Closing Time

Nancy walked out of Harry’s office, an expression of resolve written across her face. She hadn’t needed the job, but she had loved the job. Why else would she have stayed for seventeen years? No one stayed that long in food service. It had started off as just a waitressing gig, something to help pay the bills while she made her way through law school, but when she found she enjoyed serving food more than she enjoyed law, it had become much more permanent than she’d ever intended. She could still remember that night – the night she and Harry had gotten sloshed as she told him about her complete lack of desire to pass the bar. He had offered her the job as his manager then and there, and without batting an eyelash she had taken it. Nothing had felt so right in a long time, and it had felt right for the last seventeen years.

Amanda stood at the bar, drying the last batch of dishes Dwayne had just pulled out of the industrial dishwasher. She stopped when Nancy exited the office, her brows furrowing in sympathy.

“I’m sorry, Nancy,” she said. She took a step forward.

Nancy threw up her hand, refusing to look at the young bartender. Her eyes stung as she wrestled against the tears.

“We all knew this was coming,” she said.

“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck,” Amanda said.

“Yeah.” She nodded as two tears managed to escape her eyelids then brushed them away furiously and tossed her hair back.

“The rest of us will be following you shortly.”

“Don’t say that. Whether I’m here or not this place has to stay open, and if letting me go will make that possible, so be it.”

“Even if it does, it won’t be the same without you. You’ve been here nearly as long as Harry, and I know a few regulars who might stop coming altogether if you’re not here.”

Nancy grinned. “I’ll hold their feet to the fire.”

“You get that drink order that just came in?” Dwayne called from the kitchen.

Amanda glanced at the computer screen at the far end of the bar. “Yeah!”

The burly black chef came through the swinging door with a bowl of fresh citrus. “Are you running low?” he asked.

Amanda eyed the overflowing bowl already resting on the counter. “I think I’m good.”

“Damn.” Dwayne sighed. “I ordered too much again.”

“Well, I guess we’re drinking again tonight. I gotta say, the one good thing about this pandemic is that it’s seriously upped my cocktail game.” Amanda reached for a shaker to begin mixing the online drink order, instantly filling it with a large scoop of ice.

Dwayne and Nancy watched her wordlessly.

Amanda was an artist – the best bartender in the business. When she had first started at Harry’s the clientele hadn’t required much beyond the dispensing of low cal swill into frosty bar mugs, with the occasional request for a Jack and Coke or a G&T from the men, a Cosmo or a Lemon Drop from the women. Two years later, Harry had added an ever-evolving specialty cocktail section to the menu and implemented a more robust selection of liqueurs behind the bar.

“What d’ya say, Law School?” Dwayne turned to Nancy.

She shook her head. “I’ve gotta get home.”

Dwayne pulled her into his arms then, and as he enveloped her she allowed her small frame to sink into his large embrace.

“Don’t be a stranger,” he whispered in her ear.

One last squeeze and she was out the door. If she stayed any longer she knew the dam would burst. Out on the sidewalk, she turned for one last glance at the neon green sign shining in the window. Hair of the Dog. A somber smile flitted across her lips, then she turned on her heel and crossed the street to her car.

Harry stepped out of his office to observe the empty bar, even emptier now that Nancy had gone.

Amanda studied him wordlessly as she poured half of the cocktail in her shaker into a plastic cup and capped it with a transparent lid. Then she grabbed a coup glass behind her and poured the remaining liquid into it, setting it down on the counter before Harry.

He eyed it with a smirk. “Thanks.”

“Thought you might need it,” she said with a knowing grin.

“Seventeen years,” he sighed, taking a seat at the bar and raking a hand through his thin, gray hair. “She’s been here almost as long as this place has been open.”

“I’m sorry, Harry.” She was well aware that her condolence offered little comfort, but it was the only thing she could think to say. Anything else would have sounded just as trite.

“And the worst part is, I don’t know how much it will really help.”

“It’s really that bad?” She had assumed as much, but hearing it from the mouth of the owner reinforced her inferences with a stronger, more violent clap of fear.

He looked up then, eyes wide. “I’m sorry, Amanda. I shouldn’t be talking like this. I don’t want to scare you.”

“I’d rather be prepared,” she said.

He nodded.

The door opened then, letting in a small swath of electric light from the streetlamps outside, and a young man with a shaggy tail of dark brown hair, fashioned into a small bun, entered the restaurant, locking the door behind him.

