A Night I'm Not Sure I Want to Remember (Nonfiction)(...mostly)

Names have been changed, but if you were there, you'll know who's who, so, WARNING, cuz I will deny that it's you if you try to sue me or generally ask me for money.

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Service industry Arby walked into a bar. He was wearing a black windbreaker that used to be trendy and still kind of looked like it. His little sister had told him it fit him well when he bought it a long time ago. It was a good-investment jacket. The collar was perpetually popped. The same hand protruding from the same jacket sleeve pushed through the same door to the same bar as it had countless others. Countless other bars and nights with varying levels of alcohol-induced double vision. This bar was one of his secret favorites. The bar was a pub called The Boar and Bird.

He sat. Called a drink. Chloe was behind the bar, she looked apathetic, so apathetic that you wondered what it would take to make her excited; the lottery might get a smile. She was pretty and didn't seem to know it.

Some people around the bar talked to Arby. Some were old, some were weird, and he he went to the juke box after a few drinks. Probably two drinks. Maybe more drinks. Not more than four drinks. He played a pop black-metal kind of band, some song he had trouble finding on the internet juke box. He found it. It was OK. Some guy his age reclined, drunk, in his chair and closed his eyes and sang with his head thrown back over where there could have been a head-rest. The guy got up. Arby was still at the juke box trying to fulfill himself.

"Great song! That was, so, great, man!"

Arby said OK. The guy was a little disheartened. It wasn't Arby's finest moment. Arby asked for darts from the bar. He got them and threw them. He liked to play cricket by himself.

(This is a darts story. And then it's not.)

Arby liked to close out 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, and bull, in that order. He liked to hit the doubles and triples, too, a certain number of times. He had a quota. It was time consuming but darts are really just all muscle memory and confidence.

Jeremy walked up. Arby didn't know Jeremy. Jeremy and Arby began playing.

"Let's go 301." Jeremy proclaimed.

Arby didn't know how to play but he knew what it was. 301 was hard. Jeremy said he used to play pro. Arby said OK. Jeremy was better but Arby did better than he expected. Enough to impress Jeremy. Jeremy was large around the middle and his head was physically large with short spikey hair all around it. He had on a shirt and shorts and tennis shoes. He smiled or laughed and he really showed his gums when he did, and didn't look at anything in particular when he did. Jeremy liked to talk. Arby listened, mostly. Jeremy won by a hair. They had gotten along.

Arby went to work the next day, worked a double shift, took off his tie and his button down shirt. He was in his black t-shirt and his black pants and shoes and his black windbreaker with the collar. His hand pushed through the wooden doors. The crowd might as well have been the same one.

Drink.

Juke box.

"Can I get some darts?"

Chloe handed him darts and she didn't take his I.D. as collateral. She knew too much about him as it was. He threw them. It was his routine. Drink, throw, whoever came around, maybe they'd play or chat or both. No one came around. Boredom happened. Arby knew what that led to. More money and trouble followed like an atomic implosion bomb of God-knows-what. Arby walked back up to the bar.

"Hey I got an idea."

Chloe looked at him.

"Play me at darts. If you win. (he had no more than four drinks at this point) I tip you whatever my bar tab is. If I win, I don't have a bar tab.

"No."

Arby stood there. Chloe thought about something.

"Craig'll do it. CRAIG!"

Craig had retained his High School good looks. High school, almost-shoulder-length, hair. Large and in shape. Reasonably tan. Good looking and related to the pub's owner. Arby repeated his idea.

"Yeah, I'll do it." Craig had to check something and then he moved out from behind the bar.

They walked up to the dart board area of the pub. Arby was holding the darts. Craig was calm looking. Arby stepped up to the line with three darts.

"Diddle for the middle?"

Craig nodded.

First shot, double bull. (That's the center red part). Arby didn't expect for that to happen.

Craig swallowed hard and his eyes grew a little. Arby saw. Craig threw his. It wasn't anything.

They played cricket no points and there's not a lot of point in going into the step by step. Arby played the best game of cricket he ever had. Craig probably played a little less than his best. Arby destroyed Craig. Arby tried to make some conversation to eshew discomfort. It wasn't helpful. Craig was gracious. The game ended and there was no tab for Arby.

Arby ordered more drinks. He ordered cheap drinks. The tab was fifteen dollars and he tipped that much. It was fun. The bar was closing and there were quite a few people in the smoking area. Craig and Chloe were letting everyone take their time. Arby was walking back and forth like he had won the lottery and smiling a lot. He didn't win at things a lot.

There were two girls sitting in metal chairs smoking and not paying attention to anything but each other. One said something to Arby. She had said "Hi."

Arby realized that she was extremely good looking. She had light skin and long black hair that was a little curly. She had on tight black clothing all over that hugged her figure. Her friend was cute with straight brown hair. Her friend was a little larger and timid and stone faced. The one with curly hair probably had blue eyes but it was hard to tell in Arby's current state. He sat down.

