Do you pack a gun?
No. I don’t pack a gun. I wish I could, some of the scrapes I get in, but I don’t pack a gun. It’s safer that way, believe it or not. I want to intimidate, but not hurt.
I could see that, I say, buying him a beer. It’s more dangerous that way, though.
Yes. More dangerous. But it’s the price you pay if you want to be righteous.
That’s the term he used: Righteous.
Absolutely, I say, clinking his beer and tipping it back. To righteousness.
Anyway, this woman, Flower. The things she can do with her cunt. By the way, do you do pills?
No.
Codeine, he says, pulling a couple of pills out of his front pocket.
No, you go right on ahead.
He takes his pills and washes them down with his beer.
Anyway this stripper—Flower, her name is—she shoves all kinds of stuff in her twat. I once saw her stick a lit bong up her pussy and inhale.
Where did the smoke come out?
Can you believe it? She made it come out her ass! He laughs. Anyway, as a follow up to this, she likes to stuff her pussy with pickles. Those sweet little gherkin types. And then you know what she does?
What?
She tells the guys at the party to gather around and get a good look at what they paid to see. She spreads her legs; she takes aim and shoots ‘em one at a time at different guys in the room. And they shoot out, bang, just like that.
They shoot out?
Just like that. She tells me she aims for the whites of their eyes. She hates men. That’s what she says. That was her complaint, night after night. How much she hated her job stripping for men. She hated stripping. She hated men. So how did she solve her problem? She shot at them with pickles pushed from her twat. It made her happy. It gave her relief.
If she didn't like men, then why did she strip for them?
Cash money of course. But I’m telling you this. Had she a real gun and not pickles, had her gun been real, I guarantee you. She wouldn’t have thought twice about using it and killing every man that felt he had to see her up close like that. She hated them. Meanest person I ever saw naked, but with her clothes on she was really quite friendly.
But she, too, didn’t have a gun…
Yes. And I suppose in that way, she too was righteous.
?
Some nights, Rita appears through the doors, finds me here and drags me home. She can’t stand to see me hanging out at this place. She calls everyone who drinks here losers. She calls it a loser bar and drags me out of there like I don’t belong here but then she calls me a loser.
You’re a loser, Art. I can’t believe I care about a guy like you.
You don’t have to care about a guy like me if you don’t want to. No one is forcing you.
There you go again. I’m half-tempted to leave you right now.
Then why don’t you?
Because to be honest with you, Art, I’m holding out for something…
What’s that?
I’m holding out for you to finally getting around to being truthful.
I am truthful.
You’re a sack of shit is what you are…but as pertains to the truth, you’re a far way from it buddy.
And how might I get closer, if you don’t mind me asking?
You might get closer by telling me how the hell your wife died.
You know how my wife died.
In fact, I don’t.
I told you it was an accident. She died in an accident.
And what kind of accident might that have been? There are all sorts of accidents.
An accident accident…As far as I can tell there is only one type. And that’s what she died of.
You're a fool, Art, for not being truthful to me.
I am talking truthful.
You’re drunk is what you are. One day though, I hope we can revisit this conversation.
?
I suppose I should be grateful that Rita cares so much for me, but having her show up and drag me home from Murphy’s is disconcerting and embarrassing. I’m a man, goddamn it, and if I want to spend my night at the bar getting soused, goddamn it, well then let me spend it at the bar.
You said you needed time alone to visit with your cats and do your mail. No need to drag me home.
And yet when she does this, everybody at the bar sits there, watching. I know what they’re wondering. They’re wondering how it is a guy ends up in this state—out for a drink, and then the girlfriend arrives and drags him home. They’re hoping that it’ll never happen to them, never, not in a million years, so help them God, it’ll never happen their woman showing up unannounced come to make fools of them and drag them home.
Rita usually shows up unannounced—which is the embarrassment of the whole situation.
Anyway, there I’ll be at Murphy’s minding my own business having a conversation with someone or another like Eddy, the bartender who is the guy who owns the place. Eddy’s no businessman, but somehow or another he’s done OK by this bar. It’s a mystery that both baffles me and attracts me. I have my business, which is failing, but Eddy has his bar that he does well by. I’m curious how someone can have a business and be anything other than a failure. But he has a strategy that I’ve come to admire. Between the regulars and the theater crowd, he does OK, and there’s something about him that I admire. Something hard to put my finger on. He goes about his business day after day just as I do, but he gets by, whereas I’m always wondering when I’m going to hit the bottom of the pit. He gets things done in his own way and he ends up being successful, and who knows how I’ll end up? I keep hoping for the best but in this life, at least, there are no guarantees.