The bar was wearing the visage of a bare warehouse. In fact, it was just an open warehouse with no sense of direction and no concrete sign of becoming a meeting place. The walls were dotted with dirt of old usage and from where they stood, the image of it being transformed into a bar was still a dream.

Broker, Marlow, Enmanuel. Whatever the name was, he couldn't do much in the first day. The automated body just held the broom and swept whilst the inexperienced bar owner with a briefcase full of money, sat near the long wooden pedestal and drank occasionally. 

When the front wall was cleaned and painted white, Remy decided to call it a night. The clock was hanging near the hours of 9 and Remy had drained himself of all energy worrying about everything at once. Broker was not much in a rush of thinking. Thinking would be a mistake and he knew that. Sometimes he wanted to turn his mind off, completely and exist only. Not be bewildered and ecstatic about the future, time and money.

At the beginning of the day, Remy took Broker to be a common thief. His papers were stamped in Jersey but he was far away from it according to the time on the stamp. But at the end of the day, Remy was a good man. Kind hearted wouldn't be an exaggeration at all. So he let Broker stay in the back room of the warehouse which consisted the stink of wine, beer and crates of alcohol.  

After the series of two weeks, consisted in nothing but hard fast work, the first drink of Remy's bar, slid across the furnished bar and into the hand of Remy as he broke the ceremony open with a toast.

But the past 2 weeks, were long and tiring, taxing in every sense. It was also a divine intervention for the two men, Remy and Broker. And they bought the divine intervention to each other without knowing it.

Broker became sick on the third day and nothing was moving at a promising state. So he persuaded Remy with his silver tongued sweet words. They roared the Chevy and stopped at every bar and asked every young, lazy faces they found on the street to work for them.

In the evening, the Chevy was full and so was the bar, filled with a large group of men, cleaning, painting, carrying boxes, labeling, storing. Everything that was necessary was being done and Broker was looking after it, managing with a strong grasp on the helm. 

The first opening was on 12th March and everything was prepared in the ways of Remy's taste. The glass shelves were in set and the wooden ones was rotting somewhere in the backroom. The carpet stayed soft when the guests trotted around, the waitresses shiny and blonde, running around in their tight over wares and fro the kitchen to the door. 

All the Union dogs were there, including Duv, the bus station manager. Slinging the fourth drink down his fat neck as Broker snarled at him from the distance. But Remy saw it, momentarily and laughed like a giant as he slapped his back. 

They had become good friends and more importantly, better business partner. There was no way, in the twisted paranoid mind of Remy Relington, a single decision could be taken without hours of overthink. So the job was purposefully pressing upon Broker's shoulder since he was no longer just muscles, but became the brains too. 

But Remy didn't let the chance slide when it came to picking the band for the bar. He had good taste and that proved when he rolled the bop, jazz and pop as the men worked. The Sax player was old, the drummer was struggling in the middle age of his life and the only girl in the band was the guitarist and she went by the name of Armina Emlyn. The woman with the luck that was hard to coax.

There was a lot of " doll faced Jezebel girls " hanging around under the multicolored lights, meeting and mingling with people of all sorts. Broker saw all of them in the common eyes with no distinguished element coming out of their image. They all were pretty as they all were young, dusted with powder shining on their noses, busy spilling drinks on their dresses and the suits of men who were in line to get accompanied for the night. 

He only came to discover Emyln at the end of the second night when the Union Dogs were making a big fuss which died down by 10 and the bar was near empty except for a few men without women scattered around here and there. He was tired that night and happily exhausted. There was not much violence in the heart of Broker but he was a man after all. And even though, in his long time of roaming around, he conveyed his best to stay away from throwing a punch.

But he had to do that night.

The Town Poker king had come down to the bar with his wife, a brunette who was as tall as she was faithless. When the poker men were busy in the middle with the talks of business, she had wrapped a clueless man around her finger and went to the backroom for the intimacy. Broker saw it first and shouted to disperse. His shout caught Remy's attention who was in the manger suite, tightening his suit. 

The man had put up a fight and they could not fight freely. Because of the presence of the Union men, a fight would prove to be a dispute and essentially end in a bar brawl. So Remy threw the man out of the backdoor and Broker cannoned out to him, for the obvious rush of blood that brew within him.

