"You aren't Bukowski!" I can hear a voice screaming in my head.
I get it. Instead of writing the next great American novel I should be out here trying to earn enough to pay my car insurance. "I promise, Mom, I just need you to make a few more car payments too!" Then I'll get a job. Maybe.
All this stress is adding up. I feel my blood pressure pounding around in my temples. It's looking for a way out. I tell myself not worry about the stroke. I take my drink and walk outside like a like an arrogant smoker taking a break from my life. Outside the ocean air is as languid as my non- existent sex life so I might as well go back inside.
For some reason there are more girls than normal in the bar. Next to me was a short girl with dark black hair and a mask around her face. It was odd to see a pandemic mask in Florida, but liberals can hide anywhere. She had a friend with her. A fat girl who offered up to no one that she was, "An anxious chill."
They must have been on a first date, because the black haired girl said that she liked that about her, "that she was an anxious chill." I wouldn't have thought it was interesting enough to mention it to you if I hadn't seen the fat girl's face. But she was right. The fat girl's face looked anxious, but chill.
Because there weren't a lot of men in the bar today, I was the second oldest man in the bar. The older guy forgot to lock the restroom door and I accidentally walked in on him.
"oh, um.." I apologized. "Sorry!" I could tell he thought I tried to walk in on him on purpose. He looked up from pissing like I was some kind of pervert. I am a pervert, so he's not wrong. Just not the kind of pervert that gets his rocks off to old men pissing in dive bars.
