Chuck Samson walks into a bar and hates the place.
The menus are practically unreadable, even to the soberest Monday morning bookworm. The bottle list is a maze of vertical and horizontal headings proceeded by minuscule type that a microscope could barely read. The draft list is a mess of red stamps and obscure brewery titles. He spends close to four and a half minutes studying the papers while the skinny waitress waits for his order. He barely looks up.
"Fuck it," his brain mutters to his conscience, "It's her job--she can wait."
He drops the lists onto the table, eyes tired from combing through deserts of abbreviations, percentages, dollar signs, and descriptors. Vague, at best. He pulls his glasses from his face, rubs his eyes and temples, continues to hate the place. "I'll have a Kenzinger." A compromise.
The booths are backed by painted dry-wall. The chairs are backed by narrow, cutting wooden poles. The vast, empty wooden floor cuts a Red Sea between the bar and the thick, half-unlit tables. He reaches into his pocket, retrieves a lighter, lights the burnt out lamp on his dim table--the lamp goes out again in a moment. The dinner menu is packed with nothing. He itches for a cigarette, prohibited.
The waitress reappears and Chuck looks up at the girl, painted up like a Kabuki actor, a job never entrusted to women, catty up-curls in the corners of her eyes reminding him of a former friend, a former possible love, and all the aggravation that that would have created. She places the bottle in front of him, and a glass--the same glass that his own restaurant uses to serve the same beer at two dollars more per glass, and he rubs his temples again, replaces his glasses, studies the glass again. Definitely the same glass.
She doesn't pour the beer, "Thank God," thinks Chuck, and so he takes the bottle and glass in hand, tilts the glass, pours the beer, and downs the last few sips left in the bottle. Anything to avoid putting that glass on his lips. He glares into the filled glass, itches for a cigarette, drains the glass and drops the bottle into it, top down. It fits perfectly, as he knows from too much experience. He hates the place.
The menus are practically unreadable, even to the soberest Monday morning bookworm. The bottle list is a maze of vertical and horizontal headings proceeded by minuscule type that a microscope could barely read. The draft list is a mess of red stamps and obscure brewery titles. He spends close to four and a half minutes studying the papers while the skinny waitress waits for his order. He barely looks up.
"Fuck it," his brain mutters to his conscience, "It's her job--she can wait."
He drops the lists onto the table, eyes tired from combing through deserts of abbreviations, percentages, dollar signs, and descriptors. Vague, at best. He pulls his glasses from his face, rubs his eyes and temples, continues to hate the place. "I'll have a Kenzinger." A compromise.
The booths are backed by painted dry-wall. The chairs are backed by narrow, cutting wooden poles. The vast, empty wooden floor cuts a Red Sea between the bar and the thick, half-unlit tables. He reaches into his pocket, retrieves a lighter, lights the burnt out lamp on his dim table--the lamp goes out again in a moment. The dinner menu is packed with nothing. He itches for a cigarette, prohibited.
The waitress reappears and Chuck looks up at the girl, painted up like a Kabuki actor, a job never entrusted to women, catty up-curls in the corners of her eyes reminding him of a former friend, a former possible love, and all the aggravation that that would have created. She places the bottle in front of him, and a glass--the same glass that his own restaurant uses to serve the same beer at two dollars more per glass, and he rubs his temples again, replaces his glasses, studies the glass again. Definitely the same glass.
She doesn't pour the beer, "Thank God," thinks Chuck, and so he takes the bottle and glass in hand, tilts the glass, pours the beer, and downs the last few sips left in the bottle. Anything to avoid putting that glass on his lips. He glares into the filled glass, itches for a cigarette, drains the glass and drops the bottle into it, top down. It fits perfectly, as he knows from too much experience. He hates the place.
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