The Bartender's Tale

by Ivan Doig

“Nature. Damn hard to beat.”

“A story can have more than one ending, you hear enough of them in here to know that,” the newspaperman said mildly. “It’s a question of what fits best with the rest of the tale, isn’t it.”

“So you get paid for going around and listening to people, if you can manage to get them to talking in the first place? Not a bad racket.” And not too unlike what went on in a certain barroom.

I say it’s tricky work, attempting to levitate an extremely reluctant living object out of the water on the end of a thin line and a long stick.