Just in Case

​Lenny sat down on a faded bar stool held together by duct tape. One needn’t be picky at the end of the world. Despite the dire warnings in the paper, on television, and from prophets in the street, the bar was mostly empty. There were a few groups enjoying rounds in leather booths and a lone man watching a sports game at the far end of the bar, but none of the fanfare Lenny expected.

            The bartender walked over and set down a coaster and a bowl of stale nuts. She was tall, and her arms were covered from wrist to shoulder in tattoos.  “What can I get you?”

            Lenny’s mouth was dry, his pulse racing. “Pardon, but aren’t you nervous at all? Everyone seems to be so damned calm in here.”

            The bartender raised a well-manicured eyebrow. “I’m a little more nervous now. Strange men coming in asking me if I’m nervous tends to put me on edge.” One of her hands fell beneath the bar in a subtle implication that there was something there Lenny would not like.

            “No, no, sorry. I’m not—I don’t mean.” He sighed.

            The bartender relaxed. “Two questions. One, same as before: What can I get you? Two, what’s got you so troubled?”

            Lenny let out a long breath, trying to steady himself. “Whisky, neat, please.”

            The bartender nodded and grabbed a bottle from a middle shelf. She poured a generous portion and set the glass down. “Alright, now spill. What’s got you all riled?”

            Lenny took the glass. “Thank you. Have you not read the news today?”

            The look she gave Lenny made it clear she hadn’t.

            “Ah, well, there’s no easy way to put this. The conflict in the East has escalated. Experts say we’re on the brink of nuclear annihilation.”

            The bartender looked at Lenny, very seriously at first, and then busted out laughing.

            “It doesn’t feel very funny from where I’m sitting.”

            “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You do seem pretty worked up. But look, if I panicked every time the news told me we were on the brink, I’d never have time to live my life.”

            Lenny looked around the shabby bar and didn’t think it looked like much of a life anyway.

            “Careful with those looks,” said the bartender.

            “Yes, of course. But this time, this time is real. The Doomsday clock is—”

            The bartender waved a hand. “Drink your whisky and tell me if you feel better after.” She moved to go service the booths. “Doomsday clock,” she muttered.

            Lenny looked down at his drink and took a long sip. Despite the setting, the whiskey was smooth and held a comforting burn.

            “Pardon me, but did I hear you say you’re concerned about the end of the world?” The gentleman who had been watching sports was now sitting next to Lenny. He looked as if someone had spooled a person onto a bent coat hanger. A shock of grey hair stuck out at odd angles beneath a rumpled fedora.

            “I am.” Lenny found his heart racing again.

            “Are you familiar with the Cuban Missile Crisis?” asked the man.

            Lenny shook his head. What did a tiny island nation have to do with his national security?

            “For about two weeks in the sixties, everyone was convinced we were on the brink of nuclear war. We trained for doomsday scenarios, built shelters, and at the end of it, do you know what happened?”

            “Nothing?” asked Lenny.

            “Nothing is exactly right. Well, politicians used it to advance themselves, but nothing of immediate consequence. Feel better?”

            Lenny thought about bombs raining from the heaven, sidewalks turned to slag, and the obliteration of everything he had ever known. “Not really.”

            The man nodded, picked up a case from his side, and put it on the bar.

            Lenny couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard a ticking noise from inside it. “What’s in there?”

            “What’s in the case doesn’t matter so much as what the case represents.”

            “And what does it represent?” Lenny’s eyes flicked back and forth, looking for the bartender. She was standing at one of the booths engaged in lively conversation.

            “What if I told you that what’s in this case will protect you and I from anything bad that might happen outside this bar?”

            “Will it?” Lenny looked at the case. It was definitely ticking.

            “Doesn’t matter. What matters is you believing it might. Do you follow?”

            Lenny took another sip of his whisky, growing annoyed. “No, I don’t. I came here to drink away my sorrows and wait for the end of the world, not listen to riddles.” I was supposed to be good and drunk right now.

            The man drummed his fingers on the bar. “Pretty bleak considering what I’ve told you.”

            “But you haven’t told me anything!” Lenny found his voice suddenly booming in the small bar. Several sets of eyes turned on him, and he waved a hand in manner of shamed apology. “I’m sorry. I’m just—”

            “On edge?” asked the man, undeterred. “What I have in this case is my security in this world, and so long as we’re sitting at this bar together, it’s your security too. Now, suppose for just a second that you believed that. Can you do that for me? Make believe like when you were a kid.”

            Lenny felt the first tendrils of his drink working their way through his hardened neural pathways, loosening them ever so slightly. “Alright. You have a case that’s going to keep me safe. Is it an EMP? A collapsible bunker? Will it stop the bombs before they land?”

            The man laughed and shook his head. “You’re still not hearing me. What’s in the case doesn’t matter. I won’t say it again. What matters is that you believe this case is going to save your life.”

            “Who are you?”

            The man ran a hand over his case. “No one of consequence.”

            Lenny felt frustration growing again but pushed it down like his father taught him. “You say you’re ‘no one of confidence’, and yet you expect me to believe that you carry a case that is going to save us all from nuclear annihilation?”

            The man looked around the bar. “Well, not all of us. From about here,” he put a hand down on the bar, “to there.” He pointed to one of the corner booths. “The folks in the window seat might be unlucky, but the rest of us would be safe.”

            “Should we not tell them to move closer then?”

            “Do you know how many times I’ve left home with this case?” He slapped the side of the bag with enough force to prove that whatever was inside wasn’t explosive in nature.

            “A hundred times?”

            “Nearly every day for the last twenty years. Yes, today the Doomsday Clock is close to the brink, but it will be tomorrow, and in a few months, it will be even closer. Today is not the day the bombs fall, or the tsunami hits, or the earthquake rips a hole in this fine bar.”

            “So why come here then?”

            The man nodded toward the television. “No one comes here and I can watch the game in peace.”

            “And if the world isn’t going to end today, why bring that?” Lenny pointed to the case.

            The case whirred and ticked almost in response.

            The man smiled.

            Lenny finished his whisky. “Tell me why.”

            The man shrugged. “Oh, just in case.”