Jimmy sat at what he’d come to think of as his spot at Kenny’s bar. Kenny had just poured them another round. Jimmy swiveled around on his stool, happy to feel just the slightest pull in his side to remind him of his recent misadventures. A few men were scattered throughout the dim space.
Jimmy raised his glass to the man in a dress who sat at the far end of the bar. The man quickly looked down at his own drink and turned away from Jimmy. The smelly bum-slash-town-mayor sat slumped in a chair at a table by himself. Jimmy chuckled to himself as he realized the two men at the next table had slid their entire table and chairs to be able to drink in more breathable air.
“Why is this place never packed?” Jimmy asked Kenny as he turned back to the bartender and rested his elbows on the dried remains of his own blood.
Kenny gave him a sideways glance as he mopped up the backbar. “What are you talking about? This is a good turn out.”
“There are exactly five customers here, and that’s the most I’ve seen in the three weeks I’ve been here. How in the hell do you stay in business?”
“Let’s just say this isn’t my only business,” Kenny said as he poured Jimmy’s next round. “Like a lot of folks these days, I’ve got my hands in a lot of pies. Some side hustles, you might say. Helps me pay the bills and keep this place running.”
Jimmy looked at the drink in his hand. “You know, I didn’t really drink before I crashed into Eden. Now I can’t remember a day or night I don’t have a whiskey glass in my hand or at the ready.”
Kenny punched him in the shoulder. “Welcome to small town life, my friend. Nowhere to go but to the liquor store or bar and nothing to do but drown your sorrows in a glass. You know alcohol was invented to keep the working man in line?”
Jimmy looked at his friend and shook his head as he laughed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s true,” Kenny said as he sipped from his own glass. “What better way than to keep laborers from rebelling than to keep them lit?”
“Come on,” Jimmy said. “Do you believe that crap, or is this some bogus bartender bullshit you’re feeding me here?”
Kenny looked around the bar then leaned in close to Jimmy. He spoke in hushed, excited tones. “Are you kidding me? That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Governments have been covertly trying to keep their subjects in line since the very beginnings of civilization. It’s not just about alcohol. It’s full-scale surveillance with ‘so called’ UFOs. You know drone technology has been used by the government since the 1940s?”
Jimmy slammed his drink and pulled the bottle away from Kenny. “I think I need a little more of this,” he said, “to keep me in line. Or at least to help me follow along.”
Kenny shook his head slowly and sighed. “It’s not your fault, buddy. You’ve been brainwashed since kindergarten. That’s when the indoctrination begins. This ‘free society’? It’s all bullshit. All of it. Every history book is a lie. All those cute little elementary school milk cartons? They’re filled with drugs that make us complacent.”
Jimmy looked around the bar to see if any of the other patrons were listening to the lunatic rantings of their hometown bartender. “Come on, man,” he said. “Tell me it’s the whiskey talking, or this is some sort of initiation you do with all your new customers or you’re just bored on a chilly fall night and decided to fuck with me.”
Kenny whipped the rag from his shoulder and twisted it in his fists. He mopped his brow and paced behind the bar. “Look around, Jimbo. There are black helicopters in the sky above every major city in this country. They’re watching us. Keeping us under their thumb. Making sure we stay fat, dumb and harmless.”
Jimmy sucked on an ice cube and contemplated retiring to the lumpy cot upstairs. “Okay,” he said. “Say that’s true. Why?”
“Because if we knew,” Kenny said as he slammed his fist on the bar, “they wouldn’t be able to control us. They’d lose everything. Their power, their money, everything.”
“So you’re saying this is the government doing this, right?”
“Not the government as you know it, or think you know it. No. It’s the people that pull the strings.”
“But what about all the good things government does? Technological advances. Social services like feeding the homeless. Medicines. You’re saying all that is somehow a means to an end? A way to control us?”
“Yes,” Kenny bellowed. “Look who decided to show up. Now you’re getting it, my brother. Medicines were created to keep us calm while nature takes its course. And vaccines don’t prevent sickness. They inject microscopic trackers and nano technology that can control our organs, even our thoughts. So if we become a danger to their power, they can just shut us down with an app.”
Jimmy knew he should walk away, but he just couldn’t believe what he was hearing from the guy he had come to think of as a friend. “Dude, I want to know what you’re smoking, because you’re clearly not sharing. And while we’re talking about medication, I think someone has definitely taken the blue pill.”
“Exactly,” Kenny said as he grabbed the whiskey bottle and drank from it while he continued to pace in tight circles in front of Jimmy. “‘The Matrix’ was an attempt by those in power to test the limits of that power. Don’t you get it? Could they release a movie about our lives and we not even notice its truths? It blows my mind, man. And look what happened. The chattel not only remained oblivious, they actually demanded sequels. Sequels, for godssake.”
Jimmy stood up and put his hands on Kenny’s shoulders. “I would love to sit here and debate these things with you, but I’ve had a weird enough day as it is. I thank you for making everything else that’s happened to me in the last several weeks seem pedestrian.”
Kenny grabbed Jimmy by the cheeks and pulled his forehead to his own. “You’re going to believe, brother. Before this is all over, you’ll see.”
