belly, beast ii

  I ditch Becky and go back into the bar. It’s crowded and loud. The music makes my head ache with pain. There’s a bunch of high school kids here getting drunk for the first time.

            Roger, who I played basketball with in seventh grade, sees me and offers to buy me a beer. I accept the drink from him, even though I don’t remember that his name is Roger until I’m almost ready to leave.

            “How’s it going, my man?” Roger asks me for the thirty-first time this evening, with the same genuine interest as every single time before.

            A false sense of helplessness sweeps over me. For no reason, I reveal to Roger, “I almost never really go to class.”

            “No shit, son,” he says and I almost want to call him dad. Then I remember that Roger is not my father. 

            “I just don’t go,” I shrug. Miraculously, I find empty space somewhere in the overcrowded bar and stare off into it. It’s a framed poster of John Bellushi on the wall. His eyes, the smirk: they haunt me.

“I feel so empty.” The words make me shiver with cold.

            Roger hasn’t heard me at all. Almost knocking me off my bar stool, he booms, “Shit!  Did you see that? That bitch just took off her shirt!”

            I didn’t see it, nor do I care. At the moment. Tits are tits.

            “You treat women horribly, you know that?” I ask.

He’s already departed, heading toward the girl without a shirt, I guess.

Enough.

            The bartender makes eye contact with me and points down to the beer bottles with his index and pinky finger. He tries to communicate using telepathy. He wants money. I shake my head. Roger didn’t pay. I slam a ten dollar bill down at the bar and turn. Make my way towards the door.

            When he looks at me for a tip, I smile and tell him, “Go fuck yourself.”

Continue moving towards the exit.

            Before I can get outside and call a cab, Becky, the Goth girl, flings herself at me. She wraps me in her arms.  

            “Want to come home with me?” she asks, touching my shirt again. “You feel so soft. It’s nice.”

            She’s probably on something. But what, I wonder. The mystery vaguely intrigues.

            Looking around, I sigh. A part of me doesn’t want to go back with her. That part of me wants to go back to my dorm and drink myself to sleep with an understanding bottle of Southern Comfort. But a much bigger part of me reminds me that I haven’t gotten laid in almost a week. Needless to say, that bigger part wins.