Rivethead - Ben Hamper [78]
Night after night we'd descend on Mark's Lounge searching for a booth in the most remote corner. Night after night the very same waitress would inquire as to what we were drinking. This always pissed me off. Couldn't she get it through her stacked beehive that we were confirmed Budweiser addicts? It seemed as though everyone else in the bar had their brand of libation tattooed on their foreheads. Hoss would roll in and a bottle of Pabst would hit the bar before he was seated. The same went for Clem and his Southern Comfort. Ditto old Marty and his tall beaker of vodka and orange. Why was it that we always had to go through the customary ordering procedure as if we were out-of-towners fresh off a tour bus?
“What is it with us?” I'd gripe to Dave. “We must be the most insignificant dullards on the face of the planet.”
“We're just not part of the hierarchy yet,” Dave reasoned. “We haven't beaten anyone up, we haven't offended anyone's girlfriend, we haven't thrown up on the carpet. There's nothing for them to remember us by.”
I sat and stewed. “Well, how many of these guys in here are published writers and host their own radio shows?”
“Look around you.” Dave laughed. “Do any of these gearheads look like readers of leftist literature or fans of the Butthole Surfers? My advice to you is that you find someone you can handle and pick a fight.”
I surveyed the bar. Nothing but big boys with big thirsts. “All right, once I'm done whuppin’ your ass, I'll puke in the middle of the bar and ask the first broad I see whether she'd be willing to give birth to my mutant offspring, Rivethead Jr.”
Dave got a chuckle out of that one. That's all we were really here for: cold beer and stale jokes. Last call would always come too early on these nights. They'd boot us out, drunk and invigorated. Dave would go home to hurl kitchen utensils back and forth with his old lady and I'd go home and attack my typewriter like I knew what the fuck I was doing.
Due to his wife's grousing, Dave couldn't always attend the nightly retreats over to Mark's Lounge. I would locate surrogate drinkin’ pals, usually guys I knew from back in my Cab Shop days. It wasn't the same. Even drunk, these guys were way too serious. All they liked to talk about was the factory and financial planning. Most of them had a couple of kids and still had thousands in the bank. I was single and had $235 in my savings account. I had enough money to buy a complete set of tires for my car. I always used that as a barometer for fiscal security.
One night I'm up at Mark's, it's in the vicinity of last call, and I'm all by my sweet lonesome propped up next to the Beer Nuts display at the end of the bar. Some damn fool keeps playin’ “The Heat Is On” by Glenn Frey. I hate Glenn Frey. I hate him and all the rest of the Eagles.
All around me are the sounds of my co-workers yapping it up and tossing ‘em down. Just another night with the shoprats—clutching our paroles, maddened with thirst, looking for any good reason to laugh at ourselves. One thing we don't need is goddamn Glenn Frey advising us on the heat. It's hot, we realize. It's hotter than a cobra's dick. It's all brains afire and radioactive crotches and smoldering flesh piled high at the watering hole. That old factory labor in the midst of July is all you'll ever need to greet the heat. The only thing that gets most of us through is the knowledge that when it's all over there will be several tall cold ones aimed right for the gullet.
I'm about to pack it in when up strolls this tanked palooka whom I recognize as a friend of Dave's. The guy's a complete alkie, the waitresses know his brand by heart. Despite the heat, he is wearing a Mark's Lounge softball jacket. I hate Softball.
“You've gotta