The Bar And The Booze: A Short Story

One hand holds the mug, the other holds his head. The headache has started becoming a concern. He’s not sure if it’s the booze, which has a little stench, like it’s a bit older than it should be. Maybe the booze was spoilt. Or maybe it’s the stench of manhood lingering in the bar, hijacking every nostril in the area. The putrid smell of perspiration from men trying to find peace at the bottom of a bottle or mug. He can pick up a hint of urine smell, probably someone pissed himself. All these smells, plus the beer and it’s own special one, makes an intangible concoction that burns the lungs. “So, the beer or the stench? ” he asks himself. Instead of finding the solution, he falls in deeper into the culprits.

He signals to the bartender to fill up the mug. When full, with the froth overlooking the rim of the mug, he goes in deeper into the crowd of people like him, where the potency of the stench would be at its highest. Booze has a way of inversing judgement. As he staggers into the crowd, he takes a swig of the beer. As he lowers the mug, he can feel the froth stay on and slowly dissipate from his mustache. Some of the beer drips down into, through and out of his unkempt beard. He wipes his mouth, then immediately regrets because he knows that it will happen again.

As he takes another gulp of his weird-tasting drink, he hears a commotion. There, at the periphery of the bar, two guys hold each other by the collars of their shirts. He knows them. The guy in the unbuttoned checkered shirt is his pal Dave. Dave has been his drinking buddy. They’ve been drinking at that bar together for a long time, though he can’t quite conjure up for how long. The beer has compromised his thinking. Normally, he would, and should, be inclined to help out his pal. But the state he was in talked him into sitting this one out.

And the adversary of said Dave, he couldn’t conjure up his name. All he could remember is that the guy hijacked his first girlfriend when they were in high school. This is something he never let go. Oh, he also recalled that his name started with a P. Was it Peter? Or Paul? Or piece of shit? He decided he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his night trying to remember the name of a man who he loathed so much. You’d think this was more reason to step in, but it wasn’t. He always wished he could break a bottle over his head. One night, he even contemplating murder. On that night, he had drunk too much beer. From that day forward, he swore never to cross that threshold, lest he wake up to man butchered in his own living room with no recollection of what had happened the night before.

“Preston!!!” he thought out loud as he finally remembered the name of the second party. So he took a celebratory swig of the beer, laughed in joy as he watched the feud intensify.

He then saw the bottles of beer these two guys had in their other hands. Dave had a Heineken, and Preston had a Guinness. Then a series of thoughts and questions cascaded through his corrupted mind. If a fight was to break out, which he prayed for, the outcome would, to a small extent, determine the more superior brand of beer. If we assume that both fighters took the same amount of booze, and a fighter fought more sloppily, would the beer he took be more or less superior compared to the other? His gears were turning, but probably in the opposite direction. He got trapped in his own twisted mind, thinking and not thinking at the same time. Then he released a large hiccup, which snapped him out of his fractured mind.

Then he could faintly hear one of his favorite childhood songs. He wasn’t sure whether it was really playing, or it was his unfit mind absorbing effects of too much booze. So he looks into his already half full mug, as if the music was emanating from the beer. He stares into the mug for a while, as if he was in a trance. He got snapped out of it by the sound of bottle breaking. He was actually praying for a fight to erupt between the two, and it actually did. He took another large gulp of the beer, shouting to no one in particular, “Another drink for my prayer answered!!!”

So he stood there, in the dead center of all the chaos. He watched as tables were being turned, and punches were being thrown. He wasn’t sure whether it was real, but he saw a bloated guy walk past him with three darts in his back. He stood there, waiting for someone to pick a fight with him. When no one did, he decided to leave, because he had seen enough for one night. As he crossed the counter, he could see the bartender retrieve the shotgun from under the counter, as is protocol during bar fights. He placed his already empty mug on the back of the guy that passed out on the only table standing, then plugged his ears with his chubby index fingers. He could hear the muffled gunshot, signaling it was time to leave. As he approached the door, he was now seeing double. Well, this wasn’t his first rodeo with double doors. He would arbitrarily pick any. So tonight, he picked the left one. That’s because, he thought, if his story about this specific night was to be written, it would spell out “THEN HE LEFT”. Well, at least the booze didn’t impair his sense of humor. He burst out in laughter as he took the left door.

Coincidentally, luckily, comically, the left door was the right one. He cackles like a madman high on heroin as he storms out of the bar. With the drastic change in temperature, he clasps his arms as he miraculously manoeuvres to his beat Chevy. He somehow manages to unlock the car and lays himself on the two front seats. As he quickly drifts into a drunkard slumber, his last thoughts were “Will see you again tomorrow, my old friend.” Did he mean the bar? Or the booze? I think it was more of both…