“Hey,” Willie says, adjusting his backward baseball cap, “I like your bite, old man.”
“You ain’t seen my bite,” the bartender says. “We’re too busy barking.”
This makes them lose it, cracking up, pounding fists on the bar, shaking their drinks, a few suds jumping out of pint glasses and slowly spilling down the outside.
Noah911 loses his capacity to follow the conversation, eyes glued to the TV. They’re saying something about the brass band but he can’t hear. They show a few stills from TheGreatJake’s video; Noah911 has memorized every frame. Finally, the screen zooms in on one man’s face, the last person to jump, the guy playing the bass drum. His mug is grainy, pixilated from being blown up this big on the screen, but Noah911 tries to soak up every detail. He’s young, definitely in his thirties. Short brown hair. Sort of handsome. Not an imposing face, clean-shaven, not the crazy you can see in the eyes of, say, Ted Bundy or Jim Jones. Noah911 would sit next to this guy on the subway and not worry one bit.
He has to know what the newscasters are saying. Earlier, he’d been kept out of the mariachi bar, simply from the threat of being triggered to think of Tracey jumping by the horns. This, though, feels like something different — this feels like he might be able to learn. Why are they zeroing in on this man? Is he the leader? Is it his fault, too?
He asks the bartender to turn the music down, crank up the news. The men buck at this idea, saying, “God no, anything but that. Jesus, what’s wrong with baseball? What do you have against the national pastime?”
The cranky bartender agrees to Noah911’s request, probably because his suggestion bothers the others so much. He shuts off the music, snatches the remote control, and turns up the news.
“This is an image of the man thought to be the mastermind behind. .” the news anchor says, but Noah911 can’t hear the rest of her thought because one of the men whines, “Boring! This is boring! Can we please turn the channel?”
“We are so bored!” another says.
“Bor-ing!” they start chanting, all four of them, bisecting the word into two harsh syllables. “Bor-ing! Bor-ing! Bor-ing!”
They pound their fists on the bar in rhythm with their chants.
“Will you clowns shut up?” Noah911 says.
They stop. Look at him. Stand from their stools. Flash greedy smiles. It’s like an antelope has challenged a cackle of hyenas to a fight.
“I’m trying to listen to the news,” Noah911 says.
“Mister, you should be listening to the common sense the good lord gave you,” says the bartender.
“He’s giving you sound advice,” Willie says, readjusting his backward hat, pulling it down snug.
“I need to hear the news,” Noah911 says, “so put your tampons in and deal with it.”
“You assholes want to fight, you do it outside,” the bartender says. “I’ll call the cops, though.”
“Believe me,” Willie says, “he does not want to fight.”
Noah911 hears another phrase from the anchor: “. . it’s not known if a reason has been explicitly stated. .”
“What do you think, News Watcher?” says one of them. “Will there be anything left of you by the time the cops get here?”
Noah911 is off his stool. He backs up into the middle of the room. The news still tells people about the brass band, and Noah911 can’t think of a more appropriate soundtrack.
“Not here,” the bartender says.
“It has to be here,” Noah911 says to him.
Then he turns his attention to the guys: “Are you made of chicken shit or what?”
“You must be off your meds, man,” Willie says.
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
They saunter over and slowly circle him. The bartender has the phone in his hand, ready to dial 911, but no one will make it in time. Nobody can save him and they shouldn’t. A piss-poor protector like Noah911 shouldn’t get any shelter of his own.
Let his guilt have arms and fists.
Let him bleed.
The news still plays on the TV, not that Noah911 can hear much of what’s being said. The brass band’s enigma, their code, stupefies everyone, except Noah911 because he doesn’t care why they did it. That’s not a question that interests him. Futures contracts pay out or they bust. Those are the only two options, and Noah911 likes that simplicity. There’s no time for why. Tracey was alive; now she’s dead.
And that’s when Noah911 hits him in the face.
