The night moves on at an odd pace. People fade in and out of the bar like phantoms, barely noticeable, never leaving an impression, with the possible exception of the stoned girl with rainbow-colored hair who asks me to turn up the volume on the TV so she can dance to the commercial jingles.

When Benny, the bartender who covers the last shift of the night, wanders in at eight thirty, less than ten people are there.

One of them is Lander.

He’s never stayed till the end of my shift before.

I go to greet Benny, tell him which tabs are open and who’s paid up. The rainbow girl spins to the sound of Stevie Nicks’s “Landslide” as it plays over a Budweiser ad. The drunk from the night before stumbles in, already too wasted to be served. He seems disoriented for a moment as he weaves his way to the bar. He loses his footing and bumps into a biker, jostling him, spilling a bit of the big guy’s drink on his lap. As the biker swears, the drunk mumbles his apologies and falls to his knees . . . and tries to use his shirtsleeve to wipe up the alcohol from the biker’s pants, which causes his hands to brush up against parts of the other man’s anatomy that he should clearly stay away from.

It would be funny . . . except the biker reacts too quickly, yanking the drunk to his feet by his collar, practically holding him in the air as spittle flies from his mouth.

“What the fuck are you trying to do?”

“I’m sorry,” the drunk slurs. “I didn’t mean—”

But the biker throws him against the wall with enough force to cause a concussion. The drunk is disoriented, unable to stand up straight. He shields his face with his arms as the bigger man advances. Everyone in the bar is frozen, as if the speed of the violence has forced the rest of us into immobility.

All of us but Lander, who gets up and places himself in between the two men. He meets the biker’s eyes directly and says in a very quiet but very firm voice, “Don’t do that.”

The enraged man looks at Lander with his mouth hanging open. It takes him about ten seconds to gather his wits. “What’s your problem?” he sneers. “You a faggot too?”

“It’s not really relevant if I’m gay or not . . . although your extreme reaction to what just happened is curious. Are you upset that he accidentally touched you or that you sort of liked it?”