Noir

Zvi A. Sesling

At Mack’s Bar her blonde hair hidden by a fedora pulled down over her forehead. She might have just walked out of the screen of a noir film or a Spielberg World War II movie.

“Anyone want to buy me a drink,” she asks as she lets her coat fall open revealing her naked self.

 There are 10 men at the bar and each pulls out a wallet to volunteer part of his paycheck.

She selects just one, the short, thin one at the far end of the bar and allows him to buy her a bourbon. As he downs a whiskey straight, she says, “Thanks, I need a stiff one.”

Some of the men snicker, but the short, thin man keeps a straight face and says, “My pleasure miss.”

Letting him stare at her naked body she asks the buyer of her drink to walk her home, and he readily agrees to the envy of the other men in the bar.

  The next morning he is found face down in an alley with his wallet missing.

The police investigate asking those present in the bar the night before what her face looks like. No one remembers.

XXX

Zvi A. Sesling, Brookline, MA Poet Laureate (2017-2020), has published numerous poems and flash/micro fiction and won international prizes. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he has published four volumes and three chapbooks of poetry. His flash fiction book is Secret Behind the Gate. He lives in Brookline, MA. with his wife Susan J. Dechter.