The Silver Tap’s sole bouncer saw trouble coming at him from across the bar. Like a train, it should have been easy to avoid, but Abel just couldn’t get off the tracks.
+++++The drunk staggered and swiped at Holly’s tray, somehow managing to snag himself a Heineken. In spite of the waitress’s heroic efforts, the missing bottle unbalanced the tray and scattered glass and alcohol across the dive bar’s faded linoleum tiles.
+++++The drunk was a big boy, well over the bouncer’s own one-sixty, but Abel’s four years in Holman Correctional Facility had taught him that it wasn’t size that got you through the day; it was who could get the most violent the quickest. He had the drunk snatched up—the man’s shoulder torqued to the breaking point—before anyone else could work out what was going on. They were almost to the door when Holly let loose with such a steady and creative stream of threats and insults that even the sailors at the pool table drew back.
+++++If he could get the man out front, Abel figured he could take his foot off the gas and try talking some sense into the fellow. That’s when the drunk stomped a boot heel down, shattering the nail on Abel’s big toe.
+++++Blinding pain. White-hot rage. It probably would have been better if the asshole had just hit him with a beer bottle.
+++++Abel lifted the man’s hips by his belt and drove him stumbling forward. The Silver Tap nestled in the shady corner of a strip mall, and, just like the beauty shop and the bakery to either side of the little bar, it had a glass storefront. Aluminum brackets framed the large windows, and Abel knew that if he could bounce the drunk’s skull off one of those metal columns, the fight would be over.
+++++By the time they got to the front of the bar, they were nearly at a run. Not only did the drunk have Abel driving him forward, but his own girth was causing considerable momentum. Impact with a solid object like the frame was going to ring his noggin like a bell. Unfortunately for everyone involved, his head missed the aluminum by three inches and cracked into the giant glass window.
+++++“Oh, shit,” Abel cried, so startled that he let go. The drunk, bleeding and angry and suddenly free from the bouncer’s grip, swung wildly, the back of his elbow catching Abel in the nose.
+++++Whatever reasoning and self-control Abel had been utilizing up until that point evaporated. He reached down and grabbed the drunk by the cuffs of his jeans, set his shoulder into the man’s tailbone, and hoisted. The big man toppled forward, unable to keep his balance, and landed face down in the shattered glass.
+++++Abel was on him in a flash. The drunk managed to turn underneath him. The bouncer floated on the man’s beach ball-gut, and then they were face to face, trading punches like two Rock’Em Sock’Em robots. The drunk had the size advantage, but Abel had gravity on his side. That, and the white-hot rage that had always been great at keeping him alive but shit at keeping him out of trouble.
+++++Seconds or minutes–Abel couldn’t tell how long–but at some point, he noticed the silence. The music from the bar, the waitress’s curses, even the drunk’s mumbling: all quiet. He looked up from his bloody work and saw two sets of shoes, black leather polished to a mirror finish. Shit. The only people who wore that sort of footwear were US Marines and cops, and they weren’t at an embassy.
+++++Slowly, Abel raised his bloody hands above his head and stood, trembling. It wasn’t the adrenaline leaving his system, it was fear. He was going back to prison again, and all the hell that went with it. Nothing to eat but potpies and stale Wonder Bread sandwiches. Cold metal toilets with no seats. The corners and dark hallways with neither cameras nor guards to keep the inmates’ animal urges in check.
+++++And then the drunk did him a favor; with a roar like a wounded bear, the bloody jackass climbed to his feet and took a big, clumsy swing at the cops. The older of the two officers simply stepped back and calmly gave the drunk a face full of pepper spray like he was greasing down a waffle iron.
+++++“Don’t worry, sir,” the cop told Abel with a comforting pat on his shoulder. “We’ll take it from here. Why don’t you get cleaned up.”
+++++Suddenly reprieved, Abel managed to stumble towards the bathroom, nodding dumbly. He didn’t trust himself to open his mouth without throwing up.

[Image Credit : Photo by Yuriy Vertikov on Unsplash]

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H K Slade

H.K. Slade is a writer living in North Carolina who specializes in mysteries with occasional forays into Horror and Science Fiction. When not writing or hiking with his dog, he spends time training the next generation of crime fighters and sleuths. His noir stories featuring the beleaguered Virginia Beach private investigator Casey Burton can be found in Dark Yonder and forthcoming in Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, vol. 7, while his procedural mysteries featuring Detectives Friday Hampton and Ambrose Broyhill have been published in Black Cat Weekly, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and in Otto Penzler's Best Mystery Stories of the Year, 2026. Links and notes about all of his stories can be found at his website, www.hkslade.com.

Latest posts by H K Slade (see all)

• Dodging a Train - October 16, 2026