Bethesda Noir. by Jim Bourey

Sitting in a bar on a downtown street, acting like a private-eye, watching the action in a gilded mirror. 

It’s a clandestine lunch-time meeting. A guy in a shiny gray suit and a woman in a green dress (cut low in front and very high above the knees). 

She has a rolled-up yoga mat hung over the back of her chair. Yoga? In that dress? They’re at an outside table at the trendy American Taproom. She sips wine – deep red. He nurses a beer – pale amber. I throw back shots of Wild Turkey.

Their hands touch and they laugh, but not happily. She gives him an envelope. He gives her cash. She tucks the cash into her already full bra. Blackmail, I think. Should I confront them? Should I draw my .38, try to arrest them, shoot when they start to run? Better not.

I see my wife and granddaughter emerge from the pottery shop. They might get into my line of fire. I leave the gun where it belongs. Next time, maybe.

Jim Bourey is an old poet who divides his year between the Adirondack Mountains and Dover, Delaware. His chapbook “Silence, Interrupted” was published in 2015 by the Broadkill River Press. His work has appeared in Mojave River Review, Paddock Review, Gargoyle and the Broadkill Review and other journals and anthologies. He was first runner up in the Faulkner-Wisdom Poetry Competition in 2012 and 2016. He has served as an adjudicator for the Poetry Out Loud competition in Delaware. In his North Country months, he is active with the St. Lawrence Area Poets and has taken part in Art/Poetry projects in Saranac Lake.