The chrome-dusted dream of a gone inn The chrome-dusted dream of a gone inn Cian doyle The chrome-dusted dream of a gone inn Cian Doyle Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. 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The air was thick with the ghosts of everyone who ever walked through the door, people who came looking for something, but left with less. It was the end of the night, but it wasn’t the end of anything that mattered. The lights hung too low above the bar, flickering like they had a death wish. And the jukebox? Still there, like an old dog nobody bothered to pet anymore. Its mechanical hum buzzed weakly in the background, too tired to do much else. Every so often it let out a note, just one note and then the whole place would be drowning in that same damn tune again. Some bluesy, broken down song about love gone wrong, or Cian Doyle some shit like that. It was the kind of song that bur- rows deep in your head, and you swear you’ll never hear it again, but it’s there anyway. Every damn time. Tony wiped down the bar, over and over, like it was going to matter. The rag was frayed, the kind of rag a guy who’s been bartending too long gets used to. It was all he had left, worn out cloth and a bottle of cheap whiskey. It wasn’t his last drink, but it might as well have been. He was on his last shift, but that didn’t mean any- thing anymore. He’d said that before. Every damn time he was on the edge, about to quit, he told him- self that. The last time. He wasn’t going anywhere. This was his prison, and he knew it. He’d gotten too used to the bars. Too used to the faces that didn’t know his name but always found a way to stumble in, needing something to drink and something to forget. It wasn’t the booze that made him shake. No, it was something deeper. Something that sat in his gut like a hard lump, the kind that never went away. Regret, maybe. Or just the sickening certainty that this was the end of the line, even if nobody else saw it yet. His fingers wrapped around the glass, a little un- steady. He poured a drink for Old Frank in the cor- The chrome-dusted dream of a gone inn ner. Frank didn’t need much. A whiskey neat, maybe a beer on a good night. He didn’t talk. Just sat there, staring into his glass like it was going to tell him something. Hell, maybe it did. Tony couldn’t tell any- more. Frank had been here longer than him, and he was never going anywhere. He was like the furniture. Maybe even the building. “Another one?” Tony asked, already knowing the answer. Frank didn’t answer. Just lifted his glass and drained it in one smooth motion. The old bastard was proba- bly 70 if he was a day, and he’d been coming here for longer than anyone could remember. Nobody knew much about him. He’d just show up, order his drink, and sit in silence. “You ever going to leave, Frank?” Tony asked, half-joking. The old man didn’t look up. His hands trembled a little as he placed the empty glass back on the count- er. The dim light from the bar illuminated his wrin- kled face, but it didn’t do much to bring him back to life. Frank was already gone, even if his body was still here. Cian Doyle “No,” he finally muttered, more to himself than to Tony. “This is all there is.” Tony let out a sharp laugh, not because it was fun- ny, but because it was true. He grabbed the bottle of whiskey and poured himself a drink. The burn went down smoother than it should have. Too smooth, maybe. Benny, the hustler, slumped at the end of the bar, talking louder than he needed to, but nobody was listening. He was the kind of guy who could talk for hours about things that didn’t matter, but he never had the guts to back it up. Tony had seen too many of his kind. They come in, run their mouths about big deals and bigger dreams, but they never leave with anything more than a bar tab. “You hear that new game downtown?” Benny said, leaning in closer to the guy next to him, trying to whisper but not quite pulling it off. “I’ve got the in- side track. Big money in it, if you know the right peo- ple.” The guy didn’t even look up. “You sure?” he asked, not bothering to sound interested. Benny nodded. “I’m telling you, it’s gonna be huge. You just gotta...” The chrome-dusted dream of a gone inn “Yeah, yeah,” Tony interrupted, putting the bottle down. “Same story, different night.” Benny paused, then smiled like he’d just won a jackpot. “What’s the matter, Tony? You don’t believe in me?” Tony raised an eyebrow, eyeing him over the rim of his glass. “You can’t even pay your tab from last week. What makes you think anyone believes in you?” Benny’s smile faltered for a moment, but he quick- ly recovered. “Hey, I’ll settle up. I’m just waiting for the right time, you know?” Tony didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. Benny was full of shit, and they both knew it. Carol, sitting by the jukebox, let out a laugh that could cut through concrete. She was a regular too, but she didn’t quite fit in with the rest of them. Carol wasn’t old enough to be a lifer, but she’d been here long enough to know that the rest of her life was probably going to be spent in this same spot, on that same barstool. “Tony, you ever think about what happens after all this?” she asked, her voice sharp, a little too sharp for someone who was barely holding it together. “You Cian Doyle know, when it’s all over? What do you leave behind? What’s the point of it all?” Tony shot her a look. “You’re asking me?” She leaned in, smirking. “Yeah. Why not? You’ve seen it all, right? You should know by now.” Tony didn’t answer. He didn’t have an answer. He just poured another drink, both for himself and for Carol, because it was the only thing that made sense anymore. She