Dirt

The Janitor's Closet

    A dingy fight-torn bar that would have more appropriately been christened The Janitor's Closet; why would they take me here? A gin soaked countertop with knifed etchings of initials enclosed by scratchy hearts and hazy games of hangman spelling out profanities; this was probably the only place they could find within walking distance of the cheapskate trailer we rented out from a man whose name made him sound as if he were conceived in a truck-stop restroom. This was a bar where the only things on the menu were bags of chips from the 1930s and the entrées consisted of dusty peanuts homed in an ashtray.
    We had arrived by bus so late at night that there was no time to make our way into the city to slide our backsides against strangers whilst winking at other strangers in expectance of free vodka shots. No, it was far too late to catch a bus over only to risk missing the bus back to this desolate wasteland the locals call Sandy Shores, we had hardly enough money as it is without having to pay for some star spangled hotel room in the downtown district. Without any time for such foolish endeavours this night could only take us to one place, this bar, because there was simply so much loss in a night spent sober on a vacation (if one could call it that) lasting only 7 days.
    I was absolutely famished from the long road trip over but the aroma of sweat and desperation only nauseated me. What I needed more than anything was a drink, because it is only logical that the more brain cells one looses the happier they will become, and I had far too many doing laps in my head to find anything remotely enjoyable about this place.
"Are we just going to stand here or do you not plan of getting alcohol poisoning tonight?" I asked my two companions, who at the moment I might only reluctantly refer to as my friends.
    "Is that even a question?" Quinn replied bitterly. Even with a confirmation of our plans none of us would dare to take the first step into what was akin to a dumpster.
    "Well then I guess it's time to go dumpster diving." I proclaimed with false enthusiasm. Jade and Quinn eyed me with some distaste, we were all far too tired not to be drunk by this time of night.
    Still they hesitated, and so came my decision to take the initiative to stride forward on chipped tile towards a 60-some year old barmaid with eyebrows drawn on such that there was no telling whether she was frowning at me or had drawn on a permanent frown.
    "We'll take 3 vodka-cranberries, please."
    "No cranberry juice here. It's straight or nothing sweetie, we've also got beer." I felt like a fool for even asking and felt as if I may have offended everyone in Sandy Shores for having been so ignorant to trailer park culture. Luckily there was no one in the vicinity that appeared to be conscious enough to have heard me.
    "Ah. Well then, straight vodka it is." My companions snickered behind me.
    Without even a glance at me she shuffled over to the liquor shelves, stocked mainly with whisky, gin and the occasional bottle of moonshine or absinthe. Contrary to the usual bar scene she did not give us shot glasses but instead poured our drinks into glasses you might expect to be found at a restaurant. No ice, no water. Though the thought made my stomach churn I knew that soon enough I would lose my faculty of taste and reason and not care in the slightest.
    "Thank you." I said as sincerely as I could. She gave a nod but did not make eye contact.
    We toasted to the beginning of what I doubted would be a pleasant vacation. I took a gulp from the yellowed glass and tried my hardest not to gag and further embarrass myself. My companions did the same. The artifact of a radio was tuned to some local country station probably being broadcast in the attic of this very building, and the sound of twanging banjo strings and weary wailing about old ladies and trucks forced me to take another swig of vodka.
    After a grey-bearded man collapsed from his chair and was pushed into the corner of the room we had been granted a table big enough to seat the 3 of us. By this point in the night the bar crowd had grown to an astounding 7 people, which I suppose is impressive for this time of night, unless of course this has always been the prime hour for The Janitor's Closet. Besides our group and the man sleeping (or dead) with drool pouring out of his mouth onto the floor, there were two men speaking incoherently at the table beside us and one man slouched over the bar countertop clutching a beer in his hand as if it held the secrets to all of life's mysteries. By this time my companions and I were finding much of this very amusing and chatting loudly about the shitty camper we had rented, which was likely much nicer than any home belonging to the bar's occupants.
    "Come on sugar, it's just for one drink, I promise I won't start anything this time. I can make it worth your while, how about 20 dollars, hmm? I'll share my beer with you, come on, please." It was about 2 o'clock in the morning when a tender sarcastic voice pleaded from the front entrance.
    "How many times have I told you, you've caused too much trouble around here, now get out!" The barmaid argued in vain, her words were drawn out with fatigue.
    "Lucy," he spoke her name slowly and with utmost love, "My darling, my angel, I need something to drink, it's been a long day Luce, you know how it is. I'll be good, I swear." I brought my thoughts away from my conversation to focus on what was unfolding at the entry way.
    "Trevor," Lucy sighed with an obvious hint of affection through her stern smokers voice, "You pull this horse-shit every time you drag your sorry ass into this place, can you at least try not to break anything tonight?" She pleaded to him with the genuine exasperation of a woman left to clean broken glass and blood stains until odd hours of the morning every day.
    At this he dropped onto one knee as if taking a knights vow, "Luce, I swear to you with every muscle in my ugly heart that I will not break anything tonight." He grabbed at her hand and planted a dry kiss on it, "Now where's my beer, sugar?"
    The whole scenario made me grin, making me feel almost as if I should empathize with this filthy liar rather than old haggard Lucy who might as well have spent her entire life behind a dirty bar counter-top serving drinks to men with blackened livers and missing teeth. I took a sip from my glass to stifle my snickering, wondering how on earth I had ended up in such a place on my trip to lovely Los Santos, and feeling sorry for myself rather than others.
    I swivelled in my chair to catch a glimpse of what, until how, had only been in the periphery of my vision. Trevor was more or less what I had expected him to be: middle-aged with tangles leading up to a receding hair-line, stubble and scars, stained torn t-shirt and dark circles, lines covering his face up to and including laugh-lines which told a story contrary to the rest of his appearance and finally a treacherous "cut here" tattoo dotted around his neck.
