Harvey's Load Out

He was somebody once. A short story.

There was sweat on everything.

Friday night, summer of 1982. I was getting drunk at the No-Name Saloon—a hotel bar hanging off the edge of Lake Chosen, a crappy South Florida town. A mosquito resort built for migrant sugar cane workers and busted-up, middle-class nobodies. Plus a couple of guys who owned all the land and all the money.

I got there early, stayed late. Chain-smoked. Watched the bands. Listened to bad covers of worse songs. I didn’t talk. Didn’t want to be talked to. I just sat in my corner like a tumor, daring the night to grow me into something worse.