I'm sitting in the same seat I used to sit in when I was a goon. Lost and lost and lost. It's funny how all these whiskey bottles in front of me are lit up........like they're the star of an upcoming show.
The show starts with a 31 year old, mad as hell. He sits and orders a beer and starts writing. He looks to each side and sees the new, sleeker, IKEA version of the barfly. heh. This place used to be a bridge between the college crowd and hardcore alcoholics. He loved it. Probably because he felt as tho he was connecting with his father in a strange, roundabout and far-fetched way.
His pops was a legend just 2 doors down at the Happy Swallow. A regular at this hole was regarded with disdain in the squeaky world. The world where everyone is nice and believes that God loves them. The world that exists when one decides to put up enough of that imagery on the walls of their thoughts. Anyway, pops never had much use for the church. The bar was his church and he was the pope. He was the one who always went home to his wife, always went to work the next day, never touched the drugs and never tried to step on you. He was a man of integrity amongst those who knew the word only as a far off, unreachable destination. They knew it existed but never really believed they could get there. The author just paused for a chug of the IPA. But his pops was that guy in the trenches with society's less desirable. He once saved a mans life right outside the Swallow. His wife seems to forget or maybe just outright deny this event. Pops came out of the bar and saw a guy sitting in the middle of the railroad tracks just across the street. Now this wasn't one of those Hollywood moments where he ran and pushed him out of the way in the nick of time. This was more life-like. He approached the torn soul, coerced him back to the bar, bought a round and talked it out with the dude. Then he drove him home. Tragedy avoided. An unsung hero born. A hero of the street people, the snipes, the dirt riders. This was a man apart.
His son was a far cry from that. His son Was raised with the fear and a grand notion of evil in the world. His son was 31 and writing this. This is his son. I am he I'm taking a sip again.
more soon..............
awesome.
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