StoryTime: A Fictitious Tale in Incongruent Installments

They say people come here when they run out of places to run. I call it an eclectic collection of lost souls finding refuge in one another. Cue Billy Joel and you’ll get what I’m saying. It’s not bleak though and it’s not sad. There’s a kind of happiness in these patrons eyes, a glimmer of hope that rejects societies judgments of them. They defy convention in some of the most attractive ways a human can, and although people don’t quite accept them, here they find others who appreciate their eccentricities in a way popular culture refuses to. When someone sees the world from another perspective they are called artistic. But those who invent that perspective, then don’t make an officially successful story out of their vision are called failures, rejects, slums of society who mooch off those who made something of themselves. But are the makers better than the visionaries? How much do we benefit from those who produce objects or concepts for mass consumption? There must always be a winner and a loser, and looking around one would label this demographic closer to the losing end of life. But here I see the most vivaciously decorated souls on the planet. Regardless of market success, they stick to their quirks and ideas like rats to a glue trap. Rejection piled over with defeat is the motivation they take with them to continue living life the only way they know how: with poignant and unfaltering passion. It’s just a bar, but in the eyes of the helpless romantics it’s one of the last safe havens for those of a truly unique flavor.
There are of course the regulars that provide nightly flair and a certain unpredictability that’s become customary in this antiquated establishment. My first night working here I was introduced to Al, a balding Welshman who drinks away his two failed marriages and the decade old death of his third wife, all the while trying desperately to convince me of his actual preferred sobriety. His laugh can shake the foundation, as could one or two of his green giant-like stomps on the barroom floor, and one can’t help but wonder if an overwhelming laugh is meant expressly for convincing his audience of his true and infallible happiness with the way his life has turned out. He can usually take home a pretty girl or two, so I can’t imagine that his nights are spent missing any of his former loves too much.
In direct contradiction to Al is Cookie, a sixty year old black stoner grandmother who drinks a double shot of Bacardi rum, warm and straight from the plastic cups that are a staple of this run down bar. She’s full of rebellious charm that she dishes out between gulps of her chosen tonic. Standing a measly five feet tall she brags of a life full of love and family, punctuated sporadically with a few government jobs that could never squash her bravado. Her stories are always colorful and usually end with a verbal image of her smoking a joint on her front porch, cackling loudly into the sunset about a life she leads regardless of what anyone, including her boss, may think or say to her. She never leaves the bar without a few hugs for all those around, hugs she forgets she’s given immediately after she leaves your embrace, a side effect she lovingly blames on the pot.
There are other, more enigmatic patrons who only grace us with their presence once or twice a month. There’s a traveling salesman who boasts of his family back home, a family consisting of a son and a new daughter in law who are continuously in the middle of creating a home for themselves, and a wife who paints the most beautiful pictures you’ll ever see. There’s a couple always on the brink of engagement who you can tell could never imagine a more perfect match than one another, yet can’t seem to make that final commitment that usually just leads to life-dulling repetition, which they can’t quite swallow at this current juncture. Kudos to them for seeing through the haze.
On this particular evening my senses were jolted by the slightly crooked yet blindingly white smile of a handsome young stranger. He spent merely two minutes in my world ordering a drink, then chose a quiet table nearby for himself and his vertically impaired companion with a muted limp who couldn’t help but make awkward sidelong glances at the bar and, coincidentally I’m sure, myself. The pair spent a while talking in emphatic whispers, and from the outside one would suspect a certain romantic relationship between them, but something about the taller gentleman just didn’t scream gay to me, and my gay-dar is nearly always accurate. Although I’m inundated with various other customers demanding their libations, my mind and usually my peripheral vision can’t quite ignore this strange couple: my imagination invents a leader-in-the-making and his quirky sidekick who is always available to do his bidding or just offer support and unyielding admiration. I dub them Hook and Smee for lack of their actual names and identities. The stouter of the two, Smee, rarely takes his eyes from Hook and by the confident demeanor of this man I can tell this arrangement is probably not serendipitous. I wonder what they are so eager to discuss, whether or not they’re plotting the take-over of the American democratic system or if they are simply musing over the month’s unusual weather pattern. As the night lingers on their conversation intensifies and it seems to me that they’ve forgotten the existence of anyone else but each other. After about an hour, Hook makes one blatant but seamless motion and is out of his seat and back in my world, ordering another beer and this time one for his buddy. I’m instantly caught off-guard but almost as immediately I go on the defensive, doubting his easy confidence and instead suspecting a sort of manipulative arrogance that most attractive men carry on their shoulders. For some reason my mind wanders to cult leaders and the effervescent personalities that attract their followers. This man could be a priest with sadistic intentions, bent on being worshipped by hundreds and looked on as a prophet that could lead the masses to salvation. Perhaps my overactive imagination is a by-product of the daily repetition that intrudes on my life, but this man is by no means just a harmlessly attractive guy: you can always sense cockiness in a stranger and this stranger in front of me was covered in it. My curiosity urged me to ask what was so interesting but my occasional shyness was activated in his presence and I found myself handing over his drinks with nothing but a smile and a quiet “Thank you”. His eager wingman is waiting with breath baited, I’m sure, and I watch as Hook gulps down his beer before beginning wherever he left off. Smee nods with consent at each passing word and as this act carries on I can see Hook growing increasingly confident. I find myself bored with these two and instead turn my attention elsewhere in the bar, to more lofty imaginative aspirations. Hook and Smee will have to wait while I dream another group into a band of pirates, or something eqully thrilling to hold my attention for this night's shift.

