...But Somewhere in the Middle, It Gets Royally Fucked...

…”Well you’ve certainly topped yourself this time, Lou.” I took a swig from a bottle of cheap Mexican beer and scratched my head. We were sitting atop red velour bar stools, our backs against an exposed water pipe, and were facing a makeshift stage. Mediocre floodlights were pointed towards the platform, falling upon an oversized green kiddie pool. Which was filled with jello… and a scantily clad ‘Catwoman’ tearing the bikini top off a busty ‘Invisible Woman.’ A bearded, heavily tattooed ex-roadie in referee pinstripes and a black ski cap with the words ‘FUCK YOU’ sewn on the front hovered above the two women… a silver whistle dangling from his mouth. A crudely made banner fluttered overhead… constantly disturbed by the building’s ventilation: Marvel v. DC was stenciled on the façade.

 “What can I say,” he grumbled as he surveyed the room for a waitress. Facing futility, he took a generous pull from his beer; a few drops of beer spilled onto his black, tattered Van Halen t-shirt. “I enjoy the unusual places. You meet the most interesting people.

            “Most interesting… or most chemically imbalanced. And, judging from this crowd, quite possibly on parole.”

            “C’est merde,” Louie protested, swatting the air in my direction as if I had become some virulent insect from the nightmares of Hernan Cortes. “First off, if they’re on parole… obviously someone believed them to be rehabilitated, no?”

“Why not?”

“Exactement.” Louie downed the rest of his beer and put the bottle on the ground. “And, let us not forget, ami… you aren’t the most stable individual in the world either!”

“Isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black,” I asked, an amused smirk plastered on my face. And, most certainly, annoying the hell out of Louie.

“What,” he cried out loudly, gesticulating towards himself. “Me? I will have you know I am the perfect example of a well grounded individual.”

“Lou… no offense, but I think you’re out of your goddamn mind. You drink like the Mongolian army is on the march, you start fights pretty much every day, you insult people directly to your face, and you mutter to yourself constantly!”

“That last bit is a trait I learned from you my friend.”

“Granted,” I said with a shrug.

“And who are you to talk,” Louie protested, clearly on a tangent. “You come from a people who drink, fight, and fuck like intoxicated gibbons!”

“Greeks?”
            “Bostonians,” Louie shouted, standing on the leg supports and throwing his hands up in the air for full effect.

“Hey! Sit down asshole,” someone yelled from behind us.

“Go sodomize a cadaver you diseased son of a whore,” Louie shouted over his shoulder nonchalantly. A subtle smile broke across his face. “Es tu termine?”

“I’ve told you a thousand times you sociopathic French Canuck: I don’t speak French!” I downed the rest of my beer and left the empty on a nearby high table. “But yeah, I’m finished.”

“Hah! So you do speak French, you damned liar.”

“Sue me.” I abruptly locked eyes with our waitress, so I signaled for two more beers. She nodded and disappeared back into the crowd. “Okay I gotta know. How in the name of Herman’s Hermits did you find this fuckin’ place?”

“Isn’t it great?” Louie beamed with pride at his recently discovered obscure circus of strange.

“Not quite the word I’d use to describe it.” The waitress, a frizzy-haired brunette wearing horn-rimmed glasses and bearing two full Irezumi sleeves, materialized from within the crowd with our beers. She handed me one with a smile, then shoved the other into Louie’s hand with a scowl.

“Have you considered my offer of baptizing the ladies room with our combined fluids,” he asked earnestly, his eyebrows bobbing up and down.

“I’d rather have sex with a chainsaw you fucking creep,” she said, her expression the perfect manifestation of disgust.

“Just ignore him,” I chimed, trying to placate the poor girl. “He was dropped on his head a lot as a kid. And to make matters worse, he has this thing about autoerotic asphyxiation… so his brain doesn’t get much oxygen.”

“What the hell is wrong with you two,” she replied, shaking her head in utter disapproval before disappearing back into the swarm of hipsters and creep shows.

