METANOIA

DREADS

Barry must have drifted because when he gathered his thoughts, he looked at the empty glass in his hand as if he had just discovered it. He felt an expression of gratitude was now a necessity. He turned to meet his beneficiary, a young woman, who was a mishmash of alternative lifestyles. Taylor was smiling at him warmly.

"Thank you," he muttered. For someone his size, he had an unusually soft voice.

Barry was trying to process Taylor's face. His intoxication was making it harder to judge.

Taylor was smiling at him, equally, if not drunker. It was hard to determine her ethnicity. Latina perhaps? Maybe African? Bit of both? One of her dreads dangled in her apple martini. She also had a bottle of whiskey she waved about in her other hand. She looked like maybe she worked there, or at least the bartender was treating her that way.

Taylor had on an orange, floral patterned dress with one strap hanging loosely over her shoulder. She had noticeably unkempt body hair on her arms, and perhaps her legs. The bridge of her nose was pierced and looked to Barry like she had a large spike between her eyes. He could see through the large gauged holes in her ears. He had to fight the impulse to put his fingers through them. She wasn't morbidly obese, but close to it. She was missing a flip flop that was peeking from her purse. She didn't seem to mind. Although there was nothing remarkable about her face, she was charming in a way. Barry had not yet seen her not smiling, and amiable warmth emanated from her. Her voice was soft and melodic. She had a bit of an accent too.

Taylor had realized the drooling mess before her wasn't in any shape to start something, so she felt she needed to break the ice. Mimicking Joey from "Friends" she raised a brow: "How you doing?"

Staring at her gapped-tooth smile, Barry wasn't sure if her pick-up line was cute or pathetic, nor did he have the will to care. He wasn't really interested because he was still with Melinda in his mind, as devoted as the first day.

"Good," Barry muttered vaguely. "I'm Barry." He wasn't sure if he had said that already. Taylor retaliated with her name.

He cheered her with his now empty shot glass. Her armpit hair waved with the slight draft as a door opened somewhere in the distance. She wasn't dirty, but her clothes, like the rest of her life, were a mess. Her dread splashed out of her martini, spraying them both as her glass met his. Neither of them noticed it.

The conversation had started clumsily, but she was making an effort to talk. She pointed to his shirt. "Your shirt is inside out."

Barry looked down in disbelief. Forgetting he was in public, he pulled it off lazily, turned it right side out, and put it back on. The bar was practically empty, but the bartender still shot him a disapproving look. Taylor raised a hand toward the bartender to say, "Sorry, it won't happen again."

Barry's shirt said, "I love my girlfriend," but at that stage, Barry couldn't have cared less what shirt it was.

Taylor, on the other hand, registered something between disappointment and surprise. She pointed at the shirt and asked,

"Is that true?"

Barry had not processed what the shirt said; he had just picked the first shirt he could grab. He muttered an answer as he was reaching for his twerking mobile phone, crushed under his oversized butt cheek. He replied to Taylor instinctively: "It's a very old T-shirt," more to shut out the conversation than give an answer.

Most of his clothes were rather old, in fact.

Taylor watched as he pulled out his phone and placed it on the bar. He looked pained as he stared at the screen. She hesitated whether to leave the man alone, but the empath in her got the better of her. Taylor approached him as she sneaked a peek the screen.