cw for sexual harassment
On Staccato’s first day playing the Salted Slug tavern, a man placed his hand on the small of her back on his way to the men’s room. She had been singing a rousing drinking song, and everyone was really getting into it. It happened so fast she had no time to decide how she felt about it. If she were partying instead of working, she maybe wouldn’t have even noticed it. The barflies all thought the pause in the song was for dramatic effect. When she remembered herself, she ushered them all into the roaring chorus, and no one was the wiser.
On Staccato’s third day playing the Salted Slug tavern, the men hooted and hollered at her when she bent over to pick up her instruments. A man – was it the same? – asked her to empty her trombone’s spit valve into his mouth. She offered a weak smile and a half-hearted joke about that costing extra. Everyone laughed.
On Staccato’s fifth day playing the Salted Slug tavern, she took a break between sets and went to the bathroom. In the hall she ran into a man who told her he loved her singing voice, and would she let him buy her a drink. “Not interested,” she said, but he insisted: it’s just a drink, to show my appreciation. And so she spent her break nursing some piss-flavored beer that she would acquire a taste for years from now as this man – decades older, who never gave his name – put his arm around her, peacocking for all the other salty sluggers at the bar.
Before her break was up, she felt the man’s hand on her knee. With a practiced smile she shook it off, but it found its way back. She hissed “stop,” in his ear, but the hand traveled, pulling up the hem of her dress along with it.
She slammed her fist into his jaw. His head knocked into the bar. Blood and a tooth or two splattered everywhere. The Salted Slug tavern was silent.
“I said stop,” she said, more for the audience than for the man or herself. She was summarily escorted from the tavern by its owner, the man who’d hired her in the first place. Minutes later the door opened again, and hands dumped all her equipment outside for her to handle on her own in the cold.
As she disassembled her trombone, an elderly woman exited the bar. She was small, and frail, and walked with a cane. Tattoos danced up and down her withered arms – an old sailor, Staccato suspected. She approached the younger woman, reached into her pocket, and produced an old switchblade knife with a handle embellished with mother-of-pearl.
“Next time,” she said, “use this.”
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