Sometimes the harshness of the day has to be drowned in a sea of alcohol. So, Joshua Turner headed to his favorite secret bar. It was called O’H…something no one really knew because most of the letters on the old hand painted sign above the door were worn away. This wasn’t the typical yuppie bar that sells mega-sized fruit flavored margaritas for three bucks during happy hour or pizza stuffed, steak fajita, jalapeno popper quesadillas. This wasn’t the kind of place staffed almost entirely by students from the local college who wear cheap, tacky buttons with flashing lights that were doled out by some overeager underpaid alcohol rep. No, this was a dive bar. This was the kind of place one could contract a disease just by breathing the air. This was the kind of place that sold only two things: mugs of beer and shots of whiskey, vodka or tequila. This is the kind of place where one could get their ass kicked for ordering anything else. This was the kind of place a person went to get lost. This is where Josh needed to be today. This is where he always went after listening to him.

He swung the door open and walked right to the bar. “The usual,” he requested as he placed himself down on a stool.

The bartender obliged and poured a full shot of golden tequila in a semi-clean glass. 

He threw it back like it was water, “Another,” he demanded.

The bartender poured another shot and Josh popped it back quickly. Instinctively, the bartender just dropped the bottle in front of Josh and looked for his approval. 

Then a man dressed in all black walked into the bar and pulled up a stool right next to Josh’s. “I’ll buy that bottle, if you let me drink with you,” the man stated as he looked at the bartender and raised his hand indicating the bottle was on him.   

“Whatever buddy, just don’t think this makes us pals. I’ve had a shitty day and I just need to drink.”

“Gotcha,” he responded.

The bartender brought the benevolent stranger a glass with some ice. He filled it with the Mexican drunk juice and went back to drying off beer mugs with a three day dirty dish towel. 

“I would like to make a toast,” said the stranger.

“To what pal?” asked Josh.

“To the evil things we do.”

Without thinking very much about the stranger’s toast, Josh responded with “Whatever?”

They raised their glasses and pounded back another shot.

“So, what do you do?” asked the man.

“Why do you care?” Josh asked nastily.

“Look, I hate drinking alone. And since I’m drinkin’ with you I just thought I’d try to make things a little bit more hospitable.”

“I work,” Josh responded. “I work at a job I hate, get paid way less money than I need, go home and look forward to either retirement or death. What about you?”

“Well, I deal with people pretty much, which I usually like. Sometimes though, I really hate people. Sometimes, I wish they would all just die,” the stranger continued.

Josh raised his glass and proudly shouted out the new toast, “DEATH TO EVERYONE!”

“Here, Here,” the stranger responded banging glasses with Josh and pounding yet another shot. An electronic sounding version of  “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC began ringing on the stranger’s phone. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a red cell phone. “Sorry, gotta take this.” The stranger walked away from the bar and began what seemed to be a heated discussion with whoever was on the other end. 

“NO!” the stranger yelled.

“I don’t care what you think! Look! You do it my way or I’ll…” the stranger looked around and saw that his highly animated discussion was attracting attention. He turned his back to the crowd and very quietly finished his discussion. 

Josh didn’t even bother to look over at him. In the stranger’s absence, Josh dropped back three more shots. That would make…six, no seven shots, no ten shots. Aw, hell. At this point, did it really matter? I mean this would probably be the end for him anyway. If he just would have ignored him, maybe things would be different. If he just would have ignored him maybe he wouldn’t have done all those horrible things. He stared at the bottle filled with golden liquid in front of him. It was half empty, definitely not half full. Half-full was for people with hopes. Half-full was for people that had a shot. Half-full was for people that didn’t…

“Well, like I said earlier, I deal with people but sometimes I wish they would all just die,” the stranger interrupted Josh’s thoughts. “You know,” the stranger continued, “you don’t look like the kind of guy that would normally frequent an establishment of this…caliber. So what brought you here today?”

“Did you ever have a day, a day that led you down a path you tried not go down? I mean a day when every single action you took was wrong, you knew it was wrong but you still had to do it? A day that when it was over you knew things would never be the same again?” without waiting for a response Josh continued, “Well, I have!” Josh’s voice began to crack and squeal as he yelled his semi-drunken response.

“You know, sometimes things we do, we do for a reason. Now, take me for example, a lot of people listen to me. I ask them to do things everyday that go against their highest held beliefs, but they do it. Sometimes, we just have to do what we’re told. You do what you’re told, don’t you Josh?”

Josh looked at the stranger curiously. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“The puppy Josh. When you were a kid. You killed that little puppy,” the stranger explained. 

“How do you know that?” Josh asked. 

“Because you did what you were told Josh. I know you didn’t want to do it, but you did it anyway. Good job by the way,” the stranger complimented Josh.

“Who are you?” Josh asked as he threw back another shot. 

