Day 21 - One Last Drink

Hey guys; home stretch last third here we go! Grace Nask here with Day 21 of the April Challenge. Today we have One Last Drink, a short story for teens and above. It's about a man's musings at a bar. So let's get to it!

One Last Drink

What sort of decent couple drinks at a bar at this hour? No one who is respectable, at least. And certainly not me with a girl in my arms. Nah, if I had a doll like that, Phillies, my favorite bar, would go out of business.

“You need another, John?” Frank, the bartender, interrupts my musing, putting up the new glass before I answer.

A few stools over from me, the couple laughs. The man puts his arm around the doll as he tips back the shot. They aren’t here for the drinking, though. The doll talked to Frank for most of the night, and the man talked to the doll. They’re just having fun and spending time together. Nope; not respectable in the least.

The metal scooper scratches against the ice, a sound people come to associate with me. But tonight, the drink’s gone sour in my throat. “Nah, I’ve had enough,” I say. I push back my stool from the polished bar top and, with only the slightest tip in my step, walk out into the night.

The cool nighttime air slaps me in the face as I make my way home, walking cane tapping against the cobblestones. No one’s out tonight. The man and doll shouldn’t be out, neither. And yet...they were laughing. What sort of couple laughs at a bar?

My apartment comes up within a block of Phillies. I could’ve had a house anywhere, but I needed this bar. The couple didn’t need it. They could’ve laughed anywhere and still had a good time.

If I had a doll like that, I’d never drink again.