So, I walked down to an independent bookstore in the historic part of town this afternoon (about a 90-minute saunter from my home) and picked up a couple reads — one on herbs and spices and another on bartender tips.
I then walked home through a section of Seattle called Belltown. It's where the grunge music scene was born in the early '90s and is now a delightful mix of homeless shelters and public health clinics mingling with art galleries and sushi restaurants. Is that a trendy urbanite taking part in an edgy performance-art piece or just a delusional transient dousing himself in malt liquor? Who's to know, really?
This evening, one such individual asked me to furnish cash for "some more rocks" — and I truly doubt he was talking about the kind I purchase at Ikea to pair with candles on decorative plates for my bathroom, or I would have certainly lent him the funds; I spied another, a crazy-looking 50-something, in the act of changing his clothes. He had stripped down to his boxers at the corner bus stop with no effort at discretion, nor any shame for his impromptu erotic presentation; I passed by quickly — fearful he'd ask me for change in mid-strip act and I'd have to tuck a bill in his undies, which should have been changed days ago by the looks of them.
All of this was too much for a sane and sober individual such as myself to endure, so I decided to head to my favorite bar a few blocks away. As faithful readers of my sodden follies will no doubt remember, this tiki lounge proved my downfall when I stopped by for an innocent cocktail several Sundays ago, ended up staying for more than a half-dozen killer concoctions, blacked out and ended up in bed the next morning with no recollection of the painful injuries I had suffered — including a bloodied hand, a banged-up knee and bruised ribs. Those ribs were painful for more than a week.
I was determined not to make the same error twice — I'd only have two drinks at the bar and then I'd drink myself unconscious when I arrived home, where the likeliness of hurting myself is limited to anything that should occur with a knife while slicing fresh citrus. My bartender wasn't helping the matter — she was the one weeks before who sent me on my collision course with a question regarding my taste for drinks: "Stronger or sweeter?" Of course, as you all know, I like my drinks like my sodomites: Muscle over treacle. Here she was again in her same white trash ensemble — Pamela Anderson hair, camouflage cutoffs and a tank top tiny enough for the innocent customer to be assaulted by both her aging, overflowing bosoms and the tattoos that surrounded them. But this bitch can mix a drink.
My sister once posited her matchless theory on the art of cuisine service — "I never let a skinny bitch make my sandwich."
Indeed, Pamela has high standards for her low funds (I still remember the poor waiter who filled her wine glass less than three-quarters full). And she takes the art of sandwich-making quite seriously. She once berated a teenage sub-maker for putting mayonnaise on the bread incorrectly. Her main strategy in getting a good sandwich at the grocery store and specialty shops is to find the largest employee she can. Her theory is that this person will make the sandwich the way he or she prefers to eat it. An anorexic would skimp on meat, cheese and condiments while filling up on lettuce; with a heftier sandwich-maker, there would be more meat than a gay orgy.
I think the same principle holds true at bars. The more likely your bartender is to be a hopeless lush, the higher the probability is that the alcohol volume of your beverage will render small mammals unconscious. And this chick likes to drink — I can tell you that. I had only two cocktails, and I was still feeling quite the buzz going.
There were a couple of other customers enjoying the early Sunday night service. Luckily, there was no karaoke yet, so I hadn't the option of repeating my D-Archie-inspired version of "Love Me Tender" from weeks before. On one side of me was a black gentleman with a '70s-style afro. He was talking to the white trash bartender about his gig as a question writer for bar trivia nights! Have you ever wondered who comes up with those queries? Well, here he was, talking about how successful "Sex and the City" trivia night was last weekend ("75 women and only 4 men!" ... I kind of wanted to meet those four men, but I don't volunteer that information.) At the end of the month is "Lost" night, and he's looking forward to it. But this week it's "Star Wars," and, like dear Salvador, the brother doesn't know his Padme from his padawan. So he just bought himself the complete guide to the "Star Wars" universe, and he and the white trash bartender are discussing Emperor Palpatine's machinations and how they might be conveyed in a trivia question.
Meanwhile, on my other side is a jockish guy in his '20s — not drool-worthy but I'd certainly not kick him out of my after-hours alleyway. He's wearing a T-shirt with the logo of a college sports team, and he's paying rapt attention to some sporting event taking place on the television. He's drinking a beer and without any of his ball-loving jock friends nearby, he's decided to bond with me over this display of testosterone.
"Man, the Mariners suck this season!"
Excuse me? Oh, sorry, I thought he was talking about our baseball team trying to bump ticket sales for their pitiful athletic showings by offering on-field fellatio, but I do know what he's speaking about. Even though I have no interest in these teams, I work at a paper and find out about their capabilities against my will. But I don't care to let him know this or else we'll be discussing the Seahawks — it's only months away! — and their Super Bowl prospects.
"Oh, really. I don't follow baseball much," I confess. "I'm more into tennis, gymnastics and men's diving."
He gives me an odd, half-drunk look. "Gymnastics — what are you ... gay!" Ha ha ha.
Hmmm, I'm not sure where he got such a notion. I'm positively offended. Sure, my drink is pink-orange and bears an umbrella. The latest copy of Entertainment Weekly is set out in front of me, my attention turned to a profile of Kathy Griffin. And I've just voiced my appreciation of an artistic sport in which men are clad in the most revealing of swimsuits. But why should he think me a homosexual?
"Nah," I respond in all seriousness. "I am as straight as they come! And I should know — I've seen a lot of straight men cum."
He laughs at this. "That's funny, man," and his attention returns to the TV shortly thereafter. My attention returns to reportage of "The D-List" and my Fog Cutter (A classic tiki concoction; I have thought about adapting it into a drink called a Fag Cutter — honoring those masochistic homos who enjoy slicing their skin with razor blades; I'll add a drip of grenadine to the mix to simulate the flowing blood).
As I pay my bill, I realize that we are worlds apart — this gentleman attired in a purple sweatshirt bearing the likeness of a canine athletic mascot and I. And for a second, I imagined this to be untrue, that we had connected and were conversing not about the fate of an imbecilic sporting team, but the finer points of life and art and gay sex.
"You sir, are killing me," he would confess after I speak to him of my theories regarding censorship, commerce and Eastern European gay pornography. "Your wit is so dry that I'm inevitably wet. Has anyone ever told you that you have the wit of a Brit?"
"And you, dear — has anyone ever told you you have the wit of a nit? But that's OK. You have been blessed in other ways, if what I spied on our joint men's room sojourn minutes ago was any indication. Good things come from big packages, I always say!"
Alas, our worlds had intersected for but an awkward moment, and now I was leaving him to his appreciation of sumptuous balls as I gathered my belongings and headed out into the gathering gray of the gloaming, confident this time I would not awake with mystery injuries.
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