Malia dipped her head and whispered through lips that hardly moved. “You want out of here, don’t you?”

I don’t answer rhetorical questions.

“This is the only way,” she said, moving her glass closer to mine. “It doesn’t get easier than this, trust me.”

I could smell the liquor. After seven years of sobriety, it still had its draw. Its promise of sweet oblivion. The most assured escape from my querulous mind. But it comes with a cost that is steeper for some, especially me. Stealing my memories and leaving me with a moral debt.

“Not going to happen,” I said.

The jukebox kicked on, or maybe it just changed songs and I hadn’t been listening. I heard the melodic opening to ‘Sweet Melissa’ by the Allman Brothers. The sound of those gifted brothers whose own demons had resulted in this angelic tune. Why is it that choir boys can’t seem to write heavenly music?

“Then you’re stuck here with me, I’m afraid,” Malia said, then sipped her drink through a straw.

How theatrical.

“Hey, Razz,” I said.

“Yessir.” He rested his arms on the bar and leaned toward me. That old chain-link bracelet with the Virgin Mary medallion clinked against the wood. It had been his grandfather’s good luck charm in the First World War. A story I’d heard at least two dozen times.

I studied his face, looking for signs of makeup. Searched his eyes for deception. “What’s the story here, man?”

He frowned. “With what?”

I said the first thing that came to mind. “Your sister. Lisa.”

The two teeth to either side of his incisors were silver, which made him look like Jaws from Moonraker when he smiled. Call him that, though, and you’d find your next drink watered down. That’s if he knew you. Spit in it, if he didn’t. He armed sweat from his brow, which was always damp. “That fucking crazy broad,” he said. “Took her kids, my nephews, you know, out to Cedar Beach the other day. The boy, the little one, Tommy, he swims into a jellyfish or something, gets stung all up on his shoulder and the side of his chest. He’s hollering like a maniac. Fucking kid can yell like you’ve never heard.”

I’ve heard worse, I wanted to say. That night, after I left here.

“You’ve told me this one before,” I tell him.

“What?” He looked genuinely puzzled. “Nah, there’s no way. It just happened. And you haven’t been in here in, what? A while.”

I shrugged. There was actually something comforting about the situation. Like falling back into a familiar role. The dim lighting, Allman Brothers on the box, Razz with his Hawaiian shirt and dense thicket of chest hair. Something about it felt ceremonial, even. All of this for me.

“Okay, then,” Razz said. “You heard it already, what happened?”