He let go off his body on the front couple's table and the Sax player was already missing in action, probably stuck in the bathroom stall with the Benny needle popped into his arm's vein. The drummer man was in the bar with Remy and it was only the girl who had dropped the bass and bought out an acoustic.

She had looked the quiet, quaint part. It was in her eyes and the skin which was colored red by the stage light was really putting off the sharp taste of her character. The hair might have been long but was tucked away into the creases of her neck. The eyes looked nowhere and strung the same tune with a homely comfort as her body swayed to the sides. She might have been humming a melody and a song as her chest huffed and the head nodded along.

He was thinking something in the straight up face, with the edge of his jaw bone raw red from the man's punch when Emyln stood up straight suddenly left the stage. He observed her steps towards her disappearance with a strong of allurement hanging over off everything. 

There was nothing out of ordinary in her story when before going to bed, Broker asked Remy. They were living in the same apartment with Broker's wife, who was a short woman of almost 5 feet and hated strangers with a passion. But he insisted on his staying since Remy was impressed by Broker and already crafting more plans with him to make the bar better.

" She's one of them.....um......... gals from the theater. " Replied Remy as he devoured a mouthful of beans. 

" Of where? " Broker asked again as he pressed the ice cubes to his jaw, ignoring the crooked stare of Remy's wife.

" Near a .......uh...........somewhere in the city. Shit I dunno which one. " 

" How did find that gig? " 

" The Sax man Jarvis? "

" Uh huh. " Broker replied, leaning forward with a curiosity. 

" He goes around town, playing everywhere, every bar near Dixie. Almost every night. Don't even get me started on the Saturdays. "

" And do you think she goes around too? "

"    She better ! " Remy broke out with a loud gasping laugh. " That deadbeat theater ain't doing her any good. Hell ! It ain't doing no one no good. I tell you, Books. That thing will be gone before this Christmas. "

His sprouting laughter was comedic but it also stroke a worry and a sense of empathy in Broker's mind. There was something mellow and dumbly interesting, alluring even about her. And the crunch of her breaking financial crisis that was overlooked completely by Remy was earning sympathy from him. 

He knew the struggle and somehow he felt close in an abstract inexplicable way. 

The next night she was there, tugging at the bass whilst Sax man Jarvis tore it away with his slow and smooth tone. The man in the drums was becoming hyper with a fell harsh yells with the vocal.

He had crashed in the same chair that night too and Broker was eagerly waiting for the break. He wanted to start a chat with her and then he looked around and smelt the scent of the atmosphere. There were a lot of women and every man had one hanging around with him, a few pimps trying to steal away the young mattresses. The place was a mess on a moral evaluation. 

It was not a brothel but it's no church either. 

And he was a soul solicitor for building it up.

The loss of confidence threw away the vigor to talk as he helplessly swallowed the music and looked at her from time to time. She had that type of warmth plastered all over her face, along with the magnetic grace built in every line from her mouth to her neck. 

" She seemed happy tonight. " Thought Broker as she clicked her shoes with the beat and swayed with a bunch of smiles haunting out of her lips. That night went away in admiration and the start of a nonchalant yearning. 

The next night, Broker was not there at the bar. And so wasn't Emyln. But they weren't together. The heavy secretive duty with the hint of crime, fell upon Broker's hands, to buy a gallon of      " something strong " said Remy with a wild wink. Then threw the Chevy's key to him, ordering a broken nosed man to accompany Broker for the alcohol. 

The fate of Emyln was only on the verge to change since it was that night when she read the letter. 

" I am sorry to inform you of the sorrowful matter that, Aunt Helena, on your father's side, has passed away most recently, on the morning of 9th of this instant. " 

She had shrieked in grief in spite of being a stranger to this Aunt Helena whom she scarcely heard of before. 

The letter was from the lawyer and she thought she was insane in the lust of raging poverty when she read the last paragraphs. 

In short, she had died and there was a will.

" Your aunt, Helena Bernabeu Emyln had left the half and a quarter of her property. It has gone straight to you since she died a single woman with no children or an heir. " 

She did not know what to think of such a thing, what to make of it. The happiness leaped inside of her, there was finally some money and whatever was left, she would in a heartbeat spend it in the theater. But she was also ashamed, an irrational embarrassment of receiving from someone she only seen in photographs.