To Charlie

based on the painting ”Cigar Bar” by Brent Lynch

I don’t know much: I know the feel of a beautiful woman’s thigh covered in silk stockings, the taste of a fine hand rolled Primera cigar, how an aged single malt scotch makes even the worst days a bit better and that Charlie O’Dell was the finest friend a guy could ever have.

I met Charlie 10 years ago when I worked my first case as a P.I. . He was sitting at the bar at Red’s, a short, burly, barrel chested man in his police uniform smoking unfiltered Camel cigarettes one after the other and holding an empty martini glass with 3 olives in it, the olives I’d find out later that night were, 1 each, for his kids. He never drank just held the glass as a reminder of why he stopped drinking in the first place. He was brutally honest, quick to argue, quick to compliment and as gentle a person as I ever met when it came to his family. He was also, as I learned over the years, one of the best detective’s I’d ever worked with when it came to putting things together that didn’t seem to connect. He’d helped me out on more than one case when some particular ‘fact’ didn’t seem to match up with anything or when some pretty face or another had clouded my mind to the point that I couldn’t spell my name right much less figure out how bad the person behind the face, and body, was.

And once, he’d saved my life. Half dragging half carrying me out of a burning warehouse when I got a little too close to a politician with ties to the local mob. I always figured he was immortal seeing as how he never changed from that first meeting to our last. Same hair cut, same time creased face. Same gravel-like voice. But time caught up with him 2 years ago. Heart attack. Died in his sleep. Doctors said he never felt a thing. I was thankful for that, if anyone deserved to go peaceful it was Charlie.

So each year on the day I met him I come here to Red’s, take the seat beside the one he was in that night, light up a Primera, order a glass of single malt and a martini with 3 olives.

I have the bartender use their best vodka, I don’t think Charlie would mind.