Page 7 of Cold as Stone
I sigh and drag my suitcase up the steps, the wheels thunking hard against the warped wood. The sound echoes across the trailer park like gunshots, and I half expect Mrs. Kowalski from next door to poke her head out and start asking questions I’m not ready to answer. But the park is quiet, most people already settled in for the evening with their TV dinners and beer and their denial that this is where dreams come to die.
I don’t plan on staying long. Just long enough to deal with the estate, sell what I can’t stomach keeping, and figure out what the hell to do with a million dollars that feels more like blood money than a blessing.
I fish the key from my bag and unlock the door.
The second I crack it open, the smell hits me.
Rot. Mildew. Garbage.
I gag, slapping a hand over my mouth as I push the door open wider with my foot. The air inside is thick, humid, and foul, like trash left out in the sun to fester. The scent wraps around me like a clawed hand, yanking me straight back to every awful night I spent in this place.
The carpet is stained. The dishes are still in the sink. There’s a half-eaten container of Chinese food on the coffee table, furred over in green mold. And the worst part? It’s not even surprising.
I stumble back onto the porch, gulping down the fresh air. My eyes sting. My stomach churns.
“Thanks, Mom.” I mutter, praying I won’t vomit.
When the nausea passes, I lock up the trailer, toss my bag back in my car and do the only rational thing.
I go in search of a drink.
Our small town has two bars—the country club on the far side of town, and Devil’s. The country club is member invite only, which leaves me with the only dive bar in fifty miles.
I pull into the parking lot, shaking my head as I park. It seems some things don’t change.
The sign still flickers with the word “Bar” in letters that have seen better decades. There’s still a dent in the left wall from where Tommy Hendrix crashed his motorcycle into it senior year.
I sit in the car for a moment, hands gripping the steering wheel, trying to work up the courage to walk through those doors. This is where Mom spent most of her evenings for the past thirty years, perched on a barstool, holding court with whoever would listen to her stories about the good old days when she was homecoming queen and the world was full of possibilities.
It’s also where I spent some of the longest nights of my childhood, waiting in the car for Mom to stagger out and drive us drunkenly home. It’s where I learned to swallow my pride and my shame in equal measure, to smile politely while helping mystumbling, slurring mother to the car as half the town watched, and the other half judged from afar.
But it’s the only place that feels right tonight. The only place where I can properly grieve someone who broke my heart long before she was gone.
I push open the door, and it sticks the way it always has, scraping against the frame with a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. The smell hits me immediately—beer and grease from whatever passes for food in the kitchen, mixed with industrial-strength cleaner and the faint sweetness of spilled whiskey.
It’s like stepping into a time capsule, every detail exactly as I remember. The same jukebox in the corner plays some mournful country song about lost love and second chances. The same dartboard hangs slightly crooked on the far wall, just far enough from the pool table that no one would be injured. The same collection of neon beer signs casting everything in shades of red and blue, like the whole place is perpetually bathed in the glow of a police siren.
I don’t expect to see Devil—the man, the myth, the leather-wrapped institution himself—behind the bar. He’s older now, grayer, the lines around his eyes deeper and more pronounced. But he’s still built like a man who bench-presses monster trucks for fun.
When he looks up and sees me, a million emotions flickering across his face. Surprise, maybe, or recognition? But his expression settles quickly into that neutral mask I remember, the one that never gave away what he was thinking.
“Well, well,” he drawls, setting down the glass he was polishing. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
“Hey, Devil,” I say, sliding onto the barstool I used to sneak onto when my mom wasn’t looking. The vinyl is cracked in the same places, held together with duct tape that’s gone gray with age. “Hit me with something strong.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“Rough day?” he asks, reaching for a bottle of whiskey. The good stuff, not the rotgut he used to pour for my mother.
Guess he knows a designer coat when he sees one.
“Rough week. Rough year. Rough fucking decade, if I’m being honest.”
He pours without comment, sliding the glass across the bar with practiced ease. When the whiskey hits my throat, I close my eyes and let it burn.
“I heard about your mom,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry, kid.”
The wordkidhits me harder than it should. That’s what he used to call me back then, when I was ten and thirteen, and seventeen, coming to collect my mother from whatever mess she’d gotten herself into.
