When Gary had leaned his head inside Lewis's bar and waved him outside, he expected to find a few familiar drunks smashing bottles against the brick walls in the alleyway.

“Cue’s at it again, man,” Gary said to Lewis as he stepped outside, pointing out with a calloused finger to the dimly lit parking lot. Lewis followed the curved line of Gary’s fingers until his gaze landed on a bald man with his face pressed against someone’s driver-side window.

“He’s been crawling underneath the cars and shit. Someone’s gonna run his ass over. Darren’s on his way now, but I can’t handle his ass alone till then.” Cue turned to the sound of their voices.

“I got ‘im, man! I got him!” Cue shouted, as he weaved his way over to Lewis and Gary with a wide grin. The pink neon bar lights glinted off of his polished head, and as he got closer Lewis saw that the left lens of his glasses were cracked to pieces. There were red stains covering the front of his polo.“Look, Lewis! I found the little bastard that took my girlfriend!”

Lewis crossed his arms. He checked his left breast pocket with his right hand, then reached in for his can of chewing tobacco, popped it open, pinched a large brown wad between his thumb and forefinger and pressed it into his mouth.

“You talking about Tammy, the fat girl? She leave you again, Cue?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and the corner of his lips.

“No! Noooo!” Cue wailed. “She was took this time, Lew! The little green man came and an’ne… he… took her away!” He slurred, gesturing his tightly cupped hands across the sky in a dramatic sweep. “But I caught him!” he said, pulling his arms back to his chest and glancing from his hands to Lewis with large, glassy eyes. “He’s in here,” he whispered, before the whine of a car turning caught his attention.

Darren’s silver and blue Crown Victoria pulled into the parking lot, and Cue Ball lowered himself into a crouch as Darren walked over.

“Watcha got there, Cue?” Darren asked, smirking at Lewis as he stopped just beside him. His fingers were tucked into his belt.

“An alien,” Cue said.

“Bullshit,” Gary laughed.

“An alien? In your hands?” Darren pressed, incredulous.

“Yeah, yeah! I’ll show ya. Then you gotta go save the bitch, Dare.”

“I’ll find her, I’ll find her. Why don’t you show us that alien, there, Cue?”

Cue Ball stood up straight, as if someone had suddenly wrenched a stone off of his back. Despite his skinny frame and the blue-and-white striped polo tucked into his blue jeans, Cue was still 6’1 and blasted drunk. For a moment, however, Cue seemed to sober up entirely. He spread his legs and stretched his long arms out steadily. He stilled, then glanced between the three men in front of him.

Lewis reached his hand up to brush his hair out of his face, and Darren unhooked his fingers from his belt. He put one hand on his hip and rested the other on the stick in his holster. Gary took a step back, keeping his eyes trained on Cue’s hands. Slowly, Cue began to pry his fingers apart. The three men in front of him leaned in slightly, curious, before suddenly falling back as he flipped his hands open only to reveal two empty palms. dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;text-indent: 36pt;">

“Aw, he got away!” Cue sobbed, looking around desperately.

Lewis let out a curse of a breath as Gary began to laugh. “Darren,” he started, “get him out of my parking lot before he hurts himself, please.”

Darren shook his head, putting one hand in his belt and the other on Cue’s shoulder. “Come on Cue, I’ll give you a ride home. Maybe Tammy’s got away?” he offered.

>Cue whimpered as he climbed into the back of the cop car, but immediately laid down and fell asleep as Darren started the car and left for Cue's house. Gary tossed a wave to Lewis before climbing into his jeep and heading home, leaving Lewis to stare at the neon outlines of women reflected in the muddy puddles of his parking lot before he turned around and went back inside.

He opened the heavy wooden door and glanced to his right, where his father-in-law was watching an old western for the third time that day. One of his hands was holstered deep in the front of his pants, relaxed despite the loud laughter and shouting drowning out the sounds of the television.

