Across the aisle and a segment away from a can of cherries; up a level from the replacement martini glasses; directly beneath the shakers and corkscrews and bottle openers; in this precise geographic location, there was a small dusty gap in the tightly-packed shelves. It drew the eye, attracted the mind, for it was the only one of its kind--no room was left on the shelves for even a mouse's eyelash. The gap knew, because it had watched many mice try and fail, and had subsequently become a favorite hang-out spot of the mice.

It did not like mice droppings, however, and longed to have a little possession to call its own, a small short round shaped one, it thought, with maybe yellows and oranges on the sides, and perhaps a little green.

Down from the dark ceiling came trickling what the gap thought must be water--it slithered, and shimmered, and reflected the meager beams of light which strained towards it from the bottom of the door. But as the gap watched, it began to guide its own fall--and besides progressed much too slowly to be at all influenced by gravity. No, this silver whip-shape, all tiny curves and elegant twists, it began to fall directly towards the gap. It touched her dusty surface and began to pool in the space there, and as it grew, it began to form colors and shapes, and drew itself a lovely, very marketable label on its outfacing side.

It also pushed against the wall a single mouse, who had only been cleaning his whiskers, and who now was feeling very surprised, a little annoyed, and also quite smooshed.

The gap could see none of this, but was pleased nonetheless; now she had her very own can.

Lean forwards, squeeze eyes shut, slam head against desk. Revel in sensation of cold wood against hot forehead. Pretend hang-over is leaking into the desk. Sustain until portion of wood is heated by head, then move to cooler section and repeat as necessary.

Charlie let his muscles go limp, let his skull flop helplessly to one side. His cheek mashed hard against the desk top, the impact puckering his lips and allowing a pocket of flesh that would very soon be pooling drool onto this month's bills.

He found himself totally incapable of caring.

Two days ago, it had come: the call they all had expected for months--almost a year, now. Leonard Motts had passed away early in the morning; he escaped into eternity by slipping, unnoticed, into the magical grey hours before dawn.

His father had suffered a severe stroke a few days short of ten months ago--two days before Thanksgiving, he had a bad fall in the bedroom; Charlie and his brother-in-law helped him back to bed, at which point he had insisted he only needed to lie down a while. Nausea was commonplace--he was, after all, a veteran to dialysis treatment, and still felt occasionally ill in spite of the kidney transplant he received earlier that year.

It was letting him lie in bed that sealed the coffin shut; Charlie had never been able to forget the way the doctors looked at him, mildly disgusted, very frustrated, and as if later they would say to a nurse: "Well honestly, I'm not surprised," with a suggestive head-jerk towards the relatives.

To Charlie, they said only, "If we could only have gotten to him sooner..." And then they would shrug, and clutch their clipboards to their chests with what they hoped was a sympathetic half-smile.

His father spent the rest of his life in between hospitals and nursing homes. They tried to rehabilitate him--thought he had a chance at it--but he gave up very quickly. He was old, and tired, and he was ready to go. And yet, stubborn to the last, he clung to life with one toe, silently refusing to let it all end just yet.

"I guess he was finally ready," he slurred through smooshed lips and a small bit of drool.

"Chollay!"

With a grunt, Charlie heaved himself upright, cupping his forehead in his palms, trying desperately to ignore the seven-foot giant of a bartender bellowing for him.

"Chollay! C'mee, would ya? I could really use a hand hee."

Denny always said "hee", instead of "here". Denny had a thing with "R"s, which Charlie suspected had something to do with a very traumatic elementary school incident.

Relying totally on his arms to do the lifting, he somehow managed to find his feet and stumble around the desk; he felt proud upon reaching his office door having only bumped into or knocked over three minor furniture pieces.

"Chollay! Could ya c'mee already?"

"I'm comin' I'm comin'," he slurred unsteadily, one hand braced against the corridor wall. As he neared the storage room, Denny magically vanished from stock duty and plunged himself into furious dishwashing. Two years ago, Charlie would have groaned--very, very audibly--and thrown up as big a fuss as possible; personal philosophy would not allow him to stand by silent while he was made labor-slave to a man at least three times his size and muscle mass. Now, however, he had learned that Denny's decisions were as immovable as... well, as Denny--and Charlie only picked fights he thought he could win--which were, admittedly, a very small few.

