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craftedcoils-blog-blog · 3 years

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Any Bar At All

My friend from Miami was in town for a few days around Christmas. It was pretty cold so I was hesitant to go out but I was bored out of my mind and he was in town so I took him up on the offer. We met up at some little coffee shop where the walls had pictures of African people sifting through beans. They were in time lapse columns from top to bottom. I sat there and waited for ten minutes. I thought about the pictures a little and decided they were OK because Africa has good beans, or so I was being led to believe. I considered asking the barista, some guy with a flailing pompadour who seemed like way too hip to be considered even a person, whether or not Africa had good beans because I'd never really thought of Africa as a being all about beans or whatever but decided not to ask because I didn't really care all that much and I didn't really want to talk to anybody. A few seconds later I realized that maybe it was Costa Rica and that I'm probably a secret racist or that there is probably an ambiguous line between being oblivious and insensitive. I seem to ride that line drunkenly on a unicycle with a flat tire.

I drank three cups of coffee while I waited, heavy on the cream so that they would go down easier. When I went up to ask for my first refill and the barista, now suddenly a woman with a crow face wearing a Freddy Kruger sweater, informed me that the only given refills were ones in cups that are not to-go cups and that it was protocol, and that this time since no one told me it was OK. I said OK and thank you and she said it was 50 cents and pressed the button that makes the ding and I said I only have a card and I hope thats OK. "Wow, this transaction is just getting sadder and sadder," she said. That was pretty funny so I laughed and didn't say anything witty in response like, "You think thats bad, I only have 48 cents on my card so can I give you 2 cents and you put the rest on my card?" What I did say though, forgetting entirely that at this point in the game that she was doing me a favour was, "can I put it into a for-here cup?" Stumbling with the proper way to describe a cup that is not “to-go”. I don't know why I said this and she was like, "well I guess so," and then, as she reached for the cup, the reality of the situation hit me and I said, "no wait never mind." -gesturing awkwardly- And then it was awkward and I laughed about this to myself several times throughout the night.

After about and maybe around the third cup of 50 cent favours I found myself in a cripplingly manic state. When I get into this state, however often it is, I do things like scream deeply inside, harsh meditation and contort my face in strange ways according to random firings of thoughts in my mind. I also do crazy stare into space without blinking. I dunno, I'm probably not as weird as I want to appear.

I was listening to the faux rap beats playing throughout the room when my friend walked through the door. He was all smiles, like a king in court, like the kind of smiles that happen when your attached to congress. His hair was cut shorter than I remember, almost some sort of mohawk deal and he was wearing a sweater and leather gloves and a long brown coat, scarf and skinny tight pants. There was another shorter guy behind him who I came to realise was actually with my friend and not just some other dude wanting some favours as the ones I had been gifted. His name was Tim for some reason. I gave my friend a hug and for some reason gave one to Tim as well. He was dressed in similar attire but had hair like a goth wig and bright red sneakers and his facial hair was a perfect goatee.

My friend told me that Tim and him had flown here together on some sort of strategy consultant oriented business or something, I wasn't really listening. These are the aspects of people I tend to not care about. For the most part, as a rule, the harder I stare into someone's eyes while they are talking the less I am actually hearing anything they say.

We talked in this way for a bit. I did find out that Tim was from here originally, that he used to be a visual artist in college, that my Friend was going to have a short story published in the online version of Vice Magazine. I told them that my girlfriend used to be a stripper and now she was working as an intern at a radio station while I payed the bills which was a lie, I didn't even have a girlfriend.

We talked about everything but myself and once the smiles and banter started to loose their fervency, it was Tim who said we should go to a bar. He kind of looked around and smiled. I thought that was a pretty good idea and laid out some suggestions. I suggested Millie's, which I used to go to because they had a deck where you could smoke and drink at the same time or Jacko's where there was always a good show or the Madre Bistro. There seemed, however, to be a mutual lack of enthusiasm between the two of them. There was also Von's, I kept suggesting, a sports bar with an ethnic vibe right around the corner, and Laguna's Brewery and Tim's Tom Ding Dong and Fray the Eclipse and Fang Chia and the Mac Store had a bar and Ballet Shoes for Pets and I just kept going and getting nothing but apathy and sullen glances of distain from the other end of the table.

"Hmmm, I just really want to go to a bar." He kept saying and I gave him a frustrated glance.

"Ok, well we could go to Fremont there's bars there..."

"Yeah but I bet we could find a bar right around here that would be good."

For godssake, I thought and kind of fell into the table, alright "do you guys have something in mind?"

Tim and my friend looked at each other and my friend said, "yeah I have an idea of where we should go."

We all got up and left that silly coffee shop and went to a bar.

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