A Pint of Your Cheapest

A man awakens to familiar circumstances, but with places to be and obstacles to cross.

                  I woke up in the middle of a very lucid nightmare.  Dinosaurs were ravaging my town.  Stepping on entire blocks and reducing them to rubble.  One mangy looking one, which I can only describe as a T-Rex (with actually quite long arms) descended upon the mundane apartment complex I lived in.  For whatever reason, my father’s brother Ralph, was at my apartment.  A harsh critic of the Jurassic Park series, he ran outside, red faced and with intent to kill.  He has large chicklet teeth and he latched them on to the T-Rex’s thigh.  All I remember is Ralph with a heroic look on his face as he smiled with dinosaur skin and blood dripping off his chin.  I need to stop smoking pot. 
                I was sharing a bed with a stranger.  She seemed to have potential as a drunk lay.  Kind of a chub.  Hung-over and mildly confused I realized my predicament.  Typical.  Long live the king.  Nice, bro.  You’ve done good.  She laid on her side facing me and her puffy cheeks sagged as gravity did it’s work.  Poor girl.  Poor humanity.  She wore blue mascara which I noticed, as I went in the bathroom and pissed, was all over the area above my hog.  “Jesus,” I thought, “she must of taken the whole thing!”  Not an incredible feat by any means, but she gained considerable ground in the “almost likeable” category of my psyche.  I shook it eight times and took a seat on her couch which was against the wall just outside of her bedroom.  When I did I sat on the remote….no.  It was a Vodka miniature stuck in my back pocket.  “What kind of bar sells miniatures?”  I pondered.  I located my cell phone in my pocket.  There seemed to be a new crack in the screen.  This new crack really brought out the soft texture and color of the phone.  It felt better with this crack now a part of it.  It felt right.  The home screen read 10:35 am.  S**T!  MY MEETING!  I was running late already and had no idea where I was in town.
“Here’s to you, kid.”  I downed the miniature and threw the empty on the carpeted floor as I grabbed my jacket and headed down the stairs.  I walked out the front door.   Some dick had his high beams on and pointed right at the door.  I held my arm up to block some of the light.
“Turn off your high beams, a*****e!”  No answer.
“Turn off your f*****g lights, cocksucker!”  Still no answer.  Wait a second.  As I turned and began walking what I thought was North, I realized the light didn’t stop.  Was it the sun?  How long had I been in that dungeon slaying that dragon?  My senses were diminishing.  I was actually headed West, but it turns out that’s the direction I needed to be going in.  My eyes were bloodshot and my sweat could have been bottled and sold as 50 proof.  If my memory served me correctly, I was 6 blocks away from my office.  I looked and felt like s**t, but as long as I made it I’d be ok.  I approached a familiar landmark, “Pabby’s Pub.”  
“Ah, what the hell.” I thought.  I went in and stood next to the bar counter.
“Just a pint of your cheapest.  Quickly, please.”  The bartender stared at me.  He reached under the counter for a clean glass, but he mistakenly picked up a shotgun instead.
“GET OUT OF THIS F*****G BAR, S**T STAIN!”  It wasn’t a mistake.
I obliged.  He must have mistaken me for someone else, I thought to myself.  This was weird though, I had a very distinguished face.  Especially when it’s hung-over, this is 87 percent of the time.
5 blocks to go.
                A cop car strolls passed me and gives me the stink eye.  Up ahead he pulls a U-Turn and begins his trek back.  Again, he eyeballs me so hard that my a*s starts to hurt. 
4 more blocks.
                “CONSTRUCTION ON SPRINGFIELD AVE. FROM 8 AM TO 6 PM.  PLEASE FOLLOW DETOUR.”
You’ve got to be kidding me.  I had time for a beer, but I did not have time to sweat out an extra 20 blocks.  I decided to duck under the orange barrier and continue forward.  I will make this meeting.  Unapproachable and drunk, but I will make this meeting.  As I pressed on I could see a construction worker waving his arms with violent gestures.  His buddy looked at me and shook his head.  As I neared, he confronted me.
