January 04

11am on Saturday, June 11^th and it’s a full summer day. The heat waves lifing off the gravel look heave enough to ride on and avoid the public transportation only adding hot fumes to the midsummer air. Perspiration drips off my brows and as I raise my arm I can feel an unwarranted drip from my armpit let go and slide down my left rib.

My stomach was craving something heavy, my body something cool, and my mind something alcoholic – I thought no more and headed for a milkshake. There is a books store located at 19^th Street and Connecticut. Its one of the only true book stores that stock anything from Wells to Hemingway, to Chuck Klosterman and John Safran Foer. I would be remiss if I left out the fact that on top of their indiscriminate selection they also have a full bar. Located conveniently within the store between mysteries and Music/popular culture is a full liquor and beer bar.

It only seems fitting after you get past Lee Childs and catch a glimpse of Aerosmith and Curt Cobain in your peripherals that you find a bar immediately in front of you. Aside from all the glorious amenities you can get away with not buying a single book. Last year I was able to read two Foer books by just going there twice a week and reading at the bar. Granted I went through a handful of cash buying drinks, but I was going to be doing that whether I was reading or not, so in my mind I was getting the best of both worlds.

I took the D2 bus from my neighborhood to Dupont Circle. Dupont circle is a culmination of three different neighbohoods pouring in, both literally and metaphorically. You have the affluent Georgetown, the poor Adams Morgan, the up and comers with college loans and 30K a year salaries, and the gays of Dupont. Two nights ago was Pride night where a surplus of queens dances among the promenade into a tabernacle on the lawn of dupont.

“What are you reading,” a women on the bus asked interrupting my flow of “The Offshore Pirate.”

“F. Scott,” I replied sharply with an annoyed undertone.

“Excellent, I am reading The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo.

I was not surprised, every goddamn person with the ability to view words on a page and translate them mentally was reading the forsaken series. I am not fairly assessing this situation, and my disgust for her literary choice stems from the fact that I just need a drink and some peace. One month ago I ran through the first two of the three books in Stieg Larsson’s millennium series. They were quite intriguing and his imagery was profound. I understand why he is a success, though a dead one at that. I actually only chose to read his books because I learned that his death was also a mystery, the same genre he chose to write about in every novel.

“Solid read, hope you don’t get lost in Hedestad,” I commented hoping that I would not engage more conversation. Hedestad was the island that was the main setting for the first novel. By the grace of Zues there was no retort and the rest of the bus 14 minute ride was quiet and uneventful.

I exited the bus and walked not even a half a block to my favorite little spot in our nations capitol. I was fortunate enough to pass a couple of middle aged men, one overweight and the other in swim trunks and a turquoise tank top. They were holding hands with their left and right while the opposite hands simultaneously fed each other sorbet. Other than taken a few milliseconds to observe the quintessentially homosexual experience, I continued on my direct path to book utopia and milk shake eden.

“Good afternoon,” the hipster “esq” clerk said to me as I entered the tight doorway.

“It, is, “ I replied and made an unaltered stroll past non-fiction, business etiquette, and invetively popular culture into the bar area. I was clutching onto my Ipad with Flappers and Philosophers already loaded up. Clearly I had no intention on buying a book from them, but I believe they are fine with my consistent bar business that I bring with weary eyes every Sunday.

“wWhat’ll it be?”

“Ugh, give me a minute.”

I clearly did not need a minute but I always feel the need to look at the menu. Not just here but everywhere that I go. Even Mcdonalds, ill stare blankly at the screen above perusing the options that are the same each and every fucking day. What am I searching for? A steak? Am I expected different variations and sauces? This ritual along with many other is completely annoying to me, but necessary.

3 mintues of this monotonous skimming of a menu that I A) know by heart and B) already know what I want from, leads to me calling for the attention of the bartender. I order my coffee milkshake with baily’s and kahlua, and my own additiona of a shot of Johnnie Walker Black. The bartender gives me a smile that says “must have been a rough night, and hard morning.” He was right. I barely was able to climb out of my bed that sits 13 inches of the floor. It took courage and a splitting headach to drive me to the kitchen to chase three advils with a Flying Dog Pale Ale.

Taking an oversized and overwhelming gulp of my milkshake forgetting to give it a gentlemen’s stir in order to circulate the liquor, I sighed. Times like this make life worth living. Cliché’? Perhaps. The bar is crowded as it usually is on Sundays. I love it. A 40 year-old man is eating a full lobster two my left. Behind me at one of the high-tops two lesbians are commiserating about Chelsea Lately, claiming that men are from mars. Two seats down is a women who has already taken three shots as the empty shooter still lye in front of her. She is beating me, and all I have to show for myself is a milkshake. I should have asked for a shot of whiskey so that I could pour it in myself and have an empty glass paring me with her as a Sunday degenerate.

