Jolly came into the bar in the middle of one Saturday morning, sat on a stool, and ordered a beer. Clarence was mildly surprised to see her there, but he poured the draft beer and set it on the bar in front of her without saying a word. This little incident brought back a whole flood of bad memories about a certain day in the recent past running around in his mind.

The autumn leaves blew against the front door of a small house on a city street in the suburbs, and memories floated like reality among the family and friends while subdued sobs crowded out reason. The crushing loss had been unexpectedly thrust upon them, dashing their dreams, and filled the small household with nightmares. Step by step the damp and cold numbness from the mourning rose to a level of frenzy, and despair fouled the air. Tears disappeared in the flood of final sorrow as cries lamented and moaned the missed opportunities of a youth, a young boy. ‘If only! If only!’ There were so many possibilities if this tragedy hadn’t smashed into their family tree and broken off a small limb. ‘How could this happen … how?’ They wept as they sipped from glasses of red wine.

In a candlelit corner of the living room, a gathering of friends and relatives mingled and embraced, and struggled to put forth an effort to console the mother and father for the lost dreams of their child. Even the stimulating scent of flowers and the rising sweet incense couldn’t cover the stink and futility of a senseless death. Faces were drawn out and gray with fatigue and grief. Words became useless. Only encompassing, reassuring arms around each other filled the mother’s void with compassionate reasoning.

At the opposite corner near the door, a ragtag cluster of nonchalant mourners drank beer, ate snacks and discussed baseball and the movies. Their cigarette smoke swirled upward and mingled with the same scent and stink of death. They snuffed out their butts in makeshift ashtrays and created rings from their beer cans on the freshly polished furniture.

In mythology and reality, a hero is a person with guts and strength, a person of courageous or a noble character who has used these qualities to accomplish something extraordinary. None of these describe their fellow barfly, the man they have come to mourn. Loren, except possibly the last part of the characterization, ‘accomplished something extraordinary’. He did do that, they think, they hope. For one out-of-character moment he attempted to be a shining hero, but failed even in that attempt. This assorted group of ragtag people of all ages, strangers to the family group, gathers in this small room to observe the loss of a child, and not to honor the petty crook that may or may not have tried to save the boy’s life.

“Why do you suppose Loren did it?” asked one of the guys as he sucked down a lungful of cigarette smoke.

“Who knows?”

“Who knows what goes on in the mind of a madman?”

“An egocentric madman,” Clarence added.

“He had some self-serving motivation, that’s for sure.”

“Maybe he was going to use the boy as a shield, because I just can’t think of him as a hero.”

“Maybe he was just going to harass him … like he did all of us … all the time.”

“What ever happened to Jolly? Has anyone even seen her lately?”

The customs and mores for the combined funeral gathering turned into a complicated affair – considering one of the deceased honorees had been contemptible, amoral, sans religion, and had more character flaws in his psychological makeup than cells in his physical composition: A man who had fewer friends than fingers and more enemies than the hairs on his back. His friends were invited to the gathering by the boy’s mother as a courtesy; as a gesture, of sorts, to acknowledge his vain attempt to save her son.

And regrettably, on the other hand, the deceased child, the young boy, the true focus of the memorial assembly, hadn’t had the opportunity or lifetime to develop well defined characteristics, such as good or bad, immoral or kind, or bright or dumb.

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The sun was not a part of the décor of the bar that particular Saturday afternoon. The small shades were drawn, as usual. The pool balls whirled like tops and twisted around the table; the result of another mighty and flamboyant break by Loren. Today he played with his gal pal and partner, Jolly, who had become his regular escort.

“Two more beers over here, Clarence, on the table in the corner,” he shouted as he does every time and tossed the cue across the table and motioned for Jolly to follow him.

Clarence, the bartender knew the routine, drew the drafts of beer, set them on the bar, casually walked around to retrieve them, then slowly strolled over and placed them on the table between them; no coasters or napkins. He wasn’t impressed or threatened by their façade, but he didn’t ask for money; he would do just as usual and add them to the running tab Loren kept. He walked over and picked the cue stick off the table then placed it back into the rack on the wall.

Loren and Jolly each took a sip from their beer glass, bent over the table, faced each other, and proceeded to study a paper Loren has slipped from his jacket pocket. They did this every so often and everyone wondered what they were doing. His index finger traced across the paper and her head nodded affirmation. They both smiled. Some of the morning customers along the bar, bored and with nothing else to do, watched them, but had no idea what they are talking about, but also knew it could be nothing good if it came from those two.

