Power
By Michael S. Walker
In between the bar being called the Tropical Shack and the Buckeye Sports Bar, it was known for a time as Carls Place and was run by Carl Lieferkowski, a tall thin Pole with a glass eye and the personality of a perfunctorily pleasant reptile. When he took over the place, he had all the props from the bars incarnation as the Tropical Shack torn away: the bandstand with its thatched portico, the tiki gods and potted palmsall of it was stripped away and the bar reverted to what it had been before: a functional place to drink and get wasted in.
I used to come in there every night to drink and get wasted. I was working part time as a clerk in a video store, making very little money but all the free movie rentals I wanted. My solid appreciation for Akira Kurosawa was not paying the rent however, and I worried about money constantly. And when I worried about money, I drank. And the worries were compounded.
I used to sit there at the bar with a friend on mine. Her name was Schelle Gibney. Schelle was a nice looking black girl, on the high side of yellow, who all the guys in town wanted to fuck. It wasnt really a problem with Schelle. If she liked you, she would fuck you. She was all about the good times.
I had never fucked Schelle. Maybe it was because I had a low sex drive. Maybe it was because, under all my bravado, I was very timid about sex. Maybe it was because I didnt want to ruin the dynamics of a perfectly good friendship. Maybe I was secretly gay. Hell, I dont know. But we never slept together.
Schelle used to work as a manager in a restaurant; she would usually meet me in the bar after her shift. Schelle wasnt cut out to be a restaurant manager. Too much stress for her. Too many customer complaints. The restaurant employed a lot of sixteen and seventeen year old kids. She was basically a glorified babysitter with a nametag and a cash register. She would come into the bar and, after smoking three cigarettes in a row, she would tell me about it.
I cant take it anymore, Mark, she would say, putting her high yellow forehead in her hands. Im going to quit tomorrow, she would say.
Sure, Schelle. Let me buy you a beer. I knew that she wasnt going to quit tomorrow or any other day. She had the rent to meet on her nice apartment in Hebron. Plus all the other bills: credit cards, gas, electric, trash. She would quit only when she found a guy she liked well enough to fuck on a permanent basis.
I called Carl over to pour a beer for poor Schelle. When he first opened the place, I thought maybe Carl suffered from some bi-polar disorder. He would be perfunctorily nice most days, and then there would be two or three days in a two or three week period when he could be as nasty and as cold as any reptile. He would bark at you for no reason: for being affixed by gravity to the planet earth, for casting a shadow in his drinking establishment. I found out later that Carls bi-polar disorder was a young girl named Theresa. Theresa was a dancer at the only bona-fide strip club in town: Spectrum. Before it had been Spectrum, the club had been an Italian restaurant known as Ricardos and before that it been a holistic bookstore called The Truth. And so on. Anyway, Theresa was milking Carl for his money and he couldnt see it. All he could see was her long red hair and a fine ass that didnt like to be confined by jeans for very long. Theresa was always sleeping around, and when Carl found out about it he would go into his furious tailspin.
Carl, I said. I need a Miller Genuine Draft for Schelle. Today was one of those days. He glared at me across the bar, then turned to the taps behind him. He got a fresh mug and started to draw the beer.
Carls in one of his moods, I whispered, lighting a cigarette.
Yes, Schelle said. He just found out that Theresas been at it again, whoring with some biker guy who works the graveyard shift at Universal Veneer.
I dont know where Schelle got her information. She seemed to be as omniscient as God, knowing all about everyones triumphs and tragedies. Maybe she just made it up. I dont know.
Carl came back with the beer, his one good blue eye glittering with all the reptilian fury of a good man done wrong.
Thatll be $1.25, he spat.
I started to pull out money. I usually dont keep my money in a wallet. Just too lazy to bother, I guess. Not enough to put in there.
How come Carl said. How come, whenever you come in here, I have to wait around for you to pull out all your god damn moneylike you dont have it or something? Every time.
I was flabbergasted. I had never really suffered through an out and out attack by Carl. Just mostly glaring and muttering. I gave him the money and he went away.
What the hell, I said, turning to Schelle. She was smiling. Schelle was always smiling, no matter what.
Forget it she said. Thats just Theresa talking. You know that. Carl dont mean nothing by it.
We would get drunkSchelle and I. There was really nothing else to do, living in New Covenant, Ohio, population 35,000, a drug and weapon-free community. A place where most people worked in factories or offices or restaurants and hated their jobs. A place where there were more bars than churches. A town slowly giving up the ghost and going down.
