Monday August 10^th

 

11:00 A.M.

 

Opening the door to the bar was like opening the gates to hell.  As the door swung open I was hit full face with a blast of smoke and beer fumes that attacked my nostrils and singed what was left of my nose hairs.  Stepping inside my eyes adjusted to the low light and I saw that I was in a dimly lit humanity dump filled to the brim with rush hour casualties like myself.       

 

The sign outside didn't say anything about live entertainment, but there up on stage sitting on a stool that looked as if it would collapse at any moment from the excessive weight it was supporting, was Uncle Happy, a 400 pound, tattooed accordion player, belting out what may once have been a song.

 

As Uncle Happy's excruciating, ear drum splitting tunes erupted from his accordion, giving everyone in this sh** hole including myself a legitimate reason to get hammered, I walked over to the bar and pulled up a seat on an empty stool next to what looked like a completely obliterated, drunk off his ass rush hour statistic.         

 

"How you doing?" I said to my new found bar buddy.

 

The poor slob just looked up at me with drool hanging off his face and mumbled something about a guy with a stick and fell face first into a puddle of beer on the bar.       

 

"Whatch ya have mister?"  Rasped the barkeep. 

 

I looked up from one miserable sight to another and some how managed to keep from laughing as I ordered a scotch and soda from a bartender who looked like a merchant marine in a dress.  It was a disgusting sight with thick forests of curling body hair framed by the low plunge neckline of the dress it was wearing.  When he or she, bent down to pick up a bottle, I thought I was going to puke as it's skirt slipped up over it=s fat ass giving us sitting at the bar a clear shot of a pimpled, hairy moon. 

 

As Popeye in a dress served me my drink, I tried as hard as I could not to laugh or say anything remotely offensive, because although he may have been a little feminine and confused about his dressing preference, but make no mistake about it.  This thing in a dress was a human muscle that if angered and properly agitated, could shred my ass to pieces in a heartbeat, and I didn't want to add a trip to the emergency room to a already full agenda of things that I didn=t want to do.       

 

Tipping my head back, I downed the first drink and motioned for Popeye to pour another.  After downing the second drink I could feel the alcohol starting to take hold and I motioned for another and poured it too down my throat.  The bar I was sitting in was another pit stop on the sh** hole express of life.  The booze was cheep and watered down and the ambiance was so bad that I thought at first that I had somehow ingested something and I was hallucinating.  But no, fact was that for the moment I was here, and like it or not, this was my reality.

 

I looked over at the guy who was sitting on the other side of me, who was by this point brain damaged from too much cheap booze and was slurring out something about how life wasn't fair. I figured that if he told me his life story that given his current state of being, it would have to be sadder then mine and it might be refreshing to hear about someone worse off than myself.     

 

"So,."  I began,. "What the hell's your problem?"

 

I watched as this poor specimen of humanity raised his hand as if to begin a sentence, paused, then his face contorted and his body slid slowly to the floor of the bar.  My bar buddies were proving to be a disappointing lot.

As I looked down at the poor pathetic creature, laid sprawled out on the filthy floor of the bar, I noticed that the music stopped.  I looked up and saw a sight that sent a chill up my spine.  Happy, and his four hundred pounds of muscle was heading this way like a run away freight train.  At first I thought it was me who had done something wrong.  Perhaps the poor slob on the floor next to me was one of his relatives and he now wanted to beat me up for hurting him.

 

Much to my relief, however, Happy sped past, picked the poor slob next to me off the floor, and after a couple of brutal face slaps, Happy tossed the guy what must have been 30 feet across the room and right through the front door.  It appeared that Happy was a double threat, musician and bouncer.  And just as he had stopped, Happy walked back over to the stage, took his seat, picked up his instrument and began to play some more of his accordion nightmares as if nothing had ever happened. 

 

It was time to pay my bill and get the hell out of desperation café before I did something to warrant a visit from Happy.  Before I could act, however, some guy in the audience decided to comment on Happy's accordion playing.  The fun wasn=t over, it was just beginning. 

"Hey, don't you know anything else? " The booze‑addled buffoon challenged, defiantly.

 

The place fell deathly silent as Happy once again put down his accordion and walked over to where the poor slob who had made the comment was sitting.  As the guy pleaded for Happy not to hit him, Happy repeatedly slapped the guy about the face until he thought that he had enough.  Then just as he had started, Happy put the whimpering gentleman back down in his chair, walked back over to the stage and started to play his accordion again.  

 

"Excuse me, ma'am? Can I please pay my tab?" I asked.

 

The warning signs were all there.  I should have known that there was no way that anything happening in this horrific hell hole could end well.  The thing in a dress walked over, leaned over the counter so that I had a full shot of it's hairy chest, and told me that the bill was $22.50. 

"$22 bucks?” I protested." I only had four watered down scotches!. What are you trying to do here, rip me off? !"

 

I noticed that the music had stopped again and I looked to see Happy in a full charge heading my way.  I looked back at the thing in the dress for an explanation and it said.

 

"So you think we water down our drinks?"

 

"Happy !".  The it shouted out. "Seems we have a customer here who doesn't want to pay his bill."  explained the barkeep, unnecessarily.     

 

For some stupid reason I decided to continue with a pitiful macho defense.      

 

"Look I said, I'm not paying this."