Wish has been granted!
The Bartender Journals
Part V
Everything looks different at two hundred miles per hour. It’s as if the problems of the world are standing still and you alone speed by unscathed. Just don’t stop. Not for any reason you dumb bastard. I’m passing cars going over a hundred like they’re standing still. I can only Imagine what that must look like to the driver. I also contemplate if any cops have radared me going so insanely fast. I wonder if they’d even bother to make chase or just chalk it up to a low flying plane. As much as weaving through the traffic at nearly one third the speed of sound is relieving my nerves, my other emotional inhibitor, alcohol takes precedence. From the highway I can see a glistening neon sign past the next exit glowing like an oasis. “LIQUORS” in blue letters. I pull off and go in and buy a bottle of Blue Label. I’ve never had the economic huevos to buy this libation before but for some reason tonight seems like a special occasion. Much to the surprise of the other people in the parking lot I toss the glossy packaging of my bottle and take a hefty swig before putting it in my bag and getting back on the highway. Once under way I notice that I’m nearing the airport and divert north for a tradition I haven’t practiced since high school.
I get to a service road south of the airfield and am happily surprised to find it has been paved since I was last here. I only have to go about a half mile until I reach my destination, the southwest perimeter of the landing strip. I dismount and pick a nice spot in the weeds for Johnny Walker and I and watch the planes land. Back when I was a teenager this was one of my favorite spots to clear my head. Being alone in this colder than a witches tit prairie watching the flying machines land somehow reminds me of a happier time in my childhood on the airbases doing the same. I remember people complaining at some of the bases about the noise of the planes all night and day. For quite a while after The Captain retired and we trekked to suburbia, I dreaded the silence.
I’ve got a call. It’s my friend Will, strangely enough the last guy I was here with many moons ago. He says he’s at a concert and that I should come. Despite being nearly twenty miles and a good buzz away, the idea sounds fabulous. I really could use the company about now. So I bid goodbye to the airfield and get back on the road. The trip takes me just under ten minutes and before the ink from the stamp on my hand is dry I have taken a mush needed piss and gotten my first drink. Will is one of a horrifying multitude of my friends who have gotten married. There was a day, not long ago, when we had a crew that could go toe to toe with the Rat Pack and the Merry Pranksters in the same night. Times have changed. First went Kung Fu Dan, who was at the time one of the crazier of the bunch, to a harlot of unspeakable evil. The rest slowly fell suit and now there are a daring few who can still howl at the moon on a Monday night. I decide that Will needs to cut loose a little and buy two shots of tequila and a beer for myself. When I bring him his little present he refuses the shot and points over his shoulder to the wife. I tell him to fuck that noise and ask him to hold my beer. I then do both shots and take my beer back. “Cheers mamma’s boy.” That’s the last thing I remember.
I wake up surprisingly in my own bed and fully clothed. I get up to have a cigarette and notice that my chest is itching. I pull up my shirt to find my chest neatly shaved. This is to say the least, disturbing. I reach for my phone to call Will and ask him how I got home and find that it’s not in my pocket and replaced with a bandanna, something of which I do not own. I go over the possibility of weather I had had gay biker sex during my blackout but find that my anus is intact and pass it off as a mystery that is yet to be solved. I hobble into the living room to find my roommate and some stranger naked beneath a blanket on the couch. My roommate is a retired soap opera actress who got tired of the Hollywood scene and moved back home to Denver. We were buddies back in high school and after meeting her in a bar after not having seen her in years, I offered her my spare bedroom when she said she needed a place to stay. It was the mother of all mistakes. I essentially got my self into a situation of having a live in girlfriend I can’t nail. She’s a reformed meth addict and holds a Gestapoesque policy of cleanliness in the household as an old tweaker habit. If the pillows on the couch go without fluffing or an ashtray is left with a butt in it, the place becomes a pigsty. I’ve contemplated throwing her out on her ass but as it is well documented, I am not good at dealing with women. God damn I could use some coffee.
I go outside and, to my surprise, find my motorcycle parked on the sidewalk in front of my building. At least I didn’t try to make it up the stairs. I can only imagine how I drove the monster home in my condition. I mount the only lady in the world yet to let me down and set off for my favorite coffee shop. I get a few blocks into downtown and am stopped at an intersection to find that I got second billing to a fucking parade of all things. I’ve never been up this early on a Saturday in years, and for all I know there’s a parade every Saturday morning. I ask a cop who’s directing traffic what the deal is and she tells me that it’s the Cinco De Mayo celebration. I inform her that it’s April and it falls on deaf ears. Among the parade goers are people in traditional Mexican dress, flamenco bands, low riders and such. I’m beginning to become irritated when I see a group of Mexicans on motorcycles in the parade with jackets saying “Denver Chicano Motorcycle Club”. I pull my bike into the parade much to the cop’s chagrin and yell to her “I just joined.” My new buddies welcomed me with open arms and the cop, who still had to redirect traffic, was powerless to stop me. The parade wound through downtown and finally stopped at city park where a Cinco de mayo celebration was already underway. I parked with the rest of the riders and decided to cast off coffee for more powerful spirits.
The first liquor confectionary I can find is a tent selling of all things Thunderbird in plastic flasks.
Thunderbird “The American Classic”
Ferment rat feces and hot trash for a month, place in a 1.75 bottle and break over head of heroin addict.
The history of Thunderbird is as interesting as the drunken effects that one experiences from the wine. When Prohibition ended, Ernest Gallo and his brothers wanted to corner the ghetto wine market. Earnest wanted the company to become "the Campbell Soup company of the wine industry" so he started selling Thunderbird in the ghettos around the country. Their radio adds featured a song that sang, "What's the word? / Thunderbird / How's it sold? / Good and cold / What's the jive? / Bird's alive / What's the price? / Thirty twice." It is said that Ernest once drove through a tough, inner city neighborhood and pulled over when he saw a bum. When Gallo rolled down his window and called out, "What's the word?" the immediate answer from the bum was, "Thunderbird." I find this gesture of vending demeaning to my people but at the same time cannot pass up the opportunity to drink like a tramp in the park before noon.
Hooch in hand I go to mingle with my fellow Chicanos. I’ve always felt a strange gap between myself and other people of Hispanic descent. The Captain is Polish and my mother is Mexican, yea I know, I’ve heard em all, stolen submarine with a screen door, bla bla bla. I grew up in white neighborhoods and was just that one kid who didn’t get sunburnt. I speak little Spanish and know almost nothing about my lineage despite the fact that my mothers side of the family all got here illegibly. The strange thing is that when white people see me they see a tan white person and when Mexican people see me they see a Mexican. This becomes confusing when Mexican people come up to me speaking Spanish and find that I have a gringo accent and pronounce everything wrong. In fact, they tend to get offended at the idea that I’m an American and my first and only fluent language is English. Oh well, those taco benders can go to hell.
After a few drinks and several dollars I realize that I need to be at work. Tonight has no event scheduled so it’s gonna be long and boring. Luckily I have a new book and a nearly full bottle of Blue Label in my bag to get me by. When I get there I find a camera crew setting up. I only expected this on the eventual day I entered this place with an assault rifle to settle my differences with management. I ask around and it seems that we’re filming a commercial for the bar and they want me to take part. It seems I’m to be an extra in the commercial and have to sit at the bar and drink and looking like I’m having a good time. It’s evident that my career as an actor will not be demanding. So I prop myself up against the unfamiliar other side of the bar and wish to god that I was wearing something other than a black sweater.
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But, yes, women issues definitely. ps- I love you. 
