Meticulously, he scrubbed out draft beer glasses and dunked them in a clean rinse, then followed this with thirty seconds of polishing for each. Outside, the streets were silent with snow, and the only sound to penetrate the barroom walls was the churning and clanging of the occasional salt truck passing by. “Painted into a corner is the way I see it.” Al finished the last of the glasses and dried his hands on his white cotton apron. “Hurts like hell, I bet. Halfway to cleaning up the whole mess, and then you gotta walk away from it.” “Big mistake is what it was,” Dorsey said, pouring his beer. “Of course it was.” Al stepped from behind the bar and began turning off the neon beer signs that decorated the bar’s windows. After he finished, he took the stool next to Dorsey. “There are businesses where a couple can work together, and there are some where they can’t. Like with me and Rose. She heads up the kitchen, does all the cooking except when I make the bean soup, and I stay out here.
