Hardman's Bar

By Hadrian Howell (Hardman)

Chapter 2

"Someone gets drunk here and goes on a rampage, YOU'RE liable, you know."

I laughed, my hands slamming the cups back into stacks and putting them down behind the bar before returning to me. "Come on, man, we can't get drunk! There isn't a robot alive that's programming gets screwed up by barely and hops, and you know it."

"Maybe," Rock said, "but you could still be blamed."

Not wanting to talk about this anymore, I looked for a familiar face and was surprised to see one.

"Needlegal? What's up?" I asked. She had a crestfallen look on her face as I walked over to her. "I thought you were workin' at the diner today? Don't tell me ya got fired?"

"I didn't," Needlegal said, looking up and me. Only now did I notice the ash on her face. "The DINER got fired. Burned to the ground."

"Thoshe BASHTARDSH!" Torchman shouted out before falling off his stool with an unceremonious thump. "Firsht they kick me out, then they shteal my gimmi… gimme… schtick!"

"What's he going on about?" Needle asked me.

"He's just pretty drunk," I shrugged.

"SEE?" Rock hissed at me.

Ignoring him, I continued. "So, wait, why'd ya come here? Why not go home?"

She looked around the bar, and then motioned for me to lean in closer. "My boss was telling everyone that they should come here if they wanted food," she whispered.

"Hey, cool, free advertising," I grinned.

"MORON!" she hissed, smacking me on the back of the head, "Think about how many people are in and out of the diner! A diner that is, I might add, four times the size of your bar!"

I did some quick math in my head. "Oh."

"Yeah. You're going to be very busy, VERY quickly."

I looked at the bar and heard the door open. A FLOOD of bodies came through, all clambering for tables. Taking this in, I looked at Needlegal. "Er, so… wanna work here today?"

She raised an eyebrow at me. "What?"

"Well, these people are regulars at the diner, they know ya, right? An' I'm gonna to need the extra wait staff. Please?"

She considered this. "I want good pay."

"8 bucks and hour, plus tips."

An incoming crowd literally forced her back from the bad. "Okay!" she shouted as she fought to the back room.

Looking at the sea of people, both robot and human, gathering before me, I sighed. I was going to need help. I placed a quick phone call which turned into a not so quick argument about the time of day it was, and inside of a half hour, Roll was out there working the floor alongside her brother and Gauntlet's sister. Magnet and Gaga were working like dogs in the back room while yours truly was slinging booze and tossing bottles at the bar.

When you work in customer service, and you get busy, you might think that time passes by quickly because you're so busy. This is not, sadly, the case. Time starts moving slower, in fact, and every transaction, piece of business, and argument over the price of beer takes agonizing eons of time.

Fortunately, the crowd that usually frequented the Diner was pretty much dispersed by 8, giving me time to restock the bar with some fresh bottles and Mags some time to catch up on all the dirty dishes. After a while of dead time, Needle came by the bar.

"That was some rush, wasn't it?" She smiled. She looked a little disheveled, but I could tell she loved her job to some extent. Possibly to the amount of money she now had due to tips.

"That was certainly busy," I nodded.

"Busiest I bet this place has ever been," she grinned. "You OWE me one."

"I suppose," I said, shrugging. "But that was NOT the busiest I've ever gotten."

She raised an eyebrow, prompting me to continue. I smiled back at her. "Stick around past 10, Needle, and I'll show you a crowd."

Roll, equally disheveled, came by the bar too, holding a wad of bills that barely fit in her hand. "Hey, Hard? Could I get some ones exchanged here?"

"Sure thing," I said, popping open the till. "I'm runnin' low on singles and five anyway."

As I started exchanging Roll's small bills for bigger bills, she and Needle began to chat back and forth about the day. Rock, I noticed, was nowhere to be seen. At one point, Magnetman came out of the back, with a stained white apron on, and surveyed the room.

"What WAS that? Some kind of calamity?"

"Just a rush, Magnet," I told him.

"JUST a rush?"

"They happen," I shrugged.

"WARN me before that happens again, will you? I have dishpan hands, and I'm a freakin' ROBOT! I'm no supposed to be able to GET dishpan hands!"

"Oh, stop whining," Gag said as he stuck his head out of the back. "This guy goes away at 10, right? Please tell me I'm right."

"Yeah," I said. "Why?"

"He won't shut up!" Gag exclaimed, giving Magnet a dirty look. "All he ever goes on about is 'I'm not supposed to be here today!' and 'I hate dishes!' and stuff."

