Robert Boyczuk - Barhopping or A Romantic Comedy in Nine Parts.pdf - Robert Boyczuk - allforjesus2001

Bar Hopping

A Romantic Comedy in Nine Parts

Robert Boyczuk

I. THE OPENING OF OUR STORY IN WHICH WE

FIND OURSELVES IN THE MIDST OF A CONVIVIAL

COMPANY, BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH OUR HERO,

AND ARE WITNESS TO HIS BUDDING DESIRE.

I watch her watching Stan.

The drafts are beginning to work their crawling magic, and Stan,

who's a big Polish guy, laughs deeply, his gut shaking ho ho ho, now talking

too fast while we listen too slow. Stan who started all this anyway, telling

tales of the bars to come, pulling the map he has drawn and photocopied

from the pocket of his huge, faded coveralls, smoothing it on the table, its

corner drinking in a small pool of beer. Eyes up and down watching him,

not just hers, nearly everyone's. Only a few familiar faces, looking mostly

new to this, listening. Scuzzy, he says in the voice too loud, You ain't seen

nothing yet! He tosses back another draft and bangs the empty glass down on

the table, his seventh, and suddenly a tumbling jumble of everyone all at once

talking, telling their own bad bar stories: this is too tame, too pathetic, a

wimpy whiny pale imitation of a bar, a stop unworthy of our pub crawl, Stan

the affable host having done it again, everyone laughing and drinking now,

still uncertainly, not quite at ease yet, no that will happen two or three bars

from now, but talking anyway, the button down office suits and starched

skirts beginning to melt away, the fluorescent corridors fading in dim smoky

light, the knots coming undone beneath the sagging stained ceiling tiles, all

of us working towards that moment of incoherent perfection.

She sits quietly, pulling lightly at her beer, listening while the

stories wash around her like an ocean lapping at her ankles, one after

another, tugging for an instant, before receding. She remains aloof, apart,

her gaze distant and insoluble, her eyes shining as if she sees something past

what is here. I do not know her, have never seen her before. But that is not

so unusual. Not so unlikely, so improbable. It is a large office, and I am a

small person, she is far down the table, and it is still too early to tell.

II. IN WHICH OUR HERO VISITS YET ANOTHER

PUBLIC HOUSE AND CONDUCTS A PRIVATE

CONVERSATION WITH HIS CLOSE FRIEND

REGARDING THE DISPOSITION OF A CERTAIN

YOUNG LADY'S AFFECTIONS.

Side by side we stand, Stan pissing forever, a steady golden stream

that tells the tale of five bars of two beers each, a thrumming porcelain sound

that never ends.

Who? he says.

In the jeans and suede jacket, I say. Lumberjack shirt that looks like

it was taken out of the plastic bag this morning.

Michelle?

Yeah, I shrug. I guess so. Brown eyes, black hair.

Yeah, he says. Michelle. I think she works in marketing. Pretty

sure anyway. He belches. She's cute.

Cute? I think, listening to the dull splattering of his urine and hard,

miserly word cute, thinking, No, it is too small a term for her, all wrong, not

generous enough. Michelle: loose-stranded hair piled atop a face round and

fine featured; a short scattering of lines that radiate from the folded corners

of eyes like pensive thoughts; skin that's warm, almost glowing, almost

orange in these poorly lit interiors, a darker flush creeping high across high

cheeks keeping pace with her beer; the smooth perfection of her throat as she

bends head back to laughter, a softness I imagine brushing beneath my cheek,

my lips, my tongue. Michelle.

Yeah, I say. She seeing anyone?

Don't think so. At least she didn't come with anyone, he says, and

smile sighs. If I weren't married ....

!! I say.

He laughs. Don't worry.

But then my stream falters, dries up, his still thundering away, now

reading on the wall an unsteady scrawl: 'Drunkenness shows the mind of a

man, as a mirror reflects his person. Aeschines.' I clear my throat. Sure is

cute, I say just to have something in my mouth, though it sounds stupid even

to me, and walk, with the exaggerated care of too many beers, out the

creaking plywood door.

III. A BRIEF INTERLUDE DURING WHICH OUR

HERO REFLECTS ON THE NATURE OF TRUTH AND

GOODNESS.

I love them: the Edgewater, the Drake, the Black Bull, the Duke of

Cannaught, the Claremont, even the lowly Rex. Love them because they

admit no lies, are too tired for the untruths of life, too dark for

misunderstanding, too smoke filled for the mistaken belief of clear thought.

Those who live here know what I mean: empty brief faces staring incuriously

at the apparition we are before them, then sliding back into a beery

contemplation of a line of endlessly rising bubbles. We do not belong, yet

there is no resentment in their glances, only dull glassy-eyed resignation, as

if they listen to a jackhammer thump thump thumping miles away. No, no

lies here, no pretend smiles, only heavy brown panelling and a wall-eyed

patron nodding off, waiters poised with another two drafts, trays filled with

the cracked glass truth of beer.

And she is far too beautiful.

Michelle, I think thinking of her. Beautiful Michelle.

