City Enspelled part 1

-         Say, you want to see something cool?

The correct answer to that is always no. Especially if it comes from a drunken than you dude whom you met a bar at the side of the town that you don’t frequent.

-         Dude, sure.

In my defense I have to say that I thought he meant a strip club.

We paid and got in to a taxi, he gave directions and off we were.

The scenery changed and not for the best as we left downtown. I was still sure on my strip club theory.

Have you ever noticed that after something strange, different or bad happens and you look back on it you always notice then that you had a strange feeling that day, all day, long before that anomaly occur.

Looking back now, I definitely had a feeling that day. A knot at my stomach. A cold sweat regardless of the temperature. It was all and all a bad day to begin with.

So I decided to do something about it.

I called some friends to meet at our regular place, a pub fifteen minutes from my apartment, at 09:20 p.m..

They all said yes and five minutes before our meeting (09:15 p.m. for those of you that are bad at math) they called to cancel, all of them.

Jerks.

By the time their calls came in I had already half hour at the place, that translates to roughly one liter of beer. It wasn’t my best day.

So I get the message and I get pissed. How could they cancel at the last minute? Screw these guys, I can have fun by my self. So I leave the place and decide to do something extreme. To go downtown at a BAR and drink… something other than beer, a cocktail or whisky, or maybe I would event try Vodka. Who knew? I might even meet a girl there?

It so nice to be drunk and full of hope.

So a got in to a taxi, told him to go at a bar downtown thinking that he would know a cool one. And by God I wasn’t disappointed.

The building on the outside wasn’t anything worth mentioning, only a board that wrote, “Danys Corner”, only a bottle next to it gave you a clue of what corner it was, no that was wrong, it was also the door.

It’s funny how some things stick to your mind no mater what. They are usually things you don’t notice at first, a word, a gesture, an item. When you see them or hear them they don’t look important but they stick back at the corners of your mind that you can’t reach and clean.

Yes it was a shitty day, one of the many of a month, but I bet my kidney that no mater where I would go, no mater what I had done if I had not passed that door things would go as they did.

It was a heavy looking door, metal and wood in a unique combination, if you were searching for a place to drink you would notice the door or else you would walk right past.

I paid the cab and went in, anxious for an adventure.

It was a great place, like it came out from a movie.

Mostly empty except some loners (male and female ones), some of them as I discovered later had elevate the keep-your-eyes-to-the-drink-while-still-watch-everything technique into an art form.

A smell of stale liquor hit my nose as I entered, mixed with the tobacco and a faint aroma of roses.

The floor was a wooden, not the shiny new wood, it was old and used a lot, it had gone all the way to dirty and back more times than anyone could count.

All of the patrons lifted their eyes as I entered and looked at my as if I had just entered their bath naked and with an erection.

The only ones excluded from this team activity were the barman and a guy on stage that was trying to play a song about a guitar and how she weeps.

I did my best to ignore them. I walked to the bar and sat.

-         What can I bring you?

-         Oh. Well. Em. Truth is I don’t really know, what do you suggest?

-         First time huh? Well have you been drinking before you came?

-         Yes, some beer.

-         So I should better start you with a Tequila Sunrise.

-         Sounds good.

-         You have no ideas what it is, do you?

-         No, not the faintest.

A sight came from the barman.

- When, oh God will my talent be recognized?

Someone was in the mood to answer.

- When you stop the whining and start making some drinks that’s when.

That came from a newcomer that was taking a seat at the bar next to me as he said that.

-         Well fuck you James, drink your Vodka and keep it shut.

-         I love you to big man.

James A. Wilson.

Or as I soon found out a trouble firmly attached to a pair of legs.

He worked at a company that as I understood was not far from the bar, he was a photocopy/go-fets-my/throw-the-thrush man. He made a habit of coming to the bar to catch a drink before going home, after a while he change it to a hobby, as some people collect coins he was collecting cocktails, trying a different cocktail each day that was his thing. That was also started five years ago and nothing had changed since. 5' 10 with a weak physic, and a face as that looked as if he was always in the process of sobering up.

Its almost funny how someone that is always uptight can relax over a drink with some small talk. I am not really social so talking about my ex girlfriends with a guy I just met was a first.

At some point when we got somewhat loud about relationships a couple of ladies came to offer their opinion.

Three hours and seven cocktails later, the ladies had to leave (their phone numbers managed to stay though) and  that’s when the big question came.

-         Say, you want to see somethink cool?

And the answer.

-         Dude, sure.

The first stop was at a fast food store, they served meat that’s for sure but I cant really say what animal it was. We ate something that had meat with a lot of bread. We got it down in our throats wit plenty of water and I was starting at this point to become more alert again, still drunk but more aware of it than before.

It started to rain. A light rain that felt for some reason appropriate.

We called a cab and of we were again.

The possibility of strip club was diminished in my mind but I wanted to see were we would end up.

Some thinks about the Great and Glorious me.

My name is Eugenios Dante (yeah my parents hated me).

I am a healthy, twenty eight years old, white man with brown hair and a face that some ladies find handsome, 5' 05 and going to the gym at least three times the week (a lot of free time), you don’t call me beefed up and neither wimpy. I am by nature a person of routine, same coffee every day, same workout, same amount of work (I can’t really manage that but I try), same pub all the years and a stable schedule. But there are some times, hours usually or minutes that I crave for something new and exciting. It was at this night right after the last mouthful of meat that the craving for adventure came to me.

Not one of my brightest moments.

I went with James not knowing what I would see or what would happen, the strip club had left my mind along with most of the fog of the alcohol.

To recap.

At 02:30 a.m. I enter for the second time in the last hours in a cab with James A. Wilson for another unknown destination while be…. not completely drank.

            We got out from the cab at an old apartment building, in a shady neighborhood. The stench from garbage and urine hit me like a hammer, it took a considerable effort from my part not to puke. We went to the door (an old thing that once was pretty, with holes covered by duck tape were glass once was) and tried to open it. It was locked.

-         Hey man sorry to be a piss but were we going?

-         I told you some place cool. He said while he punched the tape which of course gave in allowing him to put his arm in and open the door form the inside.

We went up the stairs and I was starting to freaking out, my mind was at work furiously trying to figure what was it about to see. The most possible answer that was coming to my mind had to do with drugs and I didn’t like drugs, not one bit.

 When James finally stop in front of a door and knocked I had half a mind on start running down the stairs, what kept me was part my spirit of adventure, part headache, part a need to piss and part the realization that a one legged man hoping would go faster than me.

It took a while for a muffled answer to come from the door and a while longer for some one to open the door.