Dancing Like My Mother

I smoke cigarettes to feel less lonely.
I wake up all nerves and force my mind back through the thick boozey sleep to Thursday night.

I meet Bobby at Bloodhound, this hunting themed bar that replaced Cassidy's (the irish bar I never went to but meant to) on Folsom by 8th. Two brite sports bearing tvs flood the room with light, and the seating feels too fancy
"this Should be a dive"
I tell Bobby.
After one drink and the relaying of embarrassing stories (both involving drunken booty texts) we quit it and go to Hole In the Wall.

The guy next to me elbows my elbow about 12 times in 10 minutes, he's just drunk.
On line at the bathroom he swerves up on rubbery drunky legs.
His face all sunken in from drugs or aids or age or something.
I pee and we leave.

At Tubesteak around midnight the bar floods and for ten minutes its packed, then less packed.
Mini asks me to fetch empty glasses and I do, he plies me with shots. Tommy throws me shade because
I only go for glasses twice instead of three times.

Its that guys birthday, the one who hits on me but doesnt, his accent so thick that I try to not talk to him
though I would make out with him, but in a bar with loud disco and boozeblood throbbing in my ears
his accent becomes undecipherable.
"Happy Birthday" I

Posted by Johnny at 9:06 PM | Permalink | Comments

she makes these weird comments.
lets be specific.
she says things like "look the cookies just arrived" though its the first thing she's said to you tonight in person, and you've been in this big dimly lit room full of folks with a table full of fancy food things and another table full of booze for two hours.
this is what she says "look the cookies just arrived" and because shes unusual and smarter than her you assume it's not about food but about someone or something coming in late to the party or coming it tackily or coming in cookily. so you say "what?"
and she says "do i stutter?"
and you recover with " it's just that i thought you were telling me someone tacky just arrived." she laughs unconvincingly,
you turn one shoulder away, draw deeply on your drink and place your free hand on the shoulder of a friend who hasnt heard or doesnt care about the transaction, because, in actuality, though it digs you deep, it doesnt matter much.

Posted by Johnny at 2:53 AM | Permalink | Comments