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!”
hmm... is that based on a true story?
ReplyDeleteEverything I write is true.
Delete