Alleys

The other night I roamed the bar alley most popular for this city. There were remnants of Halloween still in play, and little drunkenness at least, though perhaps my arrival was too early.

I don’t drink alcohol for a variety of reasons, but most prominently because I don’t like the idea of damaging my liver. When I used to drink, I think I was generally a happy drunk, and I think I know what it means to light up a party. Now instead I donned the spectre role as I shuffled from outside door to door.

In that thin moment where I could hear the conversation and the sardines packed I didn’t feel any longing to join them. Of course I’ve written about this before, but I find most drugs depressing. Nevertheless it’s hard to not romanticize the idea that, for this night, you could be honest through the guise of alcohol. Or marijuana. The screams of laughter seem most inviting to finally confess you were thinking about moving away from all of this, permanently.

How they all huddled, whether in silence or anticipation of the next story. Seeing the widest eyes flash at me clicked my mind and brought a thousand prior nights within. More big eyes to stare, smiles to boot, roaring suggestions we need to stop by McDonalds before the next rendezvous. That’s the nice thing about alcohol; even if you’re lying all the time such flushed cheeks suggest to others you’re ready for everything.

For a moment I felt desperate to barge into one of them and plea they shouldn’t do this. There’s so much more they could have, whatever work they think they’ll put in. Not into shareholders, but something more meaningful and personal to them. But I brushed it aside, fully knowing that maybe it’s supposed to be that way: glimmers of incandescent love between the arctics of living. The same as the desert mirage, but a tundra between, and though it could appear as tropical paradise, the drinks come with a venom most debilitating: amnesiac seasons until the frost hardens.

The alley ended. At that was left was some scattered fans, some lively canteens. For a moment I imagined myself as the mobster who ran the place, completely immune to the highs of this supply. A pie cut into the fooderies, the bars in tune, and while I get my 35% for protection I see the rest of them fall into the slumber of commerce that seems self-evident. Opening my vault to count, I wait for the day it reaches the magic number. The number where I expand my operations, and enslave the rest of them, most inspired by my banker rulers.