By the time the sun had finished its inexorable slide below the ashen milk of the twilit November horizon, I had already knocked back three whiskeys and successfully started feeling weird. For shit, the patio had a tint of God to it, and all the bodies sort of swayed and spoke in tones of 80s rock. And it was warm and windy at the same time, and that was pretty alright with me. So I bummed a cigarette from a short guy with a blue shirt who smelled a bit like salt, and I saw his face contort like a puppet made of styrofoam. When I mentioned the demon that he represented by being the harbinger of tomorrow’s great head pound, he asked to have the fag back. Uh uh. Snake’s Tavern was on fire that night, and no one seemed to recognize the subtle but obvious note of destruction that hung on the heat lamps like evil garland. No one but me, of course. The stone stink of hose wash swept across my denim and I could feel the nervousness of my temporary vocation, which represented nothing short of getting cocked on every substance I might encounter through gracious yet feigned ignorance. I, the ignoramus, alone and shitfaced.
A couple of folks whose collective hairiness upped the night’s comfy temperature by a score of degrees, reached over into my body space. I didn’t know them but I was sure they were friendly and thusly pushed them hard from the fire air. They paused at this physical audacity and asked me where I was from. The younger of the two, the female, smiled at me and her mustache bade me warning. Her compadre, the luckless gripper, fired a few aggressives back toward my face and I could feel the quickening stench of man trouble. Then the bottle flew.
Excellent work. Both incarnations of McFriend represented here.
This is awesome: “For shit, the patio had a tint of God to it …”
And this: “Snake’s Tavern was on fire that night, and no one seemed to recognize the subtle but obvious note of destruction that hung on the heat lamps like evil garland.”
Shades of HST. Really liked this post.