Top-Shelf Whiskey, an excerpt

There was something quite golden about the light that peaked out of Desperado’s and onto the street. A welcomeness rang from its warmth, and its subtlety kept this exclusive somehow. Or at least, this is how it seemed to Logan as she stumbled upon the place on one particular evening in late September. The wind was sweeping deep into downtown now, catching rebounds off buildings on the square and rustling all the fallen leaves.

Logan had locked her keys in her car after work and braced herself imperviously for the two-mile walk home. In a single instant, though, she traded it for a chance that the golden light — shone out through the slit windows of the bar’s narrow storefront — would lead to something promising. I gotta’ dive in sometime, I guess, she told herself.

Desperado’s, even before that was its name, had always been intentionally lit to lure. Its first owner, Tweed Mummert, engineered all the wall lamps to reflect off the original copper ceiling so the glow would catch the eye. Over the maple bar were suspended yellow glass lanterns. And lining a brick wall was a long wooden counter with protruding tabletops and green vinyl-topped stools underneath. Hardly any of the interior furnishings had been replaced inside since Tweed first opened the bar as The Gin Joint 50 years before. He’d named it for a Humphrey Bogart line in “Casablanca,” romanticizing what sort of meet-cutes and clandestine gatherings he thought would assemble there.

Then, the college’s enrollment was at its pre-Vietnam peak, flooding The Joint with conservative towney know-it-alls, well-off but progressive college students, and a crowd of anti-war hippies stopping in town on a rail layover. Ownership fell to his younger brother Sawyer when Tweed died after 30 years. He changed the name of the bar to Desperado’s, paying homage to the town’s bootlegging history — whatever it was. And when Sawyer too went within a decade, the bar was left to Tweed’s eldest son Alec.

Of course, Logan didn’t know any of this when she stepped through the front door. Immediately, she was taken aback by how small the place seemed. It was a Friday, and only a few locals and students sat sprinkled throughout the place. She folded her jacket over her forearm and pressed her torso against the bar, peering around for the keep on hand. After a minute, a middle-aged man appeared, distracted by a crumbled pile of receipts in his hands. He looked out over eyeglasses positioned at the edge of his nose and surveyed his surroundings. 

“Have you been helped?” the man asked. He disposed of the receipts into the back pocket of his jeans. Logan shook her head. “What’ll it be?”

“What whiskey do you have?”

“Which are you looking for?” His hands came to the edge of the bar, leaning himself toward her. “You look like a top-shelf kind of gal. Am I right?”

“I’ll take—” she began, her voice tapering off a moment. “Jack and diet.”

“You got it, sweetheart.” The man winked at her, as he jammed a glass into a tub of ice. “Runnin’ on that Tennessee oil!”

He walked to the other end of the bar and whisked up a black-labeled bottle of Jack Daniels Old No. 7. Logan loved a good whiskey. Sitting on a nearby stool, she pulled a thick book out from the bottom of her bag, letting it plop on the bar before rummaging around for her wallet. Desperado’s was an old-school, cash-only place; and patrons were reminded of this everywhere by large bold signs hung along the back wall.

After leaving a handful of quarters, Logan began flipping for her place in the book, Callus On My Soul: A Memoir. She’d read a few words when the man reappeared, staring quizzically at her.

“What d’ya got there?” he asked. “We don’t get a lot of reading in this kind of place.”

“It’s Dick Gregory,” Logan replied, “and I always have a book on me.”

“The comedian?” He’d put her drink down and was leaning against the bar again.

“Yeah, the comedian. And the activist, too.” She smiled at his apparent incognizance as he turned to shuffle away. For a moment, she watched him walk — fixated on the crescent shapes his ass took in those jeans. Damn, he got me, she thought. What a fucking cutie.

***

Logan was still running on that Tennessee oil two hours later, swirling her straw around in the glass absentmindedly as she read. The bar had gotten more crowded and three or four people braved sauntering over to ask about the book before she finally put it down. She quickly learned it was a good device for both engaging with people she wanted to talk to and using as an excuse to ignore the ones she didn’t.

