Portrait of the Derelict as a Young Man Vol. 7

I was perusing the old interweb today when i stopped by the old UB's place and was reading his piece about a sitting in a swanky bar and the things that you see in a swanky bar and it sorta reminded me of one of my mis-adventures in a swanky bar and since the drugs haven't really begun to kick in yet i figured i'd try to crank this out nice and quick like cuz well i'm bored and there is nothing on the telly...

I'm guessing this little escapade took place circa 96 or 97, at the time i was sporting a rather massive set of dreadlocks with shaggy sideburns and goat to match, hell i damn near could pass for homeless on some days but it just so happened that i was on my way up in the game and i always seemed to have a pocket full of money to hit the town on if i so chose to and so on this night my good friend the Engineer picked my ass up and we began driving around and getting into trouble which is usually what the Engineer and i did and it was somehow on these travels that he mentioned that he wanted to see this girl he knew, a friend he wanted to check on, a friend who had been cultivating some bad habits but still held a job as a waitress at a snooty restaurant and wine bar in the snobby part of town and since i had eaten two hits of acid earlier in the evening i figured what the fuck, why not?

And so we stopped for a quick drink somewhere first and the acid started kicking pretty good and then he made it to the snooty bistro and wine bar where i believe the best word to describe my rather tenuous presence was menacing... see i was doing the Bukowski and was a right motherfucker to anyone or anything that annoyed me and this place annoyed the living fuck out of me, so while off my tits on acid i pulled up a seat at the bar while the pudgy head bartender and his sidekick gave me the thrice over as i sat there in my flannel shirt and thrift store evergreen corduroys, of course looking at the soft and monied bartenders wasn't doing much for my disposition because though i am always pleasant to the wait staff when you give me the fucking stink eye from the get go it tends to piss me off, so we sat and they eyed me and the Engineer ordered a gin and tonic and i laughingly asked what they had on tap even though the taps were right in front of me... like i said making friends...

so the sidekick started making the GandT and Pudge let out an audible sigh and spat out the beers on draught, of which i ordered a Molson cuz this was before the big craft brew shit storm, i'm sure now the place doesn't have a beer on tap i've ever fucking heard of but so be it, now as for the menace department i was doing my best, unknown to me, to scare the shit out of people and i think the Engineer was picking up on the vibe but it seems i have this uncanny knack of being able to walk a fine line of belligerence and grace... or something of that sort and while the upper management types all began to huddle at the end of the bar i politely asked Pudge if he had any umbrellas around, he cocked his head and said umbrellas? and i was like yeah yeah for the drinks mate for the drinks and he let out a guffaw and said of course not, i mean really this was a snooty wine bar who would need and umbrella in their drink and of course i grinned like the devil himself and said, good thing i brought my own then, and proceeded to produce a paper drink umbrella and stick in my draft beer, i then drained it and asked for another and gave Pudge directions not to toss out my umbrella, which he of course did right away with a little grin, only for him to hand my beer back and for me to pull another one out of my pocket and place it in my drink... humping boxes at a party store warehouse has it's perks...

I then produced a roll of money from my pocket laid a 50 on the bar and smiled, will this cover it? it did and i'm sure the barkeeps were thinking "dealer" and hell they would have been right and by this time the Engineer had got up to talk to his friend and i was lighting a cigarette and staring at the three women down the bar with disdain, you see they smelled way to nice and dressed way to nice and wore to much jewelry cuz you see i was channelling Buk remember? I was a fucking lumpen-prole hero out to give the middle finger to the world and as i eavesdropped on these ladies conversations i heard them discussing some artists they had bought or planned to buy or were dating and i leaned over and examined their drinks and asked if they would like another round, of course they ignored me as if i was some neanderthal and indeed i was but i was just trying to be polite and maybe teach the something about the art world but alas they turned up their noses and i went back to my draft beer with it's umbrella and then the Engineer sat down and my pie-eyed self stated that those women knew fuck-all about art, now i could see that my time in this place would be rather short and that the managers and bartenders were drawing straws to see who was going to try and remove me because really none of them wanted the job, the women looked at me and i at them and politely stated that i was most likely the closet they would ever get to art, real art, that life was art and while they could buy it they would never possess it or own it or be it and for that i felt pity for them.... they stared at me dumbfounded while the Engineer put on his coat and i smiled at them, dropped a 20 on the bar and looked over towards the managers and stated "and now i will leave this fucking place, so you cream puffs can stop wetting yourselves" and with that i walked out into the cool autumn air, lit a cigarette and went looking for the nearest dive.