Bar Scene
by Daniel Beadle - Monday, October 19, 2009
"Do you ever get the feeling that you're playing chicken with God?"Jake throws back a shot of whiskey, and then tucks his chin into his chest. "Every fucking day." He rises from his stool, and pats Stalker on the shoulder as he wanders to the back of the bar.
Stalker stares at his drink, trying to drown out the deafening music that fills the divey watering hole he’s found himself in. A nearby conversation catches his wandering attention.
“…I guess I’m just looking for a nice, caring guy who is respectful of me… Someone that’s not fake… and is real with me about everything.”
“…Well, it’s nice to have dreams,” says the Man with Sunglasses. “So tell me… who’s fucking you nightly? And more importantly… does your boyfriend know about it?”
Stalker looks at the female to his left, and sees a smirk on her face. “Creep,” she says.
“The only difference between being creepy and being romantic is your success rate,” responds the Main with Sunglasses. He catches Stalker’s eyes. “Am I right, buddy?”
Stalker looks down. The song ends, and a new song kicks in on the jukebox. The female starts screaming, something to the effect of how the tune was her theme song at some point in her short life, and she runs to what could be loosely called a “dance floor” with her other female friends. Stalker vaguely recalls the melody from a car commercial, but the significance of it is lost on him. The Man with Sunglasses orders another drink, and leans on his elbow as he stares at the dancing women.
The Man nods at Stalker. "It's called a 'neg.' It's a light insult designed to defy a woman's expectations and amuse her a little. You see, the most beautiful women in the world are immune to the standard compliment. Calling them pretty is only gonna make you look pathetic."
Stalker nods. “I’ve heard of it.”
The Man with Sunglasses measures Stalker. “You’re a shy kid, aren’t ya? You remind me of myself ten years ago. Just a nice young kid, looking for love… but love betrayed me. And now, love and I aren’t the best of friends. Nope.” He shakes his head. “It’s all about pussy now. Physical love. That’s all that’s real. And it’s not easy to get.”
Stalker squints his eyes at the Man with Sunglasses as he continues his thought. “All women have to do to get laid is ‘present.’ Nice hair, a shit-load of makeup, implants, and a sliming eating disorder. Turns a goblin into a fuckable piece of she-meat. And that’s looks. They can afford to be shy, and they can still get a dick in ‘em nightly. The phrase ‘love shyness’ means absolutely nothing to these cunts.” The Man looks at a nearby female. “Hey, sweetie. You ever hear of ‘love shyness’?”
She stares at him blankly through artificially enhanced eyelashes. “Why are you wearing sunglasses?”
The Man smirks. “It makes you look better. I can barely see your acne right now.”
“You’re a jerk, huh?”
“I can afford to tell you the truth, because I have no intention of fucking you later. I only bang pretty girls.”
The girl walks off. “You see that? She didn’t have a clue.” The Man with Sunglasses throws back a heavy sip of his dark beer. “I treat women like children because they are. Women are idiots," he continues. "They hit their physical and mental peak at, what? Twenty?" The Man surveys the bar. "They have no idea what they want. The think they want someone who looks good, or some asshole with a lot of money... but that's not really true. The man who's going to be fucking them by night's end is the man with 'game.' Game," he reiterates, "The ability to sell yourself. The ability to leverage your confidence, and make them respect you for it. Money can inspire confidence, but it's the confidence itself that they're attracted to..."
The Man with Sunglasses shakes his head. “Women don’t know the lengths that men go to acquire them. They play defense. They're unaware of game, of playful negs... two steps forward, one step back... opening women, closing women... the entire art of seduction that men destroy themselves trying to learn if they aren't masters already.”
“So much for the nice guy.”
“The nice guy? Let me tell you something about the nice guy: The nice guy is a loser. The nice guy will never get anything. He will fail, just like he has in the past. He will fail again and again, until his niceness is a rotten core, until nothing is left of his heart but a gray lump in his chest. Girls sympathize with the nice guy. They love the nice guy. But they never reward the nice guy. They give him sighs of sympathy, they open up to him and give him just a tiny taste of what love can be but never is. They deny him. They keep him on as a friend and, in doing so, will torture him within inches of his sanity. The nice guy will be nice to them and get nothing in return. He’ll worship them, while those girls go off and fuck their asshole of a boyfriend. The nice guy will rot and decay, he will fall and no one will care. The nice guy rolls into the gutter and is pissed on. Too emotional to be a man, too romantic and chivalrous to be appreciated. The nice guy is a failure in every respect. He will be fucked over repeatedly, until his existence is a memory that girls think of with fondness but never with yearning. The nice guy is the definition of vain; his efforts are futile and wasted. It takes all his energy, and it drains him of everything he holds sacred. The nice guy will lose…” The Man with Sunglasses trails off. "How old do you think that one is?"
Stalker tosses a wayward glance to the other side of the room. "Fourteen?"
"Fake ID? You think I should introduce myself?" The Man smiles. "Look at her. She looks like someone's daughter." He chuckles softly. "Maybe I should impregnate her. Ruin her life a little bit. Just imagine the tearful conversation she would have with her parents. ...Relating some sad tale of a man who promised her everything, but delivered more than she could handle." The Man snatches up his drink. "I think I will."
Stalker finishes his drink as a girl approaches the bar for a refill. He watches her, in her tight pink shirt and short brown hair. She’s beautiful. Beautiful in such way that Stalker imagines lying down beside her in a field of tall grass. He imagines romantic things culled from fiction. Offering her a flower, telling her how much he appreciates his time with her. (Choking her to death when she doesn’t reciprocate his affection.)
But where does it begin? What mix of words brings two people together? Is it a sales pitch? Does he need to be clever and cunning, like the Man with Sunglasses? Where does he draw the line between funny and offensive? How does he make himself attractive to someone who has every reason to distrust men?
