Like your narrator, I'm late to this party, but here we go.
The book starts off great. I was hooked immediately, and sucked right in. Chapter 1 ends with a bang. Excellent. Well done.
Nit-picking:
This by no means tells me were in the states I am, only that I am home once more.
I think you meant "where"
Throughout everything I read, the prose was well written. It's clear that you write naturally and confidently. (Or you revise the hell out of it before submitting. heh heh) However, there appeared to be a lot of errors with punctuation. Or, at least, the punctuation could be better. I'm not a copy editor, but I suggest you have somebody good like that go over it and suggest semi-colons where you have commas, etc. Example:
I leaned back, away from the thought and from him. Had another drag, and considered my situation.
Don't ask me how to fix it, but those two sentences both felt jarring when I read them. I had to go back and re-read it to get their meaning. They took me out of an otherwise smooth and quick read.
In other words, get a publisher to buy this and have them sick a proof-reader on you. ;-)
" 'ello, what's a gent' liok you duin' in a dive liok this?"
Dude, I've got to give you some props here. Writing accents is a dangerous thing to do. If you can pull it off, then great. (JK Rowling does this brilliantly in the Harry Potter books). You seemed to have handled it nicely as well.
"Not. Interested."
"Me boy'o, ye know not what ye do.
"…"
"Well, if that's the way you want it…"
Okay, now I'll put the brakes on my otherwise flowery nice words. I'm not sure how I feel about the "..." line. The dot-dot-dot obviously is a drawn out moment. And it works OK, I suppose. It's certainly original in a sense, which I'll give you credit for. But I think you can do better with that beat. Maybe the narrator clunks his drink down and looks at the Stranger for the first time, ready to tell him off. Or maybe yo can describe the silence that lingers in between them. ("The fans whirled overhead." or "The bartender wiped the counter around me, but I hardly noticed.") Something like that. Just something to consider.
Chapter 3 - I didn't get a clear read on where he was at. At first it seemed like it might be at an outdoor, ocean side bar. But then you mentioned a smoke filled room. Might just want to clarify that a bit.
Watching the Ring, I caught sight of its smoldering center. It pulsed and throbbed, a burning ember without heat. The rhythm picked up as my heart began to race. I became entranced, enchanted; I felt it throb in time with my heartbeat. With agonizing slowness, I wrenched my gaze away. What was this thing?
It's a crystalheart from Reaves' novel! ;-) jk. Couldn't resist. Alas, I also have red crystals in my novel. Apparently I need to change their color or otherwise, I'll be accused of stealing.
Not sure if you did it on purpose, but I like how your paragraphs and sentence structures got a little longer after he sobered up. *bows* I'm not worthy....
Chapter 6 felt really out of place. But I think that the point.
Well done, Ben. I'm impressed.
J
PS: I'll read other people's comments and chime in as well.