Late nights

A story about peer pressure and a lesson about gaining friends and losing them.

Everyone has a birthday and everyone celebrates differently. My friends surprised me by taking me to a bar. 

I have one rule of not following the crowd. Beer and drinking is what I mean by following the crowd. Bars are full of smoke. I can’t escape that. Bars have other things to invite customers to come in. 

My friends may think I’m a baby but I don’t care. I just came along to drive my friends home after a night of getting toasted. Luke ordered a Sam Adam’s and Vince ordered a Bud Light. I got a cherry Coke. They persuaded me to take one for the team but I refused. 

Bars have loud music. I drummed my fingers on the counter. Luke and Vince got one beer after another. They had their own lives for destroying. They wouldn’t notice if I was gone.

 I saw a pool table in the middle of the bar. There wasn’t anyone else playing there so I grabbed a pool cue and took my first shot. When I was younger my Uncle Robby and dad would play together in the basement with me watching from the edge of stairs while eating an ice cream sandwich. In those days ice cream was the center of my universe. 

A group of guys joined the game while I was reminiscing about the past and were taking their second shots. “Excuse me, I was here first. May I have my spot back?” A redhead and a blonde guy stared at me. “You didn’t answer me,” the blonde boy said. 

I shook my head to bring me back to reality. I hate losing myself in a train of thought when someone’s talking to me, and then they find out that they have been talking to the air. 

“This is my second time around. I watched my uncle and dad play when I was younger. I might have to have a refresher on how to play,” I said.

“So, you see these holes in the table? You try to shoot the ball in the holes and then the ball comes out of the end of the table.” The two guys stepped back to let me take my shot that I missed out on just a little bit ago. I narrowed my eyes as if I was in a Wild West movie with a tumbleweed blowing out in the middle of the road. It felt like wind was blowing across the table. 

I turned around to check up on my friends at the bar. They couldn’t be happier. This was supposed a birthday party to remember.  You only turn 21 once. The two guys I was playing pool with didn’t hesitate to invite me to the skate park. I didn’t even know these guys but the gesture was nice.

 I hate society and people who like to follow the crowd. These guys are nice and you can’t judge people before you get to know them. We don’t have to be friends or anything but I could return the favor the next time I’m out and about. 

This was the best birthday gift ever because even though I lost my old friends, I gained some new ones. I turned around to face my friends at the bar.  They had to get home somehow. They won’t remember this but I will. We drove home in silence and when I dropped them off I didn’t even look back in my rearview mirror. I could start fresh.