<\/p>\n
Boy’s night out.\u00a0 Score chicks, score them hard, score them all night long.<\/p>\n
We were on codenames.\u00a0 Ghost Man, Merlin and me.\u00a0 Best outfits on, shoes polished, cash and carry.\u00a0 I had a doll on one arm, some strange little brunette who had crossed into the no-zone about twelve and a half minutes ago.\u00a0 Merlin, he was wise.\u00a0 He bought himself a dark corner and slammed the drinks down.\u00a0 Ghost Man — now, there’s one for you.\u00a0 I’d lost track of him several times as he faded on and off the dance floor, weaved to the bathrooms to vomit foul blood, returned with several women and pawned off the sad and sick to my anti-social camp by the bar.\u00a0 Merlin knew what Ghost Man did not — I was, once again, about to be ejected for drunk, disorderly and wildly bitter.<\/p>\n
“The Nigerian email scam?” I told the brunette at my elbow, “All me.”<\/p>\n
She eyed me drunkenly, slitted against light, pain or blur, “You stole that joke.\u00a0 I can read it all over your face.”<\/p>\n
I laughed, I took that as my cue.\u00a0 I rocked her off the stool and spun her around as the bartender appeared.\u00a0 “Vodka!”\u00a0 I said to him.\u00a0 “Hanger One, on the rocks of love.”<\/p>\n
“No.”\u00a0 He replied.<\/p>\n
“These negative words will pull your soul to the ground, brother!”\u00a0 I grabbed the girl’s arm, I steered her through the crowd, up two steps, down four, then to Merlin’s table.\u00a0 Merlin lurched back as if he didn\u2019t recognize me, then shook his head clear.<\/p>\n
“Fresh meat!” I screamed as I threw the girl towards him.\u00a0 He missed the catch and she slammed against the wall.\u00a0 I grinned at her, “This here’s Merlin, and you’re…a girl.”<\/p>\n
“Tammy.”<\/p>\n
“Tabitha, right.”<\/p>\n
“Uh…no.”<\/p>\n
Merlin eyed me darkly, and I knew that we had both reached the top bar, the final step, the last —<\/p>\n
“Can I finish your drink?” I asked him, near to tears.<\/p>\n
“Jesus,” Merlin whispered.<\/p>\n
“What?”<\/p>\n
He just shook his head and turned to the girl, which let me off the hook.\u00a0 I drifted back to the bar and Ghost Man appeared with six girls chittering around him in crazed orbits.\u00a0 He grabbed my shoulder and moved me to the exit, “Slider, you’re gone.\u00a0 They want to kick you out.”\u00a0 He nodded towards Merlin, who tried to stand and fell to the floor.\u00a0 “You gotta be more like Merlin, dude.”<\/p>\n
“He can\u2019t stand,” I snapped, “dude.”<\/p>\n
“Yes, but he’s not leaning against the bar screaming about his all-seeing, all-knowing cock.”<\/p>\n
“Was I doing that?”<\/p>\n
We hit the night air — Ghost Man, Merlin, me and Ghost Man’s entourage of painted women.\u00a0 U Street bustled — white yuppie and angry black and rapid Spanish thrown into the eternal struggle for or against gentrification.\u00a0 The white man came and took it all away.\u00a0 Buildings down, buildings up, swept clean, property rise, eject all color from the day and night.\u00a0 Cars screamed and clusters formed.\u00a0 Here on the frontier, there was still the unexpected.\u00a0 The blacks crowded in and the whites parted as Ghost Man led our flying wedge forward in search of a secret location — I scanned ahead, trying to figure out what horror he was about to throw\u00a0 himself at, but it soon became clear that he had no purpose, no destination, no method.\u00a0 The girls fanned out behind him and a pale woman in slacks, her hair black as night, took my arm as if I needed help to stay in formation; Merlin, behind me, was singing classic Talking Heads.\u00a0 He marked us.\u00a0 Don’t Worry About the Government.\u00a0 I see the states across this big nation.<\/p>\n