She smiled at him. He told her the entire story of what just happened. She said that it was cool. She seemed intrigued with him. Arby felt wise when he had told himself that every girl loves a winner.

"Yeah, tolly won. Never played a game like that. Craig's a good guy. Always liked him. Good game though. Feel kinda bad but, cool that it happened, ya know."

She puffed at her cigarette, smiled. She looked at her girlfriend. The stone-faced one looked back. "Where you from?"

"Here, mostly, yeah, I could say I'm from whereever I'm from. But, mostly here. I was raised here, so I might as well just say I'm from here. You?"

She touched her chest with her cigarette between her fingers. "I'm--"

"Where are you from? Here?"

"Yeah." She smiled. Nodded. She was fun.

He decided to put on his smart face, cocked an eye-brow high, and looked drunker. "You, sometimes I'm right about these things, you look like you're industry. I think you--"

She looked at her friend, smiled, and then back. "I work at DeAngelo's, she does too." She thumb-pointed at Stone-face. Stone-face waved.

"No shit! I know somewhere who works--I know someone who works there. You know Kady?"

They said no. "Hey, they're about to close, here."

"Yeah, I gotta go home." Arby was closing down into some form of responsible behavior. He had won. He had had a good night. He could come back and the bartenders would be cool about it. He got to talk to a gorgeous girl and feel like a winner. He was ready to go home and not feel so bad.

"Well we want to stay up." She leaned in to him. The inside of her leg touched his. His mouth was making a small 'O' and he saw her face more. It was a really good face. "Want to go to the strip club with us?"

Arby followed her black forerunner. They pulled into a parking lot of a strip-center(not strip club yet). Stone-face was in Arby's passenger seat. He doesn't remember how or why it worked out that way.

"She's gotta go in and do something."

The gorgeous one named Diana got out her black forerunner and went into a massage parlor around 2:30 am. Arby and Stone-face didn't say anything. Diana rushed back out and got into her car. They went maybe two blocks down the road, and there was a strip club that Arby had never seen before.

They all went in. There was no cover and no door man. The place had a rounded dome top. It was kind of Greek looking on the outside but with the tar smudges and scars of a junkie resort.

It was surprisingly well-populated and nice inside. Lots of bright flourescent blue and pink and purple instead of just whore-house red and dark. More like an actual club with a stage and a bunch of black girls on the little stage and one white one not wearing anything standing up.

Diana was taking Arby by the hand. Arby had been to a lot of strip clubs. He hadn't seen this one. Diana looked at him. Her smile was very sweet.

"Have you ever been in a place like this before?"

He shook his head to signal that he hadn't.

"Well, if you like a girl up there, you should go and tip her.

Arby looked at the bar. He went there. He and Diana and Stone-face did a shot. They cheered. Diana started to say something and Arby walked away up to the stage and pulled out two dollars and threw it in the air.

He walked back and Diana and Stone-face were talking and looking at him. Whispering and eyes moving into their conversation and back at him. He walked back over to them. They squared off to him. "We want to double team you. It's 1600 dollars."

He looked at Stone-face. She looked willing but not eager. He looked over at Diana. She said, "We can just take 400 tonight."

Arby said, no, but it was hard to tell because he turned away as he said it and didn't say it loud.

Diana and Stone-face recommensed talking. Arby stared at the stage. Things always happened like this. He stood there. He was back in a strip club, drinking a drink full of whiskey and soda after hours and he didn't know how he had gotten it. Stone-face reappeared. She looked vulnerable.

"She's gone home, she said you would give me a ride home."

Arby was ready to go. "Where do you live?"

"Right around here."

They got in the car. Stone-face was back in the passenger seat. Arby was thinking about things like virginity and prostitution. Stone-face told him to turn here and there. He did. Something ran across the road right before an intersection traffic light. Arby slowed down. Stone-face started making noises.

"Oh, oh really, fucking really? really?"

Arby slowed to a stop, he looked at her. He didn't know what was going on.

"Really!?"

Arby looked at her, wondering if he was being robbed.

"You're going to make me get out? I'm right down the street, it's right there."

And he didn't know why he did it. "Yes."

"You're ditching me here?"

"Yes."

"Fine." She got out real fast.

He doesn't remember her walking off or what direction she went in. She was out and he started driving home. He felt bad until there was a hyena in his lungs. He laughed, throaty breathy laughs and then he really laughed and looked at himself in the rear view mirror. Whatever had just happened, he was laughing, hard.

Later that night, before he made it home, he went back to the strip club because he remembered something that Stone-face had said about going back to pick up Diana. He asked about both of them and the bouncers didn't like him. He tipped the bartenders more after not ordering anything. He went home.