Read Online The Sapphire Express by J. Max Cromwell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: J. Max Cromwell
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come here today. I will pay you for my drinks and give you a reasonable tip to brighten your wonderful day after I’m done. I won’t talk to your customers, and I don’t want them to talk to me. I don’t vomit on your floor, and I don’t break glasses or ashtrays. I sit here, I order drinks, and you serve me, OK?”
The bartender thought about my words for a long moment and said, “Fair enough,” and walked away.
The introductions had gone well, I thought, and after two more whiskey and sodas and a cup of dusty peanuts, the heavy awkward air was much lighter to breathe. Johnny D’s was gradually turning into a happy place, and I ordered more and more drinks with a sizable smile on my face and started truly enjoying the buzz that only an ascending intoxication could trigger. I was also pleased to notice that the tension between the bartender and me continued dispersing with each drink he poured into my glass, even if I didn’t give a damn what he thought of me. I was there to drink alcohol and reset my brain. He was there to help me to do that. That was it.
The night progressed pretty much like any Tuesday night progresses in a nasty dive bar where the clientele consists mainly of sad alcoholics and jittery substance abusers. People came in, people were kicked out, and drinks were consumed with such a vengeance that I started to believe that the bar had turned into some sort of perverted time machine where the concept of future had completely disappeared. The only thing that mattered to the people in that wicked machine was the moment when a glass of cheap liquor was raised to their cracked lips; when that fine blend of cocaine and rat poison rushed into their bleeding nostrils through a dirty five-dollar bill.
I observed the awesome escapades of the club of peculiar creatures in total awe and just sat on my barstool and ordered more whiskey and sodas. The madness that was occurring all around me was so raw and primordial that I started to wonder why in God’s name such a place still existed in the twenty-first century. A hole that dark and disgusting wasn’t just a bar—it was something much more sinister than that. It was a landfill of broken dreams, abused souls, and victims of cruel indifference and addict’s neglect. It was a place that was alive and breathing hard with stained lungs, and its black heart was made of tears mixed with cheap makeup, hand-rolled cigarette smoke, the smell of diluted rail drinks, clumsy attempts at seduction, bright-red lipstick applied by trembling hands in a filthy bathroom, pointless drunken laughter, empty promises of an erection that lay dead in a pool of bath salts and malt liquor, memories of accomplishments that were true only in dreams, delusional reminiscing about a good father who had, in reality, been a violent deadbeat, exaggeration, lies, pain, blood, failure, acne exposed by addicts’ acrid sweat, bruised, pale legs, short bursts of excitement and hope, forgotten music that lifted desolate spirits for a fleeting moment, slurred words of fool’s wisdom, agony, misery, filth, doom, death, and quiet desperation. And that was supposed to be fun.
Around midnight, a slim man with bad skin and sharp canine teeth sat on a barstool next to me and started staring at me with cloudy eyes. He was a disgusting man, and his greasy hair looked like a Kentucky cornfield after a harsh and unforgiving heartland winter. He had scratched his face hard with his grimy, overgrown fingernails, and his crooked vulture’s nose was bleeding from the left nostril. He looked like he hadn’t slept for a couple of years, and the bags under his eyes were black and full of nasty liquid. The wicked creature smelled like a rotten onion, and it was clear that his organs wanted to escape that horrible body where they were constantly terrorized and reminded that any resistance was futile.
I looked at him circumspectly, and he put his rat’s mouth so close to my face that I could smell the
The bartender thought about my words for a long moment and said, “Fair enough,” and walked away.
The introductions had gone well, I thought, and after two more whiskey and sodas and a cup of dusty peanuts, the heavy awkward air was much lighter to breathe. Johnny D’s was gradually turning into a happy place, and I ordered more and more drinks with a sizable smile on my face and started truly enjoying the buzz that only an ascending intoxication could trigger. I was also pleased to notice that the tension between the bartender and me continued dispersing with each drink he poured into my glass, even if I didn’t give a damn what he thought of me. I was there to drink alcohol and reset my brain. He was there to help me to do that. That was it.
The night progressed pretty much like any Tuesday night progresses in a nasty dive bar where the clientele consists mainly of sad alcoholics and jittery substance abusers. People came in, people were kicked out, and drinks were consumed with such a vengeance that I started to believe that the bar had turned into some sort of perverted time machine where the concept of future had completely disappeared. The only thing that mattered to the people in that wicked machine was the moment when a glass of cheap liquor was raised to their cracked lips; when that fine blend of cocaine and rat poison rushed into their bleeding nostrils through a dirty five-dollar bill.
I observed the awesome escapades of the club of peculiar creatures in total awe and just sat on my barstool and ordered more whiskey and sodas. The madness that was occurring all around me was so raw and primordial that I started to wonder why in God’s name such a place still existed in the twenty-first century. A hole that dark and disgusting wasn’t just a bar—it was something much more sinister than that. It was a landfill of broken dreams, abused souls, and victims of cruel indifference and addict’s neglect. It was a place that was alive and breathing hard with stained lungs, and its black heart was made of tears mixed with cheap makeup, hand-rolled cigarette smoke, the smell of diluted rail drinks, clumsy attempts at seduction, bright-red lipstick applied by trembling hands in a filthy bathroom, pointless drunken laughter, empty promises of an erection that lay dead in a pool of bath salts and malt liquor, memories of accomplishments that were true only in dreams, delusional reminiscing about a good father who had, in reality, been a violent deadbeat, exaggeration, lies, pain, blood, failure, acne exposed by addicts’ acrid sweat, bruised, pale legs, short bursts of excitement and hope, forgotten music that lifted desolate spirits for a fleeting moment, slurred words of fool’s wisdom, agony, misery, filth, doom, death, and quiet desperation. And that was supposed to be fun.
Around midnight, a slim man with bad skin and sharp canine teeth sat on a barstool next to me and started staring at me with cloudy eyes. He was a disgusting man, and his greasy hair looked like a Kentucky cornfield after a harsh and unforgiving heartland winter. He had scratched his face hard with his grimy, overgrown fingernails, and his crooked vulture’s nose was bleeding from the left nostril. He looked like he hadn’t slept for a couple of years, and the bags under his eyes were black and full of nasty liquid. The wicked creature smelled like a rotten onion, and it was clear that his organs wanted to escape that horrible body where they were constantly terrorized and reminded that any resistance was futile.
I looked at him circumspectly, and he put his rat’s mouth so close to my face that I could smell the
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