I adore the anonymity of a dark bar.
There is significant comfort found in their high-proof nonconformity. No emotional quarter is asked. And none is given—leave that fucking baggage at the door, friend. Because if the place is sufficiently dive enough, conversation rarely extends beyond monosyllabic sentences grunted across the bar.
Nobody talks. Or fucks with you. Unless you’re being an obnoxious drunk. That’ll get you thrown out. Or your ass kicked. There’s just no tolerance for that kind of amateur shit. At least not at three o’clock on another under-employed Friday afternoon.
No one cares if you are stumbling in to join the other professional flies on maybe the worst day of your life. They frankly don’t give a shit about you. Even better, you don’t have to give a shit about them right back. Such equality is a rarity these days. And the value of that relief is inestimable to a lonely dirtbag out on a feral crawl.
No pointless chatter; no empty platitudes awkwardly exchanged. Bloodshot eyes pushed straight ahead; reading familiar bottom shelf bottle labels. Avoiding the trap of the bar-back mirror. Because you know the fucking disappointment that will be staring back.
That almost arrogant level of dissidence leaves the freedom to just drink. Spotted shot glass or chipped pint—it doesn’t matter which vessel pushes the poison. The only justification for day drinking in a place like that is to erase yourself from life for as long as the money lasts. And the numbness continues to pour.
The addictiveness of my solitary existence craves that targeted purposefulness.
But the older I get, the more I find myself missing the days when you didn’t have to shuffle out some side door propped open with a mop bucket every time you want a fucking smoke. That inconvenient reminder that you’re just a second class citizen in a world of full intolerant snowflakes choking on the smoke.
Smoking was once part of the magic, as day slowly blurred into night. And that night transformed into strange possibility.
Stumbling out of the bar well past one o’clock. Or two. Ears ringing hot. Clothes reeking of smoke. Just drunk enough that inhibitions were down. And expectations, up.
Time itself lost meaning—it felt simultaneously too early and too late. Nebulous. Untethered. Caught in the compulsion to find a new place to drink. Or to find something—or someone—to go and fuck up.
From within that familiar haze, barely coherent texts were often sent. Or coded digits hitting a beeper back before autocorrected words were a thing. Both asking for the company of trouble in the form of a 110 pound, push-up bra package. The one reliable co-conspirator in a sea of cookie-cutter excuses, whining about their stupid kids or shitty work schedules.
She preferred the trendier clubs after patiently slumming on a stool for too many hours. Just a mini-skirted moth drawn to the thump and lights and sweaty bodies gyrating to music I never particularly enjoyed. Or understood.
It was a harsh disconnect from the dive, one overflowing with over-priced drinks and lame frat boys out on the prowl for furtive dance floor fingerings. A world that I found too chaotically counterfeit. But that she absolutely adored. Because she delighted in creating a scene. And that was always the draw of her unpredictable fun.
The unspoken hints of possible sex was the hook. The rhythm of the background beat the soundtrack of my erect surrender. With lights popping. Smoke machines churning. Bass thumping thumping thumping. Arms surging. Booties bumping.
Hair messed and tousled in just the right way. Bits of it sticking to the skin of her forehead from the residual sweat. A band of bright plastic around a pale wrist. And a stamp on the back of a hand so delicate, I was always afraid to touch it.
She smelled like perfume. And arousal. Power and freedom and fucking all in one slightly glittered feminine package desperately rehydrating on vodka and blow before heading back out to the floor.
Years have passed since those pheromone fueled days and nights. And maybe, since cooler genitals ultimately prevailed, it worked out for the best. Because I simply could not have tolerated her as just a temporary lover. My suspicion is that I would have wanted a forever.
But she was never a genuine possibility; the disparity of our respective stations guaranteed our glaring incompatibility.
She moved on to find more successful circles; I remained behind in just another flyover hick-town dive bar. She fucked her way into to an upper class; I was content mucking about in the company of familiar strangers united by an addiction’s wicked howl.
We both sold out. It was just in different ways. And ended on drastically different paths that seldom overlap anymore.
She was my favorite dirty angel; I was always her best bad boy hoodrat distraction.
Maybe it’s time to send another text.
It’s been a little too long since we danced…
