2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

1:46 A.M

The guitar case is already laid out on the table in the back room. Lorca unzips it and reveals the golden body of his father’s 1932 D’Angelico Snakehead. Its tanned back and S nostrils are graceful on the ugly table, making everything else in the room seem shopworn.

Mongoose caresses the guitar’s smooth face. Veins on his nose and cheeks map out the course of his drinking. “You’ve kept her in great shape.”

Sonny, Max, Gus, and Alex enter the room, significantly increasing the sequin ratio. Max strikes what he thinks is a threatening stance. “Why is Francis’s guitar out?”

“Why aren’t you onstage?” Lorca says.

“We’re on break, buddy.”

Mongoose picks up the guitar. Nausea runs through Lorca. Except for cleanings, the Snakehead hasn’t left its wall case for fifty years. The guitar belongs to the club, sanctifying its sinners, but if he loses the club, she’ll be slumped against the wall of his apartment, sanctifying the roaches.

“You guys sound good tonight,” Rico says. “But I’d play the fourth finger on that B flat.”

“You know where you can put your fourth finger?” says Max.

“Up my ass?” Rico says.

Max says, “Up mine, buddy.”

“Would you like that?”

The room smells like deli meat. Sonny’s bald spot flushes. Flecks of perspiration dot the sides of his mouth. Lorca tells him to sit down but instead he stands behind him breathing thickly onto his neck, a presence Lorca realizes he appreciates. Mongoose plays a chord on the Snakehead, the first sound Lorca has heard her make in years. It’s not possible for her to be in tune after these years, yet she is. Mongoose passes the guitar to Rico, who fondles her strings.

“You’d think you would save this for him,” Mongoose says, meaning Alex.

Alex’s lip curls like he might spit. “Screw off, old man.”

“I see the family resemblance.” Mongoose laughs. “I’ll take it.” He acts as if buying one of the greatest guitars ever built for thousands less than it’s worth is a favor. He pulls an envelope from his pocket and hands it to Lorca. “It’s a shame, is all.”

Rico fidgets: velvet lapel, a continent of dirt on his neck, thick calluses on the pads of his fingers. “First Louisa, now your guitar.”

Sonny advances. “What’d you say?”

“I said, first the girl, now the guitar.”

Max’s eyes are slick with excitement. “Are we getting in a fight?”

“We’re not getting in a fight,” Lorca says.

Alex stands in the semicircle around the body of the Snakehead. In the overhead lamp, his black hair shines blue.

“What’s up, kid?” Rico says.

Alex brings his fist into Rico’s jaw clean like a poem. Rico flops and spits.

Lorca steadies the guitar on the swiveling table.

Rico’s trajectory pins Sonny against the wall. Alex’s body is arched in the follow-through of his punch. Whatever follows will hinge on what Rico does when he gets to his feet. Trepidation stubbles the air. Alex doesn’t wait. Head bobbing to some unheard music, he hits Rico again. Sonny’s mouth falls open. No one wants to fight, but now the kid has made a promise. The table swivels again as Rico slings all of his weight against Alex. Their fall launches a folding chair across the floor. Mongoose tries to stop them and inadvertently elbows Sonny. They lose their footing. The room becomes a wash of sequins and polyester.

“Jesus,” Lorca says. “We’re a hundred years old!”

The swinging lamp throws half-moons onto the fray. No man in the room is a fighter. They are barely men. Their jabs and dives are put-ons, versions of things they’ve seen in movies. Alex is the only one with aptitude.

“Alex,” Lorca yells. “Watch your hands.” Max leaps onto the table, pumping his fists and yawping. He overturns a napkin holder onto the scramble of flesh below him. Mongoose and Sonny skitter on the floor and careen into Lorca, who has time to say “Shit” before his ankle relents, sending them hurtling in an unholy wreck toward the table. The force of their impact jackknifes the table’s legs. For a moment everything in the room halts, as if even the table is unwilling to eject Max and the Snakehead. Lorca reaches pointlessly toward the guitar. The Snakehead vaults, hits ground, and slides toward the wall (“Vanilla,” Louisa said when he bought her that first milkshake at the Red Lion Diner, pronouncing it with the telltale “ella” that marked her as a city girl, the beveled glass reflecting the arcade, reflecting the bumpers in the parking lot, reflecting new love’s bald pate) before being skewered by the table, several chairs, Max, a handful of outdated napkins, and two middle-aged men fumbling for the punch line of a joke that has gone too far.

A dull pop. A sudden, broken bone. Lorca’s nostrils fill with the dust of an ashtray. He shakes and shakes. Lorca thinks Sonny is helping him up, but he is clearing him from the collapse, yelling at everyone to move away from the guitar. Sonny swivels to face the panting men.

The fracture goes clean down her body. Her neck is snapped off but dangles by the loyal and steadfast E. The room is emergency quiet. The fight is abandoned. Lorca delivers the two pieces of his father’s guitar into the snakeskin case. He kneels and throws up into the trash can by his desk.

The room clears. The Cubanistas go back to the stage. Lorca can hear them launch into a floor-stomper from where he crouches over the can. The room is empty except for Mongoose, holding out a napkin. Lorca uses it to clean his mouth. He will take a stool at the bar and drink until he has erased himself.

Mongoose tucks the envelope of money into his jacket. “I want to say something to you,” he says. “I had nothing to do with Charlie.” Lorca attempts to speak, but Mongoose interrupts him. “You guys forget. He was like my brother. All these years not talking for what?” Mongoose says. “I miss you guys.”

It is not the first time Mongoose has denied involvement with Charlie’s death, but it is the first time Lorca considers it. He nods. Throwing up has made his head feel better than it has all day. “I need a favor,” he says. “For my son.”

The two men stare at the broken guitar.

Mongoose says, “Seems like the least I can do.”