First, there was Helo Buckner, the off-duty Desperado’s bartender with the spectacles of an old man but the scraggly goatee of a hipster skateboarder. They were friends now, bonding over their mutual tastes for liquor, mockery of the religious right, and fascination with the skeevy decadence of a newly-opened BYOB strip club in town. “You let me know if you ever feel like creeping at Wild Life,” he joked, before walking away. “You grab a six-pack, and I’ll grab some titties.” It was the loudest she laughed in a month.

Then, there was Porter Dorsey. They were friends now, too — sort of. A sommelier by day and mildly misogynist by night, Porter alleged he could tell which wine she’d be into based on the celebrities she’d fuck and who she voted for in the last presidential election. Like he really alleged. She told him if he didn’t talk to her for an hour that she’d buy him a drink. He acquiesced with little protest but added, “You can’t deny you’re jonesing for Biden,” to which she shrugged overtly.

There were also others. Ben McCarthy, the National Guard guy living with his parents. Carmella DeVante, the English transplant whose forced accent was probably secretly lost in childhood. Marty Fromm, an aquiline-nosed dentist who desperately tried to hide he was sleeping with Carmella. Pete Stapleton, a guitarist breaking speakers as well as estranged cougars’ hearts. Another guy with a friendly affinity for buying everyone shots of Wild Turkey whose girth earned him the nickname Panda, and Jim Franklin, the retired sheriff’s deputy who had an opinion on everything from how to cook chili to how Busillis fugitive Juan Menendez really disposed of his roommate’s body last month.

All of them: New friends.

She chuckled contently to herself. Jim and Panda sat on either side of her and they were watching as Carmella goaded Marty to leave. The more time she was to spend at the bar, the more Logan would learn this to be a regular battle. One they’d all talk shit about after.

“Come on, my love, it’s time for home,” Carmella said — her O’s rolling off her tongue. Marty pried her grip off his faded leather coat and swung it over his shoulder.

“Take it easy,” he assured her, “we’re going.”

Carmella threaded her arm through the curve of Marty’s as he began to usher her toward the door. Her yellow hair was swept up loosely into a low bun, her makeup was so dark it made her eyes look slightly sunken and her high-heeled boots made her clunk everywhere she walked. She seemed outwardly ridiculous to Logan. Like a deflated basketball that no one wanted to play with anymore. Still, Carmella kept bouncing. Realizing she sat book-ended by two men who she’d never sleep with, Logan picked up a distinct twinkle in Carmella’s eyes — as if it said, I may be a buffoon, but at least I’ve got a man.

“We’ll leave you to your mates then.” She motioned to Logan with her free arm. “Goodnight loves.”

“Have a good night, you two.” Logan swiveled her stool back toward the bar, and Marty and Carmella disappeared out onto the square.

It must have been near closing time. The man — whose name, despite everyone she encountered that night, Logan didn’t learn — had flipped on the bar’s ceiling lights. Its harshness exposed all of the facial informalities that’d been hidden in the dark, and Logan was suddenly well aware of how the late hour appeared to age everyone with fatigue. Somehow, though, she felt fluid and nimble. It’s the booze, she thought. How many is that now? Or have I just—

“Do you want another?” Helo appeared before her, sprightly drying glasses and stacking them along the wall behind the bar.

Logan sat a moment befuddled — her head motionless while her eyes followed Helo about. “I thought you weren’t working tonight? That’s what you said when we met earlier.”

“Barback had to go home. I’m helping close.” Jim and Panda, still sandwiching Logan, motioned separately to their glasses. Helo scooped them up. “So how ‘bout those drinks.”

“Shot of Jager,” Panda replied. “And then a Bud.”

Jim chimed in, “Another Ultra for me.”

