Every small town has a pub and every pub has a name like the Commercial or the Standard or the National and every Commercial or Standard or National has a door you shouldn't open but you open it and every door you open is heavy and creaks like a warning and every warning is one more you ignore. The bartender's even less local than you are with his backpacker's lilt and he pours you something you want, don't want, whatever it's cold and it's half gone already and he's pulling another before you can say you don't really, can't really, shouldn't really, not anymore.

 

His name's Brendan or Donal or Liam and he acts larrikin but he is farmhand, altar boy and he has never been in prison and you know this because you know what it looks like, a prison face. He asks if you're new in town and you say yeah maybe or maybe you're just passing through, early to say. Want a job? He can get you one, sure, he'll speak to the boss man and you say no it's alright, not because you don't want to work at the Commercial or the Standard or the National but because the boss man will say yes, then no, once he knows where you've been and the no will hurt so bad. Altar boy will say it's fine, that his Uncle Bobby did time back in the seventies for something sectarian and he gets it but he doesn't, of course he fucking doesn't.

 

You lean back on the bar stool, then slump, then drag yourself up and say something about you should be going and then you don't move because there's nowhere else that'll have you tonight. Another? It's too late to be good now, what the hell. Walking in here at all was the wrong move and you'll be hungover tomorrow whether you stop now or you don't. So you don't. You don't even wonder what today would have been like if you hadn't stumbled into the Commercial or the Standard or the National. It's called the Exchange, you realise now, letters blurred backwards on the frosted window. To the Exchange, you smile wonkily to yourself, raising glass number whatever.

 

There are rooms upstairs at the Exchange, and a staircase seems easier than a taxi or a long walk or a late night wait for an early morning bus. You pay at the bar, single room and a last drink. Shift's changed and it's another Irishman, harder and more knowing. He gives you a wink as he hands you the key. Walking upstairs is like coming up from a deep dive, ears pop, equalise, you find the room, key in the door, fall flat on the bed. Ceiling fan spins, hot air and the smell of disinfectant. You could be anywhere. Could be back in your cell. But tonight you're at the Exchange. You'll think about it in the morning, where to go next.