Master of the Universe

It finally reached 5 am. The bartenders were roughly escorting out the final drunken stragglers that refused to leave and go back to their normal lives. I patiently sat at the bar, my bar, that I had built from the ground up.

“Boss, we’re out of last shipment’s hooch,” one of my bartenders warned me.

I was a baron.  A master of the universe.  I snapped my fingers and industry would grind, and pour, and stamp. pour, and stamp.

     I put out the cigar I was smoking and headed behind the bar. I opened the floorboard cellar only to find that almost all the liquor was gone. Instead of panicking, I calmly told my subordinates that I would take care of it later and that they should go home.

I was making something.  It wasn't always an important something, sometimes just the piece of metal that holds something bigger in place.

            Without the hooch, I had no other source of income. The people I employed couldn’t take care of their families. The people I employed looked to me to make decisions. I frantically looked behind the bar for some sort of answer. I opened a small hidden compartment behind the bar. It only contained two things: Mumbo Jumbo, a book by Ishmael Reed and a gun.