picked up her glass, swirling it around. “We’re all just killing time, huh? Waiting for the next bad thing to happen. Like we’ve got nothing left to lose.” Tony nodded, his eyes flickering to the door. He wondered if tonight might be the night someone dif- ferent walked through it. Someone with a reason to be here, someone who had more to offer than just another empty bottle and another broken dream. But then he realized that no one ever really walked through that door. They just came in, sat down, and waited. He laughed bitterly. “Yeah, we’re all just killing time, Carol,” he mut- The chrome-dusted dream of a gone inn tered, wiping down the same spot again. “Just wait- ing.” The door stayed shut, like it always did. * * * * * The clock on the wall ticked louder than usual, or maybe it was just Tony’s mind going into overdrive, racing with all the thoughts that didn’t make sense anymore. He wiped down the bar with the same rag, over and over, like it mattered. The glass was never clean. Neither was his soul. “Hey, Tony, you got any of that stuff left?” Benny called from his seat at the end of the bar, his voice slurring even though it was barely 9:30. Benny had one speed, fast, desperate, and without purpose. Tony grunted. “Same as always, Benny.” He poured the drink, using the same tired motion, like it was all he knew how to do anymore. Benny slid a crumpled bill across the bar. He didn’t look Tony in the eye—just stared down at the count- er like there was something important written in the grain of the wood. “Yeah, same old story, huh?” Tony asked, trying to Cian Doyle sound casual, though it came out rough, like gravel scraping against bone. Benny didn’t even blink. “We all end up some- where, don’t we?” Tony snorted, the empty laugh scraping at the back of his throat. “Somewhere, sure. Not sure it’s any- where worth being.” Benny didn’t care. He was already lost in his own fog. Tony could see it in the way Benny’s eyes glazed over, like he was talking to ghosts instead of people. He made a mental note to check the register before closing time. Benny had been here every night for the last week, running up tabs like he thought the bar was a charity. But that was the thing about guys like Benny, they never realized their luck had run out until it smacked them in the face. The ding of the jukebox filled the space, cutting through the slow hum of the fluorescent lights. “My Baby Left Me” started playing, the same damn tune it always played. Tony’s knuckles tightened around the rag, but he kept wiping, like it would somehow make a difference. Carol leaned in, her tired eyes bloodshot, but still The chrome-dusted dream of a gone inn sharp. She always had that edge, like a blade that had been used too much, but was still capable of cutting. “You know, I used to think you were a good man, Tony,” she said, her voice a little too bitter for the compliment. “Then I realized you just got stuck. Like the rest of us.” Tony stared at her, but didn’t say anything. Her words landed like they were meant to, like a slap to the face disguised as a hug. He could feel the heat in his chest rise, but he didn’t let it out. Didn’t want to. “Shut up, Carol,” he muttered, and she smiled, a wicked, tired grin that said more than she’d ever ad- mit. “No,” she said, “Not tonight. Not with you, anyway.” It was funny. Not the kind of funny that made you laugh, but the kind that made your chest tight, like you couldn’t breathe all the way in. Tony wiped the bar down again, his hands mov- ing mechanically, as if it mattered to anyone but him. The night was a constant loop, an endless cycle of drinks, bad decisions, and conversations that went nowhere. And for the first time in a long while, it felt like tonight was going to be different. Like something Cian Doyle was finally going to snap. Maybe it was the years pil- ing up, or maybe it was the alcohol that had wormed its way too deep into his blood, but the silence that followed the words tonight was louder than it ever was before. “You still thinking of running?” Carol asked sud- denly, leaning in closer, her breath hot against his ear. She was too close. Too close for a woman who’d seen him screw up more times than he cared to count. Tony stiffened, leaning back, trying to put some space between them. “Running where?” “Out of here,” she said, her voice a soft, slow drawl, like it was a secret she wanted to keep. “Out of this life.” Tony ran a hand through his hair, feeling the weight of the sweat against his skin. “You mean escape?” he asked. The word was almost foreign to him now. He had forgotten what it felt like to think he could run from all this. She just looked at him for a second, something flickering in her eyes. “Yeah, Tony. Escape. That’s the word.” The chrome-dusted dream of a gone inn He shook his head. “I think the ship sailed a long time ago. I’m not going anywhere.” Carol leaned back a little, studying him like she was reading a book she already knew too well. “You don’t get it, do you?” Her voice dropped low, like she was letting him in on something important, even though he was already too far gone to care. “This place will swallow you whole, Tony. It already has.” It felt like someone had just put a cold knife in his gut. The words weren’t new he’d heard them from ev- eryone at some point. But when they came from her, from Carol, they hit different. She wasn’t wrong, not entirely. He was already a part of this place, had been for too long to untangle himself now. The jukebox spun another record, the same song. “You know,” Carol said, her eyes narrowing like she was trying to dig through his defenses, “you could still leave, you know. It’s not too late.” Tony stared at the jukebox