You know, the drink says, holding a glass in his hand and looking at the oily liquid in the light, I've never had Vermouth before. I don't even know what it is.

That's gin, says the bartender.

Right, the drink says, nodding his head, as if he has just been told something he already knows or suspects, such as his deal with the deal-making man was smooth as silk. He drinks little woman sip of the gin, then sets it down.

He points at the brown one. Now that's Jack, he says. Then he points at himself. Meet Jake, he says.

Picks up the glass, quickly, sloshes some of the whiskey on his fingers, tosses the drink back, makes a little girl of a cough.

Vermouth, then, he says, picking up the third shot. Another Brownie scout sip.

Satisfied, he drops some crumpled bills onto the bar. Keep it, he says.

Y'owe me another two-fifty, the bartender says.

The drink nods his head with the confident grin again, like he just bought a pair of BVDs that fit his balls better than his palm on lonely nights. He makes for the bathroom, and loud retching sounds are heard.

He comes back out, and sits at his stool, looks what is left of his drinks in the eye, glances at the soiled bills on the bar. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a five, drops it next to the bills, returns the bills to his pocket, sniffs one of the drinks, turns green, sets it down neatly, glances around the bar.

Hey, the bartender said, glaring at the five.

Keep it, the drink, Jake, says. I think I need a real beer.

You still owe me fifty cents. Aw, forget it. He turns an ordinary glass into a beer, gives it to the Jake drink. Drink it slow, boy.

Ayuh, the drink say, with that confident nod. It really makes you want to whup his ass for him.

Sal walks in. He's a real piece. Born drunk, breathed drunk. Sal's got a story that the only time he was sober was, Oncet when I got the pants off this whore, and if she didn't have a dick then I don't know a kilbasa from a hole in the wall.

So what did you do, Sal, someone always asks.

Kicked his ass and got drunk again, he always replies. Sal weighs about ninety five soaking wet and carrying a bowling ball, but nobody argues with him.

You gonna drink them?

The drink gives Sal a look for a moment, then perhaps thinks Sal might get a lucky one off and hit him in the stomach. His attitude changes. They're yours, old timer.

35, asshole, Sal says, walking off. The drinks are gone before two steps.

Y'all go, peanuts, pretzels, popcorn, stuff like that? the drink asks. He hasn't touched his beer yet.

This ain't a circus, boy. The bartender says.

The drink points at his beer. What kinda beer is this?

The bartender stares at him for a while. It's not the kind of bar that has kinds of beer. It's not the kind of bar where you call it Vermouth, even if you've never heard of it. And it sure is hell ain't the kind of bar where you drink one drink and then go toss your cookies in the bathroom. It's not even the kind of bar where men use such phrases like toss-your-cookies.

It's the kind of a bar where a man who has been drunk every day of his life walks in and spends two bucks found on the sidewalk on ant-piss beer and then bums drinks off of strangers 'till closing time or passing out time. It's the kind of bar where a man who don't care much about his wife or kids goes to care about them a little less for a while. Its the kind of bar where a man who don't got no wife or kids goes to remember why or how he never got married and never managed to take responsibility for knocking somebody up.

You sure as hell don't nod the confident-ass nod when the bartender says, Sunnybrook, outa Illinois.

Jimmy weighs about three hundred pounds and nobody bothers to question him about being a Marine anymore. He gets up and goes outside, without bothering to take his coat.

Doug has a tattoo that he got in prison, except he was too high to remember getting it and since its on his back he hasn't ever seen it. He never leaves a beer unfinished but there's half a glass on the table in front of him when he gets up and walks outside after Jimmy.

Darla has screwed more johns than the IRS, has the face of an emaciated horse on crack, and looks like she eats glass and and shits sand. She follows Doug and Jimmy.

Sal knows camaraderie means phrases like This rounds on me, so he goes out too.

The Drink watches all of this, and seems to be putting two and two together. But he tries the nod again. Y'all got a back door? he asks the bartender.

He does. Nope, he says.

A sort of twitching starts in the drink's feet, and then his hands, and turns into a full-out nervous sweat.

Gotta phone? he squeaks.

The bartender looks at the phone, looks out the door, looks at the drink for a while, walks over to the phone, rips the sumbitch outta the wall, looks right at Jake. Nope, he says. It's busted.

The tall drink of water looks like water would look like if it was drunk and scared, shitless, judging from the smell rising out of the drink's armpits. Just for that, I ain't gonna pay for the beer, he says. He's breathing in fast little gasps that will surely end in hyperventilation, got his bottom lip stuck out, got them puppy dog eyes that everyone thinks make you look all sweet and soft but in reality make people like Doug, Jimmy, Darla, and even Sal just want to keep on beating you even after you've passed out from the pain and the terror.

The bartender knows this, and as much as he'd like to follow the drink outside to watch get his ass screwed through both ears, twice, he's got to man the register. So, to enjoy what he can of the situation, he shakes his head, sort of chuckles, and says, You are so fucked. Then he pretends to wash glasses.

Something about that drink. That little defiant statement about not paying for the beer. The way he stands up, using only one hand on the bar to keep him steady. The way he starts to walk toward the exit, instead of trying to eat his way through the back wall. Maybe he has got something. Sure, it's about to get him killed. Sure, it brought him into the bar which was the last mistake of his tall-ass life. But maybe it got him some other things in his pathetic little life, little things that the folks outside, ready to do a work-boot waltz on his skull, never got.

Maybe it got him some nice virgin blond poon in high school, just the once, both of them drunk but she just a little bit drunker.

Doug never got no blond virgin poon.

Maybe it got him a new sports car out of his dumbass rich old man, that lasted a few weeks before he smashed into a wall of the Stop-N-Go.

Bet your ass Jimmy never drove no brand new muscle car.

Maybe that attitude Jake's got gave him the upper hand in one of those willpower wars you get into with waiters at restaurants, and he got a free bottle of wine for his no-tit pimple-ass date.

If Darla ever eats in a restaurant and doesn't have to suck cock the same night, kiss your ass goodbye because it is the apocalypse.

And just maybe that attitude which is about to get him killed would never have let him to get to sow low a station in life as Sal's in.

Maybe.

Doesn't matter much, though. He's a dead motherfucker.