Last Call at Tully’s Joint
by JD Clapp
Like every other day for the past two decades, I pushed through the double doors into the darkness of Tully’s Joint about 3:30 p.m. Unlike every other day, today I wasn’t looking for 80- proof numbness; today I needed liquid courage. I got the usual hello nods, half-mast waves, and a few verbal “Jimmy” acknowledgments as I headed to the bar.
The place was filled with the usual afternoon crew—neighborhood folks just getting off the first shift, a few retired old timers drinking out their days and pension, and all the folks who got furloughed last month. Part of me knew it was a bar with a dead souil, a repository for the lost and forgotten…people who stopped looking for a way out or up…I just never had a reason to admit until now. We all knew each other, grew up in the same neighborhood, worked at the same plant. This place was our home away from home, the place where we unwound after work, spent our weekends, celebrated our small wins, mourned our dead. Tully’s wasn’t much anymore, but it was fucking ours.
Sally the barkeep slid me a PBR draft and a shot of Old Grandad without asking. Hell, why would she? I only sprung for the good stuff on holidays or special occasions and today was just another Tuesday in early October.
“Thanks, Sally. How’s it?”
“Same old shit, Jimmy,” she answered.
She looked back at Fox News on the TV, the sound off and closed captions flashing across the screen. The TV sat on the back wall amid a cobweb-covered deer head, green Rolling Rock and Yuengling neon signs, and the tattered blaze orange “Welcome Hunters” sign that went up in the 1970s and never came down. Shit, even the hunters are gone these days…The juke played the old country playlist our fathers had listened to on a loop—Johnny, Willy, Merle, Patsy—until somebody fed it a couple of bucks and shattered the boredom and comfort of the familiar with some new shit.
“You see this shit? They’re trying to bust the fucking unions again,” she said.
“Bastards always are. Good thing, most of us in here are vested,” I said.
“For now…Give ‘em time and they’ll figure out how to fuck you out of that, too,” she muttered.
I took a sip of my beer, shook a Camel unfiltered from the soft pack and lit it with my Bic. I took a drag and felt the first hit of nicotine in over a month. Fuck, I missed these.
Sally noticed the smoke and slid me an ashtray.
“You back on the darts?” Sally asked.
“Yeah...Why not? Somethin’s gonna kill me. Might as well be somethin’ I enjoy.”
She nodded, turned back to the TV.
***
I was almost through my first round, when my phone vibrated. I flipped it over and saw the text notification I’d expected. It was from my only kid, Kenny. Since his mom bolted three years ago, it’d been just me and him, living in the shitty shack of a house my old man left me.
“Pop, thanks for the offer, but I got this. Don’t mess with your pension for me. Save it for your golden years!”
I knew there was no arguing with him, now. I’d already offered to cash in my pension to pay his tuition twice. He’d said no both times. Strike three…I guess this is the only way…
I texted back: “I get it son. I’m proud of you. I know you’ll figure it out. Love —Pops.”
***
I looked around Tully’s, took a gander at what my golden years were destined to be. We all worked and drank, then when the work was finally over, we drank waiting to die. You ain’t gonna miss out on much. But it’s gonna be hard on the boy. Shit. Maybe…
I thought about when I was his age, just out of high school. I’d almost escaped with a football scholarship. But, as things go in this town, a girl and a union job make some fucking powerful anchors. I was ok with that for me; I’d had a decent run. I loved my son; had a few good friends and a job, and a house that used to be worth something…but this was a dying town, supported by a dying factory. We were hanging on a thin fucking thread. It was only a matter of time. And the traditions that bonded us—the hope and certainty had already begun to give way to drugs and crime. I could see Kenny’s future if he didn’t leave now. No. Not for him.
A took a sip of my whiskey and tried to talk myself out of it. But something my old man told me when Kenny was born had always stuck—“A good father wants more for their kids than he had.” His idea of more was for me becoming a foreman at the plant…No, even if the plant and the union weren’t going down the shitter, I wanted better for Kenny.
I drained the last of my whiskey and waved Sally over.
“Another round?” she asked.
“Yeah, but give me a double Red Breast with my beer.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“What’s the occasion?” she asked.
“Kenny is going to Pitt…he’s getting out of this shithole.”
She looked at me with puzzled eyes, then slowly smiled.
“Well, Jesus Christ. Good for Kenny…good for him.”
***
I slowly drained my drinks, taking it all in again, running the shit over and over in my head. I stubbed out the end of my smoke and lit another. I pulled the pension papers from my pocket and looked at them again to be sure. If I died before retirement, Kenny gets the cash value of my pension--$209,000. That, plus the 50K or so he’d get for the house, were a ticket out of this shithole. I put the papers back in my pocket.
I went over the plan again. An accident…driving drunk…too fast. It had to be that. It had to go down like that. I drained the last of the Red Breast, and waved Sally over.
“Hit me once more,” I said.
She smiled.
“Bring Kenny in here for a free round on me. Fucking hell. Kenny’s gonna be a college boy,” she said.
I smiled.
“Yeah, a college boy. Imagine that.”