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Deloris and her ten-year old son, Chris, listened to oldies-but-goodies music on the car radio as she maneuvered her small black Honda Civic through the irritating hustle-bustle city traffic of workers heading to work in the city. Having lived in the suburbs the last few years, she became unaccustomed to dealing with the Saturday-morning downtown activity, so she concentrated and drove defensively. Their planned destination was a second-hand shop to buy a used guitar displayed in the window. A friend told them it was there, and because the price was low, and they could afford it.

Deloris in fact wanted to buy a piano for her son to play instead of a guitar, but this is what they could afford and he seemed so happy with the option. After the decision had been made, he mimicked a rock and roll star blasting his creations to the heavens and all his adoring fans. He bowed and blew kisses to his imaginary audience. She dreaded the future condition of her sanity.

The shop was on a one of the less busy downtown streets and she had little trouble finding a parking place in front. She fumbled in her purse for quarters to feed the parking meter. Chris started to bounce in the front seat and strum his imaginary guitar. Deloris remained all keyed up from the drive through the downtown city streets traffic.

“Stop it,” she raised her voice a little, “we have to wait a few minutes until the shop opens. Be patient,” she said, although she knew ‘patience’ wasn’t in the vocabulary of a ten-year-old promising rock-and-roll star.

He stopped strumming and smiled at her and she smiled back. She found two quarters and left the car to feed the meter. She could see the guitar in the window propped against an amplifier and surrounded by an array of watches, rings, tools, and small electronic gizmos, and together they glistened in all their electronic glory from the morning sun that peeked over the building tops across the street. She wondered how long this whim would last, and if it stuck, how long would her nerves last. Chris’s father said he would set up a space in the garage so he can practice and would make it as sound proof as possible. They didn’t spoil Chris, but wanted him to explore all his options and music seemed to be his current dream.

She noted the liquor store on the corner a few storefronts up from the pawn shop, and a bar on this just this side of it, and that made her a little nervous. To her, they looked like pimps, standing shoulder to shoulder with the small shop, each offering its commodities of vice. The walls of each were tattered and chipped, the windows of the liquor store were painted black, and the second-hand shop had steel bars to protect its window glass and displayed wares. When younger, she came down to these downtown city streets to discover the secrets behind the painted windows and bars, but as she aged she became more conservative, and of course, protective of her son. She eased herself back behind the steering wheel.

Chris opened the car door and stared at the guitar, then slid off the seat and wandered over to the window to check it out. His head nodded with a rhythmic approval song playing in his head. An elderly gentleman wandered up the street walking his large, black dog on a leash. He approached Chris and said something. Chris leaned down and petted the dog and his mother could hear him say, “Good, dog, Scooter”. Then he went back to his rock and rolling and the man continued walking up the street. He stopped for a moment in front of the bar, opened the door and peered in, and then he and his dog continued their walk.

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Loren and Jolly completed their intense conversation at the corner table and sauntered around the bar to chat with people here and there as they moved toward the door. Most of them were on guard, however, whenever they spoke to these two. Clarence flashed his plastic smile and waved with a two-fingered salute in a good riddance and get out of here manner. He put up with the two of them to keep peace in the bar, but they attracted lowlife like flies to a dead cat. They usually were not up and about this early in the morning, or on their way out this soon, so Clarence was in high spirits realizing they were carrying their hush-hush plans and associated troubles to other places; maybe for the rest of the day.

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A white van rattled up behind the black Honda Civic and idled for a few minutes. Two men sat in the front seat and wildly gestured and argued. Deloris spotted them in her rearview mirror and to her they looked like two animated puppets behind a dusty TV screen.

Suddenly they flung open and exited from the front doors of the van; left the motor running and the passenger door open and quickly-walked up the sidewalk toward the liquor store. They wore leather coats and knit caps and still argued, and laughed, and poked each other’s shoulders as they stomped up the sidewalk. Deloris assumed it was a run-of-the-mill event on Saturday morning in this part of the city; two men attempting to continue the previous night’s drinking and carousing. She nervously tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and kept a protective eye on Chris, who was now bending back and forth trying to see his prize from all angles.

Loren and Jolly stood in the Bee Hive doorway with the door open and they waved back at all the friends they assumed they had. With the door still open, Loren drew Jolly close and kissed her. It was a petty show for those inside. He reigned as king, he imagined, and acknowledged his queen. To those inside, though, a puffed up ego and his booby prize had just left the room. Jolly turned and scrutinized the two men walking up the sidewalk, but returned to her doorway romance.

