“Turn around.” I meet the guy’s eyes for the first time, and he flinches. “Go back to your drinks, and keep your opinions to yourself.”
“What do you know, asshole?” He raises himself up in the seat some more and turns to get a better look at me. Now that he’s standing, I realize he’s a lot bigger than I thought. His drunken glare removes any resemblance to a professor. He definitely has more of a tough-guy look about him when he’s standing. One of his friends grabs him by the arm and tells him to back off, but he doesn’t move.
“I was over there for three years.” Unlike Jonathan, I don’t raise my voice. I just stare into the guy’s eyes. “I guess I do know a little something.”
“Well, why the fuck didn’t you actually do something to get it over with?”
My stomach quivers.
“You don’t know shit!” Jonathan is now completely out of his seat and taking a step toward the other table.
“Sit down, Jon.”
He looks at me with fire in his eyes but ultimately complies.
“Yeah, sit down and shut up!” The bearded guy laughs as he drops back down in his seat.
“That dickhead needs to be taught a fucking lesson.” Jonathan picks up his beer bottle and nearly drains it.
“Undoubtedly.”
With everyone seated again, Jonathan and I finish our drinks in silence as he picks at the label on the beer bottle. The basketball game ends, but I don’t look to see who has won.
“Sorry if I made that worse,” Jonathan suddenly says.
“You didn’t,” I tell him with a shake of my head. “I’m good.”
He looks me over and probably knows I’m lying.
“You know I’m always one to take the moral high ground,” Jonathan says with a casual shrug.
That gets a chuckle out of me. I raise an eyebrow at him.
“Since when?”
“I’m a gentle soul at heart,” Jonathan manages to say with a straight face, “but some people just need to be beaten like a harp seal.”
I laugh at the mental image of Jonathan holding a big club and smacking the guy right upside his scraggly beard. I wonder if there’s enough hair to make a fur coat.
“Let it go,” I say. “Drunk morons aren’t worth the trouble. I got the tab.”
I toss a few bills at the bartender and tell him to keep the change. He gives me a little salute off the brim of his baseball cap, and I tense at the gesture. When I get back to the table, Jonathan is back at it with the asshole behind him.
“You don’t know who the fuck yer talkin’ to!” Jonathan yells. “You need to shut that fucking trap of yours before you end up uglier than you already are!”
“Let’s get out of here,” I say. I tap Jonathan on the shoulder to get him moving.
“Fucking punk,” Jonathan says, muttering as we start to head out.
Apparently, the guy doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone. Maybe he’s one of those people who just need to have that last word.
“Hey, GI Joe,” the asshole screams, “you’re a fucking coward! Go crawl back into whatever hole you came from!”
I pause and turn slowly. I feel heat on the back of my neck as if the desert sun had just reached its peak. I can taste sand in my mouth, and I can feel the sting of boots against my ribs.
“What did you say to me?” I respond slowly.
“I said”—the guy repeats his words as he squares his shoulders and moves up closer to me—“that you’re a fucking coward.”