With a grumble, Sandy drove back to Lieber's house on his bike. He kept the little gemstone found in his pocket, even if the others refused to believe him he knew where it was from. He tried to ride in silence, but it just made him more depressed, so he listened to Three Days Grace and other emo bands until he got back.
He was careful to park his bike and put it away, locking it up and in the garage, and then walking to the bar. He switched his riding duster with another trench coat, this one softer and warmer, for the cold desert air as the sun started to dip towards the horizon. It was a fairly easy walk, just two blocks along the graveyard, then three blocks north to main street where the bar was.
When he got to the bar, he sat down and instantly ordered three shots. He knew what he wanted, even if it was the expensive stuff. Monongahela was the famous, and virtually extinct, Pennsylvania style of rye whiskey. He’d grown attached to it after trying some while he went to college, due to its mention in an old science fiction book he’d been reading.
“Sandy, I’m not gonna let you wallow in your own self pity. It’s dragging this place down.” A voice came, it was Mac. Mac owned the bar, and he’d helped run it since Sandy was a kid. “Either come behind the bar, or getcha ass outta here.” Mac was a good guy, from his premature bald spot to his gut.
“You ass, fine, I’ll tend the bar.” Sandy said, standing up. “But you’re place isn’t exactly cheer central, even without me.”
“Yeah yea, whatever, drink this and sober up.” He placed a tall glass next to Sandy. Downing it in one he grinned, laughing a little to himself. It was a Shirly Temple, the drink he’d always gotten as a kid.
To be fair to Mac, it wasn’t that Sandy really needed to sober up too much. Three shots wasn’t gonna knock him out or anything, and after a year of work he could pull drunks half blind. But he was happy that he could get the interruption to his mood, so he began to increase the party atmosphere.
The bar usually had a bit of a somber tone. There were maybe five folks in it at any given time. Half of which were drinking alone in their respective corners, while the others were trying to drink their worries away. It wasn’t a party, but Sandy could fool himself, and since he had control of the music he could listen to whatever he wanted.
The older guys, maybe sixty or seventy, took the back two corners of the room. Each liked their drinks neat, bourbon for one and tequila for the other. He’d been serving them for half a year, and he still hadn’t gotten either’s names.
In the third corner was the kid. He had a fake ID, and Sandy wasn’t sure if it was even his name on it. Mac told him to let the kid be, and Sandy knew there were far worse things for him to be getting to in a town like this. Depression and low police presence were the ingredients for some more… experimental forms of chemistry.
The start of the night Sandy cheered himself up by listening to some John Koerner, the upbeat tempos of some of his greatest hits. It was the kind of music that could make even a funeral get up and dance, it was just that infectious. By 10 his heart was singing, and no longer did the depression of hours ago really get to him. But that wasn’t enough, he knew that before he went he needed to cry. Thankfully, the party guys had left by the time he made this decision.
Taking a double of whiskey, Sandy changed the music to some Johnny Cash. Cash was a beautiful singer, but his act was always somber. First Ghost Riders, a song about life, death, and eternal punishment. The song narrated a story of a cowboy seeing a vision, a vision of hell, where his fellows had to herd cattle across the sky for eternity without breaks.
Then he set the music to play Man in Black, Johnny Cash’s most famous original single, about how he wanted to represent the downtrodden of the United States. It was a song about death, false imprisonment, and the hurt the American People had experienced. Man in Black was an anthem that made many people moved, and he would swear he saw tears in the eyes of the last few people at the bar.
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Finally, as the last call was taken, he played Hurt. It was once a Nine Inch Nails song, but the Cash version became incredibly famous for just how depressing it got. It was one of his last recordings before his death, and even the original writers said that it was the best version of their own song. He locked the doors behind himself, as even the regulars walked out into the dark evening to their homes. As he looked out into the night, the words of the song came back to him, and he began to sing the words under his breath as he walked through the night.
“I hurt myself today,” He sang softly as the last light of the town slowly stopped illuminating his back, and he walked down the side of the road. There was a dark new moon in the sky, and the stars twinkled. “To see if I still feel…” As he walked he approached the Graveyard, which sat at the edge of town. “I focus on the pain,” John’s property was one of only two that were on the other side of the Graveyard from him. “The only thing that’s real…” If he continued down he could just walk one of the rural highways, the long straight empty roads that connected these out of the way towns, which also happened to be the road that his house’s road was split off.
“The Needle Tears a Hole,” As he sang to himself quietly, his voice cracked. “That old familiar sting…” He pulled a Jack Daniels from his coat pocket, mostly empty, and took a swig. “Try to kill it all away,” Even as tears escaped his eyes and he felt the pain throbbing in his head, he stood there, losses and regrets from his entire life filling his head. “But I remember everything…” He didn’t see, as the Jeep approached from down the Rural Highway, it didn’t have its light’s on, and his nearly black coat was almost invisible in the night.
What have I become… He would have been able to get out of the way, but he didn’t notice. My sweetest friend… He flew nearly twenty feet before he landed in the graveyard, head slammed against a Joshua tree. Everyone I know goes away… He heard voices coming from somewhere else. In the end… The song continued to play in his head, even though he couldn’t breath and make the words appear in the night.
“You just hit someone you idiot!” A woman said.
“That big retard should have heard us coming.” A male voice responded.
“We should call the hospital.”
“They won’t come in time so what’s the fucking point?” He heard the sound of someone spitting at him. “That asshole was probably a criminal or something anyway. Look at what he’s wearing. Who the fuck wears a black trench coat in the desert at night?”
“I suppose you're right… He is a pretty big guy. Probably a gang tough.”
And you could have it all… As he heard them drive away he saw that he had startled a rabbit, who was staring at him curiously. My empire of dirt… He felt the gemstone in his pocket and closed his eyes. I will let you down… He could feel his blood as it seeped away from his body, filling the grass around him. I will make you hurt.
Minutes passed as he sat there, eyes glazed over, and slowly the night came alive around him once more. I wear this crown of thorns… The rabbit slowly approached him, maybe it seemed that he understood. Upon my liar's chair… The rabbit came forward, and it began to lick his blood, getting it all over its chin. Full of Broken Thoughts… The rabbit was so cute, it was able to be there, and no one would fear it. I cannot repair…
Sandy lay there, as he thought about how nice it must be to be the rabbit, and how much he wished he could just be treated kindly rather than feared. His brain skipped ahead in the song, and he allowed his last breath to escape his chest, just so that he could sing the last words of his favorite song. “If I could start again, A Million miles away… I would keep myself, I would find a way…” The sound wasn’t even loud enough to startle the rabbit, who finished what it was doing and left. With that breath gone, he couldn’t get his lungs to breathe back in. Blackness claimed him then, and he heard words directly in his remaining consciousness, words in a soft feminine voice.
Confirmed. Evaluation beginning in 3 2 1… now.