The Sitting Bull Bar & Grill was a sprawling facility on Front Street near Pine, the busiest intersection in Harvest Springs, although Sunday traffic was relatively light and there were only two cars in the tavern lot when Jimmy chugged up in his Gremlin.

After checking himself in the rearview mirror and popping a zit on his chin, Jimmy slipped out of his hatchback and pressed toward the bar to start a job he didn’t want. He pulled open the heavy door and faltered inside. When his eyes adjusted to the darkness he noticed a pretty blonde in a tube-top and hotpants counting change near the cash register.

Jimmy buried his hands in his hip pockets and approached the woman. “Um, excuse me. I’m supposed to start at six. I’m a little early.”

“Oh, are you the new porter?” The woman sighed. “Finally.”

“Is, uh, Mike here?”

“No, he doesn’t usually come in on Sundays. I’ll show you what you need — I’m Lisa, the assistant manager.”

“Oh, hi. Jimmy Dombrowski.”

“Okay, there’s a ton to do, so you should probably go ahead and get started.” Lisa pointed toward a door at the rear of the bar. “There’s stacks of beer back there that need to go to the basement first thing. You’ll see where the different brands go; stack them up neat and don’t just throw ‘em up there or the cases will fall over and the bottles will all break — and that comes out of your pay.”

Jimmy nodded. “Got it.”

“That basement needs to be swept up while you’re down there. Oh, and then I’m gonna need you to clean both bathrooms and the kitchen. Get ‘em good; they haven’t had a real deep cleaning since Carlos quit. You’ll be cleaning them when you first start your shift every day, and then again after we close.”

“Will do, I’ll get started on those stacks of beer now,” Jimmy said. “Nice to meet you.”

“Ugh, you too,” Lisa murmured as she strutted away. Slack-jawed, Jimmy stared at his assistant manager’s ass-cheeks, which spilled out of her hotpants and twitched with each cocky step she took.

Once Lisa was gone, Jimmy hopped into action. Although he wasn’t happy about working as a bar porter, he was desperate to please Nicole, so he threw himself into his tasks. He was lugging a case of Blatz to the basement when a tall woman with curly brown hair stuck her head through the doorway. Jimmy smiled and sang a cheery, “Hey, what’s up?”

“Put that down and get out there.” The woman gestured toward the front. “Some drunk just puked and you need to clean it up, like, yesterday.”

Jimmy set down the case of beer. “Where do you keep the cleaning supplies?”

“In the storeroom behind the cooler.”

Jimmy stuck out his hand. “Hi. I’m Jimmy Dombrowski, by the way.”

The woman ignored his handshake offer and again pointed toward the front. “I’m DeeDee and you need to get that puke cleaned up or customers will start leaving. Get out there — now!”

“I’m on it!” Jimmy said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster as he scooted toward the storeroom. The vomit was washed up and the area disinfected posthaste, and then Jimmy continued carrying stacks of beer cases to the cellar. As he worked, more customers trickled into the bar, and Lisa told him that in addition to his other duties, he needed to swing by their tables every now and then to wipe up spills and remove empty glasses, discarded napkins and swizzle sticks.

After the beer cases were stacked, Jimmy worked his way through the bar on busboy duty. As he reached for a balled-up napkin on a table near the jukebox he knocked over a beer bottle, spilling the contents in the customer’s lap. The portly, redheaded man in the booth jumped to his feet and bellowed, “What the fuck!”

“Oh, s-sorry, sir. I didn’t see that bottle.” Jimmy shrugged. “It’s dark in here and the bottle is brown, and I just didn’t see it. Uh, I was just kind of reaching for that napkin, and I—”

“Get the man a towel!” DeeDee yelled from behind the bar. “Don’t just stand there flapping your damn jaws.”

Jimmy scrambled to retrieve a cloth and passed it to the frowning customer. “Fucking putz,” the crimson-faced, chubby man muttered as he snatched the towel and wiped off his pant leg.

DeeDee approached with a fresh bottle of beer in one hand and a double-shot of whiskey in the other. “Here you go, Red, I’m so sorry about that. He’s the new guy.”

“Well, the new guy is a fucking dickhead is what he is,” Red slurred. “A scrawny, ugly little dickhead.”

“Aw, come on, now, there’s no need for all that crap,” Jimmy said.

DeeDee scowled. “You need to start cleaning those bathrooms and keep quiet, you hear? Go!” She turned to Red. “I’m so sorry about that.”

With his chin on his chest, Jimmy slinked away as DeeDee continued apologizing to the customer.

Lisa followed the chastised porter into the ladies' room. “What the fuck, man?” she hissed. “Are you fucking crazy?”

“What? It was an accident and I said I was sorry. The guy didn’t need to start calling me names like that. He went way overboard.”

“That’s Red Corrigan, you stupid fuck! He owns the rocking chair factory in Millville, and Mike’s been trying to get him to invest in a chain of Sitting Bulls. The last thing you want to do is piss that guy off.”

“I-I’m sorry. It was an accident.”

“Well, you’d better hope you didn’t fuck things up, that’s all I can say. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mike lets you go after this.”

