Don't Mess Around With Jim – Jim Croce

The bar was smoky, a couple of the guys playing pool in the corner, beers on every table and the general feel of the room was gruff and unwelcoming. That was how Jim liked it. Jim Walker was the meanest thug in the area and he naturally attracted the roughest sort. They'd made this bar their hangout, the back room serving as Jim's… workroom. It was where he took people who owed him money or had disrespected him. Most of the men who went in there, came out of the bar to greet the flashing lights of an ambulance, if they came out at all.

It was an accepted rule that outsiders weren't welcome in their bar too, just as it was a rule that you didn't mess with Jim Walker unless you wanted to find out what a baseball bat to the knees or a bullet to the gut felt like. And this rule was not only accepted by the patrons of the bar - mostly Jim's associates anyway - but also by the few customers they let in to keep the place looking at least superficially like it wasn't the base of operations for a band of mercenaries looking for mafia work.

That was why the newcomer stepping in boldly, ball cap on his head and leather jacket hanging off his slim frame, was unusual enough for the nearest thugs to quiet and turn incredulous looks on the idiot. Oblivious or unimpressed, the fella walked right up to the bar and spoke loud and clear enough for anyone to hear.

"Hey, there. I'm lookin' for a Jim Walker? Big fella, drives a Cadillac with the top down?" The guy waved a hand over his head to demonstrate and the southern accent marked him as a country fool with no idea what he'd walked into here in the big city.

Mitch spoke up first, speaking for everyone really.

"Fella… nobody comes lookin' for Jim Walker."

The Texan just beamed and pointed at Mitch.

"So you do know 'im! Any idea where I can find the guy?"

Hobb took over, resting his pool cue on the dirty carpet and leveling a look at the newcomer.

"What do you want wit' him?"

That was where they should've taken their first cue that things were different. Usually, anyone asking after Jim would come in cowering and cringing with money already in their hands and assurances of more to be paid off in the near future. Those guys usually made it out okay… granted they paid what Jim expected. Not one of them had smiled with that hard look in their eye that the Texan had.

"Well… good ol'Jimmy's got a friend of mine tucked away somewhere 'round here." Keen eyes darted around the bar, lingering on the door to the back rooms. "Might sound a little funny to you folks, but… I come to get my buddy back."

A general consensus was taken in the form of looks, smirks, nods, and a few raised bottles. Everyone knew who the stranger was talking about. Jim had brought in a well-dressed guy who'd tried to con him out of a good bit of money and kissed his girl besides. This stranger was absolute roadkill if he thought he was getting that guy out scott free. Hobb spoke for all of them when he scoffed and laid his cue across the table, strolling up to the guy at the bar.

"You armed?" The question was more a formality than a real concern. "'Cause unless you're hiding a mag in your back pocket, you ain't got a chance."

The Texan just laughed and shook his head.

"Nah. Just a pocketknife. An' you can hold that for me if it makes ya feel better."

Hobb stood there with his arms crossed over his barrel chest and glared until the knife was placed casually on the bar counter.

"See? Now I'm unarmed. Jus' wanna talk to him for a sec."

The man's hands were held up and out innocently, but the absurdity of the claim had half the room chuckling into their beers. The bartender, Jonsey, a grizzled old veteran of the gang wars hereabouts, took the knife and addressed the newcomer.

"All right, Slim… if you're lookin' to see Walker, you'd better listen an' listen good."

The rest of the room settled in with eager anticipation. This was a good speech and they rarely had a chance to hear it.

"There are a couple things people just don't do." Jonsey leaned one arm on the counter and fixed a pointed look on the guy. "You don't hit a hornet's nest and you don't bet against the house…" The Texan nodded, the smile still not completely gone from his face. "But outta all the things you don't do? You don't just stroll in off the street and 'talk' to Big Jim Walker." Jonsey straightened and shrugged. "But if you wanna throw your life away, that's your choice. Big Jim's in the alley through that door, 'talking' to an associate of his." The bartender nodded at a door to the right. Not Walker's backroom, but a door that led straight to the alley and the dumpsters where the barkeep took his trash every night and Jim sometimes took his own 'trash' out in the form of debtors who couldn't pay up.

