If my recent breakup was in any way interesting, I would have sold tickets. So, as per usual, I decided to do as I usually do, which is to drink it off. I made my way to the local pub with a bag of books intent on doing some light research when the action fell into lulls, which it does from time to time. I ordered my usual fare of three pitchers of beer and cracked the seal on an evening committed to being here rather than indulge misery at home.
Bars and pubs are like sanctuaries to me, and I am damn protective of anybody who is there to either sink their misery in whiskey or there to have a good time. Anything that disrupts that—violent drunk, screeching harridans, fools who think to do hard drugs out in the open—gets my ire up, and then I'm on high alert. I cease to enjoy myself, but feel beholden to have the problem removed. While in such an alert mode, I can drink all I want but can't seem to get pickled. Tonight was one such night. They say the drunken writer is cliché, and perhaps it is, but sometimes it is just plain true. For a seasoned drinker, the romance of it disappears, and it becomes a need like breathing or occasionally cleaning the house.
Sitting a table up from me was a middle-aged couple. The thin-lipped wonder of a woman with no chin was named Irene. The husband in the awful sweater who looked like a bad breeding experiment between an unemployed gym teacher and a pork chop was named Frank or something. I don't usually pay such people any mind unless they start becoming unbearable.
They took the table ahead of mine because they were offended by some younger people sitting in a table behind me. Frank fixed his bug-eyes on them and proclaimed a bit louder than he should, "Fuck you!" But, since they both removed themselves to another table to seemingly avoid any physical problems, I figured the matter was at an end; the lingering tension would be forgotten after a few pints. Usually in these situations, the male will begin his narrative of how rotten someone else is, rude, all that noise. No, instead, he began raising his voice at his meek wife: "Irene, I don't care about your witchcraft bullshit, but stop using your psychic force on my soul! Irene, leave my soul pure!"
It was getting nasty. He was berating her for all to hear. Sitting at a table next to mine were four women who were probably doing some committee work. They, like most socially concerned people, got concerned. Two of them showed the unwise courage to ask Irene if she were all right. Frank, in typical domineering fashion, spoke on behalf of her possession, telling them not to invade their space. Irene then took a powder. Two other women followed and apparently cornered her there, with all the good intentions of offering their help if she could not handle this obvious abuse. When Irene returned, she openly complained to Frank that the women were pestering her, asking if she were all right. When the women returned, Frank had a few loud words for them, and Irene started calling them lesbians, and that the table was infested with a lesbian spirit. It was almost time for me to tip off the bartender, Robert, that something was awry. I signaled with my eyes to the waitress that a situation was developing, and not a good one. The women left, and the couple decided to take over the table of the lesbian spirit. Irene thought it a good idea to tell me, sir, that all the women in this place were fags. I just ignored her.
Frank and Irene were deep into their cups, that's for sure. Frank claimed to be a preacher, and was preaching enough fire and brimstone to almost play the part. He asked Irene to place all her burdens and pains upon his soul so that she could enjoy herself. Asking her to focus, he again asked for all her pains. He said he was going to use them to resolve some Oedipal problem with his mother that he said was filthy. He also stated he was going to kill "that damn Irishman." He seemed intent on doing some killing, good Christian that he was. "I like the Italians and the Ukrainians and the Portuguese, but the Irish are demons!" With his ethnic views loudly professed, I decided to go out for a smoke.
I know a lot of regulars at this pub, it being the place for a lot of us too damn tired of going downtown to drink with a bunch of young hoppers who have too much to prove. We come here for conversation and mainly to drink. I saw one such regular, Jack, who was a rather big army boy. I informed him of the situation inside and asked him to also keep an eye on it in case we'd have to do something about it. I told him about Frank's hatred of the Irish, to which Jack laughed with some menace, "Oh, really? Not a smart thing to say in here. My blood is green!" I agreed: not smart in the least.
The problem was that the regular bouncer, a mustached drill sergeant-looking creature who was smooth with the ladies and had his first or second dan in karate, was not due to arrive for another hour or so. I tipped off a few more strapping lads, and my hope was that we—as a brigade of strapping lads—could present a united front of intimidation so that the offense would back down and leave. One big lad would just provoke the flying of fists, but several would have the effect of exciting that little nub of reason in the brain that encourages compliance.