“Is she still here?” he asked, looking about the room expectantly, eyes resting on the kitchen door.

“You just missed her,” Amanda said.

“Dammit.” He dropped his bag on the countertop and slumped into the empty seat beside Harry. “She should have known better than to leave without letting me say goodbye too.”

“She’ll be back,” Amanda assured him.

“As a customer, you mean.”

“Drown your sorrows?” She nodded to the empty shaker, dripping with frosty condensation.

“You’re not the only one who can make a cocktail around here,” he said, and with that he pushed himself up and over the bar.

“Uh huh.” Amanda folded her arms over her chest and eyed him skeptically as he proceeded to fill a second shaker with ice.

“Whatever you’re making, Blake, make me one too,” Harry said with a wink. “I’ll be the judge.” It was the first time he had smiled all day.

Amanda noted it with a smile of her own. Harry’s smile was infectious and so much more natural than the chronic grimace that had marred his countenance ever since they had closed their doors two months ago. Hair of the Dog was his dream, and he was prouder of it than his own children. But without the steady stream of customers and the consistent buzz of conversation he had begun to wither.

“Order up!” Dwayne called from the kitchen, setting two Styrofoam boxes on the metal sill of the large window that separated the back room from the bar.

Amanda bagged the items, throwing in several sets of individually wrapped plastic silverware and a handful of napkins just as a black Altima pulled up at the curb.

“Mask!” Blake reminded her.

She reluctantly retreated several steps back to the bar and grabbed the thin piece of cloth off the counter, wrapping the bands around her ears and pinching it just above her nose and underneath her glasses as she strode to the front door.

“Was that Dylan?” Harry asked.

“Yep.”

“You know you’ve been in quarantine too long when you have regular DoorDashers,” Blake said.

“Well, Dylan does live around here,” Amanda said.

“Right, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that he’s got a thing for you.”

“He does not.”

“He does!” Dwayne yelled from the kitchen.

“See?” Blake winked.

She rolled her eyes.

Satisfied with his success in subduing her, Blake turned to Harry. “So, is it quittin’ time yet, boss?”

“Considering you didn’t even work today?”

He laughed.

Harry considered his wrist, then tilted his neck to compare the time on his watch with the time on the clock above the bar, which was barely recognizable, nestled between dozens of stickers and signs advertising various breweries as well as a plethora of other bar paraphernalia.

“I guess it’s about that time,” he said.

Amanda disappeared into the kitchen to help Dwayne with the nightly cleaning duties, which were much fewer now that there weren’t any customers to clean up after - the one perk of the pandemic. Historically, even though they used to close at ten (midnight on Fridays and Saturdays), it wasn’t uncommon for them to actually bid goodnight to their last customer around ten-thirty or eleven, which usually meant another hour of clean-up. It would take even longer, she knew, when they reopened, with all the additional sterilization, but it wasn’t as if she had anything else to do or anywhere else to be.

Blake deftly assembled a second helping of the cocktail he had been mixing into a second shaker, shook both simultaneously - one in each hand - and dispersed the drink into four separate whiskey glasses already filled with ice. He and Harry waited wordlessly until the pair in the kitchen reappeared in the dining room. Dwayne sauntered around the counter and took a seat beside Harry as Amanda resumed her standing position beside Blake behind the bar. Blake set a glass in front of each of them and lifted his own.

“To Nancy,” he said.

“To Nancy.”

Nobody moved to touch their glasses with another as they might have for other toasts. Somehow the clinking of glassware seemed too lighthearted for the solemnity of this moment. This drink was not celebratory; it was a requiem. So they merely lifted their glasses with a nod of recognition and took a contemplative sip. The silence of the room descended upon them mercilessly. It was no longer the satisfying stillness of an empty restaurant at the end of a busy day. It was now too familiar to be desired, too mundane to be coveted.

It was Amanda who finally broke the discomforting quiet with her question. “What do we do now?”

Only the quiet responded.

Jean was already in bed. She looked up as Harry’s shadow fell across the book in her hand, removing her bifocals and placing a bookmark inside the nearly-finished novel.

“How did it go?” she asked.

Harry shook his head as he tugged his pants off his legs and draped them over the back of the chair in the corner.

“Is she all right?”

“She’ll be fine.” He pulled his shirt over his head and threw it in the nearby hamper filled with the rest of his sweat-stained garments.

“Should I call her, invite them over for dinner?”

“I think it’s a little too soon,” Harry said, climbing into bed.