Helo reached atop a metallic cooler beside the cash register and flipped a switch. A Jagermeister logo lit up — a pale red glow emanating through markings of a Christian cross between the antlers of a stag. He placed a shot glass beneath a spigot and let the juice run out, and then reached into a nearby cooler grabbing two beer bottles at the neck. He dropped the drinks in front of Logan’s inebriated comrades. Panda pinched the shot glass between his portly fingers and let his head fall back with a gulp.

“Woo-wee! That’s the fuckin’ best.” Panda wiped his face with the back of his forearm and whipped it out to point at Helo. “Show me them goods, you handsome son of a bitch, and I might still pay you.”

Wordlessly the goateed keep lifted his tattered white T-shirt with his free hand, exposing most of his sparsely-haired chest and a shiny nipple ring. Then, he let out a dry laugh. Apparently, he did this often.

Jim interjected curtly through his thick bristled mustache, “Oh, put that away,” and took a swig of his beer. “Nobody wants to see that.”

Logan saw the no-name man sorting cash into piles in a partially enclosed nook at the end of the bar. The light from an overhead desk lamp underscored the extruding veins and tendons in his hands. Suddenly, she wondered how callous they may have been and how rough they’d feel grazing her skin. He stopped for a moment and looked up at her.

“So did you want another, babe?” Helo called her attention back,

“What?” Her mind raced to catch up.

“Another drink, babe,” he repeated.

“Oh, I don’t really think I have time to finish a whole drink,” she said.

“You can stay after to finish, these guys are. They’re regulars.” Helo pointed toward Panda and Jim. “And Rando said it’s cool if you do, too.”

“Who’s Rando?” Logan raised an eyebrow.

Jim and Panda burst into laughter — one burying his head in his hands and the latter throwing himself back in his chair. Logan contemplated joining the meandering exodus of late-night patrons behind them.

“You really are green, my dear.” Jim patted her on the back, and she shrugged his hand away. “The fella’ who’s been watching you all night.”

“I think they mean me.” The man stepped out from his nook, smirking wryly. He’d shoved the sorted cash into an envelope that was now poking out of his shirt’s front pocket in such a way that gave prominence to the curvature of his chest. It heaved slightly as he stopped in front of her, taking a deep breath. “But you know, that isn’t my actual name.”

“Rando, like random?” Logan’s voice grew meek. Everyone nodded. “Then what is your actual name?”

“It’s Alec. But you can call me whatever you want.” He stuck out his hand to shake hers. She felt that she had begun to fall into herself, escaping the moment out of uncertain embarrassment until his stare took hold of her. His eyes were pale blue, and at once she felt like swimming.

Logan hesitated. “I’m—”

“I caught it.” Alec waved a hand toward her before abruptly emptying the contents of her glass and jamming it once again into a tub of ice. “This Jack and diet’s on me.”

Helo and Alec soon motioned the three of them to stand, and Jim and Panda began to walk toward the back of the bar with drinks and coats in tow. The entire room was opened up and its details clearer. There were oscillating ceiling fans that whirred in the bar’s silence. License plates from other states dotted the brick wall. As did Russian vodka and indie rock posters, garage sale-quality paintings, and St. Louis and Chicago sports paraphernalia. Logan tailed the group around a corner to a flight of stairs.

“There’s a downstairs part of this bar!” she exclaimed. Laughter broke out again.

Alec stood at the top of the stairs, letting the group pass him until Logan approached the descent. He leaned toward her and set his hand on the small of her back. She could see his lips part in her periphery, exposing another uneven but buxom grin, and a light, warm soreness expanded in the pit of her stomach.

“Maybe if someone didn’t have their nose stuck in a book all night,” he whispered, “she would’ve seen more.”

The group filed their way through another small enclave of the bar, just past a store room and narrow bathroom doors. The ceiling was low, and taped to each tile were dollar bills with notes written in dark Sharpie marker ink. Logan paused, reading over a few as the rest found seats. Helo’s the shit! XOXO Margie, one of them read. Put this toward some Grey Goose. PRONTO, read another.

