Fiction Friday: Modern Noir Narrator Walks Into A Bar

Some fucker was fucking with me in a bar and I was like, I didn't know why? But I played it pretty cool and friendly I thought, and he said some crap like I was fucking with HIM, and I forget what the whole basis of his complaint was, but he kept telling me how I was (which was in point of fact, how I wasn't), so I was all,

"Hey man! What you see is as valid as how I feel."

I forget what happened after that. Right after I said it he kind of leaned back from it and looked off up and to the left of my head, and when he came back he seemed to at least accept the sincerity of the sentiment involved. We talked a little more, in our gruff, macho way, neither having given an inch particularly, neither wanting any parts of any of the other's inches. I could tell he probably knew who would have won THAT futile contest, but by then the moment of tension and test seemed to have passed. He was a little holiday huggy on the way out the door, even, but I rocked a firm fast handshake intercept instead, perfect. I think he was one of those drunks whose worldview gets so sharp as the world blurs that they need to have either perfect accordance with their idea of bonhomie or else AGGRO SMACKDOWN OF THE TRANSGRESSOR!!! Me, I don't see shit in those black and white terms. For one thing, he was a white guy, not that that bears on the case - I'm white too, is all, so it wouldn't have been "black and white," and frankly I wouldn't have said or done a damn thing differently! When it comes to drop-kicking conflict over love canyon, I don't fuck around.

Brothers and sisters, can I get a witness.

Comments