“You look at anyone long enough, and close enough, and you’ll see their flaws.” Yes. This thought puts Stalker at ease. Look at the mole on her neck, or her crooked teeth. Think of the diseases that swarm in her groin. He can’t have that.
Thoughts clash in Stalker’s mind. He wants her, he hates her, he needs her, he can’t have her. ...Some people just aren't meant to reproduce. He might be one of them. The inner tension grips him, and he sits there, incapable of any action but drinking his poison and pretending not to care.
"You don't have enough love in your life. It's twisted you.”
"I don't need love. Love is just a means to an end."
"What end?"
"Happiness."
"And you don't need that?"
"There's a big difference between what a man needs and what a man wants."
“You’ll be fine. Someday, you’ll meet a great girl who will love you very much.”
“What gives you the foresight to say that, you FUCK? So you consider yourself an optimist, huh? Forcing your thoughts against the natural current, and assuming everything will turn out for the best? Every fucking glass you see is half full. But where’s your optimism for the mother of three dying of a malignant tumor in her brain? Where’s your optimism for the twenty-year-old man slicing his wrists over a recent break-up? Where’s your glowing optimism for the teenage Brazilian getting raped by her father? Or how about the artist who just lost his eyesight to a crowbar to the back of his skull? Nope, everything’s gonna be ALRIGHT! EVERYTHING’S GONNA BE FUCKING FINE, RIGHT? WE’RE ALL GONNA DANCE THROUGH FIELDS NAKED AND LOVE EACH OTHER! EVERYONE GETS A TICKET TO HEAVEN!”
Spit flies from Stalker’s teeth, but he opens his eyes and let’s go of the fictitious conversation.
His thoughts are interrupted by Jake’s return from the back of the bar. He immediate grabs the girl’s ass and moves her aside. “Move over, pumpkin tits.” The girl is visible offended as Jake sits next to Stalker.
“Pervert.”
Jake looks over his shoulder. “That’s funny, coming from a whore like you. What? Did I offend you? You wanna fight me?”
“Maybe I should.”
Jake laughs. “It’s physically impossible for you to hurt me. I’m inhuman!”
The girl walks off and Jake returns his attention to the bar. He shoves aside a beer and asks for a shot of Wild Turkey. “Fuck beer,” he says. “Drinking is the means to an end, and that end is blacked-out drunkenness. I’m a man who drinks with a purpose. It’s not fun, and it sure as hell doesn’t taste good. It’s just me trying to lose accountability for my actions.”
“Sounds reasonable,” says Stalker. “I was about to say something stupid to that girl before you showed up,” he lies.
Jake burps. “What were you planning on saying?”
“Not sure. Apparently, I’m supposed to insult women… but playfully.”
“Oh yeah. Some asshole wrote a book about that once… Could you imagine that? Negotiating for sex. And THAT is the accepted means of picking up women. You want pussy? I can show you how to get pussy, kid. No need for social skills and all that BULLSHIT. …And I’m not talking about whores either.”
Somewhere above the noise, a voice, a man’s voice shouts. “WHO’S THE ASSHOLE?”
Jake takes his shot, and through gritted teeth says, “He’s probably talking about me.” He shakes his head. “This world always finds new ways to piss me off.”
A large man with a buzz cut makes his way over to Jake, as the girl in pink points him out. “Are you the asshole who grabbed Christine?”
Jake keeps his back to the man. “I touched someone’s ass, that’s for sure. I thought it was a little boy, judging by the haircut.”
“I’m gonna kick your ass, you homo piece of shit!”
Jake gets up from his stool and turns around. “Look, we can threaten each other all day, but none of it really matters. In the end, it all comes down to is who’s got the bigger dick.”
The man dwarfs Jake, standing just shy of seven feet tall to Jake’s five foot seven. “Keep talking, little man.”
“I like to masturbate to violent music and fantasize about raping women. Violent and bloody, just like I like it.”
“You stupid fuck. You don’t know the kind of pain you’re in for.”
“You’re bigger than me, sure. You probably go to the gym almost every day. I’ll even bet that you have sex with girls like Christine, who you don’t buy with tens and twenties, but with jewelry and dinners. Maybe you’re a better person, and a better fighter than me. Maybe. But there are three things that make me a threat to you: I’m ridiculously drunk. I fight dirty. …And you have way more to lose than I do." Jake winks at Christine. “I’d love to stick my finger up yer girl’s ass—”
The man takes a swing at Jake, who instantly steps to the side. Jake takes a beer glass and smashes it into the man’s forehead, then gives him an elbow to the back of the skull. Jake hooks his fingers into the man’s mouth and yanks his head to one side. He then bites into the man’s left year, and chews off his earlobe. The crowd rushes in to pull Jake off. All the while, Christine is screaming “OH MY GOD!” Stalker escapes in the confusion.
Moments later, Jake is stumbling out of the shadows in the adjacent alley, muttering something too offensive to repeat. He catches sight of Stalker and joins him.
“That girl was cute, huh? Christine I’m talking about here.”
“Are you okay? You look like shit.”
“I always look like shit. Shit’s the way to look. It scares people and makes it easier to get ready in the morning.” Jake looks back. “But no, I’m fine. I’ve taken worse than that. We better get out of here before the cops arrive.” The duo walk off. “C’mon. Let me show you how the everyman gets pussy. I’m not a rich man, and I sure as shit amn’t a salesman… but I got my ways of getting women.” His smile hints at something sinister.
Stalker feels a chill in the air.
“They call it a ‘watering hole.’ That is a lie. Water brings life. Liquor brings false confidence and dull wits and broken lives and slow death.”—Frank Miller