JD Clapp writes in San Diego, CA. His work has appeared in The Milk House, Revolution John, PovertyHouse, and numerous others. His story, One Last Drop, was a finalist in the 2023 Hemingway Shorts Literary Journal, Short Story Competition. His short story collection, Poachers and Pills, was published by Cowboy Jamboree Press in 2025.
by JD Clapp
Like every other day for the past two decades, I pushed through the double doors into the darkness of Tully’s Joint about 3:30 p.m. Unlike every other day, today I wasn’t looking for 80- proof numbness; today I needed liquid courage. I got the usual hello nods, half-mast waves, and a few verbal “Jimmy” acknowledgments as I headed to the bar.
The place was filled with the usual afternoon crew—neighborhood folks just getting off the first shift, a few retired old timers drinking out their days and pension, and all the folks who got furloughed last month. Part of me knew it was a bar with a dead souil, a repository for the lost and forgotten…people who stopped looking for a way out or up…I just never had a reason to admit until now. We all knew each other, grew up in the same neighborhood, worked at the same plant. This place was our home away from home, the place where we unwound after work, spent our weekends, celebrated our small wins, mourned our dead. Tully’s wasn’t much anymore, but it was fucking ours.
Sally the barkeep slid me a PBR draft and a shot of Old Grandad without asking. Hell, why would she? I only sprung for the good stuff on holidays or special occasions and today was just another Tuesday in early October.
“Thanks, Sally. How’s it?”
“Same old shit, Jimmy,” she answered.
She looked back at Fox News on the TV, the sound off and closed captions flashing across the screen. The TV sat on the back wall amid a cobweb-covered deer head, green Rolling Rock and Yuengling neon signs, and the tattered blaze orange “Welcome Hunters” sign that went up in the 1970s and never came down. Shit, even the hunters are gone these days…The juke played the old country playlist our fathers had listened to on a loop—Johnny, Willy, Merle, Patsy—until somebody fed it a couple of bucks and shattered the boredom and comfort of the familiar with some new shit.
“You see this shit? They’re trying to bust the fucking unions again,” she said.
“Bastards always are. Good thing, most of us in here are vested,” I said.
“For now…Give ‘em time and they’ll figure out how to fuck you out of that, too,” she muttered.
I took a sip of my beer, shook a Camel unfiltered from the soft pack and lit it with my Bic. I took a drag and felt the first hit of nicotine in over a month. Fuck, I missed these.
Sally noticed the smoke and slid me an ashtray.
“You back on the darts?” Sally asked.
“Yeah...Why not? Somethin’s gonna kill me. Might as well be somethin’ I enjoy.”
She nodded, turned back to the TV.
***
I was almost through my first round, when my phone vibrated. I flipped it over and saw the text notification I’d expected. It was from my only kid, Kenny. Since his mom bolted three years ago, it’d been just me and him, living in the shitty shack of a house my old man left me.
“Pop, thanks for the offer, but I got this. Don’t mess with your pension for me. Save it for your golden years!”
I knew there was no arguing with him, now. I’d already offered to cash in my pension to pay his tuition twice. He’d said no both times. Strike three…I guess this is the only way…
I texted back: “I get it son. I’m proud of you. I know you’ll figure it out. Love —Pops.”
***
I looked around Tully’s, took a gander at what my golden years were destined to be. We all worked and drank, then when the work was finally over, we drank waiting to die. You ain’t gonna miss out on much. But it’s gonna be hard on the boy. Shit. Maybe…
I thought about when I was his age, just out of high school. I’d almost escaped with a football scholarship. But, as things go in this town, a girl and a union job make some fucking powerful anchors. I was ok with that for me; I’d had a decent run. I loved my son; had a few good friends and a job, and a house that used to be worth something…but this was a dying town, supported by a dying factory. We were hanging on a thin fucking thread. It was only a matter of time. And the traditions that bonded us—the hope and certainty had already begun to give way to drugs and crime. I could see Kenny’s future if he didn’t leave now. No. Not for him.
A took a sip of my whiskey and tried to talk myself out of it. But something my old man told me when Kenny was born had always stuck—“A good father wants more for their kids than he had.” His idea of more was for me becoming a foreman at the plant…No, even if the plant and the union weren’t going down the shitter, I wanted better for Kenny.
I drained the last of my whiskey and waved Sally over.
“Another round?” she asked.
“Yeah, but give me a double Red Breast with my beer.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“What’s the occasion?” she asked.
“Kenny is going to Pitt…he’s getting out of this shithole.”
She looked at me with puzzled eyes, then slowly smiled.
“Well, Jesus Christ. Good for Kenny…good for him.”
***
I slowly drained my drinks, taking it all in again, running the shit over and over in my head. I stubbed out the end of my smoke and lit another. I pulled the pension papers from my pocket and looked at them again to be sure. If I died before retirement, Kenny gets the cash value of my pension--$209,000. That, plus the 50K or so he’d get for the house, were a ticket out of this shithole. I put the papers back in my pocket.
I went over the plan again. An accident…driving drunk…too fast. It had to be that. It had to go down like that. I drained the last of the Red Breast, and waved Sally over.
“Hit me once more,” I said.
She smiled.
“Bring Kenny in here for a free round on me. Fucking hell. Kenny’s gonna be a college boy,” she said.
I smiled.
“Yeah, a college boy. Imagine that.”
JD Clapp writes in San Diego, CA. His work has appeared in The Milk House, Revolution John, PovertyHouse, and numerous others. His story, One Last Drop, was a finalist in the 2023 Hemingway Shorts Literary Journal, Short Story Competition. His short story collection, Poachers and Pills, was published by Cowboy Jamboree Press in 2025.