Strangers Amongst You

Chapter 1: Strangers amongst you

To any stranger happening upon us, sitting, as we are prone to, in this
secluded little booth nearest the urinals at Lowell's Pub, we likely
seem an odd bunch, the three of us. I wouldn't argue with first
impressions. We've been associates through circumstance for about four
months and the thought never fails to pounce on me every time I slip
into this booth. What a fucking sight we are. Through some cosmic
unknown, we might have simply fallen through some tear in the fabric of
time and have been plopped curiously into these very seats.

What brought us together will always remain a mystery. Let us assume,
for the time being, we are to blame the communion of time, geography,
unemployment and Rita Melone. For those of you unfamiliar with Miss
January 2000: roller-blading, reading, and group sex ranked amongst her
likes. Her turn offs were T.V. and religion, claiming, in her infinite
wisdom that these "hobbies" took too much time out of her sex life and
turned men into fanatic dunderheads. We discovered this common ground,
Miss Melone, the first time we three met.

It was an atypical Sunday. For starters, it was my first time at
Lowell's. I was meeting VirtualVixen002, who, incidentally, never
showed, for our first offline date. Viv, which was my pet name for her,
and I had hooked up in a Yahoo chat room for twenty-somethings. I was
just bored while Viv, who also claimed to be bored, was virtually
cheating on her husband while he was at work and her three kids away at
school. After several weeks of clerical titillation and digital
masturbation, Viv proposed a meeting. She was the one who suggested
Lowell's.

And so here I was. Alone at the stand up bar, drinking Jack Daniels
and iced tea, waiting. I feigned nonchalance, soaking in the ambiance.
Lowell's is both seedy and cozy at once. The entrance from the street,
for instance, is merely a small tinted glass door smack in the middle
of an unimposing painted brick wall, which in turn is sheepishly wedged
between a pair of towering office complexes. On first sight, it looked
to be a blaring civil oversight. As though whoever drafted these queer
angular glass and steel insults to architecture might have, in some
drunken stupor, abandoned his perverted canvas before it was finished.
Then it dawned on me that this place was so inconspicuous it is likely
they never saw it.

Inside, smoke, blues and grumbling blend together unassumingly and
form a mind-numbing backdrop for the parade of egos that traipse
through sporadically. After a while, I am only aware of comings and
goings from the wedges of sunlight flaring against the far wall with
every door swing. The d?cor is the result, I suspect, of a mind
disproportionately fed on popular culture. Inspired by Rock'n Country,
Martha Stewart and Rorschach, it's as jarring as it is subdued with its
resawn barn plank floors and furniture, its dainty crumpled fuchsia
wall treatment and amoebal monochrome wall hangings.

On that particular Sunday, in March, Lowell's was considerably busy in
light of the fact it was only two in the afternoon. As I gargled my
drink, I looked around to see if, perchance, my Viv might have erased
herself amongst the patrons to judge from afar if I were worthy of her
insincerity. Assumingly, one acquires such savvy from experience. On my
third pass over the room, I saw him. He stood, by the bar, near the
register: tall, thin, handsome but with the slight hint of greasiness
one associates with irregular hygiene.

He looked to be alone and unaffected by the fact. He had managed to
appropriate a large stack of coasters from behind the counter and was
yelping and flinging them everywhere like little cardboard shurikens.
By the time his pile was spent he had, in spirit, assassinated most of
the customers, spilled a few drinks and caught me in the eye. Those who
had been spared hustled about to tend to the mortified and the wounded.
It seemed, for a short time, the only sign of serenity in the place was
the smoke billowing out of, and above, the heaping ashtrays.

Impervious to the cursing, the glares, and the stream of people
whisking by on their way out, he strolled casually over to me and in a
gleeful manner exclaimed: "Hi! Name's Frank. Got you in the eye, eh?".
I responded with a clever: "Yeah, you fucking moron!? To which he
replied: "Speaking of eyes&;#8230;have you seen Miss January?". Of
course, I had. And we fused.

A few hours into our erratic banter and Jack Daniels, mesmerized by
this Frank from "&;#8230;just down the street&;#8230;", boiling
over with energy and nonsense, there came a lone voice to break the
trance. " Reelyjun breeds fan attik done dereds!". Both Frank and I
stopped and turned to see, across the now empty pub, in the corner
booth by the urinals, the only other paying soul in the room.