Nu reparations

Hello folks. I will be incommunicado for the next week, so that means no blog updates. I felt terrible about this, so I’m leaving the first half of a character piece for a new series I’m working on.
This may be the first novel I can package, so you will most likely see a lot more of these two characters coming.
I’ll post the second half when I come back for the nest Evening on the Fireside

“Reeeediculous,” the man said from behind his oily beard, bits of pretzels flying off. He grabbed the brim of his beaten occupational hat and yanked it off.
Nu continued to drink from the Bastard ale, staring at his reflection from the mirror behind the bar.
The trucker grabbed the two crumpled 50’s from the torn fabric bowl and tossed them in the growing pile.
Nu’s eyes tilted at the new cash as he nearly drained the bottle.
The bartender put the two shot glasses on the bar and grabbed a pencil. “Another hundred makes $1,550,” doing the math on a deluged napkin.
Nu shook his shoulders loose before reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a roll of green. He peeled sixteen hundred-dollar bills from it, leaving its thickness almost untouched, before he stashed it away. He set them down, neater than if only one bill had been there.
The bartender grabbed a bottle, automatically lining up all four fingers and his thumb in the only dustless spots on the container, and poured two shots.
Nu stood up, pushing the stool back. Every trucker and patron moving back a step before he said, “The extra 50 is for my tab.”
“Here you go,” the bartender said as he held one glass up, and one out.
Nu grabbed the glass, snapped it deftly to its brother and pulled it back for a quick gulp.
A second behind, the bartender took his shot as Nu had already grabbed his bottle of beer and palmed the watermelon sitting on the bar. The one that the barskees had been kind enough to pick ten minutes ago from the patch out back.
Nu hopped back from one foot to the other as he rolled his neck, the people in the bar, continuing to inch back.
The bartender stuck his chin up as he scratched at the fledgling beard that was sprouting.
Nu sighed and said, “Stop trying to be hip, Phil. You look like crap scruffy like that.”
The scratching neared the bartender’s ear as he said, “You’re not nearly as intimidating to your friends as you are to strangers.”
“Oh,” Nu said, reaching 6’5” at the peak of his hop, a couple of scraggly inches of hazelnut hair reaching for the roof, and sitting at barely 5’11” when he rested down to a foot. “We’re friends now, are we?”
“Yep, that we are,” the bartender said, arms folded tightly and crossed.
“Eah, just grab the camera Dr. Phil so I can show these idiots why I’m taking their $1500.” He stopped hopping, and the bar’s air almost froze with immobile lungs.
Phil grabbed the camera which was already locked to a tripod and planted a hand on the bar before he jumped over, threading the two bar stools. Phil threw a smile at Nu before leading him and the group of bargoers out to the front. He passed a giant tree stump scarred and blackened that Nu set the watermelon on and continued in stride.
Nu spun around as he reached twenty feet from the stump and melon as Phil set the camera up off to the right to catch both the stump and Nu.
Truckers and drunkards began encircling Nu, and subsequently Phil and the stump.
The bartender tapped record as he shouted, “You guys should stand away from the watermelon.”