"Hey, this job sucks, man," Magnet told him.

"Yeah, and I do it every day," Gag said back.

The two of them proceeded to argue themselves into the kitchen, where I couldn't hear the bulk of it. Thank god for small blessings. As Needle and Roll went about the task of wiping down the tables and I cleaned off the bar, I noticed something. Something moaning.

"Oh, god," I said with a horrifying realization. "Torchman? Is that you?"

He'd fallen, and he hadn't gotten up in time to avoid getting trampled in the crowd. Torchman looked like 18 miles of bad dirt road. He wasn't moving much, either. He twitched once or twice, I think, but I couldn't be certain.

"Needle? Can you help our friend out the door, please? I think he's had enough of the crowd for today."

It actually took Needle and me working together to pry the poor sap out of my floor, and THEN help him out. We even called a cab for him, handed the driver the remainder of Torch's cash (minus a hefty donation to my modest establishment) and let the cabbie pick the destination. I heard later the guy just dropped Torchman off at the pier and left him for dead. Who knows what happened after that.

Business continued as usual, and remained sporadic until about 10 at night, when Mags ran out the door screaming about freedom and a bleary eyed Snakeman wandered in.

"You look like hell, Snake," Needle commented.

"You would not BELIEVE how many websites picked up Xelloss's Twincest prank pictures," He croaked.

"I need absolutely no more information about that," Roll told him, sending him to the back. "Does anyone know where my brother went off to?" I shrugged.

"Maybe he cut out early?" Needle suggested.

"Probably chasing some lead on some crime somewhere," I said. "It doesn't much matter."

The door opened again, and in came my only human employee. Cassandra was a knockout brunette who made better tips here than Roll did, even from the robotic clientele. She'd been working here the longest, as I hired her in just before I became Hardman, back in the days when my Bar got trashed almost weekly.

"Welcome to hell, Cassandra," I smile wryly.

"Always glad to be here," she said with a smile. "Who's playing tonight?"

"Playing?" Needle asked.

"At 10:30, we get a live band in here, give the place some atmosphere," I told her.

"Oh. So THAT'S why you're always so busy later at night?"

"Pretty much." I checked my calendar under the bar. "Tonight, we've got a band called Subdunk Solution."

"Sweet," Cassandra smiled.

"I may have to stick around for this," Needle said.

"You can have it, girl, 'cause I'm going home," Roll told her, making a beeline for the door.

I sighed. "Good help is so hard to keep on paid retainer these days."

"True, big guy," my human waitress said, walking into the back to say hi to Gag.

I hit a button under the bar which shifted the western wall, causing a portion of it to open like a movie screen, revealing a stage. As I settled into the routine of cleaning glasses and waiting on the occasional customer, Cassandra helped the band get ready for the night.

Live music in a bar room give it that certain tang that I always thought made the booze taste better. Lately, I'd been trying to put off alcohol in an effort to be a better help to the Mechs, but lately we hadn't been doing much at all. I remember a bit of that night through the haze of the very fine scotch I had reserved for myself.

Needlegal had refused the offer for a free drink that Cassandra took instead. As good moods and good music spread over the gathering crowd in my bar, I took in a happy sigh. This, right here, was what it was all about. The sedated smiles on the faces of those who've forgotten about life for a while. The happy humming of the otherwise stressed nine-to-fiver who wanted to relax for the evening. The ebb and swell of the dating scene that played out in front of me every night. This was a good thing.

They say, in customer service, that when you're busy, time goes by fast. That isn't true. Time DOES, however, fly when you're enjoying it. Before I knew it, Cassandra was waving goodbye to the last of the customers and locking the door, and I was trying had to keep count of my profits for the day, with a little help from a tuckered out Needlegal.

I'd forgotten to get another cook that night, but Gag had stayed on with minimal fuss, mostly because he enjoyed the midnight shift here just as much as I did. As Cassandra mopped up the floor and Needle and I finished counting the cash and stashing it in the safe (hidden under a steel plate four inches thick under the floor behind the bar), Gag and Snake came out from the back, their individual chores done.

I rattled the keys and let everyone out the door, locking it behind me as I left. As I staggered home, along with Snake and Needle, we shared some jokes and stories about the day. When we got back to the Mech's base, I don't remember much but hitting my bed on the way down.

So, that's my life, day in and day out. I run the only seedy bar in the city, and I do it damn well. This, to me, is paradise.

I love this job.