Friday, December 11, 2015

A Perfect Manhattan



I knew it was time to head to the bar after my wife tried to kill me with a steak knife. Our vacation had hit a rough spot. Maui had not been what we were told it would be. The photos she had posted to Facebook of us at the beach had gotten a lot fewer Likes than she expected.

 “Look at this beach,” she said, jabbing the screen. “How are they not impressed by this!? Why do we even go on these trips!?”

She then turned her anger on me, being the nearest, and accused me of sabotaging her photos. She said I looked bored, and my boredom dragged the image down. Made our lives unappealing.

“I'm not bored, honey,” I said, stroking and smelling her ruby red hair. “That's just how my face looks.”

“Well, then you have a boring face.”

Following this disagreement, it rained for the next two days. In Maui. We were told it wouldn't. I was upset. As was she, and also tired of staring at my boring face. After thirty six hours holed up in that hotel watching re-runs of Friends she lost her mind and tried to kill me with a steak knife.

So there I found myself, fleeing my wife, headed toward the bar at 1 AM on a Tuesday in Maui. There was only one bar nearby. The locals, a pleasant, inviting people, had recommended it to me. 

“Tourist fucks like you love that sort of shit. Go fuck yourself.”

I thanked them with a tip of my sombrero.

The bar was called, “Shit Hole,” a name that I found quite amusing.

However, my amusement soon turned to disgust, when, upon entering, I found that the bar was a literal shit hole. Everything was awash in a bright, blinding light. These lights did a good job of highlighting the many glistening puddles of puke. I felt like a sizzling hot dog left out under a heat lamp, and the bar smelled like one. Also cat piss.

Shielding my eyes from the glare of several fluorescent tubes, I sat down on a sticky bar stool and asked the bar tender if I could get a pitcher of vodka.

“We don't serve pitchers of vodka here,” she said, scowling.

I decided she was not a good bar tender and that I would not tip. “Then how about a beer?”

“Only the worst imported brands,” she said, handing me a large laminated menu. It was a list of over 20 different flavors of Bud Light.

“I'll take the Clamato.”

“Like fuck you will.”

“What?”

“All we have is Pabst Blue Ribbon.”

“Okay, then I'll take some Cat Piss.”

She snorted several times, draining her lungs of mucous, then spit it into a pint glass. Taking that same glass, she poured my beer and handed it to me.

The glass contained about a thimble of beer. The rest was foam.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Seventeen dollars.”

“What a deal,” I said, handing her a hundred. She gave me back 20 in change.

I sucked on my foam, and did my best to think about nothing.

A woman sat down next to me. She wore a blue parka. I ogled her breasts.

Seeing as we were the only two in the bar, and I was interested in some conversing, I tapped her shoulder to get her attention. She turned and looked at me with an unflinching bug eyed stare that I found terribly arousing. The bright burning tubes above us revealed every blemish and pore. There was a smudge of chocolate smeared into the corner of her mouth and she had several tiny bumps across her forehead.

I wiped the foam from my upper lip and smiled. “Come here often?”

“Three times a decade.”

“Not very often then.”

“No.”

She got the bar tenders attention by flinging my glass at the wall. It shattered on impact. The bar tender whipped her head around, screaming at the two of us, “Who threw that?!”

The woman smiled and said, “I'd like a Manhattan, please.”

The bartender filled a giant martini glass with seltzer water. She then grabbed several handfuls of olives and tossed those in. Seeing that it was more olives than seltzer water, I nodded in approval. At least they knew how to make a proper drink in this place.

“Here, a Manhattan!” she said, thrusting it at us proudly.

“Thanks!” said the woman. “How's business?”

“It's going well. Profits are up this quarter. We've seen an increase of 32% over previous years."

The woman turned her big unblinking eyes back toward me, and said, “I like your sombrero. It makes you look intelligent.”

“Actually,” I said, snatching one of her olives. “I am intelligent.”

The woman drained her glass, olives and all. She took a moment to chew and swallow, then said, “Nothing like a good Manhattan.”

Just then, my wife burst through the front door, knife in hand, blue bathrobe soaked in blood. “We gotta go, Allen! I've killed someone!”

2 comments:

  1. hmm... is that based on a true story?

    ReplyDelete