IV. WHEREIN OUR HERO BELIEVES HE MAKES HIS

INTENTIONS REGARDING THE YOUNG LADY KNOWN

TO HER THOUGH THEY ARE SCARCE VISIBLE TO

THE NAKED EYE.

Piling into the next bar, scramble for seats, dragging of tables

together to form a long snake of dissipation. New bar, though it hardly

matters, same waiters, same middle-aged men wrapped in white shirt and

black pants, change belts slung wide and low beneath broad belly rolls of

flesh, lugging endless trays of watery draft. Same cosy wafting stale

warmness on this cool summer night, sign overhead, NO DRUG SELLING,

and smudged glasses, a little chip in the lip of this one, just like the last bar.

Sinking gratefully, at last, into hard wooden seat across and down from her.

Playing it cool, talking to those I know, corner eyeing her, watching, always

watching, hoping my desperation does not light up my eyes like a display

window.

A toast! Stan shouts into the rhubarb of conversation, I loving him

for it, that glorious son of a bitch, loving these times and bars like he does,

their warm smoky uncaringness. To the regulars and the novices, he cries, of

the Fourth Annual Queen Street Pubs Crawl!

Arms extend, glasses rise like chalices, clinks and sloshed beer fill

the air, Stan the first to follow his own toast. And in the rush I catch her eye,

and she half-smiles back, a reach and flat click of contact, even through this

insulating distance, a jolt of electricity leaps across glass, bounds down my

arm and smashes into my chest, heart catching like the grinding of gears,

stutters as if to stop, coughs and returns to life, beating with a new rhythm of

blood and need, when she half-smiles back.

Here's to those who wish us well,

and those who don't can go to hell,

for we are the men who've turned to vice,

gone-or-rheaa and syph-ill-ice,

we've had them all by Jesus Christ!

Gentlemen, the Queen!

Stan's words are a chorus in the background, oh wonderful well-

worn words, heard a hundred times before. We are the self-same in this,

Stan and I, we loving these tumbledown places with their warm beer glow,

their silent quick waiters appearing to fill your emptiness without a sound,

without a question, these beer-fueled, thought-stopping moments when

anything, anything, seems possible.

V. A RESPITE IN THIS BRANNIGAN DURING

WHICH A MOST FORTUNATE ENCOUNTER OCCURS.

A tug at my arm.

Come on, Stan hisses, walking at the back of the pack, me shuffling

like a lonely slave down to the next bar, trapped by friends and fear and

distance from her, without the courage of adequate beer. Come on, he says

again, dragging me off between lightless buildings, and out of her sight.

In the alley a spliff appears unannounced, cradled in fingers held

low, the slow curl of its smoke drifting between our huddled bodies, a single

tiny serpent's eye red glowing in the night. Away from her I feel like a

drowning man who's just lost sight of land.

What? Stan says. What'd you say?

Nothing. Nothing.

Here, joint passed to me, and I drink it greedily, knowing I need its

not-caring balance, thinking the next bar, yeah, I'll make my move then,

pulling it as deep as it will go, letting it drive away my uncertainty and

excuses, surrendering to its promise of things that will come, waiting for the

first tightening of my scalp and shiver crawl along the flesh of my arms.

Tap on my shoulder, and suddenly I'm awake, still clutching the

spliff between my fingers as I'm drifting off, and I hold it out, eyes still

closed, saying Sorry.

Then, startling me, a soft brushing of finger tips whisper along the

back of my hand like a light dusting of snow, from behind, not Stan, slipping

the stick free, a delicate touch, not Stan's.

Open eyed, I stare at her. The line of her jaw, her cheek, are

flawless brush strokes in this smoked stunned air as she leans into our three,

calf and thigh pressed solid against mine, me not daring a move, impaled,

backs like puzzle pieces locked against the world. Breast softly rising against

my arm as she inhales deeply, eyes narrowed, pursing full lips I ache to

touch. And she holds it. Impossibly long without movement, a statue of

perfection knit of shadows. I hold my breath too, waiting, waiting. Exhaling

at last, a dam bursts somewhere, all at once blood rushing through my head,

my ears and beyond, me giddy and faltering in the cradle of darkness. She

rubs against me like a cat, and I hardly notice the sigh (hers or mine?)

venturing a small pressure, and she smiles, firm and not moving, like a

promise, a pledge, a vow. She is a drug more potent than any I have known,

and I inhale her through my eyes as she takes another toke, drawing in the

dreamy darkness of the alley, the tendrils of her rushing into my lungs, my

blood, my brain.

She passes the joint to Stan with a sudden, unexpected laugh that

makes my heart lurch like a Mexican bus; she turns and her lips graze my

cheek, a caress, the beat of a hummingbird's wings, and she is gone, a hole in

the night.

Pressed in my open palm a folded piece of paper.

The joint has burned to the quick, and Stan fumbles in his pockets,

finding the clip, attaching it and raising the roach to his lips, now drawing

Robert Boyczuk - Barhopping or A Romantic Comedy in Nine Parts.pdf

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