“You’re right.” She placed a gentle hand on his bare back. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

He sighed, and she could feel his lungs deflating underneath her touch. “One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”

She nodded. “I know.” She craned her neck to press her lips to his cheek in a small attempt at comfort, whatever she had to offer. “I heard some good news today though.”

He lifted his gaze without lifting his slumped head, looking up into her hopeful face from underneath his bushy eyebrows.

“The governor just announced that bars can reopen at twenty-five percent capacity starting next week.”

“I don’t know how much good it’ll do at this point, Jean,” Harry said.

The corners of her mouth drooped and her eyes widened as a new expression, one of concern and fear, instantly subdued all promise of optimism.

“Our lease is up for renewal at the end of month, and they’re raising the rent,” he explained.

“You’ve been there twenty-five years and you’ve never missed a payment, Harry. You’re the best damn tenant they’ve ever had. Are you telling me they wouldn’t give you some kind of deal after all this time?” Her voice was sandpaper, rubbing him raw.

“Everyone’s hurting, Jean,” he said.

“I know, but I’m not talking about everyone. I’m talking about you. You just let your manager of fifteen-”

“Seventeen.”

“-seventeen years go this evening. You can’t let Hair of the Dog go too, not without a fight.”

“I’m not going to waste the funds we still have fighting a losing battle,” he said.

“You don’t know it’s a losing battle.”

“Jean, if we reopen at twenty-five percent capacity we’ll just be hemorrhaging money. It’ll cost me more to reopen than it will to stay closed. Either way, I can’t see a scenario where we start turning a profit - not soon enough, at least.”

She sighed and laid her head on his shoulder, rubbing his back in a futile gesture of solace.

“Honestly, closing might be the best decision for everyone.”

Her eyes narrowed as she pulled away slightly to study his face. “What do you mean?”

“Those kids, Jean - they’d be making more money on unemployment right now than I could ever pay them.”

“I don’t think it’s just about the money for any of them,” she said.

“I know, but at the end of the day it’s still a job, and right now they’d be better off without it. I’ve been trying to compensate them for the lack of tips as much as I can, but I won’t be able to afford it much longer.”

Jean leaned in and kissed his cheek again. “All right, Harry,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “If it’s time, it’s time. I trust you.”

He took her hands in his and turned his whole head to meet her gaze for the first time that night. The crow’s feet around her eyes were more pronounced under the warm glow of the lamp on the nightstand than they were in the daylight.

Looking at her now, Harry realized that she suddenly seemed significantly older to him than she had that morning, as if the past twenty-five years had finally caught up with her in this moment. Of course, in reality the process had been gradual. Her hair, now more salt and pepper than it was black, had silvered over time. The skin around her neck had loosened over a period of years, not seconds. It shocked him, seeing her as she really was, and it saddened him knowing that the reason he was shocked was because he had spent more time in his pub than he had with his wife.

All at once, Harry saw the years unraveling before him like the threads that inevitably came loose whenever Jean hemmed his pants. The innumerable dinners she’d wrapped in tinfoil. The countless light bulbs she’d changed on the front porch. The copious boxes of Alka Seltzer she’d stocked in the pantry. Yet she was the one who wanted him to keep Hair of the Dog alive, perhaps because it had become just as much a part of her as it had of him.

“We’re gonna be okay,” he said.

“I know,” she replied, and there wasn’t a spark of doubt in her tone. “Just promise me one thing.”

“Yeah?”

“You’ll still reopen next week.”

He smiled and touched his lips to hers. “Nobody will be able to say we didn’t go down swinging.”

They wished they could have said they were surprised when Harry made the announcement, but the reality was they had all expected it. Maybe not at first, but as the days wore on, turning into weeks, they knew it was just a matter of time. Large chains, sushi joints, sandwich shops, and burger shacks all stood a chance against the stunted economy the pandemic had brought with it. Local pizza parlors and food trucks were actually thriving, since their entire business model was founded upon the convenience of take-out and delivery. But how was a bar supposed to fight COVID? Nobody came to Hair of the Dog for Dwayne’s flatbread, as acceptable as it was. They came for the milk of human kindness and a sympathetic ear. They came to shoot the breeze, to escape the doldrums, to get a little buzzed. They came for Harry’s outdated jokes and Amanda’s latest tattoo. They didn’t want food; they didn’t even really want alcohol. They wanted the reassuring anonymity of an honest conversation with the stranger sitting on the next barstool. They wanted the paradox of simultaneous fellowship and solitude only a pub can offer. Lukewarm wings and watered-down cocktails were no substitute. And so, with its doors now closed, the very things that made Hair of the Dog the neighborhood staple it was had begun to dissolve.

