Hard-Boiled Men

The thing that I like most about the bar is the fact that it is my bar. I am in no way an owner, a proprietor or a manager of any sorts. Rather, I just feel a sense of belonging on account of the amount of weekly dollars that I spend in the joint. I have been drinking in this place for way too long but hard habits are hard to break.

There is nothing special about this bar, I must acknowledge. Its floors are sticky, its chairs are not comfortable and its bathrooms are beneath all imaginable standards as aged urine serves as a never changing highly uninspired potpourri that would drive any Virgo woman to absolute psychosis.

I first came across this bar when I was a bit younger. It must have been back in my twenties. Back then my hair was longer, my mind still optimistic. Those days are long gone and so is the majority of my hair. This may have something to do with Maria and the years that followed but guilt is the subject of another day.

But this bar, it is still here and I am still in it. Drinking from those same old glasses that are scarcely washed in that unsanitary pool of rusty waters and inexpensive liquid soap. I have grown accustomed to sitting around with those same old people whose familiar bitter faces have grown into familiar furniture. I pass the time by listening to those same old stories that they often tell. I could not ask for anything more.

The women who come in to this place are perfectly loose and their morals largely absent. Any of them will roll around with any stranger who paid modest attentions to their exhausted tales or opened up his wallet for watered-down vodka disguised as something that healthier women would drink in a better place

Chicago Charlie always works the afternoon shift on Wednesdays. He is a descent bar tender who usually throws in an extra shot for us old timers who have been coming around this place for way too many years. Unlike Pam who typically works during the weekend, Charlie substitutes words with non-verbal communication. Great bar keeps realize that most of us all timers are not there to listen to their troubles but rather forget our own.

Since it was Wednesday and since Lizzy was not around, I ordered myself a double down bourbon on the rocks. I am not the kind of a guy who has a favorite drink. For me, it is all about a schedule.

On the odd days, I drink beers. On the even days I liquor it up. On the weekends it is purely random. I usually order whatever they have on special. I order a double bourbon on the rocks.

Then she approached me as if she did not remember who I was.

“Heya guy, want to buy a lady a drink?”

I offered her some water.

She told me to go fuck myself and walked on over to the other side of the bar where she found a properly dressed college kid with an open tab who was more than happy to oblige.

Jamie is a regular just like the rest of us. She has a gorgeous set of tits and a face that was clearly devastate by her extreme alcoholism and the heartbreak of a plan that did not pan out like it was suppose to.

Just like the rest of us, she could have been something completely different if she only made better decisions, if she surrounded herself with better company, if she only stayed away from the bar.

But like the rest of us, she didn’t and that was exactly why she is here with all of us old- timers.

The dilapidated jukebox is playing those familiar songs of Robert Johnson as it helps pass the time. Kind Hearted Woman Blues reminds me of the time I once spent out in Mississippi.

And now comes a man and sits right next to me. He is much younger than I. He has long hair and a Charles Bukowski tattoo on his left arm. The guy orders a double bourbon on the rocks.

“Great minds….” I tell him.

“Great mind what?” He asks.

“Great minds drink a double bourbon on the rocks. Great minds read books by Charles Bukowski minus his poetry.”

He smiles and waves his dismissing hand in my direction. “Hank Bukowski is the greatest motherfucking poet of all times. What do you know about it?”

I know nothing about it nor do I care. I once read Ham on Rye. It was not half bad. A woman bought me the book many years and told me that I just had to read it. And so I did.

“So what makes a man tattoo the name of another man on his hand?” I inquire.

“Call it appreciation of a far more talented individual than you can ever hope to become.”

I order another round and just smile while I am enjoying my time. From 4 Until Late is playing in the background and it all makes perfect sense to me, to the people have been coming here for years and to the old walls of this small bar that we all love so much.

It likely makes none to any of my readers but that was never the point of the story. I just want them all take a look around this place.

The guy next to me asks me to watch his drink while he takes a piss. For a moment I think about sipping it all down but he is all right despite it all.

Still, I would never consider tattooing a man’s name or image on any part of my body.
It is hard enough to commit to a woman so why bother with a man.

Jamie is all liquored up on the other side of the bar and it looks like she is ready to go. I know that I can do much better if I only made an effort but she is the best that is around.

She smiles in my direction and we head out towards Vernon’s Bar. I grab the drink of the guy while he takes a piss and walk out to the cold wind of the familiar parking lot.

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The Upstairs Neighbor

It all started with a dog named Cujo. He was named after that one dog no doubt, that scary dog that everyone saw in that old creepy movie. But this Cujo was nothing to run away from. He was more rabbit than a dog. He had the looks of a genetic error and the personality of a brainless adolescent. Directly and perhaps biology related to him was the his owner, a vociferous nineteen year old student from the local community college. This guy was no Danny Pintauro. At best, he was less than average in every category.

I never caught this guy’s name nor did he throw it in my direction. Ever since that incident the other night, we have done our best to avoid one another. Ever since that one party they threw, ever since I called the cops, ever since they cited him for violation of the city’s noise ordinances, ever since they cited him for underage drinking, every since they found that dime bag on. He somehow and for some reason blamed the entire thing on me, his downstairs neighbor.

I thought about it for a while and still failed short of a conclusion. Was I becoming a spiteful old man like the ones you always saw around the deli or the public library? Was I simply jealous of youth? Back when I was twenty years old, I started my weekends on Wednesdays only to end them at the conclusion of Monday night football. When I was younger, I could drink like any man, with pride. I had no preferences back in those days, the cheaper the beer the better we all were about it.

Now this witless, senseless, idiotic grown child was killing my nights. That 8am public relations class that I had to teach was killing my mornings and in the middle of it all I became a bitter insomniac.

Ever since the incident, war has been declared and the upstairs kids are taking no prisoners. Their television grew loader with every hour that pasted by. Like a bunch of drunk incestuous Sumatran rhinoceros, they run around the apartment jumping up and down in an attempt to tear away at the barrier concrete and at the edges of my sanity’s external membrane.

But that was not the worst of it.

I have not yet mentioned Jenny Sue.

How that son of a bitch ever got himself such a woman was beyond my comprehension. The fact that guys like these got to sample such high quality ass was the ultimate evidence of the abundant lack in universal justice. If indeed there was a God, why would he bestow this upstairs heathen a unswerving residence in God kingdom, in between her lovely thighs?

Jenny Sue always ran around the apartment complex in a skimpy tank top and those tiny tiny pink shorts that read JUICY across the backside. Her voice was made of butter and her lips were the serving spoons. At the tender age of eighteen women still had that adolescent wholesomeness sprinkled across the windows of their charm. Ten years later most women would replace that allure with the subtle bitterness that typically resulted from a broken heart or a cheating boyfriend.

My mind was filled with friendless envy and my nights were disturbed and limited. I thought about it for a while. I thought about calling the cops. I thought about letting the air out of their tires. I thought about poisoning their dog. I thought about it and thought about it but in the end I simply gave up like most men around my age typically do.

At night when Mr. dumbfuck made love to Jenny Sue, her voice trickled through the frail hairs on my arm, through the thin walls of this old apartment complex.

Six months later and the U-Haul truck drove away with Jenny Sues’ possessions. An older couple moved into the upstairs apartment and replaced my jealousy with the trite taste of routine.

Another summer ended in this small city and then another came around. With every winter that passed and every woman that I left behind, I came to appreciate the undemanding pleasure of youth, the one thing in this world that you could never replace.

Hard-Boiled Men