Your Father's Going To Come Into Your Bar Tonight. He'll Have Blood On His Shirt Day!
You'll come in to close the place up early. You've been doing that a lot lately. It's not even that there is any new competition in town pulling your customers away. The place is just in a slump.
If you stuck around for a year or two, you would probably see things pick back up. Towns like this one don't let their bars shutter. But you don't think in terms of years. You never intended to die in Texas.
"A guy finished The Heart Of The Lone Star State tonight," your bar-back will tell you.
The Heart Of The Lone Star State is a five pound slab of shitty steak. You got a bunch of them with the last meat order that came in right before you switched suppliers. You instituted that half-assed promotion to try and get rid of it. Anyone who finishes The Heart Of The Lone Star State drinks for free.
"How much booze did he hit me for?" you'll ask.
"Nothing," he'll say. "He didn't even seem to enjoy eating the steak. Just finished it like he had a job to do, then waited for me to take his Polaroid. Then he was gone."
The bar-back will point to the Polaroid on the bulletin board behind the bar. "Check out the steak sauce all over his shirt," he'll say.
When he points to the Polaroid, you'll be all the way across the bar sitting in a booth counting out that night's bank from the drawer. Something will pull you out of your seat and send you over to take a look at that Polaroid.
"What in the hell are you doing still alive?" you'll ask your father's frozen smile. Just then the window will shatter and the barback will take a bullet in the shoulder.
"Out back!" you'll shout when he falls into your arms. You'll drag him through the office out the back door and into your car. You'll peel away, watching in the rear view mirror as the flames quickly engulf your bar.
The barback will be bleeding and howling in the back seat. "Who was that? Was that the guy in the Polaroid?" he'll shout.
"Yeah," you'll say. "That was my Dad. He's been pretty pissed at me ever since me and my Mom left him to drown in a lake. Fucker's supposed to be dead." Then you'll explain to him that you're going to have to roll him out of the moving car at the Emergency Room's entrance because your Dad probably has you in his rifle site as you speak and you can't risk slowing down.
Happy Your Father's Going To Come Into Your Bar Tonight. He'll Have Blood On His Shirt Day!
