Paradise Oval

When he walked into the bar, he could sense death in the air. He had lived just around the corner from the dryly named "Step Inn" for about two and a half years, and though a frequenter of pubs and taverns of all types, he had never actually gone into this most local watering hole. And when he saw the lone figure down the dimly lit corridor, he felt a strange queasiness in the bowels of his stomach. For Kevin Fisher, the rested past was about to smack head on with a highly uncertain future.

The Step Inn was a dreary old soldier, owned by a bar lifer named Barney McGlocklin. A veteran of World War II and Korea, McGlocklin had two full pensions; one from his grateful Uncle Sam and one from a thirty year stint at Con Edison, which he had begun upon retirement from the service in 1957. So old Barney was doing just fine for money. Only Barney McGlocklin needed a purpose; he needed somewhere to be. He was close enough with two sons and a daughter from two failed marriages, but he was basically alone. The Step Inn was his ticket out, because it was his and he could run it any way he wanted. Of course, for a man Barney's age, this meant all the quaint yet somehow outdated extremities of an "old man's" bar.

There was a brow beaten Wurlitzer jukebox in the corner and a porcelain "come one, come all and pee" urine troft in the restroom. Hell, he even had what may well have been the last of the pre-microwave Stewart Sandwich ovens still in existence, the type that was all the rage in the 1970's, the last great decade for old man's bars. He had all sorts of reminders of America's military history on the walls and behind the bar. He just didn't have people. It was like a VFW without the V's. Old Barney had helped bury a number of soldiers and sailors in the past few years, and very few vets showed up at his place anymore. This was partly because those that remained frequented those affiliated halls, like the VFW and the Knights of Columbus. Barney's place, being privately owned, was always in danger of being "taken over" by a younger crowd, to the old vets' way of thinking. This was a somewhat comical thought, really, because no form of "youth movement" was ever going to happen in the funereal Step Inn.

Another problem was that Barney, who did have an ancient one-legged crony named Gus tend bar for him on occasion, basically worked alone. Couple this with the fact that Barney only showed up when he felt up to it, and you never knew when the bar would be open. He might be there until five in the morning on a Tuesday, yet just as easily stay home from closing time Friday night until opening Sunday at noon, in the process missing the usually important (for most pubs, anyway) Saturday night take. So, in the world of alcoholic beverage servers, Barney was neither fish, fowl nor foreign. Anyone under 50 would walk into the Step Inn and immediately walk right out. It had an instantly ominous feel to it. Barney didn't even have to worry about being robbed; no one could imagine there being any money to speak of lying around to consider taking.