Of course, they weren’t the only ones. Several other small businesses within the community had also closed their doors for good: Gina’s nail salon, Reggie’s antique store, Sally’s curio shop where you might find anything from a selection of local jams to a wall of bath salts. Red and white “For Rent” signs now littered these storefronts, complementing the morose aesthetic of the deserted streets. It may have been inevitable, but it was still hard to believe that after twenty-five years Hair of the Dog would be joining them.

Harry’s decision to reopen for the remainder of the month was received with unanimous support. The rest of the week was spent reconstructing the bar’s interior to ensure they were “COVID ready.” Blake removed the stools from the bar and stacked them in a corner of Harry’s office. Amanda taped red X’s on tables and chairs that didn’t comply with the six-foot rule. Dwayne scrubbed every open surface in the kitchen and bathrooms and dipped into his private stash of hand sanitizer (courtesy of his daughter Ava’s hospital) to place fresh bottles on every countertop.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in.” Amanda looked up from the half-juiced lemon in her hand as Blake walked through the front door. “You’re late.”

“What are you talking about? We don’t open for another two hours.”

“Have you forgotten how much prep it takes to run this place?”

“Have you forgotten how late I usually am?”

She smirked as her eyes followed his swagger across the room and behind the counter. “I know you’re looking for a compliment,” she said, referring to his freshly shorn beard, which had grown a good three inches from his chin since the beginning of quarantine. Now the hair was mere stubble, cut close and sharp, just the way she liked.

“Well?” He leaned into her face, his expression taunting her with its irritating irresistibility.

“I’m glad you finally remembered how to use a razor,” she said.

“Well, I couldn’t be shedding in all of our customer’s drinks now, could I?”

“I’m not so sure you won’t be with that man-bun.”

“You love it and you know it.”

She rolled her eyes and resumed her juicing.

“The place looks great, Mandie,” Blake said, surveying the restaurant with pride.

“No thanks to you,” she teased.

“Oh, come on, I’ve put just as much elbow grease into this place as you have.”

“Well, there’s plenty more to go around.” She tossed him an apron from underneath the bar.

He grinned, tied it around his waist, and disappeared into the kitchen. “I’m gonna start the syrups!”

Amanda smiled to herself. It felt good to be bantering back and forth like this again, for as long as it would last.

Flipping the sign from “Closed” to “Open” was initially therapeutic, but the feeling quickly evaporated as the conventional aura of the small bar morphed into something unfamiliar and unsettling. The vacant seats, the empty bar, the covered faces, the constant scrubbing - none of it felt natural in an environment that had been established to encourage relaxation and relationship, not restriction and isolation. Yes, it still felt better to be open rather than closed, to have the potential for human interaction and conversation again, it just didn’t feel right having those conversations behind a thin strip of cloth from across the dining room.

Although their customers seemed equally elated to see Hair of the Dog open again, Blake and Amanda noticed they didn’t stay as long as they used to. One quick drink, maybe two with a basket of fried pickles or potato skins, and they were out the door again. In some ways the turnover was good, since they could only accommodate a quarter of their patrons at a time, but something had been lost in the constant revolution of faces that now felt more like a blur rather than a steady ebb and flow, complete with the eternal presence of long-suffering barflies to keep one grounded.

By five o’clock, Amanda was exhausted. Resting her elbows on the counter, she allowed her shoulders to slump as the last couple at the table in the corner scooted their chairs back and exited the restaurant.

“You okay?”

She looked over her shoulder to find Blake standing behind her, a gentle hand on her back.

“Yeah.” She sighed.

“It’s kinda depressing, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

They stood in silence for a moment until the door opened again and Amanda drew herself up to greet the next patron. Her features brightened instantly as the dark figure, obscured by the sun behind him, shouted, “Good Lord, you’re open!”

“Rich!” It was all she could do not to run around the bar and hug him.

Blake immediately grabbed a beer glass and turned to the taps to fill it with Busch Light.

“What are you doing standing behind that counter there, girl?”

“We have to keep six feet apart now, Rich.”

“Six feet, shit. Is this any way to greet your favorite customer after two and half months? I’m downright offended.”

