(1 of 4) The Brothers

The Meeting.

Dimitry entered with a gust of sleeting rain, which was all at once silenced by the thud of the heavy wooden door behind him. The saccades of his eyes explored the bar that stretched most of the length of the room. As his sight darted from right to left, Dimitry could not help but catch his reflection in a mirror positioned above a vacant table. In fact, most of the tables sat vacant. At the bar, every third stool was occupied by a disheveled mop of greyish hair in a slimy overcoat. The worst blizzard couldn't keep that sort away.

Ivan watched Dimitry with salivation on his lips. The younger sat, unnoticeable from the entryway, at a table in the back. Ivan would never have admitted, even to himself, to purposely choosing a dimly lit corner of the room but, as his nature most automatically skewed toward the theatrical, this was undoubtedly the case. One corner of Ivan's mouth curled, undetectable by him. He caught himself at once and contracted and squeezed the muscles of his face for one, two... seven seconds. He looked like a dog with deep, wrinkly jowls. He relaxed his face with a correspondingly intense exhalation. He resumed a stoic visage in hopes his brother did not catch the momentary loss of faculties.

Dimitry's eyes flashed to the table, to Ivan, and froze a beat. His pupils dilated. Ivan, seeing that his brother recognized him, flowed out his chair and exclaimed with more belly than lungs, "Brother, so you have finally found me. Though I noticed you had found yourself first!"

Dimitry's ears turned hot.

"Come, come," said Ivan, "sit here, sit here! Or would you rather the table by the mirror where you may continue to admire God's fine work!"

"You mean to embarrass me, brother," Dimitry said with jovial eyes. "Careful or I'll embarrass you back the way I used to."

"You may be the bigger of us in ways other than age alone, but I am not as runtish as I once was, brother. I've grown spry in my years, if not physically then certainly in intelligence. I like my chances just fine. Now, come, take this glass. Drink. Drink up!"

Dimitry palmed a rocks glass from his brother as Ivan produced a bottle of Irish whiskey from beneath the table. "And where, pray tell, did that come from?"

"Never you mind," Ivan said curtly,

Ivan, for his part, never relinquishing control of his brother's glass, pulled both hand and glass in low and toward his chest. Rolling his chin and contracting his muscle, he concentrated on a steady pour.

"For the Lord's sake, the spout is still on it. Did you get this from - "

Ivan's nose shot toward his brother's, "I said, never you mind." Keeping his whisper below the din of the room, Ivan's voice took on a raspy quality, communicating finality, and so the subject was abruptly dropped.

Dimitry watched his brother's mannerisms. He noted the degree to which Ivan tilted the bottom of the bottle, and it was clear to him this was not Ivan's first pour of the evening.