“You anti-Semitic monster,” Louie abruptly shouted, standing up once again; the vein in his neck started to resemble a garden hose.

“Sit the fuck down,” the familiar faceless voice called out once again.

“Shut your face you belligerent pedophile,” screamed Louie. This time he was lacking his playful smirk… instead replaced by spontaneous rage.

“Alright Eastwood,” I said, pulling him down by the shoulder, “you can go vigilante once I’m gone. For once, I’d like to hang without you starting a brawl.”

“C’est tout bon,” replied Louie. Though he resumed his jubilant expression, I could see his fury lingering in the shadows. We sat quietly for a moment, absorbed by the cacophonic roar of the eclectic crowd as they watched two risqué beauties brutally strip each other in a kiddie pool filled with jello. The ex-roadie ref enthusiastically examined the details of the match… though who knows what those details were.

“You were saying something,” Louie suddenly said.

“Was I?”

“I think so.”

“Oh right,” I said, slapping my knee like Andy Griffith. I still have no idea why I did that. “I was asking how you found this place.”

“Do you remember my friend Clyde,” asked Louie between sips from his beer. “You know, the guy with the boa constrictor?”

“That nut case with the horns tattooed to his forehead,” I inquired apprehensively.

“Oui… that’s him. So I was out with him and his cousin a few weeks ago. We were driving around, trying to find something to do. I suggested we go shoot pool, so Clyde’s cousin drove us into this neighborhood. We were playing down the street and had made a little money hustling. Clyde is actually quite good.”

“You don’t say.”

“Ferme la.” Louie chugged a third of his beer. “Clyde and I were outside smoking when we heard a loud crash from inside the bar. Before we could react, Clyde’s cousin came running out of the bar with a broken pool cue in hand. He just jumped in his car and peeled out. It was the strangest thing.”

“Lou...,” I started, but was quickly cut off by a dismissive hand.

“I guess Clyde’s cousin got into a heated argument with some chump and smashed him with the stick.”

“Did you really just say chump?”

“What? Are you troglodytes in New England unaware of that term?”

“Oh we know it,” I retorted, “but I don’t think it’s been used much since the nineties.”

“You are an ass.”

“I’m aware, Louie. You remind me quite often.” We clinked bottles and took swings. “So your freak friend’s cousin flipped and bailed. That doesn’t explain how you ended up here.”

“Oh,” Louie said, lightly slapping his forehead. “Clyde was banging one of the wrestling girls here, so he suggested we swing by.”

“Christ, Lou.” I buried my face in my hand and shook my head… somewhat baffled, somewhat entertained, entirely confused.

“What?”

“Your whole story had nothing to do with your answer! You could have just said your weird buddy Clyde was sleeping with one of the girls and brought you! I didn’t need to hear about the whole bit with his insane cousin.”

“I thought it made for better context in the story,” Louie replied.

“There was no context whatsoever!”

“Well, maybe you can use it for your book?”

“I don’t know if that’s quite up my alley, Lou.” Once more, I managed to lock eyes with the judgmental waitress: this time, she quickly averted her eyes and vanished. Which, in my opinion, was totally uncalled for. Sure, Louie had grossly misbehaved… but what about me? I was only trying to diffuse the situation through humor.

“Speaking of,” Louie said, cutting my introspective monologue short, “how are things coming with the new book?”

“Fine, I guess. Why do you ask?”

“You mentioned you were trying to work your way out of a slump, non?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“What is the problem? Writer’s block?”

“How many times do I have to tell you I hate that expression?”

“But it is a valid phrase, Strat,” Louie countered, his tone legitimately sincere. Louie’s ability to switch between irrationality to empathy always caught me off guard. “Anyway, in order to refrain from insulting your chosen lexicon… what is the reason for your troubles?”

“That’s just it, Lou,” I said after a quick sip. “Lately I haven’t had any trouble. Every time I sit down, I just pick up the flow again as if no time has passed. The difference is I’m finding less and less motivation to actually make the effort to sit down and write. So I know what I want to say and how to do so… but I just haven’t wanted to do it.”