"Just the usual restock fo' tonight; last night won't so busy, boss."

Charlie winced; he was vaguely aware of the business part of running his bar, but remained decidedly avoidant of ever coming to real terms with, or developing an impressive grasp of, the situation. Because of this, conversations about it tended to make Charlie skittish; Denny knew this, and therefore brought it up as often as possible.

"Oh, need mo' che-ies too, boss."

As he carefully situated a can of cherries between his elbow and his hip, he caught sight--out of the corner of his eye--a faint glimmer. He turned his head, holding his breath against a dying lightbulb--the last thing he could afford now was to re-light the place, and since he had put all the lightbulbs in at once the last time, one death meant a thousand more to come.

But when he turned his head, he saw no flicker of the bulb, or anything at all out of his preferred ordinary. A sigh of relief popped through his tightly-clamped lips, and as he turned to leave he inexplicably, and almost subconsciously, grabbed a small can of peaches and tucked it under his free arm.

As he shut the door to storage, there was in the new darkness a small, dusty, and very pouty gap, with a mouse slumped breathless and confused in one corner.

"Hi Charlie!"

Three hours later a bleary eye blinked open again, the sandpaper eyelid grinding its way painfully to half-mast, at best. "Hey, Louie," he managed, lips quirking very briefly in what could, maybe, have been an attempt at a smile.

"Rough day, Charlie?" she asked as she hung up her coat and hat. Louie was a small woman, a little below average height; but what she lacked in elevation, she made up for in fury. He knew for a fact she spent more than a little time in the gym, and it really showed. She was Italian--or maybe Greek--or Portugese. He was horrible at telling nationalities. But she definitely looked Mediterannean. ...Or Portugese, which he supposed was not technically thought to be Mediterannean.

Louie was his bouncer--the only successful female bouncer in the state, or so she claimed. (It was irrelevant either way, as with a man Denny's size behind the bar few people were at all inclined to act up, or draw any negative attention to themselves.)

"It's damn cold out there today," she said, accompanied by an exaggerated shiver. Louie was always cold, in any weather under 90 degrees Farenheit.

My father died. There was no conversation in history that had flowed smoothly into that transition, but he was damned if he would just throw it in her face only a moment after coming in. She and Leonard had been very close; he was the father she never had, and she the daughter he wished he'd had.

"Oh, you know. Haven't been out yet."

One eyebrow quirked elegantly upward. Louie was the Queen of the One-Eyebrow Thing. Charlie had never figured it out, but she could make the damn thing do the wave--and would, for one-dollar tips, when drunk. This made her a favorite at company parties--which, of course, consisted only of Charlie, Denny, and Louie, plus any temps, part-timers, or "dates" they currently had around.

"You've never 'been out yet', Charlie." Her hip cocked to one side, and her fist came to rest lightly on it. This was her battle stance; he knew it well; and he usually had the good sense to disengage as soon as it happened. "When's the last time you even went home?"

One shoulder shrugged; on the down-stroke, his neck muscles suddenly opted to follow the shoulder, and his head dropped limply to one side. "Dad had a couch up there for a reason," he said as he rolled his eyes towards the narrow stairwell in the corridor. Had. Past tense. It has been for a while, I guess, but now it seems more serious. More... final.

"Charlie, you can't live here. There's not even heat up there!"

"I got blankets, Louie. Christ, what d'you think I am, an uncivilized man?"

She waved a hand in frustration and marched from the room.

" 'Ey, Louise, you' hee ea'ly!"

People very frequently misheard "Louie" for "Louise", and it pissed her off to no end; Denny, therefore, went out of his way to call her "Louise" at every available opportunity. It functioned not only as entertainment for the quiet hours, but as desensitization training for Louie, who had in her first few months of employment laid out five and hospitalized three ex-patrons.

They were just patrons then, of course, but immediately thereafter swore an oath to ex-dom.