“Josh, come on. My voice, it doesn’t sound familiar to you? Let me refresh your memory. I was there when you beat that little boy that lived across the street from you. You nearly killed him. But you were told to and it’s not your fault. You were just doing what you were told. Just like that business trip to L.A. The Hooker. C’mon Josh, you did a good thing. And that nagging bitch in the supermarket last week. You got her good. I mean all she kept doing was complaining and complaining. But you did what you were told. She should have died. Then, that old man in the park. The one talking to all the little girls,” the Man smiled approvingly as he watched Josh’s face turn to happiness and then quickly to confusion. Josh cocked his head and looked at the man in the same manner dogs look toward a distant and unusual sound. Josh could see into the man’s eyes. They were red. 

“How did you know about that? No one was around when I did those things. I was living in Pittsburgh when I beat up that little boy and besides that happened like two thousand miles away thirty years ago. You’re not that kid are you?” Josh began to ask frantically.

“No, Josh. You’re beating crippled that boy, remember? I was there at Pitt main campus when you smashed that frat guy in the head with a lead pipe and then proceeded to break almost every bone in his body.”

“It was you,” Josh said. “You were the one in my head. You told me to do those things,” Josh began to stand up. 

“Sit down Josh,” the man ordered. “Look, you’ve done well by me so far. I saw what you did this morning with your wife, Evie.”

“I just did what you said,” Josh whispered.

“I know and it was perfect, but I was curious, what did you do with the kids?” the man asked.

“I killed Lacey,” Josh said proudly about drowning his ten-year old daughter. “She was going to be a slut, I could just tell. She was going to be nasty and dirty so I just killed her. I didn’t want her to live like that.”

“No!” the stranger slammed his hand down on the bar. “Did I tell you to do that?” he asked in an angry whisper.  “What about the boy? Where is the boy?”

“Why are you mad at me?” Josh inquired. “I always listened to you.”

“Like when?” the man demanded.

“Like when I killed that homeless guy in the subway a few months back. Then there was that time I ran over that woman late one night last December. Then there was the time I killed all those dogs in the dog park with poisoned treats. And what about the time I killed that little boy who just would not stop screaming for his mommy? I did all those things for you. You asked and I did it. I did it for you and I told no one. I was good. I didn’t even get caught.”

“What about the boy,” the red-eyed man asked again, “Where is he?” he yelled furiously in a deep and deafening tone.

“He’s in the trunk.”

“He’s in the trunk of your car?”

“Nope, he’s in the trunk of my wife’s car. And I hid her car.”

“Did you hide it in your work parking lot?”

“No,” said the now drunken man. “I hid the car in a wrecking yard. They’ll probably smash it in a couple of days. I tried to tell Timmy why I was doing the things I did but he didn’t understand. He would have turned me in. So I did just like you said, ‘crush him’” slurred Josh. 

Highway to Hell began blasting on the red phone again. The stranger answered. “Yeah. Good. You got it all. Alright then, do it!”

Within seconds, a team of SWAT officers suited up in full battle gear swarmed the bar with small tactical machine guns. Before he even knew what hit him, Josh was on the floor and under arrest. 

The stranger walked out of the bar to a street filled with squad cars and SWAT trucks.

“You got a unit in route to that wrecking yard he talked about?” the stranger, Detective Anderson asked. 

“Sure do, we called ahead and told them not to crush any vehicles until we find that little boy.”

A first year detective approached Anderson, “Can I have my phone back now?” 

“Sure, I hope you don’t mind but before I went in there I downloaded a new ring for your phone, I think you’ll like it.” After handing over the phone, Anderson took the goofy red Halloween contacts out. His partner approached, “We heard the whole thing on the wire, how did you convince him that you were the devil?” 

“Well, I was just who he wanted me to be. He wanted a devil so I gave him a devil. He wanted praise, so I gave it to him.”   

“Anderson!” the captain screamed. “You just fucked up this whole investigation. A drunken confession will never stand up in court. The DA won’t even touch a clusterfuck like this. And on top of that you’re on suspension for drinking on the job. You must have put back about six or seven shots in there.”

“Officer,” the bartender yelled as he ran through the crowd of uniformed patrol men and militaristic looking SWAT members. “Here’s that bottle you needed,” the bartender handed over a bottle of Tequila to Anderson.

“Captain, have this bottle placed into evidence. You’ll find there’s no alcohol in it. Josh gave us a sober, yet self-induced drunken confession. Be sure to run a breathalyzer on him too. This way the DA and his defense counsel will know it was fake booze.”

The Captain looked puzzled and before he could even ask the question Anderson blurted out the answer, “I had one of my buddies in the lab mix together some fruit juices bitters and other stuff to make it taste like tequila. I mean the guy was already a little out of his mind so it wasn’t too hard to fool him. Don’t worry Cap’ it’ll all be in tomorrow’s report,” Anderson announced as he slowly walked away. 

So Anderson, after stumbling into the bouncer’s confession a few months ago, found a way to stumble into another great confession. Maybe being a detective wasn’t as hard as people made it out to be.