It wasn’t really a bar per say. More of a box with booze in it. The walls were permeated with the stench of pathetic dying souls spending hours upon days staring into the bottom of a glass. Hope had left this area long ago. Hope cannot gain a foothold on floors which have been on the receiving end of blood and vomit so many times. In all reality I should not have been here. My heart told me to turn and leave. My soul clambered to escape from my asshole but my mind had other plans. Places like this always fascinated me in an entirely morbid way. What makes death, sorrow and failure stink the way it does? More importantly does my fascination come from the awareness that this is precisely the kind of place I will end up?

I slid onto a stool and lit a smoke. The bartender positioned herself in front of me. She was smoking as well. However I was not eight months pregnant. Her eyes were as dead the fetus which pushed against the inner wall of her womb. I ordered a well whiskey. Had I been in the Midwest I would have made it a rail whiskey. I’ve seen enough blank stares from bartenders in Baltimore to know that they don’t speak that left coast jive out there. She poured an ungodly amount of whiskey into a glass and narrowly avoided dropping her cigarette ash into my booze. I took my drink and sauntered over to the juke box. Horrible little bars like this particular shit hole inexplicably have the greatest juke boxes. If you’re going to drink yourself to death there might as well be some good tunes playing. At least that’s what my old man said to me the day before he gutted the mail man with a bread knife. I dropped in a few quarters and kicked back the rest of my drink. I could feel it burning a hole in my esophagus as it slid down to my stomach to do battle with my soft parts. D4, Got To Give It Up by Thin Lizzy. A6, Hot Blue And Righteous by ZZTop. B9, Whammer Jammer by The J. Geils band. Three bands whose legacy does not do justice to their true past. J. Geils being the best example. Before they sullied their name with the atrocious pop shit pile that was Centerfold they had self respect, they had balls. The J. Geils band played white boy blues based rock and roll harder and faster than the Stones with and endless supply of the best drugs. Yet for most folks they will forever be na na nuh-na na na. Fucking tragic. Shitty speakers cracked and buzzed to life as I walked back to my stool and ordered another whiskey from the walking death incubator.

Perhaps it was the effect of the shit booze I had been drinking all night. Whatever it was I didn’t hear him walk up behind me until it was too late. He had the shaft pushed up against my kidney. I casually turned to see the drunken mad man holding me at bay. His grizzled beard retained chunks of food which may have been there for hours even days.

“Don’t fucking move kid”

Even it I wanted to I don’t think I could have. I was paralyzed by the stunning stench leaking from his mangled maw. The smell said words his mouth couldn’t,

“I hide rat carcasses in my mouth so my mother can’t take them away from me again”.

I looked into his eyes and found the usual. Pain, desperation, a deep longing for rightfully illegal sexual acts. But what if anything did he want from me?

“What can I do for you old timer? There’s no reason to bring your piece into this.”

“I can’t help it kid. It talks to me. It wants me to do things. And I can’t FUCKING LEAVE IT AT HOME!”

I looked down to inspect the talking firearm and found something that in hindsight was none too surprising. There I found this crazy sweating old man’s discolored crooked cock pushed into my belly. I looked back up at the manic old man and I could see the palpable confusion and fear in his eyes. I turned back to the bartender and ordered another drink. It was going to be a long night.