They didn't tell me why I got fired.

There was no pink slip. No meeting. One day, I just couldn't get past security. When I told the guard who I was, his eyes didn't move once. He just pointed at a box sitting near the front desk and told me all of my belongings were already packed.

It was raining outside. I wanted to go home and set the box down somewhere dry. But I couldn't face Julie. I haven't lied to her once in five years, and I'm smart enough to know she's never lied to me. If I started with this, there's no telling where it might lead. Plus, she would never believe me. I couldn't face her like this.

I needed a drink.

Ronnie's bar doesn't open until five. He never saw the point. All his business was people just gettin' off of work. But I knew he would do me this favor, if he knew the circumstances. I rushed to the nearest payphone and used the only quarter I had to call him. The phone rang five times, then he picked up.

"Yeah?" He said. Suddenly I felt even shittier. I had probably woken him up. He sounded groggy, and I could still hear him cough when he covered the mouthpiece and turned away from the phone.

"Anybody there?" He repeated. It hadn't taken long for him to go from disoriented to irritated.

"Ronnie, it's me."

"Who is this?"

"It's Greg. Greg Keeler."

"Oh. Greg." His voice settled back into the slow, grandfatherly pace he used to tell his stories. The ones he told at the bar, at least. Not many people know what Ronnie sounds like when he's telling private stories. Family stories.

"Listen, Ronnie, I need to come down there and get a drink. I just got sacked."

"Ah, what are those fuckers thinking? You're the only reason anyone buys their goddamn paper. Some of the things they got in there, I've read better shit on a square of used toilet paper." I heard a rusty, squeaking noise over the phone that was probably Ronnie getting out of bed. "Give me five minutes."

"Thanks." I couldn't help but smile as I hung up. Except for Julie, Ronnie was the only person who knew that Matthew Fisk was a pseudonym, and that the picture next to all my articles was taken from the book jacket of Marcus Young’s only book, Black Sheep. Mark was a friend of mine, and no one in this city had ever heard of him or his novel. It's almost a shame that he never saw how famous I made his smug little grimace.

It didn't take me long to get to Ronnie's place. It couldn't have been ten minutes, and already the whole place was lit up. Not just the green-tinted windows at the front of the bar, but the room upstairs that Ronnie slept in.

I knocked on the door. I heard the lock turn and then he let me in. I set the box down on the old pool table in the corner and shook myself off. I turned around just in time to see Ronnie stop shaking his head and turn the lock back into place. Without saying a word, we both took our places on opposite sides of the bar.

"So, you gonna tell me what happened?" He asked as he poured a beer. Normally, he would have poured another for himself, but it was only ten in the morning. And Ronnie had seen enough losers to know that if you're drinking that early, you have a serious problem. Usually, it's alchoholism, but sudden unemployment is right up there, he says.

"I would if I knew, myself." I couldn't tell if he was looking me in the eyes, I was staring at myself in the mirror at the end of the bar. It had the brand name of some cheap beer printed along the top, but it had been chipped away. I wondered how long it had been there. I entertained the romantic notion that hundreds of other men had looked into this mirror when they were in the same position as I was. They looked at themselves at the lowest point in their lives, and vowed that from that moment on, they would do whatever it took to get back on top.

Then I thought about Ronnie's usual clientele, and dismissed the idea. Not entirely, just the second half.

"I don't know what I'm gonna do, Ronnie." I turned back on the stool and stared down at my drink. "I've got some money saved, but it won't even pay for a month's rent. There's no way Julie can support us. I majored in journalism. It's all I can do, Ronnie." I raised the mug to my mouth, and didn't notice my hand was shaking until I saw the stain on my pants later. "The Spiel ran all the other papers out of business years ago."

I wanted to say more, but I just didn't have the energy to think about it anymore. I looked up at Ronnie. He was staring right into my eyes. After a second, his sight drifted towards the ceiling and he started rolling his tongue around his cheek, like he usually does when he's thinking.

I knew ever since I was kid that Ronnie was a great guy, but I don't think I appreciated how little he had changed over the years until that moment. I knew he'd heard this same sob story a thousand times since he opened this bar, but he sure as shit had been listening to every word I'd said. Not only that, he wasn't going to say another thing until he had thought up some way to help me out.

Finally, he sighed and shook his head again. "Greg, I'd hire you here if I could, but money's tight enough as it is. And the only real friends I have besides you are the regulars in this shithole." He gave the bar a courtesy glance, just to confirm how he had described it. "They all got white-collar jobs. That's no place for you. Besides, from most of what I hear, there's layoffs pretty much everywhere these days."

He walked out from behind the bar and passed me, staring out the porthole-shaped window on the door onto the streets. The rain was still pouring down.

"This city's going to shit, Greg." He didn't sound depressed. He said it the same way a doctor tells you you're never going to walk again. It was as if he had discovered the city's fate long ago, and had been analyzing and coming to terms with it for years. "There's no two ways about. And i'm not the only one who knows it. They're still trying to hide it, though. But anyone can see through it. Anyone can see who really owns this city."

He turned back to me, but didn't move from the door. "You're an honest man, Greg. And you had a job that put you in a position to be bought. But you didn't let yourself go down that path. You told people the truth. As much as you could get by."

As he walked over to where I was sitting on that bar stool, I realized that I could still hear the echo of his footsteps over the rain falling on the roof. He put his hand on my shoulder and stared down at me.

"The reason you don't have your job any more is because they decided that the little bit of reality you managed to give to these poor people was too much."

He walked back behind the bar, leaving me still staring up at where he had been. I finished my drink and told him I was going to need another.