If I ever get the moneyIm just gonna say fuck it and move to Key West, Schelle would usually say, after about her fifth or sixth beer. Schelle had a friend named Molly who lived in Key West, worked as a waitress in a Cuban restaurant there, made pretty good money in tips. You just wouldnt believe the shit that goes on down there. One non-stop party.
I knew that Schelle was never going to move to Key West. I think that, with her omniscience, she knew that I knew that she was never going to go to Key West. It was just something to talk about when she got drunk.
Sure, Schelle, I would say. Have another beer.
The same night that Carl barked at me, his girlfriend Theresa came in. Theresa really was a fine piece of creation: tall, with flaming red hair, a magnificently sculpted nose and cheekbones. One of her eyes was green and the other brown. I had read somewhere that only one-in-three million people have such a genetic abnormality. And that assAlways in tight blue jeans. Always dancing. Always practicing for her gig at the Spectrum. She was with some beefy guy in a bikers leather jacket and torn jeans. He had a neat beard and a ponytail. They sat at the opposite end of the bar, away from Schelle and I, and started laughing and drinking drinks.
Carl seemed to grow incredibly contrite in the presence of his woman. He stood there in front of her, waiting for her to command him to do something. Bring her a drink. Light her cigarette. Hire flying monkeys as bar backs. Anything. And, I guess, she was beautiful. She even gave me, with my low sex drive, a hard-on.
Hey, sorry about thatearlier, Carl said, bringing me and Schelle a beer on the house and smiling his strange cold reptile smile. I just get a little crazy sometimes. You know how it is. He went back to stand in front of his queen and her court jester.
Sure, Carl, I said. Is that the guy I whispered to Schelle, indicating the biker guy with a nod of my head.
Yes, she said, smiling. Pathetic, isnt it?
Later, I got up to dance to a Creedence Clearwater song that was blaring from the jukebox. I was often dancing by myself in bars when I got drunkI didnt think anything of it. I was too petrified usually to ask someone to join me. Schelle wasnt much of a dancer, and the only other people in the bar were Carl, Theresa, and the biker guy.
For some reason, Theresas biker guy took exception to me dancing by myself. He got off his bar stool and staggered across the floor.
Hey, buddy he said. The music was blaring, and I was too drunk to notice him at first.
Hey, faggot he yelled, gripping one of my shoulders and trying to push me into the ground. I want you to stop dancing by yourself. It bothers me. Its something a faggot would do. Sit down right now.
He was powerful. He could take me in a fight and play a game of eight ball at the same time. I was just this skinny drunk who worked in a video store. The only courage I ever had came from a glass. If he didnt want me to dance, I wasnt going to dance.
I went back to sit with Schelle, but the guy got to my stool before I did and sat down next to her. He started telling her about his big bike and she smiled at him. I stood against the pinball machine, one hand resting on the dirty glass top, feeling like a fool.
Come on honeywhy dont we go for a ride? he said to Schelle. I got the best fuckin wheels in the state of Ohio.
OhI couldntreally. Im here with my friend. She sounded like she wanted to go.
Him? the biker said, looking at me and scowling. I could fuck him up in a heartbeat. Couldnt I fuck you up in a heartbeat, buddy?
Probably, I admitted, looking down at the intricate landscape of the pinball machine and wishing I were somewhere else. Carl was at the other end of the bar, with his eye only for Theresa. He was slipping a twenty-dollar bill across the bar to her and she, in turn, was pouring it on for him.
Cmon, baby. Lets go for a ride on my bike, the guy said to Schelle, leaning over close to her.
O.K., she said. She looked back at me. Are you sure you dont mind, Mark? she asked.
Nono, I dont mind I muttered. I dont mindanything. I wanted to go home and stare at the stains on my bedroom ceiling until they became stains in my colorless dreams. That was all.
Schelle left with the biker, promising to show her the world on his Harley. Or at least, Key West. I continued to stand at the pinball machine, listening to it chirp and moan: The secret to life is another fifty cents. Do you have another fifty cents? Do you? At the other end of the bar, Theresa continued to make goo goo eyes at Carl. All was finally good in Carls world. They hadnt noticed that Schelle and the biker had left.
Finally, I got enough energy to stagger off.
Thankscome again Carl said, lost in green and browna temporary reprieve.
Sure, I said, making the door.
About a week later, Carl went bankrupt and the bar was sold to a young blonde kid with an MBA from DeVry University. He moved a pool table and two big screen TVs into the place, so patrons could always catch the latest in football, basketball, and hockey. After that, it was called the Buckeye Sports Bar. The place was always full of other MBAs, drinking gin and tonics, betting on the games, and throwing peanut shells all over the floor.
I went there anyway.
The beer tasted about the same.
The End.
