At the 744,
I perched on a high stool, my feet dangled like dead chickens.
My beer sweated, warmed as I sipped.
A half-tanked friend leaned over and whispered,
“Can you believe that fat girl’s dancing like a whore?”
I couldn’t, and my laugh was full of malice.
At the 744,
I overheard the hunched, rich old man next to me —
who was sloppy on his sixth Dewar’s rocks —
monopolize the attention of the comely bartender
with belligerent bar-wise prattle. She flirted sickeningly,
poured him his seventh and served it with a stealthy glimpse of
her cleavage.
At the 744,
I watched girls with plastic-coated cell phones that matched pastel plastic
fingernails.
The boys leered. They watched bronze-colored breasts
spill over tube tops like the head from their pilsners.
The girls stared back, their jeweled belly buttons shone
promises.
At the 744,
the forty-something women with kids at home
were wearing tight tanks and junior sized l.e.i.’s that misfit their
robust rumps.
They pressed shamelessly against the twenty-something men —
They would have been mortified to see their daughters do the
same.
At the 744,
I put on a perma-smile and hugged the people I don’t often see.
Letting the stool back dig my ribs as they squeezed,
pretending to miss them as they miss me,
knowing I’d rather die than be them.
Their liquor-soaked breath warmed my cheek.
At the 744,
my eyes stung with cigarette smog, my ears rung with the top 40.
I sat wishing myself home to my dopey roommate.
We would have supped up Rolling Rocks and munched cheddar
and croutons.
We would have listened to Radiohead, Oysterhead, or
Pink Floyd,
and talked about how much we hate bars.
At the 744,
I stared as stagnant drips of beer reflected neon Milwaukee propaganda.
I wanted to slug my only Guiness and get the hell away,
with my window all the way down, sucking a left-handed
cigarette while the radio blared, the wind stinging my ear.
At the 744,
I told myself I’d have fun next time, but I was as sure as ice melts in rum
that I wouldn’t.
I swore myself sick over it, felt the chartreuse sting in my gut
that came when I judged lives I knew nothing about.
I vowed never to go again. |