"Er... excuse me?"

A pretty blonde head peaked around his doorframe, smiling tentatively.

"Hmm?"

She hesitated a moment, then drew the rest of her body around to join her head. She was tall, slender, extraordinarily fair-skinned and fine-boned; and as she walked through his doorway, he could for a moment have sworn she was transparent.

Gracefully she took a seat in the chair opposite him; she crossed her legs and folded her hands on her knees, and offered another mouth-watering smile.

He struggled for a moment; it was tough to keep pace with conversations when his eyes saw it all in super-speed and his mind digested it all in slow-motion.

The girl's smile faltered, and she laughed nervously. "Well, I see you are a tired man, Mr. Motts. I won't keep you long. I came about the ad in the paper?" She said it like it was a question--like she was afraid he might not have a clue what she meant.

Charlie cleared his throat roughly, and reached out to take the Classifieds section she was handing to him. He saw the ad circled, recognized it as advertizing for a bar named the same as his own. Yet try as he might he could not recall putting out a help wanted ad. One hand carelessly palmed his sunglasses up and on top of his head. A management class taught him to always look people in the eye, it made them feel more respected, which was good since you were usually firing them.

When people lost their jobs, they usually needed all the confidence and optimism in life that they could find.

He opened his mouth to deny her request, but was suddenly dumbstruck. As he looked her in the eye, he found himself suddenly realizing, he did need more help. Having an assistant to handle accounts and bills and monthly and yearly projected incomes...

"I do mostly accounting work, but of course I'm happy to do any task you'll give me, Mr. Motts. I've worked as a secretary, an office manager, a scooper at an ice cream parlor, I've even worked on a circus Mr. Motts, so I'm sure I can face anything you throw in front of me!" She was beaming now, wearing her biggest and brightest smile, creamy pink lips stretched tight across too-perfect white teeth. She batted her eyelashes hopefully--but he could see, deep in those eyes, a mass of desperation.

"Well, all right then. I've been wanting a, hum, what'd you call it? Office Accountant."

She smiled again, big and pretty and very willing to share in the joke, but totally unaware of the punch line. "An... accountant, sir? Or an office manager?"

"Right." He was not listening to her now anyway; full concentration was required to extract from his pocket a cigarette, and from his other a lighter.

One of her perfect white canines slipped from the pink and pounced upon an unsuspecting corner of lip; quickly it pulled its prey back into its cave, where its mates began to gnaw uncertainly on the tender flesh. "Oh, I hate to start things off this way," she burst out finally, "but do you think perhaps I could bum a smoke?"

He forced back the sigh that habit bade him heave; instead, he simply nodded, and passed her a cigarette.

Charlie knew, as does any smoker who has previously bummed, what question would come next. He counted in his head the seconds it took her; the bummer's regret, and attraction to or respect for the bummee, was in exact relation to how long they waited to ask.

Thirty-seven seconds she waited, chewing absently on her lip. He watched as finally it escaped its captors and bounced back into place, a little swollen and slightly pinker than the rest of itself, but none too damaged.

Five more seconds with her lips half-parted; she took a quick inhale-exhale, and then thrust it out all at once: "MightIpleaseborrowyourlighter?"

He laughed, and leaned forwards to light it for her. She met him halfway, and cupped her hand around his to shield the lighter from the heat vents. A single curling strand of hair fell forward to touch the backs of his fingers, and then the cigarette flared to life and she retreated.

In her wake, he caught the scent of something fruity.

"There now, you should laugh more often. It's much more charming than that scowl."

He smirked at her, but only to avoid chuckling. "See that sign out there, that says 'Leon- Charlie's Bar'?"

She nodded, lips pinched tightly together as she, too, tried to keep serious.

"Well, I'm Charlie, and that means as long as you're under this neon sign, myself--and only myself--will be responsible for deciding what is charming and what is not." And he tipped his head forward, eyebrows wrinkling, to be certain to convey the message with utmost sincerity.

