“Watch it, Josiah,” Becky snapped, and Kellen just looked up at him and didn’t say a word, didn’t change his expression.
“Oh, he’s big enough it didn’t hurt him,” Josiah said. “Ain’t you big enough?”
Kellen held his eyes for a moment, then said, “Sure,” and turned back to Becky. “Let’s hear the rest of that joke.”
Josiah seemed disappointed.
“Okay,” Becky said. “So the old guy, he figures, how’s she gonna know, right? First night she’s gone, he heads up the street. Place is only a block away. Goes in and has a few, then a few more, and a few more after that. By the end of the night it’s catching up with him and the room’s starting to spin. Decides he better head on home. So he stands up to pay the bill and almost falls on his face, has to hold on to the bar to keep himself up. Puts his money down, takes a few steps and, whap, he falls down, smack on the floor. Has a hard time getting up, and now he knows he’s had too much. Good thing his wife won’t know. So he crawls to the door, pulls himself up, and steps outside and falls over again.”
Kellen was smiling, watching her, but Eric kept his eyes on Josiah. That shoulder move didn’t promise good things.
“Old guy has to crawl on his belly whole way home,” Becky was saying. “Drags his butt into bed. Next morning he’s hardly awake when the phone rings. Wife calling. Starts yelling at him for going drinking and he says, ‘How do you know?’ And she tells him, ‘Bartender called. Said you left your wheelchair down there again.’ ”
Kellen and Eric both gave it more of a laugh than it deserved and Josiah stood in silence. Waited until they’d stopped laughing before he said, “I got a joke.”
Nobody reacted. Not even Becky. Eric didn’t like the guy’s tone at all, and he twisted his bar stool just a touch so he was facing him, then cleared his feet from the rail.
“Bunch of good ol’ boys are down at their bar, gettin’ lit up,” Josiah said. “Big-ass bear comes into the parking lot, looking for food. Knocks the door open, goes inside. Shit’s in the fan then, old boys running around, bear growling and knocking tables and chairs and shit over. Bear wrecks the place, then breaks the door down and goes away.”
He paused for a long, dramatic drink of his beer.
“The drunk boys stand up, dust themselves off, and one says to his buddy, ‘Damn. Put a nigger in a fur coat and he acts like he owns the place.’ ”
Eric got to his feet and Becky said, “Shut your fool mouth, Josiah,” as Josiah smiled, looking at Kellen.
“Get the hell out of here,” Becky said. “Now.”
Josiah flicked his dark eyes up to Eric, just a cursory glance, and then back down at Kellen.
“What? Don’t like my joke?”
Eric moved another step away from his stool, sure now that a fight was coming. Kellen reached out, though, put up a warning hand.
“It’s fine,” he said. “We’re all telling jokes, right? Just having some fun.”
The look that crossed Josiah’s face was disgusted and disappointed. He snorted.
“Oh, you like that joke? Well, I got a few more like it. Might enjoy them, too.”
“Let me tell one first,” Kellen said.
Josiah waited, feet spread, hands at belt level.
“You hear the one about the redneck with a hard-on who ran into a wall?” Kellen said. Paused one beat, then finished: “He broke his nose.”
Josiah threw the first punch, but Eric was already coming at him, knocked him off balance so that the blow missed Kellen’s head. Eric slammed him into the bar and then leaned back just enough to throw the uppercut he wanted to put into the son of a bitch’s jaw. He didn’t get it there, though. Caught a knee directly in his groin first and then his lungs turned to vacuums as bright, shining agony radiated through his abdomen and filled his chest. He took a stumbling step back and managed to get his head down to avoid Josiah’s fist and catch the bottom of his forearm instead. The blow landed flush on his nose, which promptly opened up and leaked blood over his lips and onto his chin as Josiah just missed with another punch, his fist sliding across Eric’s face, a streak of his blood showing bright on Josiah’s hand now. All this happening as Becky shouted at them from behind the bar and Kellen Cage slipped off his stool without a word.
Josiah seemed to have lost interest in Eric, turned from him back to Kellen with a wide grin on his face and said, “Come on, boy.”
Kellen hit him. A flicking left that looked more like a snakebite than a punch, and Josiah’s head snapped back as Kellen easily deflected the return punch and then hit him again, this time in the stomach.