By Michael S. Walker
In between the bar being called the Tropical Shack and the Buckeye Sports Bar, it was known for a time as Carls Place and was run by Carl Lieferkowski, a tall thin Pole with a glass eye and the personality of a perfunctorily pleasant reptile. When he took over the place, he had all the props from the bars incarnation as the Tropical Shack torn away: the bandstand with its thatched portico, the tiki gods and potted palmsall of it was stripped away and the bar reverted to what it had been before: a functional place to drink and get wasted in.
I used to come in there every night to drink and get wasted. I was working part time as a clerk in a video store, making very little money but all the free movie rentals I wanted. My solid appreciation for Akira Kurosawa was not paying the rent however, and I worried about money constantly. And when I worried about money, I drank. And the worries were compounded.
I used to sit there at the bar with a friend on mine. Her name was Schelle Gibney. Schelle was a nice looking black girl, on the high side of yellow, who all the guys in town wanted to fuck. It wasnt really a problem with Schelle. If she liked you, she would fuck you. She was all about the good times.
I had never fucked Schelle. Maybe it was because I had a low sex drive. Maybe it was because, under all my bravado, I was very timid about sex. Maybe it was because I didnt want to ruin the dynamics of a perfectly good friendship. Maybe I was secretly gay. Hell, I dont know. But we never slept together.
Schelle used to work as a manager in a restaurant; she would usually meet me in the bar after her shift. Schelle wasnt cut out to be a restaurant manager. Too much stress for her. Too many customer complaints. The restaurant employed a lot of sixteen and seventeen year old kids. She was basically a glorified babysitter with a nametag and a cash register. She would come into the bar and, after smoking three cigarettes in a row, she would tell me about it.
I cant take it anymore, Mark, she would say, putting her high yellow forehead in her hands. Im going to quit tomorrow, she would say.
Sure, Schelle. Let me buy you a beer. I knew that she wasnt going to quit tomorrow or any other day. She had the rent to meet on her nice apartment in Hebron. Plus all the other bills: credit cards, gas, electric, trash. She would quit only when she found a guy she liked well enough to fuck on a permanent basis.
I called Carl over to pour a beer for poor Schelle. When he first opened the place, I thought maybe Carl suffered from some bi-polar disorder. He would be perfunctorily nice most days, and then there would be two or three days in a two or three week period when he could be as nasty and as cold as any reptile. He would bark at you for no reason: for being affixed by gravity to the planet earth, for casting a shadow in his drinking establishment. I found out later that Carls bi-polar disorder was a young girl named Theresa. Theresa was a dancer at the only bona-fide strip club in town: Spectrum. Before it had been Spectrum, the club had been an Italian restaurant known as Ricardos and before that it been a holistic bookstore called The Truth. And so on. Anyway, Theresa was milking Carl for his money and he couldnt see it. All he could see was her long red hair and a fine ass that didnt like to be confined by jeans for very long. Theresa was always sleeping around, and when Carl found out about it he would go into his furious tailspin.
Carl, I said. I need a Miller Genuine Draft for Schelle. Today was one of those days. He glared at me across the bar, then turned to the taps behind him. He got a fresh mug and started to draw the beer.
Carls in one of his moods, I whispered, lighting a cigarette.
Yes, Schelle said. He just found out that Theresas been at it again, whoring with some biker guy who works the graveyard shift at Universal Veneer.
I dont know where Schelle got her information. She seemed to be as omniscient as God, knowing all about everyones triumphs and tragedies. Maybe she just made it up. I dont know.
Carl came back with the beer, his one good blue eye glittering with all the reptilian fury of a good man done wrong.
Thatll be $1.25, he spat.
I started to pull out money. I usually dont keep my money in a wallet. Just too lazy to bother, I guess. Not enough to put in there.
How come Carl said. How come, whenever you come in here, I have to wait around for you to pull out all your god damn moneylike you dont have it or something? Every time.
I was flabbergasted. I had never really suffered through an out and out attack by Carl. Just mostly glaring and muttering. I gave him the money and he went away.
What the hell, I said, turning to Schelle. She was smiling. Schelle was always smiling, no matter what.
Forget it she said. Thats just Theresa talking. You know that. Carl dont mean nothing by it.
We would get drunkSchelle and I. There was really nothing else to do, living in New Covenant, Ohio, population 35,000, a drug and weapon-free community. A place where most people worked in factories or offices or restaurants and hated their jobs. A place where there were more bars than churches. A town slowly giving up the ghost and going down.
If I ever get the moneyIm just gonna say fuck it and move to Key West, Schelle would usually say, after about her fifth or sixth beer. Schelle had a friend named Molly who lived in Key West, worked as a waitress in a Cuban restaurant there, made pretty good money in tips. You just wouldnt believe the shit that goes on down there. One non-stop party.