    Beer in hand Trevor proceeded to drink it in its entirety slamming the bottle down onto the counter-top, "May I please have seconds?"
    Without a word and with eyes half shut Lucy popped the cap of another cheap beer, sliding it in his direction, with no hint of hesitation he once again downed his poison.
    "That's more like it, am I right Jim?" He nudged the man hugging the countertop and half asleep and then let out a laugh. Poor old Lucy sighed and cracked open another one for her beloved Trevor before finding her spot on a barstool with red leather so worn it appeared brown in colour. Trevor continued to hassle the drunkard who was too inebriated to care.
    "Excuse me," Quinn slurred, flicking the back of my head with a long red nail, "Do you plan on coming back to earth any time soon? Finish your damn vodka and get us some more drinks."
    I turned around swiftly to glare at her, "Fuck you, I'm just trying to have a good time." And with that eloquent comeback I drank the rest of my glass in one fell swoop. My companions cheered me on to lift my spirits, and surprisingly my spirits had in fact been lifted, but presumably from three glasses of vodka rather than the cheering of individuals who I would still rather not refer to as my friends.
    Feeling the might of a thousand Russian warriors flowing through my veins I stood up from my chair and made my way towards the bar, slowly and steadily so as through not to reveal the weakness of my alcohol tolerance.
    "Another round of vodkas please." I managed to make myself sound somewhat sober and somewhat sophisticated, though there was little reason for anyone to sound sophisticated in a place like this and it might even risk getting you beat to a pulp. Upon second thought I decided to make a point never to speak like that again.
    "Who are you?" Then came a sudden rude awakening from my attempted confidence, and it came from the man notorious enough to have to plead to be let into this bar- this bar filled with old drunks and men half alive.
    Being somewhat intoxicated I blurted out the first thing that came into my head, "Who's asking?"
    A wide grin stretched across his face and he replied with blatant arrogance, "Trevor Philips. Now I'll ask again, who are you?"
    For some reason I couldn't help but smile and fail to repress it, "Why do you want to know?"
    He turned his barstool to face me more directly, making sure to lean in uncomfortably close to me, so close I was able to make out every fine crevasse on the map of his face, "Well when a man frequents a bar he expects to see the same faces he's seen every night of every month of every God damn year. So doesn't it go without fucking saying that when 3 fine young women that are probably illegal to bang show up from God knows where, I'd like to know one of their names." At this I let out laugh in my drunken stupor.
    "Oh, you find this funny don't you?" He snickers with a slow nod.
    "No, I don't find this funny, I find you funny, you're quite funny." I managed to suppress my laughter and decided to try and turn the situation in favour of my companions and I, "I might tell you who I am if you buy us some drinks."
    Trevor began laughing at this, more laughter than I would have thought necessary and too much laughter for me to feel comfortable in any way, "Listen sugar, I'll buy you girlies your drinks all night as long as you sit with me."
    "Girl, don't you even think about hanging around with this sack of shit, everything he touches goes sour." Lucy suddenly intervened.
    Trevor smirked, "Luce, don't flatter me, I'm much worse than that, besides who ever said anything about touching? Unless I can get this fine lady drunk enough not to know the difference."
    At this statement I lost all self control and erupted in silent laughter, I turned around so as not to offend Lucy and so as not to give Trevor any self satisfaction. I composed myself rather quickly and was actually quite proud of myself for doing so. "That sounds like a challenge to me." I said with all the boastfulness I could muster in my self-conscious little being.
    "You hear that Lucy? You don't have to worry about her, she's already been turned sour." Trevor cackled. Lucy gave the both of us a look of utter disgust and at that moment I realized that I was now in the same boat as this distasteful man. "Another round of vodka, make it 4." He looked me directly in the eyes with a gaze that made me regret not ignoring him to begin with and a smile that made me want to run away and never look back.
    "Why don't you go tell your lady friends that Uncle Trevor will be picking up the tab tonight, and that in return you've sold your soul to him. Does that sound about right to you?" He asked in a disturbingly mocking tone of voice.
    "Don't get ahead of yourself," I replied in the same mocking tone, "I doubt I have a soul to sell anyways." Everything I was saying surprised even myself, it was probably the deadly mix of bitterness and vodka that allowed my deepest quips to flow so freely.
    Trevor's grin widened more than I thought humanly possible, "I like you a lot already, and don't think of taking that as a compliment." Not an odd statement coming from such a man but it took me aback none the less, there was something about his smile that was friendly yet threatening and like an accident on a highway it was hard to look away from it.
    Being in the vodka induced state of mind I was in, I'm sure my companions thought it rather strange of me trying to explain that I would be spending the rest of the night sitting next to the man who had minutes ago been revealed to us as a destructive drunk. I tried my absolute best to reason with them, explaining our money situation and how a night of free drinks would be highly beneficial to us and the rest of our so called vacation.
    Quinn made it clear that she thought I was, "fucking insane," and Jade seemed too enthralled by the idea of an endless alcohol supply to care much at all. The two of them seemed to be in a good enough humour to take everything light heartedly, we always got along the best under the influence of strong liquor. The entire discussion ended with a shameless display of enthusiasm towards the generous man buying our booze, "To Trevor!" My companions exclaimed, rather unaware of anything but the crystal liquid in their cups; and as you can guess this was very much to Trevor's own amusement.
    After toasting to our newest hero and sharing a laugh I decided to make my way over to the bar and fulfill my end of the bargain, after all I was still within a 5 meter radius of Quinn and Jade, and in my mind that meant nothing in the world could go wrong.
    "Cheers to me," Trevor smirked, and I lifted my glass to meet his with a satisfying clink the likes of old friends burying the hatchet.