"I’ve never been much of a social person," I told the bartender and his greasy brown hair fell from behind his ear as he nodded his false understanding. We’d been talking for twenty minutes, just long enough for me to feel like I’d spilled my most intimate secrets to a total stranger and for Cherry Pie to play three times on the juke box. I groaned at the infant brained women with too many quarters in their pockets as they stuffed more silver circles into the metal slot and squealed with delight as Warrant had another go.
“You’d know a lot about circles and slots, eh ladies?” I said, more loudly than I probably should have but only the aged man next to me caught the joke.
He looked like the rest of the men and women at the bar: used up. The regulars of Donny’s always had the same lines drawn on their faces, the same shadow that clung to their brow from a lifetime of grimacing at thier wives or just the world in general. The man who laughed looked like he had fallen ass first into a bottle of gin and smelled as though he drank it to the dregs. He jauntily clasped me on the shoulder, ruffling the suit he no doubt wore to work that day and said something to the effect of “awful cunts”, grinning at me with too white teeth. I didn't catch it all and didn't care to ask for a repeat, I just laughed because he laughed and turned back to the bar where two dollars in quarters were waiting for me.
There was a college boy ordering a pitcher for his friends at the booth in the corner and I tapped him on the shoulder. I leaned in close to try and be heard over the music and tried to seem as platonic as possible. The last thing I wanted was another conversation with a stranger.
"Do you mind putting something else on the juke?" I asked him and he said he'd do it gladly. I don't remember being that nice at his age.
At Donny's the juke box was also a game of sorts. If you paid a quarter you got to choose two songs to play from their considerable list, but if you paid a dollar you had the chance to override the song that was currently playing and supplement your own. I left it to the kid's discretion for what he played so long as it came from the last five years and had nothing to do with pie. He said he'd try and took my money to the box.
What ensued, I promise you, was not what I had envisioned.
3 comments:
I had some tense issues with this for some reason. I'm not sure what the hell happened but any bits of feedback would be nice.
I particularly appreciated the narrator's comment on the college boy's kindness. "I don't remember being that nice at his age." His sardonic demeanor is noticeable from this start, but this sealed it for me, for some reason.
I'm curious, though - the narrator begins (or, more accurately, finishes) by stating he isn't much of a social person. But he's been talking to the barkeep, he makes a joke at the hags, and even beseeches the aid of some lad who he wouldn't expect to be kind enough to follow through.
What made him change his mind?
Also, I expect the college boy Rick Rolled the entire place.
i only read through it once, but on first read it's good and the twist at the end made me want to read more however, it was a little dry, but i feel like that could be a good style to stick with.
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