Stalemate

I think there's a very distinct danger in not knowing exactly what you want. There's an even more serious danger in not knowing what you want but knowing what you definitely don't want and having infallible motivation but no direction. You're ready to jump off the ledge and never look back but you don't know what you're jumping in to. What's going to catch you at the bottom of the fall: water? which will cradle the impact but could eventually drown you; rocks? which will just straight up kill you; or the longest fall of your life which takes your breath and evenutally your consciousness away from you, leaving you with nothing but the serenity of nothingness, no definite here or there, no permanent yes or no. You just float. Each option has a downside, yet each prospect of not knowing has its appeal. What do you do when you're looking into the abyss and you have no idea of what you want to see below you? What do you do when you're ready to leave everything behind you and start all over, but you don't know where to start? How do you stand at the starting line without knowing what sort of race you've signed up for? And do you just jump at the gun and see where the race takes you, or do you resign and wait for the right sort of race to come along, no matter how long that takes? How do you figure it all out? And what if you think you know with some sort of certainty, and then one day you wake up and can't believe that's what you thought was right, and there's no way in the world that your current reality could be how you want to live your life? Wanting something and not knowing what that something is is absolutely terrifying. Being so absorbed in this cyclic repetition is exhausting. Living each day with no distinct purpose or definite direction is infuriating. Waking up not knowing is exciting though. But with the change of each day and the passing of each idea, I seem to grow less certain of the certainty I feel towards anything which inevitably changes my mind because why should I trust my instincts when they've lead me astray countless times before? Every time I've though "This is absolutely without any hint of a doubt exactly what I want to do and who I want to be" it's changed, within a day, a week, or a month. Nothing's lasted the test of time. So why should I act when acting could mean making a decision? Did I say decision? I meant mistake. Freudian slip? Or slip of the tongue towards what I really think, wish, or dream I could do, when what I really want to do is make a damn decision and stick to it. But what if it's the wrong dream? Possibly more terrifying than my current state is the possibility of my future state: getting somewhere and then figuring out that it's nowhere close to where I want or am meant to be. How do you make a commitment when you know that the most terrifying idea of all is commiting to something? In chess they call it a stalemate. You move your queen in any direction and you lose. You leave her where she is and the enemy eats you alive. Standing still is your only option, and the recipe for your demise. Game over. But you're 22. Wait, 23. Shit. Time keeps moving. And there you stand, frozen in the headlights, awake in the dream where you can't run a step but the enemy keeps advancing, the enemy being the future and each try for a step is in a different direction. You fall, you get up, you run, you fall. You don't wake up. There is no waking up. This is life, in all its dramatic flair, and the passing of days drones in your ears like a continuously sounding alarm clock begging you to get the hell out of bed already and start your day. Or your life. Forgive my dramatic nature but it is after all your life, dull and boring, inescapable and real. The decisions weigh too heavy to deal with today, I'll wake up early and do something productive tomorrow. No wait, tomorrow. No wait, shit, I woke up late again. And on it goes. There is no here or there, no yes or no.