I stopped in the first bar I came to. Sue’s. Shit. There wasn’t anything wrong with the bar really, it just meant that I’d been walking in the wrong direction. Oh well, I still needed a drink no matter where I was headed.
Now the thing about this joint was it had a Johnny Cash theme. All this Cash stuff on the walls (not memorabilia, they couldn’t afford that so they just painted all this stuff all over the place, second rate shit) and the juke was almost all Cash albums. The place was full of all these hipster dipshits who thought that since Johnny was cool, and they were in a bar with his face painted everywhere and his music playing, then they were cool too. Now there’s nothing wrong with finding a place you dig and hanging out there, the surroundings we choose do say something about us, but this place was just too obvious. And it wouldn’t even be too bad if the people there didn’t really care so much about being so obvious right along with it. Like sometimes you could overhear people talking about how all these posers were always coming in here without even really know anything about Johnny Cash. They thought that maybe you should have to answer all these questions about him before you could get inside. It was bullshit.
Anyway, what I liked to do was play anything in the juke except for Cash. The further away from that style the more I liked it and the more I played it. My favorite was a Bobby Darin CD that the owner put in there because he liked ‘Mack the Knife’, and the crowd liked that one too, except I never played that song. I played ‘Beyond the Sea’ or something, and they always flipped out. Booing and giving me dirty looks and whispering to each other. “What a poser.” They’d say. Fuck them.
One night I put in about seven bucks and played the same song over and over again. After the third time it had played, the bartender came out from behind the bar and unplugged the juke.
“You better plug that back in or give me my money back.” I yelled at him. “I’ll take store credit.”
“Fuck you, pal. How many times did you play that song?” He was already headed back behind the bar.
“Less times than I fucked your mother but more times than I let your daddy watch.” I snapped back at him.
He reached over the bar and grabbed my shirt as I was laughing about it. He started to pull me over the bar, but he was also bringing me closer to the liquor bottles, and when I was close enough I grabbed a full bottle of whiskey. Now maybe you think I broke it over his head or at least tried to, but what I did was, I jerked back quick while he was distracted by what I had done and broke his grip. I ran out the door at top speed, ripping the spout off the bottle for better access. He tried to chase me, but with the lead I had, and me being a pretty fast runner anyway, it was hopeless for him. I’m no fighter; I’m no lover either. I’m a drinker.
He let me back in later, though. I was amazed. He didn’t even say anything about the bottle. I think that maybe he hated that place the same way I did but just needed the money. Those hipster dipshits tipped pretty well at least. All he said was, “Just don’t fuck around with the juke no more, pal.”
I promised I wouldn’t and we were friends again.

So this time I didn’t even play the juke. I just found a stool and ordered a drink. My wet sock kept bugging me, though, so what I did was, I took off my boot, put it on the stool next to me, and took off my sock to wring it out and maybe dry it off a little while I had my drink. But it was those damn hipsters again, pissing me off.
“Hey man, put your shoe back on. That’s disgusting.”
“I’m just drying off my sock man, I ain’t fixing your drink with it. It doesn’t affect you.” I started wringing my sock out again.
The bartender was just watching.
“Come on man, I’m not kidding, put it back on.” I put my boot back on without the sock and kept wringing it out.
“Happy now?”
“No, the shoe was only half the problem. Put your sock away.” What a jackass. I walked over to him and smacked him in the face with my wet sock like I was challenging him to a duel.
“Oh, gross! That’s it man.” He reared back to hit me, but while he was doing it I shoved the sock in his mouth and then ran for it. I heard the bartender yelling at me as I left about never coming back there or some shit. Oh well, I was done with that place anyway.
Well, the sock problem was solved, but the boot was still wet and now I knew I was going to get a blister from all the walking I still had to do.
At least there were still plenty of other shitty bars, plenty of other shitty jobs, plenty of other socks. What a great country…

I wasted the whole next day. Drank a little, listened to the radio, jerked off. You know, the usual. I should have been looking for a job, my one true love, somebody’s somewhere lost treasure, but I wasn’t. I was wasting the day. My true calling.

On Saturday I got up at five in the afternoon. It was my neighbor’s fault, knocking on my door. Waking me up like that, I should have kicked his ass, but instead I let him get me high.
He wanted me to go out to this club with him, but it was another one of those attitude bars, you know, just another place to be seen. But we were on the list. I hated those lists, even when I was on them. Especially when I was on them. But what the hell, I was high, which meant I was thirsty, and I was out of beer anyway.

The Lincoln. Man, this was the place to be in this town. More hipster dipshits, plus about twenty other kinds of fabulous people being fabulous and waiting for everyone else to notice. Crowded as hell, too. It was always crowded there. Always three deep at the bar. Ladies sitting there waiting to be noticed, guys lined up behind them noticing, and then guys like me just waiting to get a God damned drink. That’s how it always was for me. Waiting on some idiot so I can get a drink, which is what the fucking bar is for, anyway. I don’t get these places that are always so crowded having seats at the bar. Look, I know you’re supposed to have stools at a bar, and that’s fine for a regular bar where you don’t have to fight ten motherfuckers just for a drink or wait an hour or something, but when it’s that crowded, and it’s always that crowded, get rid of the fucking SEATS! CHRIST! You’d think they’d want to serve some drinks and make some money, but I guess that the bartenders like looking at the girls more than getting tipped by the drunks trapped three back, even though none of those girls would ever, ever go home with the fucking bartender. They’re all waiting for someone in the band or some shit and only flirt with the fucking bartender to get free drinks. It’s like these guys in strip clubs who think they’ll be the one to get the strippers’ number, and even if you’re the one guy in a million who does, it doesn’t make up for the hundreds of dollars you’ve spent to get it. Plus those guys can’t handle dating a stripper anyway, since they know too well what she’ll be doing all night for whatever dumb son of a bitch pays her for it. Hell, they were some dumb son of a bitch paying for it not to long ago.
Ahhh! Give me a fucking drink you motherfucker! I’m dyin’ here!
So I cut out of there early. At least I hadn’t paid a cover. Man, I hate a cover charge almost worse than anything. You know I’m going in there to drink, and you’ve already marked up the beer about five hundred percent, so just let me in the fucking door!
I’m getting all riled up here. Let me settle down for a minute…

Ok, better.

My computer keeps telling me I spelled dipshits wrong and that I should use ‘dispirits’ instead. I hate technology. At least we should teach it to curse. To paraphrase Salinger, “At least a computer’s human, for Christ’s sake.”