Requiem for a Bartender
Steve ran the joint. Tending bar was the family business. His father, Tom, ran it the generation before mine. Steve and I became fast friends. That’s the bartender’s job, after all—to befriend their loyal patrons. But I was also young, boiling over with energy, and thirsty to learn the ways of drinking legally in public. Steve gave me, gave so many of us that arena.
...that the cruel joke is that prisons and cliffs share the same architecture: an edge you’re afraid to cross. The only way to learn which one you’re standing on is to step forward and trust gravity to reveal the truth.