“Well, there’s a pandemic on now, or didn’t you hear?”

“I try not to watch the news if I can help it. Bad for my blood pressure.” He winked and took the beer from the counter, looking down for his usual seat at the end of the bar. “And where are the damn stools?”

“You can’t sit at the bar anymore, Rich,” Blake said.

“Well then where am I supposed to sit?”

“There are a dozen tables behind you,” Amanda said.

“Tables?” The word offended him. “I haven’t sat at a table in this bar in my entire life.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Blake said.

“Hell, why even open back up at all then?”

Blake and Amanda’s faces drooped, and the facetious look in Rich’s eyes promptly changed to one of remorse.

“You know I didn’t mean that,” he said. “It’s wonderful to see you open again.”

Amanda smiled softly. “I know.”

“Well, where’s the rest of the gang?” Rich looked around the room expectantly.

“Dwayne! Harry! Rich is here!”

The two men emerged from the back room, Dwayne wiping his hands on a dishcloth and Harry beaming from ear to ear. It was the happiest Amanda had seen him all day.

“Well, well, it’s about time you showed up, you old son of a gun.” Harry stretched out his hand, checked himself, then quickly withdrew it. “Sorry we don’t have your usual spot for you today.”

“I was just telling Amanda I’ve never sat at a table here in my life. Guess it’s about time I tried it, huh?”

“I’ll join you.”

“What d’ya say, Dwayne?” Rich acknowledged the chef still standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

“One plate of nachos, comin’ right up.”

“Music to my ears,” he sighed contentedly. “How’s everyone at home?”

“Ava’s working herself to death at the hospital, so Yvette and I have the grandkids most of the time.”

“And they’re driving you up the wall, huh?” Rich chuckled, noting the obvious implication of exhaustion in the man’s tone.

“Yvette might divorce me.” Dwayne grinned, his mock desperation overshadowed by his own joke.

“Hang in there.” Rich slapped Dwayne on the back in blatant defiance of the six foot rule then followed Harry to a table in the center of the room, bathed with summer sunshine.

“Nancy not here today?” he asked, taking a sip of his beer.

Harry couldn’t seem to raise his eyes high enough to meet Rich’s gaze.

Panic flooded Rich’s face. “She doesn’t have COVID, does she?”

Harry shook his head. Barely audible, he said, “I had to let her go.”

“What?”

A haunting silence saturated the table, interrupted only by Blake as he set a complementary glass of beer in front of Harry.

The man wrapped his fingers around the glass and took a large swig then looked up into his friend’s eyes with newfound tenacity. “You’re here for the death knell, Rich,” he said. “We’re closing at the end of the month.”

Rich was speechless. “Shit,” he said finally, staring down into his beer. “This damn disease is killing more than just people. When it’s all over nobody will have anything to go back to.”

“I’ll meet you at Hooters.” Harry chuckled despite himself.

“Shit.” Rich laughed and raised his glass.

Harry lifted his own to meet it and the two men drank.

“You know, their wings aren’t half bad,” Rich said after a moment of reverence for Hair of the Dog.

“Where do you think I stole Dwayne from?”

“No kidding!”

Across the room, Amanda turned to look at Blake and the two exchanged a soft smile behind their face masks. Rich had been a patron of Hair of the Dog from day one. He was a fixture, as much as Harry himself. Over the years, the two men had commiserated over children, marriages, finances, and the curse of inexorable change. Somehow he always knew just what to say, or not say, diverting uncomfortable topics with his colorful phrases and nonchalance in a way that might have appeared insensitive coming from anyone else. But with Rich, the unspoken sentiments underlying his joviality resounded much louder than any words of pity ever could.

Still, second to Nancy, this was the conversation Harry had been dreading the most. Well, it was over now, passing as trivially as a blip on a radar or a squeak on a chalkboard - alarming but temporary and easily forgotten. He was confident too that, true to form, the pub’s closing would never be mentioned between the two of them again. Yet it would hang above their heads like an apocalyptic cloud, a harbinger of pestilence and plague, much like COVID-19 itself.

Before quarantine, Rich’s wife had only permitted him to grace the doors of Hair of the Dog three times a week. Ever since reopening, Harry noted that he was there every day. He wondered what the conversations were like at home, or if there even were any. He knew Helen recognized the necessity of her husband’s watering hole and the community he had formed there. She was a good woman, but she was also a woman of staunch principles that had never wavered in the twenty-five years he had known her. Harry wondered whether it was he or she who was making sacrifices now, but, ultimately, it didn’t really matter. The only thing that did matter was that Rich was there, his characteristic loyalty a source of strength for everyone in the restaurant’s final days.