I sit wedged with the wafting of lobster butter drifting into my nostrels. Who the fuck orders lobster here? Not going to judge him too harshly, he seems happy as a clam. I thought about striking up a conversation with the man about how the lobster was, but I don’t eat seafood and realized that it would be a dead end conversation consisting of head nodding and lobster breath. Seafood is horrible.

As I make my way to the 50% mark on the glass of my delicious beverage offset but lingering scents around me, I hear a crackling outdoors and a shrief. The book store keeps the doorway open to let the stuffy place breath a bit. It had been humid since 6am so a thunderstorm was in order. It started hailing. The last three times its rained here, its hailed, there is no happy medium. There was a shriek from passerby’s who rushed into any store that was closest. Instantly there was an additional 15 people in the book store who had no interest in buying books or reading for that matter.

Accepting the fact that I was not going to be able to focus on my ipad reading I decided to order another drink. This time, I searched the menu for their drink selection. This failed search led to me just ordering a vodka tonic. This is the order I always make in panic when I cant make a decision and nothing instantly jumps out at me. Vodka tonic it is.

People are still pouring in like the traffic into the westbound entrance of dupont circle (that’s a lot). No one has umbrellas since this storm was not forecasted. There is an instant smell of wet dog in the confined book store. Luckily the crowd has not really made it to the bar, but they are close enough to make an impact. The zombies were starting to touch the books due to the fact of having nothing else to do while they waiting out the storm. Pages of ink were getting wet without even the possibility of a purchase.

Now I am starring at the entryway to the bookstore to see who will come in. I have accepted the fact that I will not get any reading done, and my focus has shifted purely to people watching. She walks in. She had this look in her eye like she was doing cocaine in a dark bathroom stall for the first two hours of her morning. That sort of glazed over, havn’t seen the sun since September, buried in finals look. Her injected lips were outlined in a dark tone, as if they needed to be bolded just to express how fake they really were. She adjusted her skirt that had ridden up a bit, most likely due to the rain she just got done sprinting from. She stands confident, as she addresses her cell phone. I could never land a fucking girl like that. She would spit on me as I fell backwards, that is if she even saw me.

She was walking to the bar and at that second I told myself that I would say something. There was only one seat and it was next to me, she had to sit there if sitting was what she desired. She sat.

“getting a lot of reading done,” she aksed, catching me off guard as my confidence was set to start the conversation. The screen on my Ipad was black.

“I was, not anymore though.”

“Oh, I am sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“No no, the storm did the interrupting, it’s a lost cause”

“I often find reading during chaos is the relaxing, the sharp dichotomy increased its effect.”

“I guess we differ in that category, I can hardly focus on what I am drinking,” as I nonchalantly sip my now watered down vodka tonic.

“What are you drinking,” she asked.

I wanted to lie and appear more “put together” but I could not come up with anything quick enough, as is, I stuttered.

“Kettle one and tonic.”

“Boring.”

“Agreed.”

Then I could not help myself. My lack of confidence which is usually higher with alcohol consumption prevailed and I engaged in the lowest form of conversation two human beings can have. I brought up the weather.

“That hail is something else huh?”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” she replied but I could tell she lost interest already.

For the next two minutes I droned on about how the weather was this week and how it makes sense we are getting these storms. Then I dove into talking about how I work all week and its always nice when I work and shitty when I am off on the weekends. I was ashamed.

(Stunned by her intellect and vocabulary. I love the word dichotomy)

What do you talk about with someone that you have absolutely no connection with and truly do not have the intention of doing so in the furture? The weather. 90% of the time I make a deposit at the bank teller window, there is a brief welcome comment, followed by a request on how I am “doing,” and then after a moment of silence that feels a bit too long, one person makes a comment about the current or future weather. To my surprise she did not take the discussion on weather as poorly as I was imagining it.

“What was in the taller glass,” she pointed to my first drink with a milky residue on it.

“It was a milkshake.”

“Do you often order milkshakes at bars?”

“Only when they have alcohol as an option.”

“Well most bars have alcohol, just usually not the milkshake part as on option, no?”

“True, though im glad they are not sold everywhere, id end up putting some meat on these bones.”

The hail had stopped as abruptly as it came on. With almost any hesitation the girl snapped her notebook shut and tied the ribbon that connect the two covers tightly. She starting humming something classical, but I could have easily been mistaken. She handed me a torn corner from her neatly bound notebook with a note

“weather sucks, call me 745-312-1213”

Without a world she hummed like a bird out of the bar area and inevitably to the stree to continue here walk that she was on prior to the storms interruption.

I sipped my last sip of the cocktail that was not only water with the hint of backwashed vodka. I tossed the phone number into the same page of Flappers and Philosophers that I stopped reading on, and mentally accepted the fact I would never see her again.