“It was an accident,” Jimmy croaked again.

Lisa stormed out of the bathroom without replying and Jimmy got back to cleaning. The turn of events had completely snuffed out his earlier enthusiasm, and he had to force himself to breathe in steady increments, lest his asthma flare up. When he was finished in the ladies' room, Jimmy carried the bucket and cleaning supplies to the men’s facility. He was scrubbing one of the bathroom’s three toilets when Red Corrigan staggered through the doorway unzipping his fly. The drunken customer rushed toward the row of urinals before spotting Jimmy and stopping in his tracks.

“You!” Red’s face contorted. “The skinny little smartass. I hate skinny little smartasses, you know that?”

“Sir, let me say how sorry I am. It was a complete accident — I’m clumsy.” Jimmy faked a smile. “Totally my fault. Um, can I buy you a beer to apologize?”

Red stumbled forward, wiggled his dick and aimed it at the tiles to the right of the urinal. “Here’s what I think of your apology,” he jeered as he started pissing on the wall, causing a yellow puddle to form on the floor by his shoes.

When he finished, the intoxicated rocking chair mogul belched and strode out of the bathroom chuckling to himself. Fuming, Jimmy sopped up the important customer’s piss with a rag. When he was finished cleaning the men’s room, the harried porter peeked out the door and sighed when he saw that the rude slob had left the premises.

The rest of Jimmy’s inaugural shift at the Sitting Bull was relatively uneventful, although DeeDee and Lisa, who hadn’t been overly friendly to begin with, treated him with open disdain after his major fuck-up with the bigshot. Even before the spilled beer incident, though, Jimmy had quickly figured out that his official job title should’ve been “bar flunky” instead of “porter.” DeeDee, the manager, was ruder than Lisa, but both women clearly regarded Jimmy as an insignificant underling, ordering him to and fro without so much as a please or thank-you.

When quitting time finally came, as Jimmy was putting the finishing touches on the bathroom, he overheard his bosses saying the bar was cleaner than it had been in weeks. The first-day man was exhausted as he and Lisa waited for DeeDee to lock up. The women hugged in the parking lot, slipped into their respective cars and pulled away without saying a word to the new peon.

Jimmy’s bottom lip drooped as he drove to his temporary home in his mother-in-law’s basement. He was crestfallen that his first day on the job had been a disaster, but his despondence spiraled into full-blown panic when he turned onto Marlene’s street and saw her house with the lights still on at three-thirty in the morning — and Mike’s Corvette in the driveway.

Nicole, Marlene and Mike were all waiting in the living room. The onslaught started the second Jimmy ventured through the door.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, asshole?” Nicole screamed. “You sorry, loser sonofabitch.”

Mike jumped to his feet and towered over the wimp with his fists balled. “DeeDee called and said you pissed off Red Corrigan! Do you know who that is, you stupid little prick? He’s this close to investing in five Sitting Bulls in Illinois and Missouri — and you may have fucked the whole thing up.”

“I didn’t do nothing,” Jimmy whined. “I spilled beer; it was an accident. I didn’t say nothing to him — he was drunk and started calling me names.”

“And then DeeDee said you were a smartass.” Mike’s jaw tightened.

“No, no, I swear, he called me a dickhead, and I just told him there was no call for that. I wasn’t a smartass at all.”

“Well, Red thought you were a smartass, so that means you were a smartass.” Mike shook his head. “I can’t fucking believe you. I’m gonna have to talk to him now; I may need to hire another porter. I don’t want to fire your sorry ass because that would put Nikki in a bind, and I really need someone to fill that slot — but if Red wants you gone, you’re gone.”

Nicole stormed across the room and slapped her husband’s face. “It only took you one day to fuck this up, didn’t it?” She smacked him a second time. “You loser sonofabitch.”

Jimmy rubbed his cheek and sobbed. “Ow, I’m sorry, it was an accident — I didn’t do nothing.”

Marlene sniffed. “It’s never your fault, is it, Numb-Nuts? You never do anything wrong — other than fuck up everything you do. You got the reverse Midas Touch, Jimmy; everything you touch turns to SHIT.”

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy sobbed. “Please, I’m sorry.”

“Well, all I can say is, you better hope you don’t lose this job.” Nicole jabbed her finger in Jimmy’s face. “You hear me?”

“Y-yeah. I’m really, really sorry, honey.”

“Whatever.” Nicole turned to Mike. “You ready?”

“Hell, yeah, let’s split.”

Nicole grabbed her purse and followed her ex toward the front door.

Jimmy gulped. “Uh, where you guys headed?”

“Breakfast,” Nicole said over her shoulder before breezing out of the house, leaving Jimmy standing there with his mouth open.

Marlene sneered. “What do you think, Numb-Nuts? Don’t they make a great couple?” Without waiting for an answer, she hobbled toward her bedroom chortling.

Jimmy clutched his chest and wheezed. After falling on the couch, he closed his eyes and tried to conjure calming images of clouds and meadows but in his mind’s eye, all he could see was his wife’s sneer and the back of her head as she left to spend time alone with her ex-boyfriend.