Out on the main street—shoot, she could not even recall the name of the street she worked on, the ill-fated highway to hell she had taken her last turn into Fort Somali from—Kylee could see pallet after pallet parachute onto the road surface in the snow, some hitting stalled cars.
Pah said, “See, look, the Feds cut the signals to the transgender autos, every tree-hugger is Somali food—havn’t I been tellin’ you Mah, and your keep-up-with-the-Jones brother…”
In the distance, a huge plane could be seen setting down over at the airport, thrice the size of an airliner, cartoon stupid in bulk, as if something like that could fly. She began to cry, was losing it as the Pabst over poured and ran down on her carefully selected no-slip shoes—“No, no, no, nooo!” she was crying, until a big hand on her shoulder, calmed her. It was the good-looking guy, the one they called Willy Mac, who she could have imagined dating before the world went to hell, like ten minutes ago.
“Good girl. Just pour the Pabst, I just put that keg in. It will hold all day and T&T worked off the head. A shotgun blast could be heard up front, along with the inhuman shriek of the she-wolf. Some other kind of gun punched the ceiling and more glass crashed. Insanely, she yet heard the sound of Wichita Phatz breaking a rack of pool balls—that game between him and one of the Well Whiskey Brothers continued.
‘Oh My God,’ she thought, ‘I’m already doing it, assigning nick names because I can’t recall the names thoughtfully spoken to me—is this Your Will, is it because we have grown so cruel?’
“Don’t cry,” shook the hand, the voice kind and steady, “It will be okay. We have a Xeno Hunter, and we have Norman, every man in here—well, except for Hazy IPA—will protect you.”
Kylee looked up behind her, thrilled that someone in here saw her as a human being, not just a cute face and an okay butt. She knew he was the guy that would recall her name and her pathetic little hand shake, wasn’t just some horn dog jock, but a real, decent, hard luck story from what her Uncle Red had always called The Great American Steppe. The big, forty-year-old, jock, still in decent shape, reached over the bar, holding her shoulder with kindness as the Pabst continued to pour over Mah’s mug, and smiled kindly, as Mah groused, “Bitch, you’re wasting good beer!”
“Oh, sorry, Miss,” Kylee apologized as she handed the mug towards Mah and Willy Mac passed it over, Mah answering, “Girl, I haven’t been a miss since the last time Pops here missed a beat on the coitus interuptus.” The old woman in the scooter chair then looked up at her husband of many decades, scrunched her eyebrows and asked, “What is your name, anyhow—what, its been sixty years since we met, the disappointments have wiped my mind clean—thank God!”
The big, wide-faced jock, friendly as can be, winked at Kylee as Dallas Jack prodded him in the ribs as one would expect of a high school chum, not a random, out-of-state middle-aged man, “Everything is going to be alright, Kylee.”
‘I knew it, he remembered my name—I’m an actual human to the only attractive man in the bar,’ she thought as a smile, too wanting for this short-lived job, creased her face; a short smile, not too glad, not too hopeful, not snarky, just welcome, “Thank you, Willy. I know your last name is probably not Mac. Thanks for calming me down. My first day behind the bar and its an End Of Days Special!”
He grinned very wide, a jack-o’-lantern wide grin, “Mac, that’s in honor of my spring training diet: mac n’ cheese. Once Major League Baseball banned beef, what with the mercury in the tuna, the ban on pork due to the Saudi Draft, well, I went with cheese. Grew up In Green Bay, was going to play football as tight end, but Dad was such a Kansas City Royals die-hard—”
The man was fairly leering over the bar at her, taking in her short legs and, not nearly big enough butt, too small breasts, with his hungry, over-active eyes, ignoring the gunfire out front as Pops cleared his throat for another beer and one of the Well Whiskey Brothers came to the bar for shots and Bud bottles…
Then the jangle of brass bangles under bouncing red hair and crazy green eyes, over big sweater bound swells, above totally too wide hips that must have taken two little sisters to get her sheathed into those jeans, interrupted her human moment. The brassy bitch dropper her glass on the bar, “Pabst, Buttercup,” and punched Willy in the shoulder with one hand then reached under the bar towards his groin with her other hand and demanded, “Dick still work, Willy? I know I’m not a 17-year-old bat girl who happens to be the owner’s niece—do you think you can knock this old girl up?”
Mah snorted out some beer, “Reverse cock block. Buttercup, thrown out at Second by the catcher trying to steal!”
‘I know I’m supposed to be pouring something, but, everyone else is watching, except for my boss who is, Oh yuck,’ and a Somali head scattered across the sidewalk out front.
Willy was enthralled by the super sexy forty-year-old honkytonk girl, “What, you’ve put me off for twenty years?”
“Hello, genius, because you fuck teenage bimbos. But, odds are you are the only white dick in here capable of getting the job done. So before I am gang raped by the army of skinnies you are about to fail to protect me from, I’d like some worthy American DNA to get a head start swimming upstream.”
Like that, Kylee was completely forgotten by the only person to recall her name, as Willy Mac was lead back to the ladies room by a supremely arrogant witch on sexy leather bootheels.
Mah followed her eyes, “Awes, suck it up, Buttercup, I’ll take some of that Apple Crown when you’re done with the rest of these drunks.”
As she nodded numbly and reached for the well whiskey, Bud bottles and Miller Highlife all the same time, stalling, she heard the wolfish shriek from up front along with the breaking of glass, punctuated by that Wichita Drawl, “Damn—girl, shied! Want me ta mount dis wedge head on a pool cue, or what?”
Hazy IPA vomited on the floor and Mah cackled like the wicked witch with the coldest breast in the west…
‘This is only my first day at work!’ and her warm tears streaking her cheeks assured her it was so as she heard a sultry echo from the restroom that made her groan…
