Together We Are Stronger: Washed Out (Vol.1)

Chapter 1: Same Old Shit

The autumn wind was hitting me to my core tonight as I walked down from the apartment to the pub. I pulled my jacket tighter around myself as I pushed my way toward the pub, smiling inspite of myself thinking, "Fucker, you're cold? Some liquor will warm you right on up." Yeah. Liquor, sure will. But, hopefully something a little easier on the eyes will warm me up too. I'm a man. Sue me. Sometimes in life you need a little booze and a pretty little thing to make the world stop spinning. Or maybe I'm already a pint of whiskey down and I'm talking out my arse. Whatever. It doesn't matter. Nothing ever does.

I shouldered open the door to the pub and let the slightly warmer air wrap around me. All pubs had their own unique charm, but pubs nonetheless, they were. I visited this one quite a lot as it's just a few blocks from the apartment. But not so often that they knew me by name. That's how you always know that you need to leave a place. When you start being remembered. If I was going to be remembered for anything it would be my music. Not a loser in a pub.

There wasn't a band playing tonight, to which I was thankful. Most of the bands they got in here couldn't seem to even hold a guitar correctly. There was some type of rock music playing through the cheap speakers but the sounds of people in the pub was far louder. The sound of people was actual comforting in its own right. Listening to little blurbs from other's lives and problems seemed to make your own less...problematic.

I walked up to the bar and there was a woman behind the counter pouring shots for a group of uni kids who were, by the looks of it, were more sheets to the wind than there was room in the linen closet. They seemed a happy bunch, but who wasn't happy when they were swimming in their glasses. The bartender finished with the uni kids and they sauntered off to a booth towards the back, laughing and tripping back to their seats. She then turned to me with a warm smile.

"What can I get you, hun?" She began wiping down the counter in front of her, that already appeared spotless.

"Jack and coke, please." I laid some money down on the counter and shrugged off my jacket and placed on the back of the bar stool.

"Sure thing." She reached for a glass above her, the hem of her shirt riding up showing honey colored skin. Her top was tight in all the right places and if the zipper down the front was any lower, this pub might have to have some new guidelines drawn up. She was definitely pretty, but in that exotic type of way. Almost like a dream, but where the girl is made up of whispers and wind.

She set down a napkin and placed my drink on top of it; already starting to sweat down the glass. I pushed the money forward at the same time she went to retrieve it, our hands brushing lightly. She picked up the money, turning to cash me out at the register behind her. She wasn't trying to hide the fact that she was smiling, she wanted me to know. I'd seen this play out a hundred times before. Possibly if I was more intoxicated this would've been the easiest night of my life. But I wasn't and she was being incredibly too easy, no matter how soft her skin looked in her uniform. If you could even call it that. Plus, I had a rule. Yes, even I, don't fuck everything with tits and a nice ass. My rule was that I never pursued anyone who was employed where I was drinking. That always leads to a mess later. I have enough of my own messes to deal with when the sun is up, I don't need more when trying to blow off steam.

I'll let Honey (I won't care to remember her name tomorrow, so it surely doesn't matter now) flirt all she wants. I'm going to drink until things don't hurt anymore, or at least until I don't care that they do. She'll get bored that her attempts aren't getting her anywhere and go bother some other pour soul.

That pour soul ended up being a 50 something man sitting down the bar a ways, telling her sordid details of his dead wife. Pity. I turned around in my chair to people watch as the bar became busier and busier. Couples out on the town looking for something 'cozy' to spend their evening, young uni kids with their fake Id's and plastered smiles from boozing all day long, so the older men and women who considered this place their second home. Maybe first home for some.