“What’s with the water?” A tangy man behind the bar asked. His parrot shirt screamed louder than Billy Idol on the jukebox.

“Don’t want to muddle my thoughts. I’m going to stay angry for this.”

The barman looked sideways at his regular. In his five years tending the bar, he had never seen Winston order anything but Maker’s Mark on ice. “Why is that?”

Winston waited a beat before answering, “I ever tell you what I do for a living?” The jukebox switched onto Marty Robbins. His slow, rolling baritone filled the room.

“Can’t say you have, partner. What fills your day?”

“I’m a mortician,” he said taking a swig, “Not exactly bar talk. Hell, not usually any sorta talk.” The bar man kept his silence. “There was a case the other day. Never seen anything like it in fifteen years on the job.”

The bar man grabbed the bottle of Maker’s and filled Winston’s glass. He couldn’t fit new cubes in the glass with his grip on the glass.

“What happened?”

“Fighting dogs broke loose from a nearby pit. They caught a kid at the end of an apartment complex. Nowhere to go. Solid concrete walls around him. That’s what the officer told me.”

“Jesus…” Winston kept giving small nods

“There was nothing left, Leo. I swear to god, there was nothing left. They told me he was eight years old. It was just… meat.”

“Eight years old?” Leo’s voice broke. Marty song in the back spoke of a lost Texan love.

“Eight years old, Leo. Someone’s gotta pay for a thing like that.”