“It’s a tradition!” Helo called to her. “We get first-timers to sign a tip to the ceiling. But we don’t get too many of those anymore.”

“Tips or first-timers?” Logan’s eyes leveled with Helo’s as she walked over, leaving no pause for him to answer. “I’m a first-timer.”

Alec turned from the register and pulled a one-dollar bill from a roll of cash. 

“Make it a good one,” he said. 

The chatter of the other four warmed the room as Logan looked down at the materials in her hands, contemplating what to inscribe. Nearby, Panda tossed quarters into a large white tip bucket that Helo clasped to his abdomen like a drum. Alec and Jim stood huddled, silently watching from the other end of the bar. Light ribbons of smoke from Helo’s cigarette swirled up from an ashtray around them. It was the first time that night that she had a drink she hadn’t touched. And she was thinking longer and harder for some reason. It wasn’t a particularly memorable moment, she realized, and yet, her limbs were shaking. She wanted to say something good. 

Their attention on each other, she slipped away, finding a hole on the ceiling across the room to tape her tip. 

She walked the Sharpie back to Alec, who stood up straight and reached out to meet her hand, pulling her in. 

“Did you write something good?” he said softly. 

Logan watched as Jim leaned back in his chair, looking away to down the rest of his beer. She leaned in toward Alec. “You’ll have to find it and see for yourself.” 

“C’mon,” he said, sliding the Sharpie into his shirt pocket. “Give me a hint.”

“May this pen your muse inspire, when wrapt in pure poetic fire,” she whispered.

“Christ,” Jim cut in. “I know you’re a writer, but there’s no way you wrote that one.” 

Neither turned to him, fixing their gaze. “I didn’t,” Logan told him.

Raising his eyebrows, the retired cop stood up and sighed. “Well, I’m all out here. My time is up.”  Helo walked over — his shirtless chest somehow glistening in sweat in the dark basement light. 

“Ours, too,” Helo said, shaking hands with Jim as the burly figure turned to leave.

Panda passed, waving an arm and joining them up the stairs. He called back, “You know you gotta’ get out of dodge when Helo is losing clothes entirely.” The front door burst open, letting a whoosh of cold air sweep down, carrying a few words amid its delayed closure.

Helo was chuckling. “It’s not like I’m naked or something, you—” Clank.

Logan hadn’t noticed the music was turned off, and the smell of Helo’s smoke had all but left with him. She sat with her arms folded and her knees tucked up against the bar. Alec, still standing, put his arm on the back of her chair. 

“So, a writer?” He smiled attentively. 

“Sort of,” she replied, nodding. “Meaning, I do a lot of writing as a reporter.”

“No kidding. At the local paper here?”

“Nah, on the moon.” 

Logan let his hand sink from the chair to her back. “Ha-ha. But seriously,” Alec said.

She dropped her knees, leaning forward. “Yeah, the local paper. I run it.”

His fingers curled against her as he spoke. “Wow, okay, miss editor. You just keep getting curiouser and curiouser.”

“I what?” she chortled slightly.

“What Alice said,” Alec replied. She raised an eyebrow, opening her mouth to goad for more, but he continued. “You bring a book to my bar. You gel with new people. You make references I don’t get. You’re a rabbit hole.”

“I can’t be the only one who’s read in here?” 

“No, my buddy Paul does on occasion. But he’s a nerdy lit professor at BSU. Not a pretty girl hypnotizing men at bars.”

For a brief beat, Logan pondered the fine curvature of his slender face, as if she wondered the summation of its contents — of his mind. What’s going on in there? He plays dumber than he is.

“You do get some of them, though,” she blurted, quickly realizing her lack of tact.

“What now?” Alec cocked his head.

“You get some of the references — you must. When people talk, you shrug it off. But … the Alice in Wonderland bit.”

“I guess. That’s really not the same thing, though, is it?” Motionless, he continued in a hushed tone, holding out a finger down the length of the bar. “I do know one thing. You haven’t touched that drink down there.”