Ghost Man spun left, then right.\u00a0 He was dodging color in the air, on the sidewalk, in our lives.\u00a0 I turned my head and saw the change in the city.\u00a0 I turned my head and saw them erased as the streets became white again.\u00a0 I will relax along with my loved ones– Merlin stopped early.\u00a0 Something distracted him.\u00a0 An African had grabbed him, babbling in a heavy accent, shaking him roughly.\u00a0 I turned hard, the girl with the raven hair jolted, tripped, spun.\u00a0 Merlin’s on the ropes; I shouted over my shoulder for Ghost Man, but he was already leaping past me, talking intimately with the African.\u00a0 I swear he was switching languages, bumping from suburbs to city to Ghana.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Suddenly, Ghost Man and the painted women hiked up a steep metal stairway, stepping into what looked to be residential, sitting above a basement-level grocery store and ethnic fast food hole in the wall.\u00a0 Merlin stepped up, then paused.\u00a0 He and the African looked at me, an island in the sea of flowing people, me and a raven.<\/p>\n
“Up!” the African barked, indicating the stairs.\u00a0 Merlin smiled.<\/p>\n
“Up, up!” the African shouted again.\u00a0 Merlin flashed a look that said, ‘Retard.’<\/p>\n
The raven whispered: “Up.”<\/p>\n
I shrugged and we rolled up the stairs, stepping through a thick door, to find ourselves in a DC brick hothouse, fireplace long zoned away, a homemade bar tucked under stairs to the second level, townhouse-cum-bar, glittering lights and booze for all.\u00a0 Tables and chairs set up, another African manning the drinks, a dark woman leaning against the fireplace — waitress or weapons expert?\u00a0 The raven guided me to a couch in the back — Ghost Man ordering. \u00a0Merlin had vanished, but soon appeared from behind me in a sea of cushions.<\/p>\n
“No back support,” he muttered darkly.<\/p>\n
“Heineken, Heineken, Heineken, Heineken, Heineken…” Ghost Man said, pointing at various members of his escort, painted women smiling as his finger hit each of them.\u00a0 He switched between that and various cocktails, though it appeared our girls were mainly beer drinkers. \u00a0The raven had subliminally ordered a gin and tonic, as had I.\u00a0 I took stock as to whether or not gin would settle.\u00a0 Parts of my rational mind said no, my stomach said that the following day was lost regardless.<\/p>\n
The gin appeared in my hands. \u00a0I drank.\u00a0 I began lecturing about the “battle” of St. Albans, Vermont.\u00a0 One of the many odd footnotes in Civil War history.\u00a0 A group of heavily armed Confederate commandos casually check into the town\u2019s main hotel, enjoy local amenities, then, once prepared, round up the populace in the village green, shoot a few, and rob several banks to the tune of $280,000.\u00a0 Then a mad dash for the Canadian border where they\u2019re caught by the authorities.<\/p>\n
In Ghana, there are no rules.\u00a0 The bartender will never kick you out.\u00a0 Merlin was on a table shouting and I was soon drawing diagrams about an imaginary “second front” that could have crippled the Union and brought about a southern victory.\u00a0 How easy it could have been if only von Stauffenberg\u2019s bomb hadn\u2019t been bungled and Lincoln had been killed.\u00a0 Generals were in place throughout the Union to take over and negotiate peace with the Allies, bringing about an era of —<\/p>\n
Ghost Man stopped me.\u00a0 He said I had confused wars.\u00a0 I insisted that there was a relation and that he should allow me to get to my point.\u00a0 Then I was sitting on the bar, legs crossed, singing Ute Lemper songs.\u00a0 The time in between is a missing link, but the gin never dropped below the ice.\u00a0 I had a magic glass!<\/p>\n
Later, the raven and I met outside the unisex bathroom, behind the boxes of beer.\u00a0 She pressed to me and we kissed.\u00a0 I told her up was down and she knew down was up and, together, opposites would meet.\u00a0 She whispered in my ear, but language had begun to shift.\u00a0 I lost the thread of her being, and her flesh melted against mine, her lips sliding across my eyes, her breasts moving against me, her hair smoke and sweat.\u00a0 Her tongue traced across my neck and my stomach lurched, my hands froze, my head fell back and slammed against the brick wall.\u00a0 Breath caught somewhere inside me, my fingers twitched out, she slithered down with a satin rush and crouched in front of me, unzipping.<\/p>\n
