Brenda Bakke and the Pool Hall Standoff After Last Call

Brenda Bakke Steps Out of the Rain

Rain hit the street with a sour temper, and Brenda Bakke crossed it as though the storm had picked the wrong night to test her. The Rusty Cue crouched between a laundromat with its lights off and a check-cashing window, a narrow room with two tables under tubes that hummed, and a jukebox grinding out a slow number with a burr in its throat. She entered shoulder-first and paused in the doorway, letting the wet follow her inside. Her leather jacket was dark and beaded with water, collar raised. Her boots looked like they had met pavement, fists, and worse. An unlit cigarette rested between two fingers; she rolled it gently, never lighting it, more habit than need. Hair clung damp to her cheek, and she smoothed it back with a slow palm, as if she knew the room had already surrendered its attention. Mark, the bartender, had a thick neck and a nose broken twice and badly set both times, and he scrubbed the same patch of bar as though he had not spent the night listening for the door. She crossed the sticky floor, perched on a stool, and laid the cigarette on the wood like a signal. 'Whiskey,' she said. 'Cheap. No ceremony.'

Chalk, a Dented Cue, and Bad Arithmetic

Mark poured. She drank. Neither of them rushed the thing hanging between them. The whiskey went down warm and rough, and she watched him over the rim while a cue ball cracked somewhere behind her and a man cursed his own luck. Mark leaned close on both forearms, smelling faintly of bleach and beer, and nudged a cube of blue chalk toward her with one finger. Its corners had been chewed down. 'You shooting,' she asked, 'or just staring until morning?' 'Depends what the game costs,' he said. She turned the chalk over, put it back, and told him he already knew. The cue she pulled from the rack had a dent near the butt where some past customer had driven it into a table, and the damage made her like it more. She racked without help and broke hard enough to make the triangle ring. Stripes flew. One fell. She did not bother to see which. Mark left the bar and stood by the rail, hands in his pockets, gaze moving from her wrists to her throat to her mouth. She dusted the tip, blew the blue off, and bent over the felt with a hip angled out and her jacket sliding up her back. He came in behind her, not touching, close enough that his warmth reached through her shirt. 'That is a foul,' she murmured. 'You are in my light.' 'In your way,' he said. 'Same thing.' She made the shot and straightened fast enough to make him retreat half a step. Her palm landed flat on his chest and stayed. The cotton was warm; his heart beat hard beneath it. 'You have my key?' she asked.

Brenda Bakke and the Small Brass Key

He brought it out of his front pocket: brass, small, still carrying his body heat. It dropped into her palm. Her fist closed around it, but she kept her other hand knotted in his shirt. The last drinkers paid and left. The jukebox ran out of song. The fluorescent over the far table blinked off, and still neither of them moved. 'Back room,' she said, and it was not really a question. He raised the hatch and let her go first. The hall beyond was narrow, lined with kegs, a mop bucket, and the flat smell of old cardboard. The back room was little more than a closet with a cot, a bare bulb, and a door that did not catch properly. She shut it with her heel anyway. Then she had him against the wall, both hands in his shirt, her mouth on his. Whiskey, rain, and the forgotten cigarette crushed somewhere in her pocket. His hands pushed the jacket from her shoulders and it hit the floor with a slap. Her fingers found his belt and worked it without hurry and without fumbling. He kissed the side of her neck; she tipped her head back and let out a breath close to a laugh. 'Easy,' she said. 'We have until morning.'

Behind a Door That Will Not Lock Right

The cot complained when they lowered onto it. The bulb swung overhead and sent their shadows wandering across the small walls like something with its own pulse. Outside, rain kept drumming on the roof of The Rusty Cue, steady and patient, as if it had nowhere else to be. Mark's hands were less certain than hers, but she did not seem to mind. She set the brass key on the floor beside the cot where the light could find it, and neither of them looked at it again. The room smelled of dust, old wood, and the whiskey on her breath. Somewhere beyond the door, the bar settled into its nighttime creaks. The jukebox did not start again. The neon in the window buzzed faintly through the wall. She braced a hand against his shoulder and looked down at him, damp hair hanging forward, and for a moment the hard line of her jaw softened. Then it came back, because softness was not something she wore long. He said her name, just once, and she answered by pressing her mouth to his again.

After Last Call, Nobody Hurries

The bulb kept its slow pendulum. The cot kept complaining. The rain kept on. In the narrow room behind the kegs, time loosened and lost its edges. There was no clock on the wall, no last call bell, no reason to check either one. Her jacket lay crumpled where it fell. His apron had been tossed aside. The small key caught the light each time the bulb swung near it, winking brass against the dusty floorboards. She had come through the storm for that piece of metal, and now it sat forgotten while the night did what it wanted. Mark's hand found the dip of her back; hers stayed against his chest, feeling the hammer slow. Outside, a car hissed past on wet asphalt and was gone. The Rusty Cue held its breath. The door that never locked right stayed shut anyway. And the rain went on falling over the roof, over the neon, over the empty street, like it had promised to keep the whole place private until morning.