“Come on baby, let’s just get a bottle of wine and go home.  We don’t need this shit.”  At least I didn’t.  I lit a smoke and leaned my head back.  Closed my eyes.

“These are friends of mine, Mike.  I’ve already told them we were coming.”  She shut off the engine and unbuckled her seatbelt.

“They’ll get over it.  Anyway, I hate your friends.”  I took a drag and looked at her.

“Yea, but you hate everybody.”  She was patient.  She’d been through this before.

“I’m just going to get drunk and do something stupid.”

“They like that.  It’s a show to them.  A play.  Night at the theater.”  It was.  I knew they’d all be waiting for it, feeding me drinks, hoping, whispering.  Fucking vultures.  “Vultures everywhere…” I believe is the line.

“I’m not a fucking joke, you know.”

“I know.”

“Tell them.”  I leaned my head back again.

“Please…”  She leaned over and kissed my cheek and got out of the car.  I followed.

When she knocked on the door I just walked right in.  I didn’t care.  She’d get all the complaints about my manners.  They knew better than to say anything to me.

I didn’t even say hello to anyone.  Really, I didn’t know anyone.  Sure, I recognized a few of the faces, and should have remembered their names, but I didn’t.  They all looked the same to me anyway.  Smooth faces and perfect makeup and hair and smiles and nothing underneath.  They all talked about what they’d seen on television in lieu of actual thought.  I wanted to grab the one closest to me and tear them apart.          

“Look, look!  Nothing underneath!  Empty, just like you!”

They’d all scream and retch and puke and cry because I was so right.  I should burn down their houses.  Follow them home and murder their families.  Get their address books and finish the job.  Maybe the city would throw me a parade.  I’d be a hero.

The dream was interrupted by the nightmare. 

At least the bar looked promising.  A few stiff drinks and the asshole yapping in my ear would be a distant buzzing.  A swarm of bees.

After a few rounds I can’t even hear them anymore.  I just stare into their faces and watch them twist and contort and finally smile at each others bullshit.  It wasn’t even the same language to me.

I took a bottle, walked over to a chair, and sank down low.

Drank and waited.

They didn’t even have the common courtesy to get drunk.  ‘Cocktails’, they called them.  Fucking cocktails.  What the hell was that?  The ass tending bar had even given me a ‘what the fuck are you talking about’ look when I’d asked for three fingers of scotch.  I just showed him my favorite finger and grabbed a bottle.  And we waited…

“Hey, man.”

What the hell did this guy want?

“Hey, buddy?”

I looked up at him.  “whuggh…”

“You’ve got something on your pants, man.”  He was pointing at my leg.

Of course that’s not what I heard.  I heard him say something that made me stand right up, pull out my pistol, and beat his head with the butt.  Good old pistol whip.

“Fuck your mother!” I kept yelling.

When the crowd got too close I let a few rounds go at the roof.

In the confusion my girl got me the hell out of there.

“How’d they like the show?” I asked her.