Harry didn’t want any fanfare on their last day, just business as usual, or as usual as it could be in the middle of a pandemic. Of course, all the regulars were well aware of the bar’s closing without any formal announcements or signs on the windows. Nancy’s absence was enough evidence to tip off anyone who had visited Hair of the Dog more than twice that something was amiss. And then there was Rich, who had taken it upon himself to inform the entire neighborhood. The end result was a rotating door of familiar faces, well wishes, and toasts all packed into a brief, ten-hour period that seemed to be rapidly slipping through their fingers. Unlike the days of quarantine, in which the seconds barely ticked into minutes, Amanda could hardly believe it when she looked up from the counter to find Harry locking the front door. She turned to look at the clock behind the bar: ten o’clock. In recognition of their final day, Harry had defied COVID regulations and refused to shorten their hours, but it hadn’t made any difference. It was still too early, and they were still closing.

Amanda turned to Blake with a knowing glance.

He nodded and immediately disappeared into Harry’s office. One by one, he brought the barstools back out and lined them up along the counter again, the way they always had been. Then he began circling the room, ripping the red tape off the tables and chairs.

Harry smiled appreciatively and took a seat, a mute spectator of his employees’ efforts to return Hair of the Dog to its former glory for its final moments.

Behind him, Amanda filled four glasses with ice and set to work on her last cocktail.

In the kitchen, Harry heard the water running and knew Dwayne was rinsing the last of the plates.

“It was a nice day, wasn’t it?” he said finally.

“Yeah, it was,” Blake agreed, shaping the tape into a ball and tossing it in the garbage can behind the counter as he returned to the bar. Standing beside Amanda, he took several sprigs of rosemary and placed one in each glass as she started to disburse the concoction in her mixing glass evenly between the four.

“A lot of old faces.”

“I don’t think you should have expected anything less,” Amanda said as Dwayne emerged from the kitchen.

“Everything’s spic and span back there, boss,” he said to Harry.

“It always is.” Harry smiled as the man sat down beside him and Amanda handed each of them a glass. He took a sip, then lifted the drink to eye level to study its amber hue refracting the soft orange light all around them.

“I give up,” he said. “What is this?”

“Just something we threw together,” Amanda said, acknowledging Blake with a horizontal nod to the man standing beside her.

Harry took another sip. It was earthy and strong, just the way he liked his drinks, but the other flavors were eluding him.

“What d’ya think?”

“It’s perfect.”

Amanda beamed as Blake wrapped an arm around her shoulders with a similar expression of pride.

“When all of this is over, I don’t want you to waste your gifts,” Harry said, looking from Blake to Amanda. “You’re Class A bartenders and both of you could get a job at any bar in town, and I mean one of those swanky places that serve $15 cocktails. I don’t know how I got so lucky.”

“Oh please,” Amanda rolled her eyes. “We’re the lucky ones.” Her features, now sober, forced Harry to hold her ardent gaze. “Thank you for letting us be a part of this.”

Harry had made a promise with himself: he wasn’t going to cry until everything was over and done with. Much to his chagrin, and entirely against his own freewill, he now felt the burning sensation of salty discharge welling up along the lip of his bottom eyelid, and he blinked profusely in an attempt to keep it at bay. As he did so, he noticed Blake removing his arm from around Amanda’s shoulders and crouching down beneath the bar. When he reappeared, there was a box in his hands.

“No no no, we had a deal.” Harry shook his head and threw his hands up in protest.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Blake said, feigning ignorance. He turned to Dwayne. “Any idea what he’s talking about?”

Dwayne shook his head. “Not a clue.”

Harry shot a distressed look at the cook. He had always counted Dwayne as an ally against Blake and Amanda’s antics. Now he was a traitor.

“Just open it,” Amanda said.

Harry curled his fingers around the wooden box and pulled it toward him. Lifting the lid gingerly, he found a dark bottle nestled among a pile of woodchips. His breath caught in his throat. He remembered the night he and Blake had discussed their mutual love of scotch and the desire he had to own a bottle of 25-Year Bunnahabhain. With rich notes of nutty cardamom and the faintest hints of sharp leather, the scotch was said to settle on the palate with a satisfyingly smoky finish, or so he had been told. He had never actually been in a financial position to justify spending over $500 on a single bottle of liquor. Yet here it was, in his grasp, the black bottle gleaming under the lamps above the bar.

