Lists

List of everything I have stepped on today. Concrete slabs, cracks, gum, a cigarette butt, a pigeons feather, a slim jim wrapper, an empty pack of Chinese branded cigarettes, the sole of a shoe torn in half, a press on nail, a leaf, the roach of a blunt, a hair tie, the plastic casing of a six pack, a pamphlet for mayoral candidates, sand, bricks, grass, linoleum, trash bags, mud, my socks, wood, bath mat, gas and brake pedals, shoe scrub booties, a bar tab, a desk, a dream, a q-tip, an elevator, a barstool. 

Get drunk and talk to each other. You, with the drained beer on the table, facing the wooden booth where another person could be sitting. It acts as a barrier disguising a couple's conversation. Beer. Everyone looks at the person that just walked in. No one looks at the person who later walked out.

“Drinking with you guys is the best” he says to no one across the table. The camaraderie of conversations begins to grow around the booth. He talks louder to match the noise of the growing crowd, but nobody responds. A man holds the door open, gripping the cold gold handle loosely screwed on to an old wooden plank.

He thinks about crashing on the couch for 3 hours, waking up and moving to his bed, after a long day of being drunk and high. Smiles hide under hair lips. We are all doing the best we can, destined for a life we get to stumble along with. Pushing the door open closest to the hinges. “They won't let me leave!”

 Bartenders listen to desperate stories from an empty leather jacket, silver chain, reflective head. It's his first night in town and he plans on getting drunk and talking to anyone who will listen as to how he got to this great city. No one listens. A bottle slips out of the bartender's hands and falls to the ground.

“It was empty!” Everyone cheers in response. 

She approaches my booth after pacing back and forth across the wooden bar floor, between couples leaving to go home and men who just got here.

The ghost rolls up her sleeves and lengthens her arms, preparing her eyes for the lemons she will be squeezing into them for the entertainment of the dulling alcoholic.

“I could really use the money” she says, squeezing.

Men in collared shirts with expensive puffy vests take sips of wine.

“You're with her because you're supposed to be with her, man” he says drunkenly pale to his pal in the same outfit as him. I overheard earlier in their conversation that they met over money.

“Don't become an alcoholic!” he says, speaking from experience.

“You look nice!”

“Shit”.

The ghost pouring drinks flies away into the back to retrieve more lemons to lengthen arms, squeezing them in her eyes, now an ingredient of the requested cocktail.

I don't want to leave, I'm afraid to go home. There is no main character there driving the act.

“It can be a long, drunk life if you make it” old red nose Roland says. He dodges weighted thoughts in exchange for dandruff flakes and momentary fun, getting drunk and then hungover, going skydiving then packing the chute.

“When you see it from up there like that.. Nothing will make you fly more than a bar”. 

A man returns that left earlier.

“I'm a better version of myself all the time. It's all perfect, that's what I do”.

“Most of the men and women I know find shelter in abandoned buildings around the city. There are more than enough of them around, not hard to squat with a good group. New too. Towers built with nothing to do.”

None of it is worth it, he thinks, knowing he'll wake up at 4am slowly sobering up, dehydrated and sad. The vibration of mental tunes is fading away, giving way to another morning.

A short bus full of homeless people leave the city across a bridge, accompanied by blankets, 5 cent cans, and an addiction for somewhere else that is not familiar.

“I only get the happy hiccups when I'm drinking. Intake!” he yells jollily. 

“I just paid for 3 beers what I could have been drinking 12 beers for the same price at home”.

“Yeah, but you wouldn't have us to talk to”.

“Well, I imagine I could talk to myself with all the beer I’d buy”. A man repeatedly cracks an arthritic pinky finger.

“The beers go slower when there's nothin' to cheers about” he overhears from two bow-tied men at the HiLo.

“I feel like I've known” she hiccups “you forever”. We just met moments ago. “And I’ve heard it all, you know. Boo! You suck!” 

“I love it”.

We were never here together. Both too alone to relate. Look at dogs, sniff at assholes, and bark with those sharp chompers. They make the moment pure with expression. A bartender listening to the drinkers one sided conversation nods ghostly nods with rustic smiling lips revealing faded teeth, 3 missin' in a row. 

“I love you” he says as she listens.