“Let me get this straight,” the powder keg-Canadian mused as he began to chew on his thumb. “You are inspired, ready to go… have no mental impediments to stop you from writing. The only reason you haven’t is because you’re lazy?”

“Well I wouldn’t quite put it that…”

“Face it,” Louie shouted accusatorily, standing again. “You are lazy! And for a writer, there is no greater sin! You should be punished… sent down into some abysmal Hell where you are forced to write romantic dramas for Lifetime for the remainder of your existence!”

“I’d rather be forced to read Nicholas Sparks’s entire bibliography than do that!”

“Exactement! So start writing again, you bum.”

“If you’ll recall our earlier conversation,” I said after finishing my beer, “I was planning on writing tonight before you showed up.”

“And what of the ball and chain,” Louie asked in a whisper… almost conspiratorially. “How does she feel about you spending your precious weekends writing instead of socializing?”

“She’s fine with it, man. Despite your attempts at sabotage, things are going well with her and she’s wicked supportive of me writing. And don’t call her the ball and chain.”

“I don’t think she’ll find out,” Louie chuckled, “unless of course you’re wired!”

“What if I write it?”

“You don’t have the gall for such an act!”

Just then, scantily clad ‘Catwoman’ was launched from the kiddie pool… shrouded in a hail of jello globs. She landed face down on the stage, her raven hair covered in green goo.

“It looks like she just got slimed,” I said, almost laughing.

“Slimed?”

“I know you’ve seen Ghostbusters, dude, so don’t even start with me. Half the cast was Canadian: I’m sure it’s shown in your preschools up there.”

“Goddamn ignorant American,” Louie spat back deviously.

“I’d have it no other way, moose jockey.”

“Things are good with Sarah, then?”

“Yeah… I think so. We seem to work well together.”

“How sad.” Louie shook his head and made the ‘tisk’ sound associated with the vice-principles of America.

“Wow... thanks a lot you jackass. Glad to know my friends are happy for me.”

“Attends,” Louie quickly interjected. “I don’t mean it that way. I simply mean you are at your best as a writer when you are bitter, cynical, and mildly depressed. When you are like that, your work est excellent.”

“So you’re just trying to preserve my literary voice,” I asked skeptically.

“Oui! C’est vrai.”

“Nice try, Lou.”

By this point, ‘Catwoman’ had jumped back into the kiddie pool and held a fistful of ‘Invisible Woman’s’ hair extensions. What had once been a salacious tumble in jello had degraded into a full on rumble between two practically naked “performers.”

“It beats watching horse racing, non?”

“You are demented,” I replied. I couldn’t put it past him, though: Louie certainly knew how to get to the heart of weird in this unfair adoptive city we called home.

“Oui!” Louie hopped up once more, this time standing on the seat cushion. He then spread his arms out, mirroring a crucifixion victim, and howled: “JE SUIS DEMENT, ET JE SUIS FIER!” Amidst a tidal wave of bitter shouts and insults, a lone beer can came sailing out from within the confined, sweating masses… its amber contents streaking out behind it like a comet tail. It struck Louie smack dab in the back of the head, sending him sprawling forward: he landed right atop our less than amiable waitress.

“I told you to sit down you fuck,” shouted our ever unseen antagonist from the back. I jumped off my seat and helped Louie to his feet, then tried to help the waitress. Instead of taking my hand, she slapped it away and stormed off towards what I assumed was the manager’s office.

“Lou… are you okay?”

“Oui, yea, I’m fine,” he replied after a moment of slight wobbling. He then looked back in the direction of his assailant. A tall, scrawny, exceptionally pale man with a waxed moustache and disheveled hair looked back and, in an act more condemning than he realized, gave us the finger.

“We better get outta here, Lou. I think that waitress is pissed. Falling on her might have been the last straw.”

“Yes, I think that’s a good idea.” Louie dusted himself off, then leaned down and picked up one of his empty beer bottles. “Follow me, mon ami. I have a quick stop to make…”