When she laughed, it was like the sound of summer thunderstorms--not booming and roaring and deafening, literally, but rather like the feeling the sound of summer thunder brings to bear. Comfort, warmth, early childhoods spent with his nose pressed to the glass. Sqeaky raincoats and big clown-shoe galoshes, and the world full of mudpuddle possibilities when your mother finally opened the storm-door and set you loose on the wild wet world.

As that laugh--like bells--faded somberly into silence, he slowly regained normality--or his working version of it anyway--just in time to hear her calling him a funny guy. Charlie was not, and had never before been called, a "funny guy"; he found it strangely pleasing.

"So there's a funny guy there, under all that sulking." Playfully she pointed at him with her cigarette. "So why so glum, chum?"

He smiled the soft-blow, brace-yourself smile of a man answering a playful question with a world-altering answer--the kind of smile that warns the asker, just a half-second too late, that there has been a crisis.

"My father passed away," he finally replied. It was the first time he had said it aloud, and the words once free spun around and kicked him in the chest. "And the funeral is in three hours."

She sat, shocked, silent.

"And I am seriously debating not going."

Her eyebrows shot up, and immediately her hands flew forward and down onto his desk. "What?" she gasped. "You can't play hookie at your father's funeral."

"Well." He cleared his throat, repeatedly. "He really died last November. This is just the family belatedly disposing of the evidence."

His eyes found hers again; this time he let his gaze linger a moment, caught in those two blue fires and absolutely fascinated.

"Would you come with me?"

The thought had not occurred to him previously, but as soon as he said it, he knew it was exactly what he wanted.

She stubbed out her cigarette, and nodded slowly. "Yes. Yes, of course, Charlie."

As he stared at the little white butt with its two pink rings, he mumbled, "You know, I don't even know your name."

Louie leaned against Denny's huge upper arm, straining to see around the crack in Charlie's door. "Denny... What the hell is he doing?"

"Dunno."

She lifted up onto her tiptoes, and using Denny's tree-trunk-sized limbs as support leaned out almost horizontally into the open space of the corridor, eyes squinted to best make out Charlie and his desk. "All right," she whispered fiercely, "help me back up."

She was for a moment lifted off the ground, then placed back on her feet at Denny's side.

He looked down at her, silently awaiting the gossip.

Louie could only stare at the floorboards, face screwed up in confusion. "Denny, he was lighting a cigarette for a tin of peaches."

"He what?"

Now she turned to face him, eyes wide, hands gesturing madly. "He was lighting a cigarette for a goddamn tin of peaches, Denny!"

Big meaty hands grabbed hers, pulling them down to her sides again. "You musta seen it wrong." Ignoring her attempts at arguing, he pushed onwards. "We don't have no tins of peaches hee, Cholee ha'n't bought them once since he took ov' this place."

Fuming, she simply aimed an accusing finger down the corridor. "I saw what I saw."

Denny straightened up, and for a moment gazed off into the distant spaces of his mind's trash can. It took him a moment to sort through most of the irrelevant junk that belonged there, but eventually came upon the scene he wanted. "Come to think at it, Louise--" absently dodging her swing "--I did see him with a can of peach halves this mo'ning."

Her hands clapped tightly over her mouth to stop the squeal of "I told you so!" just in time; instead she merely nodded furiously, and pointed at Denny, then back towards Charlie's office.

"Yeah..." Denny was still lost in remembrance. "He was helping me stock, and b'ought me some che'ies and when he did, he had the peaches unner his a'm. Just went back to his office; I thought he'd gone back to sleep."

They both made an impressive vertical leap as Charlie appeared around the corner, looking right at them. Each tried to look busy, and each was so flustered--and blocked by their cohort--that they could only stand there looking frantic.

Charlie did not appear at all angry, however; he wandered towards them, dressed nicely now in a dark wool suit and grey overcoat. One hand tipped his hat to them. "My father has died, I'm going to the funeral. I won't be back tonight." He tossed the keys to Louie, and gave them both a shrug.

As he walked past and out the door, they both saw, and pointed out to the other, the inconspicuous yet entirely too sinister-looking tin of peaches tucked under his far arm.