I felt myself in her mouth, I closed my eyes and ran a hand through her brittle hair.\u00a0 I felt her movement, her spit pouring out, modern porn star messy.\u00a0 My breath returned in gasping sobs, my stomach barely able to keep the pace, the brick now biting into my skull and my shoulders and my left elbow as I rocked back and forth into her mouth, pressing deep inside until she hesitated and pushed away, then relented again.\u00a0 She gagged, I moaned.\u00a0 I gripped her head and she fought back, grabbing my wrist, pushing against my thigh, then the wall…then release.\u00a0 She fell back roughly, darkly staring up at me in revulsion.<\/p>\n
“Slider!” Ghost Man greeted me on my return, “Connect with that ball?”\u00a0 He mimed a player at bat, hit an imaginary ball, didn\u2019t watch it go far and into the stands but, instead, held my eyes.<\/p>\n
I’m ugly.\u00a0 I’m hateful.<\/p>\n
“Slider popped,” Merlin giggled.<\/p>\n
The painted women were sober.\u00a0 They knew.\u00a0 The dark waitress was disgusted.\u00a0 The bartender was laughing.\u00a0 I moved through a looking glass.<\/p>\n
Ghost Man whipped one of the painted ladies around, a willing kiss, a strong one.\u00a0 The painted ladies had now been thrown into civil war themselves.\u00a0 The battle of St. Albans.\u00a0 Ghost Man had made a choice and the others were trapped in a strange bar, a strange village green.<\/p>\n
Coffee appeared in my hands.\u00a0 Strong and black.\u00a0 The raven also appeared and slipped past me without acknowledgement.\u00a0 She took several painted ladies with her.\u00a0 They vanished with a whimper.<\/p>\n
“Sally, don’t you go downtown.” Ghost Man called after them.\u00a0 Gracie Slick, Great Society.\u00a0 Jaynetts first, right?\u00a0 Someone before them?\u00a0 All music recycled.\u00a0 I swam back towards Merlin.<\/p>\n
“You’re in a dark land, Slider.”\u00a0 He muttered.\u00a0 A blonde had joined him.\u00a0 He would go home with her.\u00a0 He would fuck her.\u00a0 He would love her.\u00a0 She would leave him in six weeks.\u00a0 He drinks too much, he\u2019s abusive.\u00a0 She walks out with half his CD’s and owing him three grand.\u00a0 She never answers her phone.\u00a0 Three months later he\u2019s still angry and we fight because I tell him to get over it.<\/p>\n
Ghost Man sat next to me, a girl with a boy\u2019s haircut settling on his lap.\u00a0 She ran her hand down his shirt, played with his nipple, put her mouth to his neck and worked hard.\u00a0 “This is the Slider I love to see, man,” he said to Merlin, “This is the Slider of the past!”<\/p>\n
He’ll fuck that girl, but he can never hold a relationship together. \u00a0Ghost Man’s that kind of guy.<\/p>\n
Then, again, maybe none of that will happen.\u00a0 The gin was predicting the next steps.\u00a0 It was the whispering fortune teller that joined me as I walked back into the bar.\u00a0 I looked towards the windows.\u00a0 The clear, bright night had turned to rain.\u00a0 The world had changed with the flow of one simple ejaculation.\u00a0 A mirror universe.\u00a0 I stood up and staggered forward against a table.<\/p>\n
“Slider.\u00a0 Dude.”\u00a0 Merlin hissed, his drink spilling across his thigh and onto the floor.<\/p>\n
“Andrew?” Ghost Man asked worriedly.<\/p>\n
We were on codenames.\u00a0 Ghost Man, Merlin and me.\u00a0 Clothes stained with sweat and booze, shoes scuffed, ATM money flown away to two bartenders, and I stood alone.\u00a0 The Metro station was about ten minutes away.\u00a0 The night was over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[353,339],"class_list":["post-2530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gsarchive","tag-gs-archive-2004-2008","tag-vignettes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2530"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2650,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions\/2650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}