Seemingly unaware of his rapidly diminishing lifespan, the Texan just nodded, touching the brim of his hat as he thanked the man and strolled off to his death.

Now, there aren't too many things that can upset a group of fellas like this one. Hobb had broken more bones than he could count (mostly belonging to other folks), Mitch was known to cut off fingers if you didn't pay up fast enough, and Jim himself had done stuff none of them liked to think about. None of them really thought to go up against the man either. They were comfortable catching their fill of the cash that flowed downstream from heavy hitters like Jim who'd hire a couple of them to go along with him to jobs he mostly took care of himself.

They were small fry compared to a shark like Jim Walker and they knew it. But they also knew that no brash and bold Texan with a quick smile, a straight nose, and not a knife to his name was going to stand a chance against Jim. So they just shook their heads, apologized to Jonsey for the mess he'd have to clean up in that back alley, and went back to their beers and pool games.

And for a while, a few of them wondered if they should've stepped in. A stranger from the country couldn't be expected to know everything about the big city's inner workings. Was ignorance of the law an excuse? Should they intervene and get the poor idiot out of having his ribcage shattered or should they mind their own business and let Jim handle his own problems? In the end, they opted for the latter. After all, Jim didn't take kindly to people interrupting him in that alley, especially when he was working someone over. So the thugs in the bar focused deliberately on their drinks, their games, their conversations… focused on the clink of glass and the clack of the cue ball striking its mates and pointedly ignored any thought of the alley and the happenings beyond that old side door.

At least… they did until that old side door slammed open, Jim filling the doorframe.

The big man stood there for a moment as a hush fell over the room, everyone turning to him, half respectful and half curious as to how Jim had ended this one.

Not the usual way, was the eventual answer to that question. Not the usual way at all, as rather than swaggering in and demanding a cigar and a drink be brought to his backroom, Jim just stood there, swaying slightly… with blood all down his front… and two missing teeth. They had another half second to realize that Jim, while upright, was not in fact awake, before the mountain of a man fell forward with a thud that shook the bottles on every table.

And standing behind him… flipping Jim's own butterfly knife shut in his hand… was the Texan.

"Jimmy said it's okay for us to leave if one of ya'll wants to get the key to that back door?" He ducked his head a little to lean in the doorway and pointed at the door in question. In the momentary silence that followed, a moment in which several men's worldviews were forcibly and irreversibly changed, the Texan stepped over Jim's motionless form and approached the bar.

Jonsey hadn't survived as long as he had in this neighborhood without knowing when to back down. He had the key on the counter well before the man reached him. The Texan just took up the key with another polite nod. The room remained silent as the man entered the back room… and then came back out, the finely dressed gentleman looking a little roughed up but otherwise intact, though he kept an arm slung over the Texan's shoulder and looked a little peaky himself.

The Texan was talking to him, the topic of their conversation lost in the fog of shock that still hung over the room, but the pair of them stopped by the bar as Jonsey cleared his throat cautiously and held out the Texan's pocketknife.

"Nah," the man just smiled, "You can keep that one. Ain't mine anyways!" He tucked Jim's butterfly knife in his pocket and headed out without a backward glance.

And as time went by, the story got bigger and bigger. Jim's size and deeds were always exaggerated to ridiculous proportions and many of the stories had Jim swearing revenge at the end despite the fact that the real Jim Walker never threw another punch in his life, claiming to have 'gone straight' and 'changed his ways.'

Most people figured that meant he'd seen the pearly gates for a second there and that had scared him straighter than his custom made pool cue.

But the Texan, referred to by Jonsey's nickname for him, Slim, went down in history as the one and only man to ever win a fight in that alley, and that he'd done it with Jim's own knife. They never saw that Texan again, but you can bet if they had, they'd have steered well clear of him. After all, there are some things you just don't do… and messing with Slim had moved to the very top of that list.