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I walked into the PHI Tavern near the University of Pittsburgh where I live with my notebook and sat on a high stool at the bar.  Stephanie was behind the bar talking to Gina the waitress who sat on a high stool at the end of the bar.  I’d been trying to come up with a new short story for a week.  A Duran Duran song came from the sound system.

There were no customers in the place.  It was right after the lunch time rush.

“Monty,” Gina called down to me.

“Yeah.”

“What’s wrong with your cousin Lee?”

“Yeah, Monty,” Stephanie said.  “What’s wrong with Lee?”

I said, “What did he do now?”

Gina said, “I was standing at the bar taking a customer’s order and he started rubbing my butt.”

“What?” I said.

She said, “In the middle of lunch.”

I said, “You know he’s an alcoholic.”

Stephanie said, “He wasn’t drunk.  I know he wasn’t drunk.”

“Well,” I said, “I guess now he doesn’t need to be drunk.”

Stephanie walked down the bar to take my order.  When she brought my glass of beer I paid her.  I sat looking at my glass of beer.  A song by U2 came over the sound system.  Four customers came in and sat at the bar.  Stephanie went to serve them.

I opened my notebook, took out a pen from the pocket of my jeans and in ten minutes I had the first draft of this short story.