The two people who stood in the bar doorway diverted Chris’s attention from the shop window. He took another peek at his guitar then wandered down to grab a curious peek through the open bar door. Deloris fidgeted in the front seat of the car and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. She didn’t want Chris there and was about to say something when she heard a commotion coming from the direction of the liquor store. The sound of the door crashing open startled her from an otherwise dreamy mood, and her eyes quickly shifted from her son to the source of the noise.

The two men backed out the door waving pistols in their hands. They fired shots back through the doorway as they back-pedaled out. They had pulled their knit caps over their faces and only their eyes appeared through small slits cut in one side. They laughed as they shot up bottles on the shelves and one of them waved a brown bag at the clerk inside.

“I’ve got your money! That’s the last time you’ll say I’m too drunk to buy booze,” one of them yells back throwing the door shut as he kicks small stone through it.

The curious faces of the patrons in the bar appeared one at a time in the window, parting the curtains to see out when they heard the commotion and shots. They all checked to see if Loren and Jolly were involved, and maybe hoped, in trouble, but found them still attached to each other in the doorway.

Chris glanced up at their faces then stepped back to the center of the sidewalk to catch a better look. The commotion played like many of the TV shows he’d watched and danger never entered his mind because curiosity had taken over. He saw his mother in the car. He could see her mouth move and shout something, but he figured she was still mad about his earlier antics.

He looked down the street and the two men had stopped and were shooting back into the store, then they glared down the sidewalk at him. He fidgeted and shuffled his feet a little. He heard a noise coming from behind him and turned his head and saw two police officers running up the sidewalk. They had slipped their car up behind the suspicious van when they saw the motor running and the door open. Hearing the shots rip through the quiet morning, the officers bolted from their car and drew their guns. One of them ran toward the shooters, and the other toward Chris, who stood petrified.

Loren instinctively reached out from the doorway and grabbed the boy by his collar and tried to yank him into the doorway out of the range of fire. Chris pulled away and tried to run back to the car. Loren grabbed him by the shoulders, spun him around, and placed himself between the boy and the shooters, then tried to pull him into the doorway.

The shooters recoiled at the sight of the patrol car behind the van and fired in its direction. The officers returned a couple of shots. As the shooters turned to run they fired two more shots in the direction of the officers. Jolly screamed from the doorway. Deloris scrambled across the front seat and out the door. Both officers ran past Loren, Jolly and Chris and pursued the shooters who scampered in flight up the sidewalk. Almost on cue, both officers stopped and bent to one knee, fired several shots, and the two shooters twisted into the air with all limbs jerking until they both crumbled to the sidewalk in motionless piles. Bills and coins burst from the brown paper bag and decorated the gray, cracked sidewalk.

Loren crumpled to his knees and rolled on top of Chris. Jolly reached down and pulled Loren over and found his front covered with blood from two bullets that had passed through his back. “What were you thinking?” She yelled into his face, expecting an answer.

Deloris dashed from the car and reached down to pull Chris to his feet to take him to safety, but found him limp and covered with blood. At first she assumed the man’s blood covered her son, but quickly she discovered the blood was oozing from a wound in his neck and another in his chest. She cradled him in disbelief and talked into his face and hoped he would flash one of his radiant smiles. She promptly realized he wouldn’t smile again, and let out a scream, started a convulsive sob, and rocked back and forth with her baby cradled in her arms. The bullets must have passed through the man and into her son.

Jolly also had Loren in her arms, too, but wasn’t crying. She ran her hand under his jacket and retrieved the paper and a wad of money, which she discreetly slipped into her own jacket pocket. She looked around and into the mother’s eyes filled with tears. “What were you thinking?” she yelled into Loren’s face, but also not expecting a response.

A couple more police cars pulled up in the street and one officer immediately went to the four people spread out on the sidewalk. He dropped to his knees and felt the pulse of each, boy and man, sitting side by side leaning against the wall, and just shook his head and stared at the two women. The officer remained silent as the cries of a mother filled the air. He remained silent when Jolly asked, “What happened?” Then she silently slipped out of view as she ran up the street.

The officer remained silent when the crowd from the Bar came out and milled around the scene. He knew that nothing he said would change things or help. He couldn’t tell them there were no boundaries or rules to death: That it could take place anywhere at any time to anyone. That’s what had just happened.