I knew that Schelle was never going to move to Key West. I think that, with her omniscience, she knew that I knew that she was never going to go to Key West. It was just something to talk about when she got drunk.
Sure, Schelle, I would say. Have another beer.
The same night that Carl barked at me, his girlfriend Theresa came in. Theresa really was a fine piece of creation: tall, with flaming red hair, a magnificently sculpted nose and cheekbones. One of her eyes was green and the other brown. I had read somewhere that only one-in-three million people have such a genetic abnormality. And that assAlways in tight blue jeans. Always dancing. Always practicing for her gig at the Spectrum. She was with some beefy guy in a bikers leather jacket and torn jeans. He had a neat beard and a ponytail. They sat at the opposite end of the bar, away from Schelle and I, and started laughing and drinking drinks.
Carl seemed to grow incredibly contrite in the presence of his woman. He stood there in front of her, waiting for her to command him to do something. Bring her a drink. Light her cigarette. Hire flying monkeys as bar backs. Anything. And, I guess, she was beautiful. She even gave me, with my low sex drive, a hard-on.
Hey, sorry about thatearlier, Carl said, bringing me and Schelle a beer on the house and smiling his strange cold reptile smile. I just get a little crazy sometimes. You know how it is. He went back to stand in front of his queen and her court jester.
Sure, Carl, I said. Is that the guy I whispered to Schelle, indicating the biker guy with a nod of my head.
Yes, she said, smiling. Pathetic, isnt it?
Later, I got up to dance to a Creedence Clearwater song that was blaring from the jukebox. I was often dancing by myself in bars when I got drunkI didnt think anything of it. I was too petrified usually to ask someone to join me. Schelle wasnt much of a dancer, and the only other people in the bar were Carl, Theresa, and the biker guy.
For some reason, Theresas biker guy took exception to me dancing by myself. He got off his bar stool and staggered across the floor.
Hey, buddy he said. The music was blaring, and I was too drunk to notice him at first.
Hey, faggot he yelled, gripping one of my shoulders and trying to push me into the ground. I want you to stop dancing by yourself. It bothers me. Its something a faggot would do. Sit down right now.
He was powerful. He could take me in a fight and play a game of eight ball at the same time. I was just this skinny drunk who worked in a video store. The only courage I ever had came from a glass. If he didnt want me to dance, I wasnt going to dance.
I went back to sit with Schelle, but the guy got to my stool before I did and sat down next to her. He started telling her about his big bike and she smiled at him. I stood against the pinball machine, one hand resting on the dirty glass top, feeling like a fool.
Come on honeywhy dont we go for a ride? he said to Schelle. I got the best fuckin wheels in the state of Ohio.
OhI couldntreally. Im here with my friend. She sounded like she wanted to go.
Him? the biker said, looking at me and scowling. I could fuck him up in a heartbeat. Couldnt I fuck you up in a heartbeat, buddy?
Probably, I admitted, looking down at the intricate landscape of the pinball machine and wishing I were somewhere else. Carl was at the other end of the bar, with his eye only for Theresa. He was slipping a twenty-dollar bill across the bar to her and she, in turn, was pouring it on for him.
Cmon, baby. Lets go for a ride on my bike, the guy said to Schelle, leaning over close to her.
O.K., she said. She looked back at me. Are you sure you dont mind, Mark? she asked.
Nono, I dont mind I muttered. I dont mindanything. I wanted to go home and stare at the stains on my bedroom ceiling until they became stains in my colorless dreams. That was all.
Schelle left with the biker, promising to show her the world on his Harley. Or at least, Key West. I continued to stand at the pinball machine, listening to it chirp and moan: The secret to life is another fifty cents. Do you have another fifty cents? Do you? At the other end of the bar, Theresa continued to make goo goo eyes at Carl. All was finally good in Carls world. They hadnt noticed that Schelle and the biker had left.
Finally, I got enough energy to stagger off.
Thankscome again Carl said, lost in green and browna temporary reprieve.
Sure, I said, making the door.
About a week later, Carl went bankrupt and the bar was sold to a young blonde kid with an MBA from DeVry University. He moved a pool table and two big screen TVs into the place, so patrons could always catch the latest in football, basketball, and hockey. After that, it was called the Buckeye Sports Bar. The place was always full of other MBAs, drinking gin and tonics, betting on the games, and throwing peanut shells all over the floor.
I went there anyway.
The beer tasted about the same.
The End.
VIEW 26 of 26 COMMENTS
lecia:
LMAO!
mana:
whats that?