A Guy Walks into a Bar
by Kristen Arnett
A guy walks into a bar
and it’s nearly time to walk back out of the bar again. There’s a blue and red neon beer sign blinking overhead on the wall, like a strobe light above a dance floor, if this was the kind of bar where guys danced. Three people sit at the bar and the guy who walked in knows all of them: his ex-girlfriend, her new boyfriend, and the bartender. The bartender’s name is Sam and the bartender does not smoke cigarettes because his wife is pregnant and she says secondhand smoke could harm the baby. This is the kind of bar where guys walk in and still smoke cigarettes, where a guy walks in smoking a cigarette, finishes a second cigarette, and then lights another cigarette on his way back out of the bar.
A guy walks into a bar
and he is on his second cigarette, which is nearly burnt down to its nubbly yellow filter. He stubs it out in the clear glass ashtray, which is full of other guys’ cigarette butts. The guy who walked into the bar only has one cigarette left, which is fine, because the guy who walked into the bar will only need one more cigarette, ever. The guy who walked into the bar nods at his ex-girlfriend, who is named Tammy. The guy who walked into the bar does not nod at Tammy’s new boyfriend. The guy who walked into the bar is fifteen years older than Tammy’s new boyfriend and does not think he looks like anything special. In fact, the guy who walked into the bar thinks Tammy’s new boyfriend has a face like an especially sad basset hound.
A guy walks into a bar
and orders his usual, a jack and coke. A guy who walks into a bar would have to be pretty fucking dumb not to order his usual drink, especially when his usual drink tastes so good after a day that’s been so shitty before the guy walked into the bar. Even though the guy who walked into the bar isn’t supposed to be drinking, he thinks he deserves a drink after getting laid off from his construction job. The guy who walked into the bar was only going to have one jack and coke, but Tammy and her new boyfriend are drinking piss colored beer with their arms wrapped around each other, and that makes the guy who walked into the bar want to have three more jack and cokes. Each jack and coke tastes better than the one before it. The guy who walked into the bar orders a fifth from Sam, the bartender, who waves the cigarette smoke out of his face and gets to pouring.
A guy walks into a bar
and puts a quarter in the jukebox. Some of his jack and coke spills on the black and white linoleum floor that’s already sticky from others guys’ jack and cokes. Guys who walk into bars and see their exes with other men usually put songs on the jukebox that remind their exes that they used to be engaged and had plans to buy a house together. The guy who walked into the bar selects “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and leans hard against the wall, next to the jukebox, and drains the last of his jack and coke. Some guys who walk into bars and see their exes with other men might immediately go to other bars, but the guy who walked into this bar decides to stay and make everyone sorry they came to the bar in the first place.
A guy walks into a bar
and shuffles over to his ex-girlfriend, Tammy, to ask if she’d like to dance. Tammy would not like to dance and her new boyfriend would not like her to dance, either. The bartender, Sam, wants to call the guy who walked into the bar a cab. The guy who walked into the bar doesn’t want a cab. He wants to dance with Tammy and he wants another jack and coke. Tammy’s new boyfriend doesn’t like the guy who walked into the bar’s bad attitude and tells him so. The guy who walked into the bar says he doesn’t give a flying fuck what Tammy’s new boyfriend thinks and as a matter of fact, the guy who walked into the bar would like to kick Tammy’s new boyfriend in his basset hound face until he swallows his own teeth. Sam, the bartender, picks up the phone and says he will call the police if the guy who walked into the bar doesn’t vacate the fucking premises immediately.
A guy walks into a bar
and walks back outside without paying his bill. Guys who walk into bars and drink five jack and cokes without any lunch or dinner in their stomachs shouldn’t drive their red Ford F-150s home from the bar. The guy who walked into the bar lights his last cigarette and tunes the radio to a sloppy song about cheating women, which makes the guy’s eyes water and his hands clench tight around the steering wheel. Tammy and her new boyfriend will probably fuck to this song tonight, thinks the guy who walked into the bar, right before he plows into the side of a Merita Bread truck.
A guy walks into a bar
and is declared DOA by 2AM. The bartender, Sam, hears about this from buddy, Clint, who’s a paramedic. The guy’s cigarette was still lit, says Clint, who shakes his head and takes another drag from his own cigarette. Sam drives home very late, down the same roads as the guy who walked into the bar, and sees pieces of the Ford F-150 littering the side of the highway. Everything in his own house is dark, like the guy who walked into the bar’s house, thinks Sam. He lies down beside his pregnant wife, who asks him to please bathe, because he smells like cigarettes. Before he showers, he presses his mouth to his wife’s stomach to kiss the unborn baby and tell him a joke. Stop me if you’ve already heard this one, he says.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kristen Arnett is a fiction and essay writer who has held fellowships at Tin House, Kenyon Review, and Lambda Literary Foundation. She was awarded Ninth Letter’s 2015 Literary Award in Fiction and was named an honorable mention for Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers. Her work has either appeared or is upcoming at North American Review, The Normal School, The Greensboro Review, Tin House Flash Fridays/The Guardian, Salon, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. You canfind her on Twitter @Kristen_Arnett