A small pool from condensation had formed around the glass of Logan’s last drink at the other end of the bar. She shrugged.

“I’m good on fuel at the moment,” she said.

“Oh yeah?” Alec responded. He pressed his lips to hers and took a long breath in before pulling away. “Am I out of line?” Logan shook her head. Kissing her again, his hands traced her outer face, falling to her shoulders and down the sides of her hips. She let him guide her knees apart and gasped as he lifted her up to the bar. No, not dumb at all. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

***

Sunlight filled the narrow room like a busted dam — breaching in at dawn before slowly filling each dark crevice. It gave Logan a headache. She didn’t know where she was and was far too tired and hungover to panic. A scratchy surface brushed against her skin as she stirred. After a minute, she felt someone else’s limbs grow tight around her like thick vines. 

“Good morning, beautiful.” Oh fuck, she thought. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. Alec’s voice was gentle, but the break in silence made her face wince. They laid side by side on a couch in a space that smelled of stale beer and smoke. At one end, a shelf lined with books collecting dust in the sunlight, and along the window sat a long wooden desk with roll-top compartments and tuffs of paper sticking out. A sloped ceiling hung over the door to a staircase at their feet. Logan paused to realize where they were. The office above the bar. 

“How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” she said. “And hungover. But good.”

“Really, I’m surprised,” Alec said, propping himself up on an elbow. “You didn’t seem to drink that much.”

“I didn’t. I think it was just more than usual really fast.”

“Oh, that last Jack and diet. That one’s on me.”

“Yeah, whoops!” Logan laughed, inhaling to yawn. “I’ll be alright, but I gotta’ get up to go to work.”

He helped her up and stretched himself across the empty couch. “You nine-to-five types, yeesh.”

“More like nine to nine. Shift ends at press deadline.” Logan slipped back into her jeans and button-up and began feeling around her bag to retrace its contents. One finger on the shades, she peered out onto the square. “I can’t believe I didn’t know this place was here.”

Alec stood up quickly, feigning surprise. “What! No way, I’m offended.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “And I gotta’ walk home, too. I locked my keys in my car yesterday and gotta’ get the spare at home and change.”

“Well, I guess I better give you a lift.” Alec slipped on a tan pair of loafers. “C’mon, let’s take a drive.”

The minutes seemed to pass slowly in the warmth of the rising sun. Outside, the square was quiet. A quarter after seven o’clock, it was empty of cars. Alec walked Logan to a gray Jeep riddled with dents. The temperature was uncommonly high for the start of autumn, and Alec drove with the car’s top open, allowing a breeze to pass between them. She told him she lived on James Drive, a short neighborhood street up the road, but Alec took the car on a detour past the high school and a few farms. Touching the stick shift, she felt it judder over bumps and potholes. She liked the way it shook. After a few minutes, another hand came down and clasped hers, and Alec used the hold to shift gears. They were slowing down, and he rolled to a stop on a gravel shoulder. 

“So, that’s my farmhouse over there.” He pointed to a white two-story with square windows framed by black shutters. A single bay window jutted out the side of the house, and a long dirt driveway winded back past a small soybean field. “It isn’t much, but it’s mine. I’ll take you in some time if you want.”

He shared a few other thoughts. They weren’t solicited, but Logan sat listening intently and stroking his forearm. He’d been divorced a year and was trying to reclaim his life as a farmer at the house. He suddenly seemed wounded to Logan — his eyes looking past her — before he abruptly stopped speaking, drove off, and took a turn back toward town. Logan sat, still speechless and unsure of how to break back into the conversation. So, she didn’t. The silence broke as he parked in front of her condo and unbuckled his seatbelt to face her. Doing the same, she said, “Thanks for the ride, good lookin’.”

“I hope that wasn’t weird for you,” he said slowly, “but I wanted to show you mine since I’m seeing yours.”

Her satchel sat in her lap, and she reached for the door. “No, I get it,” she said, pausing while he kissed her. “And you know what? I think you’re really, really great.”