100418 Everything is perfect. The sun is out. Like as in, the sun came out. It overcame its internalized homophobia—it took a while, but you know, people (and ginormous luminescent balls of exploding gas) really can change, if ya give em a chance. Ain’t that right, Chauncey? Chauncey just grunts because he hates being used as a prop. Chauncey is a flat, static character in my story. He is the bartender, of course, and he stands there with his belly sticking out and bar towel (you’re never supposed to call them *rags*) in his hand. He chews a toothpick. He is superficial. He probably has some kind of deep inner life; who knows; who cares. When he approaches the bar (from behind it, of course, where was washing something or futzing with something), his belly touches it first. You’d hate to be a mouse, caught between that belly and the bar. The pressure would just increase, and increase, and keep increasing, until your eyes got too big for your eye caves, and you’d start to lament the association of the possessive pronouns with any part of “your” body—if something is being crushed, if something is being popped like a plump grape, can it really be considered “yours” anymore? Isn’t it cruel, when someone is for example smashing your foot beneath a piece of heavy machinery, to think of that wretched hanging rag of flesh as “yours”? It’s broken. It’s horrific. It’s worse than useless. It is an emblem of pain, futility, cruelty, destruction, and the ultimate cruel absurdity of life. And it’s “yours.” Congratulations. Enjoy dragging “yourself” across several blocks of hard cold sidewalk on the way to the hospital. Hope you make it. Hope you don’t die and end “your” life. Such as it is. Your life is a slum. Your body is a hovel. You cling to it as a homeless man clings to a sack of what a normal, safe person would consider trash, and would hurl as far from them as possible, hoping that no one saw, that the stink doesn’t remain. There but for the grace of God go I. Whispers a little unconscious prayer, does a quick subroutine in the neocortex to dishwash away any traces of guilt. Moves on. Meanwhile the homeless man has “his” tuberculosis; “his” one shoe; “his” anonymity. He’s somehow more noble than you are, and that’s the price you pay. Oh, OK, sure, you say, I guess I’m reluctantly willing to accept that bargain: In exchange for not having what *he* has, I have to give up being enlightened, different, a saint. Ummm.... let me think about it for a while. Yes. OK. I accept. And so the rightful balance of the society is maintained. Everyone has paid what they owe and gets what they deserve. You have yours. I have mine. So that’s Chauncey for ya. Anyway, forget him, like I said, he’s just behind the bar to make the scenery more real for ME and MY friends; we’re the real characters here. Because we. What do we do, exactly? Well, for starters, we come to this bar and we drink. Usually on weekend nights, but sometimes on a Wednesday if it’s nice out and everyone’s feeling kind of frisky. You know, like one of those late autumn days when it suddenly blows up hot, and the plastic bags billow around like lazy ghosts, and the first few waves of invading leaves have descended from their tenuous heights to try their luck, hit the streets, skitter and skirl around our feet as we walk to the bar, feeling on TOP OF THE WORLD. Hey, ho, what’s up, what’s up my nigga, how’s it hangin, I wish I hadn’t said that “my nigga” thing but I’ve been smoking a lot lately and I’m kind of in some chronic toxicity--but my friends just laugh it off. We’re white, is all, so I was like, I didn’t mean to--but it’s OK, my friends are so cool. They worry about me way less than I do. I mean, not about me, but about stuff like that. Like, I’m so hard on myself, and they’re all like, hey man, it’s whatever, it’s chill, let’s go get a beer. And so we go around the corner and it’s wicked hot for October, and when the big oaken door swings open, some stowaway leaves ride the vortex in in front of us and Chauncey kind of frowns but he’s always frowing. It’s his natural face. It’s a happy frown. Right? I mean, shit, he’s got business on a Thursday night for fucks sake. My friends and I sometimes do, I don’t mind telling you, spend quite a bit of cash in a bar or two. This is usually the one we go to first. When there’s still light outside. Before the sun “goes down” and things get weird. Before Lumpy get all drunk and before Sabrina starts hatin on everyone. Before the breakups. Before the fights. Before the altercations over who can drive and who shouldn’t be allowed to. Before the maudlin. Before the lights over the pool table turn the color of a deep, deep swimming pool, upside down, underground, lit by stars, lit by the stars in your eyes, what’s up Chauncey? Chauncey’s the pool boy now. He stands there in his baggy trunks, with a brush on a long pole, cleaning the pool. The pool that has the water that we all look through, trying to see each other clearly thru the blue mist, the green fog, the uncertainty, the doubt, what’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine, this one’s on me. Drink it up, men, it’s long after ten.