Bars 3.1

     I stomped up the stairs. The bar had been crowded and lively and dark. It was in the basement I think and I was leaving. As I reached the streets the two bouncers nodded at me as the third checked IDs. I’m not sure how I missed the machine that was scanning and projecting people’s faces on tv screens.

     Well fuck, there were at least three cop cars. Four, four cop cars. The street was full of people. I couldn’t see their faces but they were in dresses and pants and collars. Two officers stood right next to me. They both stood wide like statues. One held the leash of a German Shepard the other had his thumbs hooked into his bulletproof vest. I’d imagine they both had crew cuts.

     “I think she went to the City Tavern,” I said. I pointed across the street to what seemed to be another bar. There was a porch and a line of people. I stepped into the street.

     “We need to find Aidan,” my friend said. She was a girl and a friend from high school. Three of us had gone out, Erica, Will, and I. We were all friends from high school. I was moving away in a month and we had wanted to do something that got us out of our houses and intoxicated. I saw my fourth grade teacher in line and gave her a hug. She smiled at me and asked when we’d be going out again.

     Earlier that night I had a few beers and Erica picked me up. We stopped at a liquor store and then we stopped at the convenience store that Aidan was managing. Aidan had dropped out of college our freshman year. His maroon branded cap covered his pale brown coif. He was very pale and the fluorescents lights altered him. He shifted about the store and his eyes darted about quickly. I thought he had been mad at me for a week and I didn’t think we’d get very far asking him for a ride.

     “My phone’s broken. What’s up?” He said as he rang up a woman’s Coke and gum. She had a tattoo on the back of her shoulder of birds flying away. We asked him if he’d pick us up from the bars after work.

      “Sure but my phone’s broken. I can’t reach you.”

      “Well how about we meet you at the bookstore at 1 am.” There was only one bookstore in this fucking town.

     “The bookstore is a bad spot. I’ll find you.” Then he went back to stock the milk gallons.

      I had given up on the girl. She had left with her friends after all even though I had just received a text she was at The Tavern. A shimmer of dresses running up the stairs. What time was it? 1:32 am. Got to find Aidan. Will had joined us in the street. He’d been denied. Not for his ID but for wearing basketball shorts. He was short and stocky and his arms waved around when he was drunk. Erica held onto him. They mumbled something about pizza. I told them to go and that I would find our ride.

     I circled like two bars. I think it was two bars there seemed to be a division between the outside and the inside. The night was closing. The bartenders leaned on the counters and some counted singles. The people were beginning to pair. The men leaned their ears down to the dresses they were talking to. I walked back out onto the street, away from the police and the throng of post grads and grads and working people. I checked my phone out of habit. The air was warm and the skin outside my t shirt hummed. My underwear had ridden up throughout the night. I tugged at the back of my jeans and stuck my phone in my pocket. I looked up. On the street corner was Aidan. In a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. He was scanning the line for the tavern. The orange street lights warmed him his skin and the neon sign from the bar glowed green across his white t shirt. It was a pretty visible location he had chosen, there weren’t many people on that end of the street. He was comfortable alone. He stood straight almost leaning back on the heels of his boots. His shoulders were not rounded like mine

     I grabbed his elbow and we walked past the bright lights of the cop cars to find Erica.