I sat back down just as Frank was still going on about lords, lesbians, and mothers. The band was now playing loudly, so I would gain some relief from their impassioned dogma-discourse. Frank had tried in his way to enlist some of the people sitting around him to his warped cause, but had only succeeded in alienating everyone around him. Bad move. I was the only person with a table near to them, but I wasn't going to budge. In fact, I wanted to remain invisible. The trick is not to make any eye contact, pretend the problem isn't there. Eye contact with psychos is an invitation. As the band played, Irene and Frank would take turns doing what they thought was dancing on the floor. Irene would make gestures as if she were being suffused with Christ in some Midwest preacher shanty, and then sit down. Frank would do something similar, but make the same arm-swinging gesture of playing a guitar, or perhaps as if he were bowling and not having much luck at it. He had that David Koresh property about him, but lacked charisma…All he had was one obedient lamb and perhaps the ugliest sweater ever designed by the minds of man. Why is it that these brainwashed cultists must have ugly sweaters? Is it a uniform?
While Irene was still on the floor, Frank returned to his seat and gestured at my full pitcher with his glass. It was an accidental meeting of eyes on my part. I had no idea if he wanted to sit with me to kvetch this bar with all its lesbians or if he wanted some of my beer (since the waitress seemed to take the hint that these two should be cut off). I just shook my head and buried my nose in a book. Irene returned and gave a hug of blessing to the young woman behind me that they had earlier denounced as a lesbian as well. The poor girl was like a deer in headlights.
Frank and Irene started talking about me. "No, Irene, he isn't open yet. He thinks he's open, but he's not ready. We have to wait." For what? Spiritual enlightenment by this pair would kill all my hope and energy.
Well, they finally were getting ready to go. This story ends in one of three ways, one of which happened while the rest stay in possibility.
Scenario one: Frank and Irene invade my table and start their spirit-drivel. I say little and put on a quasi-Russian affectation, telling them to leave now in a very calm but menacing voice. Frank gets testy and imprecates. I look him in the eye with no emotion and say, with Russian accent, that unless he wants to end up in the trunk of a car about to be pushed into the river that he better leave immediately. Of course, the delivery is the key, that kind of powerful emphasis and conviction that relays to the other that you are serious and have indeed no qualms about doing this act, and that you might have done it a few times before.
Scenario two: Frank argues with me about how sinful and demonic I am. I tell him calmly that this is my temple and that I am far older than he is. I don't make any direct references, but I very clandestinely suggest something on the order that I'm either an eldritch demon or the very devil himself, just doing my thing at an obscure pub in an obscure town. The rationale is that you can't use the same stock of reason with lunatic religious zealots since they are well trained to counter reasonable discussion with lunacy. So, why not speak in the language of the lunatic? Frank becomes aghast and leaves, openly making declarations that good will triumph over evil one day. Right.
Scenario three: Frank and Irene are so soused that they have to stumble out. Irene makes one last fumbling attempt to get me to "open up," approaching me with her hug-blessing. I reply, "Touch me and burn. Do you not see the mark upon my forehead?" This is followed by a kind of demonic laughter that I had cultivated long ago from watching enough movies with great villains. She recoils, leaves the bar, and takes shelter with her controlling husband as they begin their long weaving walk through the early winter morn.
Sadly, the night was near over and I was not sufficiently drunk enough to forget the monotonous pain and misery of the breakup. The fourth pitcher of beer was not taking, and it was beyond last call. I woke up the next day feeling strangely refreshed. The sun was shining, I had some good emails, the coffee tasted better than usual, and the pain of the breakup had diminished a great deal after a long and vivid bout of dreaming. If there is unfinished business in the emotional wrangles, as there always is, you'll find me tonight at the bar yet again.
Kane X. Faucher is a doctoral candidate at the University of Western Ontario's Centre for the Study of Theory & Criticism in London, Canada. He has published in several academic and literary journals both online and in print. He also has published three novels, Urdoxa (2004), Codex Obscura (2005), and Fort & Da (2006). His web page is at http://www.geocities.com/codex1977.
Comments (closed)
Trevor McMillan
2010-01-29 05:56:55
This guy's hilarious! It's like reading a calmer Bukowski. Where can I get more? This is a surprise find since I was googling "ugly sweaters".
JPenton
2010-01-29 22:16:26
Kane's new, non-shitty web site at http://kanexfaucher.weebly.com/ has a good bibliography; many of his credits are on-line.