Welcome to your final chance
"I said, you are a fucking faggot!"
I was confused. Here was this person I had never seen before, in the middle of a crowded bar I had never heard of, calling me a faggot for no reason I could find. My head craned back from her ear, bringing her smell of menthol cigarettes and stripperberry perfume back with it. She had a practiced look of disgust on her face, one of thousands girls of her kind I didn't know or care about.
What the fuck was I doing here anyway? I didn't congregate in places like this. Silicone implants and dis-impassioned vagina dangling gave me no more enticement than a string of sausages hanging in a butcher's window. My head was thumping from the sequence of Staind songs that were now into the hat trick, my stomach queasy from whatever was in the blue-tinted glass my companion shoved into my hands on his way to yet another thirty-dollar private lapdance from a girl who had a look in her eyes like she wanted nothing else but an oxy and about six years worth of sleep.
"You don't know who I am, do you?", she demanded, her face twisted into a sneer of content, like she had caught me doing something wrong. "No,", I responded. "Should I?"
"You fucked my sister Megan. You remember Megan?"
I didn't. I started to search my memory for that name, but I was too tired. I didn't want to care about it. I was finished with the evening, with the venue, with the broken tangles of human indignity that was reciprocating everywhere around me. I put my hand in the air to signal I had something important to say.
"I am going home. I don't know what you're talking about and there is no way it could be more important than leaving this place right now. So goodbye."
I pushed off from the bar and brushed past her. She grabbed my arm with her diminutive hand and dug her manicured nails into my arm. "My name is Rachael,", she seethed through clenched teeth. "I met you at Kelly's three months ago. Remember me yet?" I didn't even glance at her as I pulled my arm away and walked to the door. The fat bouncer at the door perched comically on a tiny stool looked me up and down menacingly as I rounded the stairway leading out. I laughed out loud to myself. The guy was sweating and looked like he was having a heart attack from the effort extolled to remain seated on his foot and a half high vantage point. If he had to get physical I hoped, for his sake, they had an oxygen tank handy.
I stepped into the cold night air and immediately regretted not bringing a jacket with me that night. The five overpriced saccharine cocktails I had consumed over the previous three hours were starting to tug on my insides, and my head had gone from a quiet whisper to a shrill pleading for me to put some kind of nutrition into my body soon.
I saw a neon light that didn't look beer-related up the street and headed toward it in the darkness. It turned out to be a small late-night diner called the Madrado Cafe. The sole occupant was, I guessed, a waitress standing alone at the counter over a crossword puzzle. I couldn't see her face since she was hunched over, but something told me she was beautiful. Something else told me that this ideal situation had been delivered to me in my moment of desperation for legitimate human interaction, that if I walked into those doors and sat down and struck up a conversation, I would find something special that night. This girl could be the somebody I had been searching for, that person I wanted to find and treasure for the rest of my life. This was a chance at happiness, in my grasp. All I had to do was walk inside.
I stood outside, petrified to go in, for a few minutes. She eventually looked up at me through the window, and I turned my head and shuffled off like I had just been walking by.
I never saw her face.
I was confused. Here was this person I had never seen before, in the middle of a crowded bar I had never heard of, calling me a faggot for no reason I could find. My head craned back from her ear, bringing her smell of menthol cigarettes and stripperberry perfume back with it. She had a practiced look of disgust on her face, one of thousands girls of her kind I didn't know or care about.
What the fuck was I doing here anyway? I didn't congregate in places like this. Silicone implants and dis-impassioned vagina dangling gave me no more enticement than a string of sausages hanging in a butcher's window. My head was thumping from the sequence of Staind songs that were now into the hat trick, my stomach queasy from whatever was in the blue-tinted glass my companion shoved into my hands on his way to yet another thirty-dollar private lapdance from a girl who had a look in her eyes like she wanted nothing else but an oxy and about six years worth of sleep.
"You don't know who I am, do you?", she demanded, her face twisted into a sneer of content, like she had caught me doing something wrong. "No,", I responded. "Should I?"
"You fucked my sister Megan. You remember Megan?"
I didn't. I started to search my memory for that name, but I was too tired. I didn't want to care about it. I was finished with the evening, with the venue, with the broken tangles of human indignity that was reciprocating everywhere around me. I put my hand in the air to signal I had something important to say.
"I am going home. I don't know what you're talking about and there is no way it could be more important than leaving this place right now. So goodbye."
I pushed off from the bar and brushed past her. She grabbed my arm with her diminutive hand and dug her manicured nails into my arm. "My name is Rachael,", she seethed through clenched teeth. "I met you at Kelly's three months ago. Remember me yet?" I didn't even glance at her as I pulled my arm away and walked to the door. The fat bouncer at the door perched comically on a tiny stool looked me up and down menacingly as I rounded the stairway leading out. I laughed out loud to myself. The guy was sweating and looked like he was having a heart attack from the effort extolled to remain seated on his foot and a half high vantage point. If he had to get physical I hoped, for his sake, they had an oxygen tank handy.
I stepped into the cold night air and immediately regretted not bringing a jacket with me that night. The five overpriced saccharine cocktails I had consumed over the previous three hours were starting to tug on my insides, and my head had gone from a quiet whisper to a shrill pleading for me to put some kind of nutrition into my body soon.
I saw a neon light that didn't look beer-related up the street and headed toward it in the darkness. It turned out to be a small late-night diner called the Madrado Cafe. The sole occupant was, I guessed, a waitress standing alone at the counter over a crossword puzzle. I couldn't see her face since she was hunched over, but something told me she was beautiful. Something else told me that this ideal situation had been delivered to me in my moment of desperation for legitimate human interaction, that if I walked into those doors and sat down and struck up a conversation, I would find something special that night. This girl could be the somebody I had been searching for, that person I wanted to find and treasure for the rest of my life. This was a chance at happiness, in my grasp. All I had to do was walk inside.
I stood outside, petrified to go in, for a few minutes. She eventually looked up at me through the window, and I turned my head and shuffled off like I had just been walking by.
I never saw her face.