He looked back towards the bar on the left, where his wife Terri was handing Mad Max a bottle of bright yellow beer. Max noticed him looking and smiled before waving him over.

“Hey, Lewis, man, you gotta try this new beer. It’s got squat alcohol but it tastes like lemonade,” he said.

“That’s the new shit. Canadian lemonade or something,” Lewis said. “Y’all won’t guess what Cue just fucking did. It was crazy as shit.”

“Yeah, man. Girly as hell but it tastes pretty good,” he said, watching as Terri went back into the fridge room to get old Raleigh at the end a beer before turning back to Lewis. “I don’t think Cue lives on the same planet as us, man. But listen, come on, we gotta talk about last weekend. Let’s go out back for a second.”

Lewis nodded, watching as Max turned away from the bar and planted his fake leg on the ground to take a few wobbling steps before getting off of his own stool to follow. They went out the back door to sit down on the lawn chairs Terri had placed on the small patch of turf he’d bought. Max sat down and unbuckled his prosthetic before setting his other leg on the table and leaning back in his plastic patio chair. He took a long drink from his bottle and pulled a puckered face at the sour lemon flavor.

“So,” he said, smacking his lips, “talked to Gigi. Said she’s got an eightball of the shit if you wanna hang out with her and the girls again. $300 since she likes you so much.”

Gigi, Lewis vaguely remembered, was the naked brunette he’d met in Max’s apartment last Saturday. He reached his hand down to his pants, fiddling with his wallet. He looked back to the door of the bar, unsure.

“What if Terri finds out?” he asked.

“What if? Dude, who gives a fuck. She’d probably stay with you if you knocked her ass around the block and back,” he laughed. “Besides, at least you don’t have to worry about Gigi getting pregnant. You already got four by two, man, maybe it’s time to plow some new fields. That, and we’re all probably gonna die cause the whole Y2K thing.”

Lewis started picking at the chipping wooden table between them. He gripped his wallet, sliding his finger into the pocket where he kept his bills. He paused, staring at the turf beneath his legs before the clang of the door swinging open caused both him and Max to jump. The bottle fell and spilled onto Max’s good leg and he cursed.

“Daddy!” a chubby little girl called, running to Lewis. “Hey, can I have some lemonade? Papaw said no,” she said, looking over to Max. “Are we gonna go pull your pennies off the train tracks tomorrow Mr. Max? There was a train today! I heard it from the house.”

Lewis took her hand and started pulling her back inside. She happily followed.

“Did you walk up here by yourself, Ruth?” Lewis asked.

“No, L.J. walked with me. We’re hungry and all we have at home is cereal.”

Lewis walked her over to the bar and dropped her onto one of the tall red stools beside her slightly older brother L.J. Her short legs only just reached the first chrome bar. looked down at her bright blonde hair and chubby cheeks. He walked behind the bar and grabbed them each a soda and a bag of chips. He looked around the bar for Terri, but Raleigh cleared his throat to get his attention, then nodded to the cooler. His father-in-law, Roy, came out of the bathroom with his apron on.

 Lewis stepped inside the cooler to find Terri. He saw her leaning in the corridor, one hand on the underside of her open jaw and the other against the icy wall.

“Terri? L.J. and Ruth walked up here. Do you wanna take them home and order pizza or something?” he asked.

She pulled her hand down from her face and looked at him, brown eyes searching. If she found anything, it didn’t show.

“Yeah. Give me the money and I’ll take them. What kind do you want me to get for you?”

“Whatever they get is fine. Just put it in the microwave,” he said. He pulled out his wallet and handed her half of his money. He grabbed the hand she reached towards her and pulled her in for a kiss before giving her a lopsided smile and a wink, which she returned as she pulled away and walked out. He heard the muffled sounds of his kids cheering, and the sound of a few quiet goodbyes from the bar. He turned away from the bar and pulled a can of Budweiser out of one of the boxes, chugging it in a few seconds. He reached inside and grabbed another and then walked back to start taking orders.