The neon lights in the front windows of Marina's Bar on Ford Street sprang into the twilight and dripped reflections upon the rain-soaked sidewalk at 6p.m. on a Friday night. Randy O'Brien and Jennifer Trim walked through the door and the tiny bell hung from its handle awoke the few patrons inside from their private reveries. If an angel had just gotten its wings, it had done so far out of sight.
Isaac Tsunami was sitting at the bar in a slouched position, his consciousness wrapped around a half-gone pint of cheap draft beer. He looked over at the two figures standing at the front of the thin room, and as they simultaneously caught his eyes they turned their glances to the sticky hardwood floor. Isaac shook his head in discontent and refocused on the drunken Atlantis he imagined staring up at him from the bottom of his glass. Randy and Jennifer shook the rain from their hair like dignified dogs and walked forward.
Marina's was a nice place if you didn't like nice places. The bar was essentially just a narrow hallway boxed in by drywall and a roof, an abandoned mom-and-pop antique store that had been converted into a watering hole. They only served beer and wine, and they did so in glasses that they could never seem to get completely clean. It was the kind of bar where you could see a lot of familiar faces and not be forced into a conversation with a one of them. And if you did choose to speak to someone, you could usually do so without pretension seeping into the colloquy.
There were only two other patrons in the bar besides Isaac: Marge, a chubby woman with curly red hair who looked to be in her fifties and was always in there burning through her disability checks; and Leo, a homeless man, completely crazy but harmless, who managed to stay obese despite being indigent, and had various species of bugs living in his black wavy hair that were still as yet undiscovered by any entomologists in North America. Marge and Leo were seated at the back of the room, at the end of the long bar, watching the television that hung from the corner of the ceiling, a bar stool holding the space between them. Isaac was perched at the opposite end of the bar, looking characteristically pissed-off.
'What's up, Isaac?'� Randy asked him as he and Jennifer passed his stool.
'I guess that depends on what side of the earth you're on,'� he responded flatly. Randy and Jennifer didn't reply. They shuffled past him to commandeer seats of their own. The lesbian bartender with the multitudinous piercings and tattoos sauntered up to them and asked for their order. They requested a pitcher of Bud Light, and Randy said, 'Start us a tab.'� The bartender was able to obtain the pitcher, pour the beer, retrieve two pint glasses, and set it all up in front of the couple without moving her feet.
'What'cha workin' on down there, Leo?'� Isaac called down to the bum, launching his gaze over Randy O'Brien and Jennifer Trim. Leo had stolen his attention back from the television and was now scribbling on bar napkins with a nervous enthusiasm.
'The answer,'� Leo responded, not looking up from his task.
'Right,'� Isaac said, and turned his eyes towards the wall-length mirror that stood behind the bar. He winked at himself through his glasses and lit a cigarette. He had seen Leo's scribblings before: a seemingly random generation of 1s and 0s that formed a tiny grid and could never be discerned by anyone but Leo: The answer.
'So Andy's gonna be back soon,'� Randy called over to Isaac Tsunami as he poured a beer from the pitcher. 'He'll be on leave from June 1st to July 14th. I know he'd wanta see you.'�
Isaac's eyes widened. Someone watching him might have expected them to blow his glasses right off of his face. His nostrils flared slightly. He stood up. He walked over to where the couple was sitting.
'Listen to me, you piece of shit,'� he spoke to Randy O'Brien with an angry calm, 'do you realize what in the fuck you're doing?'� Randy leaned backwards slightly on his stool as Isaac poked his lit cigarette in his face. 'Your goddamn brother is over seas, fighting a bullshit war in a dogshit land, so you can...what? Have the freedom to stay home and fuck his girlfriend?'�
'Hey, I...,'� Jennifer Trim started.
'Oh I don't even wanta hear it from you!'� Isaac announced with the conviction of a protest leader. He motioned his cigarette in her direction, dropping ashes in Randy's lap. 'How many O'Brien brothers does this make for you now?'�
'All of them,'� she said, and she threw her long brown-haired head back in a sudden storm of pesticide laughter.
Then it was true. 'Yeah, I thought so!'� Isaac Tsunami growled. Andy O'Brien was in Iraq schlepping around an M-16, hunkered down under helmet and fear, and his girlfriend was back home fucking his brothers. Isaac had known all four of them for many years: the brothers O'Brien: Andy, Randy, Mandy, and Jim. But it was Andy whom he'd always been closest to.
'This slut tried to fuck me last week,'� he proclaimed earnestly to Randy. 'Why?'� he asked, looking back at Jennifer. 'Probably because he and I are friends, right? You'd probably fuck the O'Brien family dog if it only took a shit in a way that reminded you of Andy! You're fucked-up in the head, sister.'�
'Come on,'� Randy said to Jennifer. 'Let's just get out of here.'� In truth, Randy could have wiped the floor with Isaac Tsunami. But Isaac didn't care. It was the principal of the thing.
'Yeah, go fuck on a pile of trash somewhere,'� Isaac said as he sat back down and took a bellicose drag off of his cigarette. The couple stood and Randy laid a few dollars on the bar. They left two nearly-full glasses of draft beer and a half-empty pitcher behind as they calmly fled from Marina's Bar on Ford Street, the neon lights in the front window reflecting off of their faces as they walked back out into the rain. The bell on the door jingled as it closed behind them.
'Can you believe that shit?'� Isaac Tsunami asked aloud to no one in particular, glaring at his own self in the mirror. He picked up his glass and threw back the final gulp of his tepid draft.
Isaac saw Leo the bum suddenly standing behind him in the mirror. He turned around with a start and glanced up at the giant mendicant man over his shoulder. It occurred in Isaac's swimming brain that Leo looked like some swarthy extra from a David Lynch movie.
'What can I do for you, Leo?'� Isaac asked, calming slightly. Leo didn't say a word. He just smiled a toothless smile. Then he placed a napkin down on the bar before Isaac and ambled toward the front exit.
'What's that?'� Isaac asked, watching Leo leave.
'The answer,'� Leo said without turning around. 'The answer to everything.'�
'Right,'� Isaac said. Probably more 1s and 0s, he thought to himself as he turned around, dimly aware of the short chime of the bell as the door clapped shut. He picked up the napkin. He turned it over, then over again. It was blank.
'Hey, darling,'� Isaac Tsunami called to the adorable little lesbian bartender with all of the piercings and tattoos. 'Can you set me up with another draft, please? There's a lot of night left, and I'm just getting warmed up.'�

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