He looked up into the faces of his employees, tears gleaming in his eyes, speechless.

Blake and Amanda were both slumped over the bar, elbows resting on the counter.

She leaned her body ever so slightly to the left until her shoulder bumped up against Blake’s. “I think he likes it, Blake.”

“I think he does, Amanda,” Blake replied, returning the gesture with his own playful grin. “What about you, Dwayne?”

“I don’t know. He’d better say something soon or I might just start thinking we got the wrong one.”

Harry opened his mouth, letting in a rush of air that blocked his vocal chords. He sputtered, finally managing to clear his throat after taking another gulp of his drink. “It’s too much,” he said, shaking his head.

“C’mon, Harry, you couldn’t come up with anything better than that?” Dwayne winked and slapped the man on the back. “Just take the gift.”

Harry surveyed their faces one last time, their sincerity and gratitude and affection. Then he placed the lid back on the box with a large sniff, as if the action might force his tears back into his eye sockets.

Amanda offered him a paper towel from the far end of the bar.

He blew his nose with a loud snort and stood up, his head now resting determinedly upon his proud shoulders.

“Well, gang,” he said, “I think it’s about that time.”

Amanda reached for his empty glass but Harry immediately stuck his hand out to stop her.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “I don’t mind.”

He shook his head. “I got it.”

A sensation of panic was beginning to creep over her body with the realization that she was about to walk out of Hair of the Dog for the last time - no, wait, it wasn’t herself she was worried about. It was Harry. She looked from Blake to Dwayne helplessly but they merely nodded in response. It was time to go - time to leave Harry alone with his bar.

The three gathered their things and headed for the door as Harry made his way around the counter.

“It’s been a pleasure, Harry,” Blake said, shaking his hand.

“The pleasure was all mine, Blake.”

“We’ll see ya around, Harry,” Dwayne said. Another handshake.

“I know Jean’ll want to have all of you over for dinner sometime soon.”

“As long as you don’t invite the grandkids.”

Harry chuckled.

“Harry, I-”

Before she could say another word, Harry wrapped his arms around Amanda in a reassuring embrace. “Take care of yourself, ya hear?” he said.

She squeezed him back with a wordless nod, then they were gone.

Harry watched them pause in the parking lot, lingering beside their respective vehicles for one last hug. Their headlights bounced off the pub’s windows as they drove away, sailing across the bar in a temporary sweep of harsh, white light. Slowly, steadily, Harry turned to the empty glasses on the bar and carried them into the kitchen. Running the water in the sink, he took his time purposely washing each one as his mind drifted back to the day he had first purchased them. Nancy had blustered in the way she always did, a catalog in her hands, and together they had spent the greater part of an afternoon debating which design to order. He had wanted to convey an aura of elegant simplicity - unmarred glass with only four indentations around the base for fingers and thumbs. She, on the other hand, had vied for a much trendier pattern - etchings of gold in hexagonal shapes that encompassed the entirety of the glass. Taking a rag to each one and wiping them pristine, he smiled softly to himself as the raised tracings of the gold rose from the glass to meet his fingertips.

Walking back into the bar, Harry arranged the glasses behind the bar in immaculate lines, forming acute separations between the highball glasses and the rocks glasses, the martini glasses and the margarita glasses, erasing any lingering fingerprints as he went. Then he sprayed the counter with the wood polish he kept underneath and rubbed it until it glistened. He studied his reflection in the cherry-colored countertop for a long time, then nodded.

“It’s time.”

He walked to the door and, with only a second’s hesitation, turned out the lights. The gleam of the large green sign in the window still cast what anyone else would have described as an eerie glow on the empty pub. But for Harry, that green glimmer in the window was anything but foreboding. He remembered the day Rich had presented it to him as a thank you for helping him transport several pieces of large furniture to the dump - a gesture that had resulted in several dozen stitches and a permanent scar along Harry’s right forearm. Ever since that day, that sign had hung in the window, its chartreuse letters a beacon of hospitality and reprieve to everyone who walked through those doors. He had never unplugged it in the entire time Hair of Dog had been open. It hummed goodnight every evening when he locked the doors and it buzzed good morning every day when he walked across the parking lot.

Harry smiled softly and looked down at the outlet in the wall beside him. He tugged on the plastic wire. And the light went out.