Excerpt from "A little touch of Harry in the night" from Transit of Venus
© 1993 Mark Seymour

A little touch of Harry in the night

When Harry came through the door, Pat the bartender pulled a fresh bottle of vodka from the shelf, cracked the seal noisily, and set it on the polished mahogany. As Harry paused in the entryway, his eyes adjusting to the dimness, waiting to see who else was in the place, Pat thumped a tall glass full of ice down next to the bottle. Harry only drank from newly-opened containers, and what he drank was always clear and ice-cold. Pat understood the preference had to do with a couple of years Harry'd been with the Marines. In Quang Tri province, an open bottle was always suspect and ice a rare commodity. When Harry stepped up to the bar, a trickle of blood edging his hairline, Pat reached down for a clean bar towel, folded it in thirds, and set it gently next to the glass.

Harry nodded his thanks and poured: two fingers of the vodka onto the center of the towel, four over the ice in the glass. As the ice cracked and settled, Harry put the bottle down and picked up the towel. The vodka hurt like hell when he clapped it to the cut, but it hurt clean, and it hurt a lot less once he got a few fingers of the vodka down his throat. His time in Quang Tri had given Harry a dislike of open wounds, so he set the bloody towel down and unfolded it. "Ice, please."

Pat reached down under the bar, came up with a handful of fresh ice out of the stainless bin, and let it trickle out the side of his fist onto the center of the stained cloth.

Harry refolded the towel carefully over the mound of ice and picked up the bottle. He poured another dose on the cloth and a few more fingers in the glass. It didn't hurt nearly as much when he pressed the towel to his face the second time.

"You okay, Harry?" Pat waited, his wet hand on the bar, the dry one wrapped around the butt of the twelve-gauge pump clipped underneath. He ran a clean place, and Harry'd always been all right, but these days you never knew what might follow one of your regulars in the door.

"Sure, Pat, fine." Harry smiled when Pat only nodded and moved away down the bar, wiping it hard as he went. It wasn't easy to find now, the Irish solemnity of the old harps. Pat ran the last and the best of the harp bars in the city, but there was no telling how long the pink neon over the door would continue to read Pat's Place. Pat hadn't told anyone when the new owners'd bought him out with a suitcase of cash fresh from Hong Kong, but if you didn't know who owned where you drank, you should turn in your shield.