Another

Sitting down in his favorite bar, dark, quiet, and only a few other patrons, the executioner ordered his usual.  He needed to get the smell out of his nose and clothes and the only way he had found to do that was by going to the dive where there was much smoking, hardly any talking, and years of human odors piled upon each other until the place took on a dank smell that would only ever be relieved by burning the place down.

Why did he continue moonlighting with this job?  Money, of course, there was good money in state-sanctioned murder, and he was just the person to relieve the state of it.  Well, he and two other men who never talked or acknowledged each other.  The sour, pungent smell of the bar was beginning to work its magic on him, and he noticed he could look at the other customers in the face again.  Bars always have distinctive smells to them depending on what they are used for.  The expensive, high-society ones didn’t have a bad smell to them; they were always pleasant, well-ventilated, and clean.  But you paid an arm and a leg for your watered-down drinks.  No, the cheap ones were the best at getting rid of other odors, supplanting them with their own mix of years of sweat, smoke, puke, and humans.      

“Another,” he ordered and the drink was served with the usual mix of apathy and curiosity.  The amber liquid seared his throat, fogged his sinus cavities with the vapor of cheap alcohol, and produced the requisite wincing that comes with trying to swallow something meant to be used as cleaning fluid.  The rotund bartender never asked him questions, but stood by in case he said anything other than a drink order.  He never did.  A quiet man by nature, it wasn’t in him on the best of days to chat.  He said what needed to be said and that was it.  Maybe that’s why his ex-wife…, well, what good was she anyway?

Impeccably dressed, he didn’t look the look of this bar.  It was the standard suit he wore to his second job, and he hated it.  It felt scratchy and cheap and he didn’t allow it to be in his closet.  He chafed at the collar and he reached up to loosen the tie and top button on his starched shirt.  The release of pressure was welcome, and he closed his eyes and smiled.  The suit was only kept in a box in the trunk of his car and it got cleaned before he needed to go to work, and he paid extra for the pressing.  It simply wouldn’t do to look shabby for the audience and the star. 

“Another,” and the drink magically appeared.  He wondered if the bartender could smell the smell on him, or if because he worked in a place that smelled of everything his olfactory senses were long since damaged beyond repair.  The executioner covertly sniffed the upper arm of his manicured suit coat.  He couldn’t be sure what he smelled; it was either the carbonized remains of the prisoner or dry cleaning fluid.  Did anyone around him know what he did for rent and alimony money?  He surreptitiously looked around and like he, everyone else had their heads down in their drinks, contemplating their own misery and haunted past deeds. 

After a while, the dimly-lit and hazy bar began to clear out and a few of the denizens shuffled toward the door.  It was getting late, but he had nothing to return to.  He had more family in this shack right now than he ever had when he was a member of polite society.  He had to get up later this morning to go to his respectable job, and he didn’t care at that particular moment.  That care would come in about four hours when that evil invention rang with the most annoying sound in the world.

Maybe he should quit this second job, but he dismissed the idea immediately because the money was so good.  The cheap alcohol was making him fuzzy headed and the bar began to be less hideous and the harsh edges began to soften.  It was warm, comforting, and he began to feel at ease.  Even the rank smell was beginning to lull him into contentment.  So what if he got rid of scum for a living?  They deserved it, didn’t they?  And, with the passage of time and alcohol, he couldn’t remember the prisoner’s name anymore.  He knew he had reached the point of the night where he could go home and sleep. 

“Another,” one more couldn’t hurt.  The warm liquid peeled the skin from his throat and he relished the feel of it.  No ice for him to cool the caustic nature of the invitingly amber liquid.  All he could smell now was cigarette and sweat and he knew, just knew, that the last remnants of what’s-his-name were gone from him.

This was a story I wrote for Eng 203 (creative writing).  I ran across it the other day while cleaning out files on my computer and thought I'd put it in my blog.  I've always wondered what the executioners do after an execution.