Clink

by Paul Beckman

Jill sat in the back corner sipping on her Pinot Grigio while waiting for her boyfriend, Louie the Lip, who told her earlier to wait for him—this was important.

Jilly, as the Lip called her, had her purse on her lap, the pack of cigs and her lighter resting on top, when Lip walked in and spent ten minutes walking from the front door toward his squeeze, but in no rush as he talked to almost everyone in the bar while Jilly sat upright, hands shaking under the table, and a tear dripping down her right cheek.

“Hey, Jilly,” Lip said, “Been here long?”

Jilly took her hands out from beneath the table with the Bic and her pack of Virginia Slims, put the cigarette between her plump red lips and said, “Light me.” And nodded her head at the lighter.

“Wha’s the matter, baby, you look nervous.”

“I’m not nervous but I don’t know why you cut my hours behind the bar.”

“You know, alright,” Lip said. “Don’t make me pull it out of you. Think about it for a couple of minutes and we’ll talk when I come back with a couple of shots.”

Jilly watched Lip face the bar and flash two fingers twice at Harry, the old bartender who was just filling in. Harry then grabbed two rocks glasses, turned and took the bottle of Jameson 12 off the top shelf, used his apron to wipe the glasses and poured two fingers in each and put them on the circular tray and walked behind Lip to the table where Jilly was sitting, and placed a pair of napkins down and rested the glasses of the Irish on them.

“Jilly, which one of us goes first?”

“You should be the one to go first,” Jilly said.

Lip held his glass out for a clink and Jilly rested her cigarette on the ashtray and clinked back.

Jilly wet her tonsils and motioned to Harry to bring another pair of doubles. Meanwhile, Lip’s steel eyes watched Jilly and not until Harry returned with the drinks did Lip drain his first glass.

“I never thought we’d end it like this,” Lip said, never taking his eyes off Jilly.

Lip picked up his glass, took a sip while Jilly reached into her pocketbook and slipped out the .44 magnum Lip had gotten her as a gift several years earlier for Valentine’s Day. Lip held his drink close to his mouth but held off from drinking it when Big Boned Bill Benson and his crew entered the bar and walked over a couple of tables away from Lip and Jilly.

“Have you told your boyfriend yet?” Bill asked Jilly.

Jilly remained quiet and as still as she could. “Tell me what?” Lip asked.

And with that Big Bill pulled open his coat and reached for his gun when Jilly blasted Big Bill with four shots from her .44.

Lip looked over at Bill’s gang, turned to Jilly and said, “Thanks for the heads up, honey.”

“There was no way I was going to let a creep break us up—not even with a phony story of me stealing from you.”

Lip held his glass out for a clink, and just at the moment of clink, Harry shot Jilly with a double tap to her head, and Lip said, “Just because you came clean doesn’t mean I can take a chance and ever trust you again. Jilly, it’s been nice.”

Paul Beckman’s latest collection, Becoming Mirsky, came out in October. His flash collection, Kiss Kiss, was the finalist in the best Indie collection), a micro story selected 2018 Norton Anthology New Micro Exceptionally Short Fiction, Paul had a story nominated for the 2019 Best Small Fictions and a micro accepted for the 2022 Best of Microfiction. Paul and Francine Witte host the monthly Zoom Global FBomb flash fiction reading series.