Love Kills |t.h|

9| The Twisted History of 23 Hedders Street

"The little pub on the corner of Hedders and Main has played a huge part in negotiations in the mob world until the city decided to take it over and make it a neutral zone."

-Jon Hill 

Since the construction of the pub that sat on the once quiet corner of Hedders and Main has exchanged owners four times. The city built it in 1960, deeming it a place for people to congregate peacefully, the stupid bastards through that cheep alcohol would attract mobsters and city folk alike to enjoy a peaceful evening together; their naïve dreams still manage to make me laugh.

The first owner went by Henry, not Henry Longhorn or Hairy Henry- the teens at the time thought that Hairy Henry was a very suitable name for him- just Henry. No wife, husband, or kids, he was only a hairy forty-year-old bachelor with ever-decreasing odds of finding someone.

Many thought that he was working with the government or something, reporting on the mob activity in the area. Judging by the picture of him and Jon that used to be in the office, he wasn't totally impossible to looks at, so it never made sense to people why he didn't have at least someone in his life. Nevertheless, he ran the pub and made it successful with the townsfolk and those of a more sinister nature alike.

One night, well it was two in the morning, a fight broke out between two guys who were pretty high up in their respective mobs. One thing lead to another, and the city ended up with six dead bodies on their hands, one of which was Henry. The pub closed and reopened with a new owner a few months later.

The next owner will always be my favorite. If she were still alive, she would totally be my girl. Isabella Archon, better known as Bell, was a total badass. She wouldn't take any shit from anyone; I mean, if you even said something bad about the pub, she would come after you. She was loud and up in your face, which is precisely what she needed to be when loud mobsters and slightly frightened townsfolk surrounded her. She ran the bar and her girlfriend Max ran the small kitchen. Together they formed the dream team, which propelled the bar into news headlines for being a place where sinister and sinless could coexist peacefully, at least until Max died in a drug deal gone wrong.

Bell's loud in your face badassery came out and bit her in the butt when she tried to confront the dealer after he sauntered into the bar. Bell pulled a shotgun out from under the bar and took a shot at him. A pump shotgun was no match for the semi-automatic weapons that eighty percent of the pub pulled out in a heartbeat. The brain behind five years of running a peaceful and noteworthy pub laid dead on the floor.

The story behind the third owner is probably the most boring, so I'll keep it short. Albert Reiss was what many considered a hippy. He thought that it would be a good idea to start a drug lab and dispensary in the basement, and not to give two shits about the mobsters. Frankly ignoring people with guns isn't a smart thing to do. He was found dead after an anonymous source reported 'strange smells' coming from the vents. It was classified as a suicide, but those in the world that I chose to plunge into know it was hardly that.

The final owner, and the man that I bought the little pub from goes by the name of Casper Holden. He's a sweet old man who has run the pub for the last twenty years with hardly more than the occasional bar fight breaking out. How he managed to keep the peace for so long astounds me. I still remember the long afternoons after schooling when I went to the pub and drank a chocolate milkshake while complaining about my homeschooling teacher. He always listened and managed to make me laugh even in the darkest days while keeping the milkshakes coming. Sadly, he is in hospice and decided that the best thing would be to put the pub up for sale and give it to whoever put in the first offer.