John's bar wasn't exactly a booming business.
Not because it was bad—just because the town itself was dying.
Most of the young people had left for the cities long ago. Those who remained were gray-haired, stiff-jointed, and one missed snowfall away from calling it quits.
Which meant the bar had a very specific clientele:
Locals. Regulars. Familiar faces.
Everyone knew each other by name, by voice, and often by the sound of their boots coming up the porch steps.
John didn't even bother bartending half the time. He'd be fixing something in the back or asleep in his chair, and the regulars would help themselves.
Grab a glass. Pour a drink. Pop a beer. Drop a few bills in the tip jar. Business as usual.
That was the kind of place this was.
That was why John could run the whole joint solo—and still have time to cook, smoke, and mutter obscenities about the weather.
Of course, if someone got too comfortable behind the counter, John would toss a string of curses their way just to keep the hierarchy clear.
Meals? That was someone else's gig. There was a diner two blocks over. John didn't do entrees—just drinks and the kind of greasy finger food that paired well with alcohol and heart disease.
Most nights, the regulars showed up after sunset for a quiet drink, a smoke, and maybe a few halfhearted rounds of darts. No one got plastered. No one made a scene.
Unless something big had happened.
When someone drank alone—and drank hard—it usually meant bad news at home. A death, a divorce, something they didn't want to talk about.
When two or more old men started drinking like fish? That meant good news. A wedding, maybe. A baby. Or just a deer hunt that went unusually well.
In either case, people gave space when space was needed. And if help was required, they pitched in. Quietly. Without asking for anything back.
It wasn't about being polite. It was just how things were done.
No fuss. No drama. Just a kind of worn-down kindness that only comes with age, hardship, and the certainty that life doesn't owe you anything.
That said, there was one thing Henry had gotten very, very wrong.
He used to think old folks didn't know how to cuss properly.
That was… deeply incorrect.
These old redneck bastards could swear like poets.
Maybe the younger generation had gone soft—always pulling guns instead of pulling punches—but the elders? They'd grown up with roast battles before anyone knew what stand-up comedy was.
And in this bar, roasting each other was practically a second language.
Henry had witnessed scenes more than once:
> "Well look what the cat dragged in. I thought you were dead, you slippery bastard. I was about to start charging rent for the stool you left empty."
"And yet here you are, still breathing. Must've been a clerical error at the morgue."
"Give me a beer before your ugly mug makes me lose my appetite."
"Ten?! Are you robbing me or paying off a bar mitzvah? You Jewish now, John?"
"Same price it's been for ten years, you tight-fisted Scottish son of a bitch."
"You should be paying me to drink here. I'm what keeps this dump alive."
"I'll take your money and it to the church—to reserve you a grave plot."
That kind of banter happened daily. Sometimes hourly. It was less "trash talk" and more… ritual. A verbal handshake with a bit of spit in it.
Racist jokes, sexist jabs, fat-shaming, age-shaming—you name it. Nothing was off-limits. This was 1990, after all. The world hadn't gone full political correctness yet, and these guys weren't about to start now.
And somehow, it worked.
Henry didn't understand half of it at first. Cultural context, timing, delivery—some jokes flew right over his head. But he learned.
Because not learning meant standing out.
And standing out? That wasn't part of the plan.
He wasn't trying to be some streetwise black kid with attitude. He wasn't trying to be the polite, deferential Asian guy either.
This place wasn't gonna respect a guy for being "quiet and humble." They'd just call you soft. Or worse—effeminate.
That Henry couldn't stomach.
Being the lazy underachiever? Fine.
Being mistaken for some delicate flower?
One of the town's old women had already started referring to him as "that sweet, shy boy with the big shoulders but the soul of a little girl."
He almost choked on his fries when he heard that.
Nope. No way. Not happening.
The jokes. The slang. The way people ribbed each other with a half-smile and a middle finger. He watched, learned, and practiced.
And when he wasn't soaking up insult etiquette, he watched the bar's one form of entertainment: the beat-up old CRT television behind the counter.
There were no premium channels. No cable. Just whatever the rabbit ears could pick up—mostly public-access news and endless reruns of black-and-white war movies or 70s soap operas.
Not because he wanted to learn English (though it helped), but because… he was starved.
Not for food. For noise.
He'd been locked in that Russian bunker for nearly twenty years.
No entertainment. No conversations. No books. No music.
Even silence gets unbearable after long enough.
So now, even the corniest black-and-white film felt like gold.
And no—there were no Cokes. No chips. No anime. But John fed him three meals a day without complaint. That was more than Henry had dared to hope for.
Meanwhile, his body kept changing.
He didn't go to the bathroom. Like… at all.
Nothing in. Nothing out.
Every calorie was being converted with 100% efficiency. No waste. No mess.
And with every meal, his body grew.
He was filling out—fast.
Shoulders broader. Frame thicker. Muscles dense and hard.
It was like watching a balloon inflate in slow motion. Every day, he looked less like a gaunt lab experiment and more like someone cast from iron.
Anyone paying attention would've noticed.
But John didn't ask questions.
Henry could sense it—John knew something was off. But the old man had lived too long and seen too much to care about things that didn't matter.
Young people were the future. He was just a man waiting out his final days behind a bar.
If Henry needed help?
No lectures. No judgment.
Just one grizzled hand resting on the shotgun, and the occasional reminder that he wasn't as senile as people thought.
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