“Hey!  You can’t be in here without the required PPE!”
“Did you just call me a dick?”
“PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT!  You need a hardhat and safety glasses and earplugs!  Get the hell out of here!  It ain’t safe without the proper PPE!”
“I’m not a dick, but you’re an a*****e.  I’ll take my chances.”
I stayed the course and a thought occurred to me.  It’s never a good thing to be called a body part.  An a*****e.  A dick.  A p***y.  These were all negative.  When did this happen?  Girls love dick.  Guys love p***y.  A******s…I could take em or leave em, but hey, they’re a hit in the gay community.  I turned around.
“Yeah!  I am a dick!  A big one!  F**k you!”  I must still be drunk.
Bits and pieces of gravel slapped my face as I walked by a man running a jackhammer.  “F**k him.” I thought.  I got work to do.
                3 blocks to go.  The same cop car from moments earlier comes strolling through again, looking directly at me and talking into his CB Radio.  This worries me.
                2 blocks.  I begin to pick up the pace in a frantic attempt to outrun whatever s**t storm is following me.  It’s hot outside and I begin to grow nauseas from the mixture of Vodka and the taste of a fat strangers spit in my mouth.  I begin to heave to my right as I quickly walk up the street.
“Thank you.”  I hear.
“Huh?”  I look to my right and I had somehow got half of my puke into a homeless man’s change jar.  He must have been blind because he put his hand in to see what I had left him.  Oh, well.  Poor b*****d was gonna be covered in puke today one way or another.
                One more block.  I begin to see my office window on the third story of a building on the horizon. 
“Sweet lord, I might just make it.”  11:35.  I’m only 5 minutes late, not bad.  I start to jog and as I reach the front door I hear a, “Whoop whoop!”  Unmistakable.  I turned around to bright lights and one of New York’s finest getting out of his car.
S**t.
                “Hey sir, do you mind if I ask you some questions?”
“Well I’m kind of running late for this meeting, but I guess I can answer a few.”  The cop in him could taste my fear.
“Well, we had a fatality last night at the Pub down the st…-  “BANG BANG!  BANG BANG!”  Gun shots.
The cop and I ducked for cover as a couple of youths began running and a bloody body lay on the street.
“WE GOT A 215 IN PROGRESS ON MAPLE AVE!  ASSISTANCE NEEDED!”  The cop took cover behind his patrol car and told me politely to, “GET THE F**K DOWN!”  I crouched and as he began to pursuit the suspects, I took the opportunity to sneak off into the building and up the stairs.
                “Good lord,” I thought.  I didn’t think I’d make it.  Those last couple of moments were tense.  I stood outside of the office door and combed my hair with my palms.  I took a deep breath and went inside.  It was seemingly quiet and each step I took with excruciating detail as to not reach a certain level of decibels.  I walked through the living room and opened the bedroom door.  There was my boss, laying peacefully on our bed.  Boy, did she look like s**t. 
“Mmmm, hey babe, are you just getting in?  Jesus, what time is it?”
“Half passed a monkey’s a*s.”
“You a*****e, come to sleep.”
She didn’t have to twist my leg.  I crawled into bed and laid in the morning’s filth.  A sudden feeling overwhelmed me.  A feeling of victory.  I had outlasted another day.  I made it, even if it was just for now.  I closed my eyes and forgot all of my worries.  S**t, I had it pretty good.  Not like those youths out there flinging led at each other.  At least I hadn’t killed anybody, right?

Author's Note

1st story written ever, Bukowski-esque. Review and I will return the favor!

Reviews

[Judy McIntosh]

I thought that this was great writing. You hooked me and I had to find out where this dude was heading. Physically and mentally. I laughed when the bartender meant to get a clean glass, but pulls out the shotgun. I enjoyed this John, cheers jude.