“Look, we’re just going up there to throw some darts and unwind. It’s Friday night during peak season, man. Do you have any idea how many hot, barely legal chicks will be walking around town looking for a couple of locals to show them a good time?” Bobby asks with a laugh. “It will be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“You know that’s not why I came back here,” I argue, wanting nothing more than to go back downstairs and continue with the piece I was working on. My woodworking started off as a hobby when I was young and my grandfather first taught me how to whittle, carving intricate designs out of spare pieces he had lying around. When I mastered that skill, he taught me how to use a table saw and measure and cut wood. While he was busy working on window frames or crown molding and I got bored with whittling, I would take those spare pieces of wood and start hammering them together. Pretty soon, I’d built my first rocking chair. It was a rickety piece of shit that probably wouldn’t hold a kitten without falling apart, but it made me feel good to create something from scratch. After that, I checked out every book in the library I could find on building wood furniture and taught myself how to do it right. It wasn’t too long before people on the island saw my designs and started asking me to make things for them. I made everything out of old pieces of wood, adding my own artistic designs and carvings to all of them. People ordered everything from kitchen tables and rocking chairs to king sized beds and bookcases. It turned into a pretty lucrative business and kept me plenty busy when I was back on the island in between deployments.

“I know, I know, you came back to get your woman and all that shit. At least be my wingman. Can you do that for me?” Bobby begs.

“Fine. One game of darts and them I’m out of there. I don’t think I can handle that much staring and finger pointing from all the fucking townies,” I tell him as I wash the wood dust off of my hands at the sink.

Bobby sighs as he tosses me a towel. “They’re a bunch of busybody fucks who have nothing better to do with their time. Give it a few days and everything will go back to normal. It’s kind of a big deal, you being back here and all. You didn’t exactly leave the island quietly, you know.”

He doesn’t have to remind me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of those drunks who could do stupid shit and then pass out and forget it all. I could remember with perfect clarity every word I screamed as I walked through the town, every local I’d picked a fight with and every window I’d thrown a rock or a chair through. I knew it was wrong when I was doing it, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was so lost in my own mind, not able to tell if I was walking down Main Street or walking into the middle of an ambush in Afghanistan, that everyone looked like the enemy to me. Every terrifying thing I’d ever seen or done flashed through my mind and I didn’t care about anything but lashing out at anyone who came in contact with me. I hated myself, I hated my life and I hated what I’d become and I wanted everyone to suffer that agony right along with me.

“I knew coming back here would be hard, but Jesus. I stopped by Sal’s Diner this morning to grab a cup of coffee and as soon as he saw me, he ran into the kitchen and refused to come back out. That guy taught me how to ride a bike and bought me my first case of beer when I turned twenty-one,” I tell Bobby.

“Well, you did punch Sal in the gut and tell him you hoped he fucking died like the dog he was,” Bobby adds.

I wince as I finish drying my hands and toss the towel on the counter. I had been in the throes of one of the worst flashbacks of my life when that happened. To me, Sal looked like a fanatic jihadi holding a gun to my head instead of the owner of the town diner with a spatula in his hand. I had a lot of fucking apologizing to do before anyone in this town would trust me again.

“It will be fine, I promise. Two games of darts and then you can go home,” Bobby says with a smile.

“I thought I said one game.”

Bobby turns and heads for the front door.

“That’s what I said. Three games of darts and then you can go home.”

This was a bad idea. A really, really bad idea. Walking into Barney’s was like something out of a fucking movie where the jukebox screeches to a halt in the middle of a song and the entire place turns and looks at you in one big wave of prying eyes. Under normal circumstances, Barney’s is never crowded, even during the summer season when the tourists are out in full force. A little ways from the edge of town, Barney’s is a bit off the beaten path. A building that is longer than it is tall, the front of the establishment still has all of the original cedar wood planking. A huge awning runs down the entire length of the building so people can stand outside and shoot the shit or have a smoke. With its 1950’s décor and a bar that only serves beer, Jim, Jack, Johnny Red and Jose, it’s a favorite for the locals, who prefer it to spots that cater to young partiers looking for fruity drinks with umbrellas and that techno shit music piped through a sound system so they can dance. The only music you’re going to find at Barney’s is whatever is on the jukebox, also from the 50’s and 60’s, and the only dancing done around here is when someone presses E14 and Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” blasts through the tinny speakers. If Buster and Sylvia Crawford have had too much to drink (which is every time they’re in here), Buster always asks Sylvia to dance, and when you put two drunk eighty-somethings who have more metal in their hips and knees than a steel manufacturing plant together, dancing in the middle of a crowd of tables, people always watch. Mostly to see if Buster will grab Sylvia’s ass or trip over a chair.