless of how many drinks he’d put down.
“I think I’ve had enough water for tonight,” said Carter.
Rosie had been refilling his glass like a Chinese restaurant waiter, never letting the glass get half empty, for over an hour.
“Do you need me to call you a cab?” offered Rosie.
“It’s been raining on my liver for the last hour. I’ll drive myself. There’s no sense in making someone else drive out in this rain to pick up a perfectly able man.”
Rosie knew Carter lived on the outside edges of town since she had called a cab for him many times before and though she had never been to his house, she knew the address by heart.
Though he didn’t drink anything worth paying for, Carter left money on the bar and collected his mostly-dry jacket. As he made his way to the door, he waved a good night to Rosie and disappeared out the door, the bell clanging his official departure.
As Rosie collected the tip Carter had left behind and smiled to herself, knowing he’d be back in two days when she worked again.
But there was something tucked into the folded twenty dollar bill when she picked it up.
Don’t go home tonight, the note said. It was written on a torn napkin.
Rosie wasn’t sure who the message was intended to reach, but she felt a strange prickle of fear trace down her spine. Looking around the bar, Rosie smiled at the last couple left for the night. She was alone and her thoughts started spinning.
If it was meant for Carter, she thought, he probably already saw it. But wasn’t he driving himself home? So perhaps he wasn’t actually going home, which meant he was safe. But what if he had intended the note to be for her and disguised it so the hand off of the message would be discrete?
Her mind couldn’t focus.
Carter had just left. She could still catch up with him to make sure he wasn’t on his way to his house. But what if she wasn’t supposed to go home? Well, she wouldn’t be going home if she was following Carter, so that would temporarily fix that issue, she figured.
Rosie scrambled around the bar looking for her car keys, decided she’d come back in the morning to clean before her boss arrived, turned off the lights and locked the doors behind her.
