Notes From a Dive Bar XXXXIV - Nature Calls

A puddle forms on a bar stool. No hole in the roof, so it can't be rain. California is in a drought. It's not liquor or beer, neither soda nor tears. No chemical spill has been reported.
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The laws of space, the workings of nature.

A puddle forms on a bar stool. No hole in the roof, so it can't be rain. California is in a drought. It's not liquor or beer, neither soda nor tears. No chemical spill has been reported.

I'm coming out..., says Kenny. Coming out against gravity. I will resist it with every atom in my body, he says, after dropping his beer on the floor. It gets you down. Last night, he got up on an open mike stage for stand up comedians. But Kenny is not a stand up guy at all. He tries to escape the pull of having to pay for his drinks, pretending to forget, walking away from the bar.

I work in the space program, says some bland guy, although he may just be a nut in a fantasy vacuum. Every week, he comes down to the dive's lower atmosphere to get seriously laced before heading to a nearby massage parlor for the application of forces to his penis. His load lighter, he flies back to his minor suburban life, avoiding the police scouring the cosmos for drunk drivers.

Suddenly, a solar system of drinkers orbits the bar. Out of nowhere. All at once. Bombarding me with requests. I'm scarred with craters. A desolate bartending moon. Under the surface, an acidic ocean where my monsters swim. I've been waiting to get served for five minutes, says an angry man with a big red spot on the surface of his face. And he'll wait longer until others are served and set on paths of drunken stupor. Your turn now, Jupiter! I say, monstrously rude, but he doesn't get the connection to the Jovian spot.

The puddle on the barstool, a cosmic mystery solved. George's two moons were last upon it. I see him leave. The Sea of Piss flooded across his pants. It's not the first time that nature calls upon him to just pee his underwear sitting on a bar stool. I feel weighed down cleaning up his flood. Kenny is right, the forces of the universe do get you down.

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