by Paul Ham for the Winter 2025 issue
Marcus said the speakeasy up Prospect Hill from Union Square.
Stayed late at work, nursing some bruises from the night before. Went over to Trina’s for a few Bud Heavies, just down Somerville (SUH-muh-vill) Ave from Union, around 11ish. Cars used to line up down the Ave when the Demoulas ran specials on goat, for weekend cabrito assado or buchada, and the Irish across the street would just spit and laugh. Late tonight, it was empty and cold.
Worked through the beers and a spliff on the sidewalk, reviewed a manuscript my boss just gave me, a pamphlet on demons and hope (The Bureaucracy of Chaos by Marie Gloss, unpublished).
Gloss states the Devil’s nature is to confound God. His mission is not to “do evil” or “kill angels,” but to protect Chaos. Chaos – the emptiness existing before God, where there is no Good or Evil because there is no control. If Chaos (Inequity, Unfairness, Misbalance) is destroyed, God wins, and every particle in the universe is under His will. And where there is only Certainty, there is no Hope.
For Gloss, God and his army of angels seek Harmony and Compliance; the Devil and his handful of archangels sacrifice their demons to an eternal Tenochtitlan massacre, fighting to preserve Hope.
***
Headed down the Ave to Union. Up Prospect Hill, spot the chain link fence on the left with the red and blue zipties. Go around to the back, basement back door, hit the buzzer and wait.
I’m the first customer of the night.
The spot’s cozy, the bar probably stolen from Ireland 50 years ago, just me and the bartender. “Old Fashioned” he offers. Spit starts pooling under my tongue, and I feel like I’m going to puke.
“Cheers. Marcus isn’t coming, is he?”
“Guess not.”
***
Every bartender in Somerville can hop a bartop in less than a second, and in less than a second he’s blocking my way out the door.
I need to go. I can’t see his face, just a backlit tombstone silhouette.
“There are some guys who need to talk to you.”
I head-fake. The tombstone jogs a half-step. I stare straight between his eyebrows, give him that flat dead stare, punch right up under the ribs.
He grabs the top of my hair with his right hand, my ear with his left. I bury my face into his neck, reaching up and clawing away at his hands.
I bite. Hard, his wiry stubble jabbing into my gums, but I’m gnawing underneath any tendon I can find in his neck. He releases. I bite harder. Can’t see, can’t hear, can’t taste.
I reach up blind, hook a thumb into a nostril, fingernails in the eye socket, grip, and start ripping up. He backs off again, falls backwards. I release and get set.
Straight to the balls— once, twice, with my shin not my foot. One more? He’s done. I’m done. My ears are ringing. Can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t stop shaking.
He’s crumpled on the ground. I see him sobbing.
He wanted to kill me. Just because it’s his job.
But the room’s quiet now. Controlled. I can think again.
My ears adjust, and now I can hear him moan, rocking back and forth across his lumbar. Then I hear him screaming.
For help.
Footsteps start collapsing down from upstairs and from the back yard, so I jump on top of him, flip him over face-down, jack his left arm up behind his back. I grab his index finger.
Calm now. Precise.
One guy shows up from upstairs, another guy from the yard.
“Come any closer, and I’m breaking his fingers.”
They’re not listening. I squeeze my fist over the index finger, twist, and crack. He screams. I can hear better now.
“One more?”
They pause.
“I don’t know who you are. I don’t care. I just want out of here.”
Upstairs says, “You can’t leave. We need to talk.”
“Step back, or I’m breaking another one.”
Fist over Tombstone’s middle finger.
“You can’t leave. We need to talk.”
Twist, crack, scream.
“Let him go. We need to talk.”
Pinky finger. Twist, crack, whimper.
“You can’t leave. Let him go.”
Ring finger. A grunt and shallow breaths.
***
If they’re cashed and out of breath, it’s really easy to break someone’s throat.
***
It’s hard to run fast downhill so I go down cross streets where the fuck is Somerville Ave 🏁
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