as it churned out anoth- er note, the same tune over and over again. “It’s too late for me, Carol,” he said. The words came out soft- er than he wanted. “Hell, it’s too late for most of us.” He turned away from her and grabbed the bottle Cian Doyle of whiskey, pouring another drink just to keep his hands busy. The rhythm of it, the repetition, was the only thing that made him feel like he had some con- trol. Carol let out a bitter laugh, but it wasn’t funny. It never was. “You know, I bet you were a real piece of shit when you were younger.” Tony felt something sharp in his throat, but he swallowed it down. “You don’t know anything about me.” “I know enough,” she said. “Enough to know that we all get stuck in our own shit. Some of us stay stuck forever.” Tony didn’t want to respond. Didn’t want to tell her the truth, because she might have been right. He might’ve been stuck, but hell, it wasn’t like anyone was offering him an escape. This bar was all he had, and if he left it, what was left? Nothing. Just empty roads and open space that he wasn’t ready for. But the truth was, he was tired. So damn tired. Tired of the same faces, the same songs, the same useless conversations. Tired of pretending like he had a choice when it was already made for him. The chrome-dusted dream of a gone inn The door swung open, and the bell above it jingled a sharp, jarring sound. Another regular. Another night. Tony didn’t even look up. “Hey, Tony, you got a minute?” It was Mike, one of the newer guys, the kind who still had a little hope left. Mike had been trying to turn things around, thinking maybe one day he’d be different. But Tony had seen enough to know better. He was just as stuck as everyone else. “Yeah, Mike,” Tony said, his voice flat, “what’s up?” Mike hesitated for a second before speaking. “I was thinking... maybe I should go back to school. You know, get my life together.” Tony didn’t say anything for a long time, just stared into his glass. He wondered if Mike even understood how stupid he sounded, how pointless it all was. “Good luck with that,” Tony muttered, but Mike didn’t hear him. Or maybe he just didn’t care. The jukebox clicked, and the familiar hum filled the space. Tony took another swig of his drink and turned his back on the bar, letting the night swallow him whole. Cian Doyle * * * * * The night bled into the morning, the kind of morning that was more like a slow suffocation than a sunrise. Tony stood behind the bar, hands shaking from the last round of whiskey he’d poured for him- self, eyes scanning the empty space. The walls had started to close in, the dim lights flickering like dying stars. The air felt thicker than usual, saturated with the stench of stale beer, cigarette smoke, and regret. The regulars were gone. Benny had slipped out first, like a rat on a sinking ship, promising to be back tomorrow, but Tony knew better. Benny wouldn’t be back. They never came back. Not after you saw the end of your own story. It just didn’t work like that. Carol was still there, sitting at the same booth by the window, nursing her half-empty glass like she didn’t care if it was full or empty. She hadn’t said much after the last round of bitter words. She just stared at the glass like it was a window into some- thing better, something beyond this life of scraping by and pretending it mattered. Tony poured himself another drink. His eyes stayed on her, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask if she was planning on leaving soon. She wasn’t going to. Nobody left this place. Not really. The chrome-dusted dream of a gone inn “You still here, huh?” Carol finally asked, her voice rough, like she hadn’t spoken in hours. Maybe she hadn’t. Tony didn’t answer. He just poured the drink with the same mechanical precision he always had. He’d been doing it long enough to know how it worked. Pour. Sip. Repeat. A hundred times. A thousand. How many times before it all ran dry? Not just the bottle, but him, too. “Guess I’m still here,” he said finally, his voice thick from the alcohol, his tongue slow and heavy in his mouth. She didn’t look at him. She was staring at the win- dow, the city outside blurred by the smudges on the glass. The kind of smudges that never went away, no matter how much you wiped. Like life. Like them. “I thought you were different,” she muttered. “I re- ally did.” Tony’s grip on the glass tightened. His knuckles were starting to feel the burn of old wounds, the kind you couldn’t forget no matter how much you tried to drown them in whiskey. “Yeah, well... guess you were wrong.” Cian Doyle She didn’t reply. The jukebox clicked off in the cor- ner, leaving the bar in a silence so thick you could cut it with a knife. The hum of the refrigerator was the only sound now, and it was almost too loud, a re- minder that the world outside was still turning, still moving, while Tony was stuck here. Stuck behind this bar, trapped in a cage of his own making. The door opened. A gust of cold air followed, biting and sharp, but it was just a stranger walking in, too late to be anyone important. They took one look at the empty stools, the empty bottles, and turned right back out without saying a word. The door clicked shut behind them, and the emptiness felt heavier. More final. Carol stood up. Finally. She moved slowly, like she was pushing against gravity, but Tony didn’t stop her. Didn’t ask where she was going. He didn’t care any- more. It didn’t matter. “You gonna close up, or just keep sitting there like a zombie?” she asked, her voice cutting through the stillness. Tony didn’t answer right away. He just stared at her, watching her shuffle toward the door. She paused for a second, her back to him. There was a look in